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Politics and sports are not strange bedfellows. In fact, the two can be described as being in a cohabitation of sorts. Politicians often troop to sports events or associate with certain sports or sports personalities for some gain.
On the other hand, a number of sports teams across the world are directly linked to politicians, with some of them relying on them for support.
But as far as their relationship goes, what 'For the Love of the Game' has described above is just a scratch. Recent research by Loyola Marymount University in the US shows that sports results can have a direct impact on how people vote, especially if matches are held some ten days to the elections.
You see, if for instance a local football team wins a match in the last few days before an election, the incumbent candidate, say a governor, senator or MP can get a slightly higher proportion of the votes, the research says.
This advantage is more pronounced if the team has a strong fan-base, and more importantly, they were the underdogs to the visiting team. Lead researcher Andrew Healy explains by saying that normally, a victory by a local team puts sports fans in a positive mind frame.
“If they approach the ballot box in this state of excitement, they’re more likely to think well of the local political parties or candidates, interpret their past records and promises more positively, and can even be more content with the status quo,” says the researcher as quoted in Discover magazine.
Healy came up with the findings after examining results of local college football games between 1964 and 2008, those for all counties with teams in the Bowl Championship Series and compared them to those of American presidential, gubernatorial and senate elections in the same counties.
“The numbers showed that if the local team won in the 10 days before the election, the incumbent’s share of the vote went up by 0.8 percentage points – a small but statistically significant change,” he says.
Of all the sports, football games have a stronger influence on the emotions of fans, therefore, tending to affect their voting decisions more.
“In counties where more people turn up to football matches, or where the local team has a track record of championship wins, a local victory boosted the incumbent’s vote share by between 2.30 and 2.42 percentage points,” he explains.
The researcher linked former US President Barrack Obama’s 2009 election victory to several basketball tournaments during the time.
He asked over 3,000 people to name their favourite basketball teams then and found that for every win the team achieved above the predictions, their approval rating for Obama went up by 2.3 percentage points. Now, one wonders whether this research can apply to our hotly-contested, highly tribal elections in particular those of senate, governor and president.
The last Kenya Premier League games were held some days ago before the league took a break for elections. Among the teams that played were Posta Rangers vs Tusker, Nzoia United Vs Ulinzi, Western Stima vs AFC Leopards, Muhoroni Youth vs Sofapaka and Nakumatt FC vs Gor Mahia.
Looking at the underdogs in these matches, the outcome of the games and where the matches were played, you can guess which politician’s popularity at whatever level of election might have risen.
