What Fuels Our Rivalries?

[sportsprof101]

I hope everyone had a good holiday! I'm a student at NKU (right across the river) and I wanted to learn more about Cincinnati's Rivals and I thought no better way than jumping into this message board. With the help of message board members beginning in 2014, we—the students and professors of the Know Rivalry Project—began answering this question and others related to rivalry in the NCAA FBS. No one knows the rivalries of the Bearcats better than this message board community. Please help us update and expand our results to ensure that the Cincinnati Bearcats are included by taking 9 minutes to complete our newest survey:

https://umassamherst.co1.qualtrics.c...=1051&mbsrc=mb

Our previous results have been featured in numerous sports media outlets, as well as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. You can view those results, links to media coverage, and learn more about us at our KnowRivalry.com website BUT we'd prefer you didn't until you completed the survey via the link above... we don't want to influence your opinions provided in the survey.

We use the Qualtrics online survey software for data collection. This academic research has been approved by two US universities' Institutional Review Boards (IRB) and it poses no risks to respondents. You'll find more information on the disclosure agreement that is required to start the survey. There are plenty of other teams you can look into as well on the site if you had other favorite teams (Reds or Bengals). I'd love to know more in this thread about why certain teams are rivals. Thank you for helping us to include the Bearcats by participating and please share this with any other fans that may also help.

Zachary Beal, Northern Kentucky University
Dr. Joe Cobbs, Northern Kentucky University
Dr. David Tyler, University of Massachusetts—Amherst

[red_n_black_attack]

I tried and the survey timed out. UC's biggest rivalries are mostly dictated by proximity because both teams have a large number of fans in attendance. For football, UC is in one of the oldest rivalries in America against Miami Oxford. In basketball, the Crosstown Shootout is the biggest rivalry. Though not in same conference currently, Loserville is another basketball rivalry as we shared conference affiliation over several moves, similarly Memphis State is another good rival for football and basketball.

The one that isn't a rivalry, but there sure is bad blood, is Ohio state in both football and basketball. We do not play them often in football, though we haven't joined the professional ranks and pay our recruits either. In basketball, they are still unhappy about losing to UC in the NCAA Tourney twice during the Havlicek years. Other natural rivalries that never really developed are Miami Oxford basketball, Dayton Flyers basketball, and University of Kentuck" football or basketball. Another non-rivalry is Notre Dame. Although we played in the same basketball conference for a few years, the rivalry never really took off, even though former UC football coach took over the reins in South Bend.


Net, top rivalries are non-conference basketball foes Eggsaviour and Loserville, while non-conference Miami Oxford is the big rivalry in football