Saturday or Sunday? The Social Differences between the North and South as seen through College Football

Abstract

This thesis addresses the phenomenon of college football and the possible reasons for why this sport enjoys stronger support from the public in the South than in the Northeast. It will test for four hypotheses to explain this stronger fan support in the South. The first hypothesis is that professional football teams in the Northeast detract from the popularity of college football in this region whereas this is not the case in the South; second, the South uses college football as a means of redemption based on its history; third, the religiosity of the South creates a strong support for college football because of the similarities between the two; and fourth, the win / loss record affects the South differently than the North because fans in the South are not affected by losses in the same way that fans in the North are affected. The data collected to test these hypotheses suggest that all four of these hypotheses play a role in the potential reasons for why college football is more popular in the South than the North with an emphasis on the meaning of the passion felt toward college football is different for Southerners because of this region’s history.