Chances Are: World Cup Tears

“Which of your friends will lie to you about their World Cup tears?”

As England start their World Cup campaign, fans can doubtless anticipate experiencing a full range of emotions over the forthcoming weeks. It’s not easy being a fan.  So we wanted to understand how emotionally invested the British public are in such sporting events. Specifically, how many people have cried watching their favourite sports team or personality over the past five years?

When asked directly 13% admitted to being brought to tears, whether they be tears of joy, despair or frustration. However, using the Unmatched Count Technique to measure the actual prevalence (see here for details) we estimate that, in truth, 19% of the population have cried watching their sporting idols.  Since key England games can attract over 25 million viewers, that’s at least 5 million weeping fans.  Either way.

That also means 6%, or 1 in every 17 people, are too embarrassed to admit that they’ve shed a tear over a fixture.  We’ll leave you to figure out which of your close friends is denying their secret sobbing.

When asked who they consider to be their favourite sports team or personality, our sample showed interest in a wide range of sports. Interestingly, those who cited a football team were significantly more likely to have cried, with over half of our criers sobbing over the beautiful game. Football fans are 2.8 times more likely than the average person to have cried watching their team, while rugby fans for example are only 1.2 times more likely. Those living in London also showed a significantly higher rate.  But those tears are coming from south of the river as no Arsenal or Spurs fans admit to having an emotional outburst.

Sports fans should remember that it’s healthy to express their emotions. Shedding a tear over the World Cup is nothing to be ashamed of, as Gazza himself will tell you. Hopefully the next few weeks bring tears of joy to the England football fans out there, who already appear to be a lacrimonious bunch…