Homegrown Heroes: Shared Group Membership Is a Basis for Recognizing Outstanding Sports Performance

Abstract

In the present research we examine how the recognition of outstanding sports performance is shaped by shared social group membership. To this end, we conducted a large-scale analysis over the last 28 years (since the Bosman ruling in 1995) of how the exogenous variable, players' social group membership (domestic vs. foreign players), predicts recognition of “player of the season” awards across all professional European soccer leagues. On the basis of social identity theorizing, we argued shared social identity provides a frame of reference from which to perceive and evaluate performance and so hypothesized that foreign players would need to exhibit superior performance than their domestic counterparts for their performance to be recognized with an award. Supporting this hypothesis, results show that foreign players whose performance was recognized in best player awards scored significantly more goals in a season than domestic award winners. The same pattern is evident for goal-per-game ratio, with foreign award winners outperforming their domestic counterparts. Finally, there is evidence that this pattern is moderated by the status of the league such that this differentiation was more pronounced in high-status leagues, indexed by associations' UEFA coefficient. We discuss the implications for social identity theorizing in relation to sport with a focus on the way in which group dynamics shape the psychology of how performance is perceived and recognized.