Sports are the Tribalism We Need

Every society needs healthy forms of belonging, and sports remain one of the few places where Americans still learn loyalty without turning every disagreement into moral combat.

The argument: Sports don’t create tribalism. They redeem it, giving us a place where we belong to something bigger than ourselves and transforming collective struggle into we won instead of me against you.

WHY IT MATTERS

Sports may seem trivial to busy conservatives—until you realize they’re one of the last places Americans still share a common identity that isn’t political, binding people across generations through loyalty to place and team. Last week, I fell to my knees as Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner launched a half-court heave, and suddenly I was homesick for my longsuffering state—Saturday mornings listening to Kent Pavelka on the way to swim meets, windows down, the car filled with the smell of fresh-cut sod. Our hopes hung for 2.2 seconds before the ball clanged out; Nebraska had reached its first-ever Sweet Sixteen, and I could hear my family cheering hours away.

Behind me, my husband watched on, bemused—still faintly carrying the skepticism of the theater kids who shunned college football games, who saw sports as primitively tribal, who mocked the fans on pilgrimage to the Big House. They, of course, fell into affinity groups, political parties, and DEI programs—tribes that deepened the very fissures they claimed to heal. At my alma mater, a campus climate survey showed that as DEI initiatives and staff increased, students reported a declining sense of belonging and fewer interactions across differences over time. Nationally, the dynamic scales: nearly two-thirds of Americans now view their opposing political party as immoral—not just wrong, but downright evil.

The fact is, the theater kids were right—sports are tribal, and that’s a good thing. Sports are less violent surrogates of the basic human need sought in politics and racial identity: to belong to a group that feels like an extension of oneself, a need so fundamental that research on the “tribal roots of team spirit” shows humans are neurologically wired for group affiliation and collective identity. “Fans assign themselves to a team, a tribe, a culture,” said Kent Pavelka, Nebraska’s own play-by-play announcer since 1974, “and people who refuse to experience that are not going to understand tribalism in its best sense.” Sports give us a socially constructive way to belong to something bigger than ourselves, transforming collective struggle into we won instead of me against you.

Photo by: David Vives (Unsplash)

And struggle we have. Year after year, Nebraska sports fans have watched their teams (volleyball not included) find new and creative ways to lose at the buzzer. Nebraska basketball has made the NCAA Tournament just nine times in its history—and until this week, had gone 0–8, the only major conference program to never win a game. “I’ve lived through so many missed chances, missed shots that crush you and send you crawling back home,” said Pavelka. Yet, we keep showing up. In fact, Nebraska fans are the most loyal in the nation: an estimated 69% of tickets for the Oklahoma City Session 1 were purchased by Nebraskans, who turned the Paycom Center into a sea of red—setting a noise record and cheering louder for Coach Fred Hoiberg and his humble team than when the Oklahoma City Thunder closed out Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.

“I think it has to do with deep roots,” said Pavelka, whose great-grandmother was the inspiration for the titular character in My Ántonia. “There’s something special about the Plains. We have fortitude. We endure winters and hardship. All of that contributes to our identity.” Last night, as I listened to Pavelka call the battle against Iowa, I pictured my dad at seven, eight, fifteen, twenty—sitting next to his father at the kitchen table on a cold winter night, listening to that same voice on a transistor radio, a common thread running through one multigenerational story. This is the inheritance the West is in danger of losing.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The real problem isn’t our tendency toward tribal instincts—it’s that we have politicized them. Sports, and the decades of collective heartbreak suffered for the sake of a single moment of transcendent success, redeem our tribal instinct, binding one generation to the next and watering roots that grow deeper than our politics. In the end, this is what we’re all seeking—theater kids and athletes alike.

Grace Salvatore is Senior Editor of Media, Arts, and Culture at Restoring the West by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Follow her on X @grace_daley_s.