Why aren’t U.S. sports fans more violent?

A great question, and some great answers, too, all posted over at Freakonomics Blog. Read the whole thing here.

Some gems:

Perhaps the audiences at U.S. sporting events don’t include the criminal element — the result, perhaps, of high ticket prices.
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Soccer is a game fraught with increasing tension. Games last 90 minutes and only 1 point might be scored. Basketball, baseball etc. all have scores on both sides throughout the game. There might be 90 minutes of increasing tension with no release as neither team scores.
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I live in Ireland. We don’t have a hooligan problem in Ireland even though we would have similar demographics to the UK for example. So I would guess a lot of it is cultural as opposed to anything else. There is no segregation at Irish sporting events.
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In the Netherlands there is (still) no hooligan-law that requires known offenders at soccer games to register at their local police station at the time of soccer games, effectively preventing them from being at the game.
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In America rooting for a team doesn’t align you with a certain ethnic/social/religious class. Anytime an activity creates those sorts of boundaries it becomes far more likely to incite violence.

Cuennei recently discussed the comparisons between football and war, and the finer points of NFL scoring here.