Posted by Trunkman in Science, Bikes

Within his own sport, from the fans to the media to the organisers themselves, the preoccupation with Valentino Rossi is staggering. Why does this obsession exist? It can’t just be his talent can it? This is part one of a series of three articles examining the future problems facing MotoGP as a result of this fandom of one particular rider.

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. I am not, in this article, nor elsewhere, disputing the fact that Valentino Rossi is an incredibly talented motorcycle racer. He is a seven time MotoGP World Champion as well as World Champion of the 125cc and 250cc class. He’s won the second most Grand Prixes of anyone, ever. He’s won the Suzuka 8 Hour. And at 36 years of age, at the time of writing, he is right in the fight for this year’s championship. To suggest he is not one of the sports all time greats would be absolute madness. However, that I need to point this out off the top is kind of the point of this article in many ways.

Nor am I looking to get into an argument about whether Rossi is the GOAT. The Greatest of All Time. That is something that is purely a matter of opinion. Many people will swear till they are blue in the face and have worn their keyboard bashing fingers to the bone, that he is. Personally, I’d hang the GOAT medal around the neck of one Mike Hailwood, but as I say, that’s a discussion for another time and another place and preferably involving pints of something.

Nor, I guess I must declare, am I massive fan of any of Rossi’s key rivals. I am a fan of motorcycle road racing. Grand Prixes, Superbikes, Road Racing and so on. It’s the sport I love. I cheer for a great race, not a rider. I cheer for skill, not only the skill of one. If there’s one rider I do actively remove my hat of impartiality for though, I must confess, it’s for Remy Gardner in Moto3 but that’s because his old man is who got me interested in MotoGP in the first place and the Gardners are friends with my family, so, fine, that’s a vested interest. You got me. But it’s hardly relevant here.

What I want to look at in these series of articles is ‘Rossi-Mania. ‘Rossi Fever’. I capitalise it because I think it’s a real thing that could be defined by science and medicine. Why is it that fans, the media and even the sport’s governing body are so utterly, blinkeredly obsessed by Valentino? Why does he get the free pass many other, not just MotoGP riders, but greats of their own sports, do not enjoy? What is it about him, and humans in general, that such blind hero worship is not just observed in the case of #46, but is entirely the norm? It’s not something I’ve ever witnessed with any other sports person in history. And I’m curious as to why. And if it’s a good thing for the future of the sport in general.

There’s three areas I want to look at as mentioned above. His popularity amongst fans, the media’s portrayal of him and his place within the sport itself.

For Part One, let’s start with the fans. The fans of MotoGP and, of course, more specifically, Valentino Rossi himself.

To merely state that Valentino Rossi is the most popular MotoGP rider is to understate things massively. That would be like saying oxygen is quite a popular gas amongst animals. By way of comparison, in his prime, Michael Jordan was unquestionably the best, and also the most popular basketball player, arguably the most popular and well known sportsperson overall, in the world. He received the bulk of the fan and press attention, but a lot of this had to do with the fact he was winning. Everything. MVPs, scoring titles, gold medals, championships, battles with Danny DeVito led cartoon aliens, you name it, he won it. Now, while it is true that in years gone past, especially during the birth of the 990cc era, Rossi too was winning everything put in front of him, the subsequent levels of adulation heaped on Rossi, across the board, are seemingly unaffected by his results.

His popularity has not waned from his days of domination to his disasterous run at Ducati to his late career resurgence now. Jordan was always popular but he was surpassed in fan and media excitement by the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson and others in his later career, especially when he was playing for the Wizards. A team who, at that time, were basically the 2011 Ducati of the NBA. In Jordan’s final year the fans did not even vote him to the starting lineup for the All-Star Game. Vince Carter was more popular. Now, Vince Carter was no slouch but you take me point. And yet, by contrast, during Rossi’s Ducati tenure the largest queues at the merchandise stands at any GP would always be, without fail, at the VR46 huts. The crowds remained a sea of yellow.

Aside from his popularity I wonder about the benefit of the doubt given to Rossi by fans as well. It seems for a Rossi fan there is no grey area. And indeed, for casual fans of racing, Rossi will more often than not get the benefit of the doubt without argument. For example, and I offer these without judgement, think of Jerez 2005, Laguna 2008, Motegi 2010 and Jerez 2011. Now, imagine if you will, the reaction to incidents in those four races if Rossi had been in the position of the other guy involved? It’s worth thinking about. Not about who was right or wrong, just simply the shift in public reaction. And there’s a solid scientific reason for that, which I’ll get to.

Why people flocked to Rossi to begin with is, I’d suggest, for a number of reasons. As a youngster, in his 125cc and 250cc days he was a big personality. He joked and mucked about with victory celebrations at a time when the sport was perhaps lacking personalities. Mick Doohan was dominating the 500cc class like no-one had for a very, very long time but Doohan was what you might call ‘the consumate professional’. Doing press annoyed him. He didn’t go in for big celebrations after a win. He got on the bike, rode the shit out of it, won, and went home. Before Doohan there had been the much loved flamboyancy of Kevin Schwantz and until Rossi arrived, himself an openly large fan of Schwantz, there hadn’t been that big personality in the sport. Fans were drifting away and an injection of some sort was thought to be required.

And so Rossi was the right guy at the right time. That’s how it started. That he had the talent to back it up was obviously an integral part of that. Many purists might’ve been annoyed by his antics but they would at least begrudgingly admit that he had earned them unlike their often voiced disdain for the likes of Randy Mamola in his Cagiva days for ‘too much showboating, not enough winning’. And Rossi also recognised the value of a brand, something that was becoming more and more important. The constant #46, the dayglo yellow, the sun and the moon. He was a ready made package. It’s worth noting that, aside from a few exceptions such as Kevin Schwantz’s #34 or Barry Sheene’s #7, keeping the same number year to year wasn’t exactly the done thing before Rossi. He excited current fans of the sport, reinvigorated some old ones and brought in swarms of new ones. They were Rossi fans first, bike racing fans second, if at all. And this where a separation begins for me.

There is, in sport, a difference between a spectator and a fan, as discussed by Beth Jacobson from the University of Conneticut in her 2003 paper. Spectators watch a sport, and enjoy it, often just for the sport, the contest. A good example here being myself during the current Ashes series. As both a British and Australian citizen my allegiance, or ‘fandom’, if you like, is split. I don’t care who wins. I just want to watch a good game of cricket. When this hasn’t been an option, as all the games have been one-sided affairs one way or the other, my interest has waned. A fan does not do this. They are invested.

This is where what social psychologists call a ‘collective identity’ comes into play. These identities can come and go depending on circumstance. There are political collective identities during an election perhaps, or ones of class in society. In terms of sport, during the course of the live event, these collectives form for the duration of the event. Researchers Hirt, Zillman, Erickson & Kennedy published a paper in 1992 that suggested that sports fans of a particular player or team are unique in that their community is already formed, ready made, before any individual members have already actually met. When someone arrives at a race track in yellow, you already know that they are on your side. Over time, this grows and grows. Humans’ need to feel like they are part of a group is built into us by evolution. For safety, for carrying on genes and so on. So to be part of a winning group is a much more powerful urge and so, when Rossi arrived and started winning, then clearly this is where people flocked. He was exciting and people wanted themselves some of that.

‘Balance Theory’ as proposed by the Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider, suggests that we are all looking to achieve some sort of psychological balance in our attitudes and beliefs. It’s our lazy human brains not wanting to be challenged in many respects. An example here might be, ‘I like George Clooney. George Clooney likes Nespresso. I like coffee. So I will like Nespresso’. Or the inverse, ‘I like George Clooney, but I hate Nespresso, therefore George Clooney must be a dick. I don’t like George Clooney anymore’. When it comes to sport this comes into play via a psychologial mechanism, part of Social Identity Theory which dates back to the early 20th century, called BIRGing (Basking in Reflected Glory). It’s why sports fans will often refer to their team as ‘we’. ‘I am their devoted fan, therefore if those players win the game, I have won the game’. This is, clearly, a huge factor in the beginnings of Rossi-fandom and, during the period he was not winning like he used to, it plays a massive role in the strengthening of the myth.

More on that later.

Traditionally this existed in a stadium or perhaps down the pub during a telecast which, at the time Hirt and co penned their paper, was people’s only real access to their collective community. But in 2015, we have the internet. And timing, as much as anything, has helped fuel the Rossi fandom flame.

This all makes pretty logical sense. Obviously the most successful and exciting sports people are the most popular right? Whilst not true in every case, it’s a fairly safe blanket bet. The Chicago Bulls are more popular than the Milwaukee Bucks.

Collective Identity also comes into play with nationalism and patriotism. Motorsport is massive in Italy and now the fans had a true Italian star to get behind. There have been countless papers in sociology and beyond about national identity in sport but that’s not something I want to get into here. Now, it is fair to say Rossi is hugely popular amongst non Italian fans as well which is something that, in MotoGP certainly, falls into the same collective identity system. There are only a handful of MotoGP riders to choose from as a fan. It’s why Rossi is so popular around the world because there aren’t necessarily riders from countries where the sport is very popular like Holland or Indonesia. It’s why the NBA and the EPL are more popular than local leagues.

Britain especially took Rossi to heart. His reign was at a time when the UK was severely lacking in MotoGP talent but interest in racing was high thanks to Carl Fogarty and James Toseland in WSBK. The likes of Bradley Smith, Cal Crutchlow and Danny Kent were many years way and so, loving to back a winner, the Brits jumped on board Rossi. He was a bit of a laugh and fitted right in with the sort of racer that Brits loved. Brits went in for showmen or gutsy riders. They had adored his like before. The showmanship of Schwantz and Sheene and the guts of a Gardner or a Sarron.

Also Rossi lived in London for a time. And here’s where it gets interesting.

During Rossi’s time in London he had, essentially, been paying a lot less tax than he should’ve been. Both in Italy and the UK. Now, Rossi was not what you might traditionally call a tax cheat by any means. He was in London, not an island off of Malta. And when it all caught up to him, and the lawyers duked it out, he swallowed the pill and didn’t run, he paid up. Some £30 million plus. And he returned to Italy. His reputation entirely untarnished.

Wait, what?

Now, you can argue back and forth about the ethics and the morals of what did and didn’t happen in this situation but usually one whiff of tax avoidance around a celebrity and the UK media and fan base take a deli number to line up to nail them to the wall. Not even Take That was immune and when the British public turns on Take That no-one would seem safe. Rossi, on the other hand, was seen hard done by. That the tax department was just out to get him. And he was a hero for paying up. I’m sorry, what? Again, you can research the case and make up your own mind, I’m not here to judge, but can you imagine anyone else getting this almost universal free pass? Even if that’s true it’s usually the job of people to simply read a headline and jump to the exact opposite conclusion. Motorsport forums the world had fans falling over themselves to defend him. And he gained fans. None left. One would expect at least some to take a leave of absence. And yet the legend grew.

Because now these fans were invested, massively. They could not remove themselves from him because they, through BIRGing, were him. Which brings us to CORFing. The other side of the social identity coin. Cutting off Reflected Failure.

You come at Rossi, you’re coming at us.

CORFing can take many forms in sport. The often used comic example in the UK concerns Andy Murray in England, where he is British when he wins and Scottish when he loses, enabling fans to distance themselves from the failure but be included in the victory. Bandwagons come into play here as well, and bandwagon supporters are of course the bane of any ‘true fan’. I’ve been a Fremantle Dockers member since day dot so I know a thing or two about that. Talk to me when you’ve sat in the outer in the WACA in a winter storm, drenched to the bone watching us (look at me BIRGing) take a 100 point beating (or maybe not. Maybe that’s BIRFing, basking in reflected failure). But Rossi fans did not dwindle during his dark years. They still came. Only when he was not physically there, during his broken leg in 2010, did they stay away, not during his disastrous Ducati years of 2011 and 2012.

In an 1980 paper, two psychologists, Cialdini and Richardson took a look at how college sports fans in the US deal with loss and it is a phenomenon very much at work when it comes to Rossi. They observed, by surveying and studying a large sample size of students, that when their self esteem was threatened, after their school lost a basketball or football game, rather than accept the defeat, or jump off the bandwagon, or even attack their own team for not playing well enough, they resorted to what Cialdini and Richardson called ‘Blasting’.

They were part of the school, as students, so to attack the team, even in outrage would be to attack themselves. And so they attack, critisize and belittle the other school. Not to put them off their game as the game was already over, but, as the author’s quoted, in an attempt to “look good to observers, one option available to us would be to make those with whom we are negatively connected with look bad: to publicly blast the opposition”. The collective identity must be protected.

They are protecting themselves, not Valentino himself. He doesn’t need protecting. He’s got a thick skin. He’s, whether publicly admitted or not, aware sometimes he cannot win. It’s the fans protecting each other from competitors to their crown, their shared glory.

This is often seen in sport amongst rapid fans, or in intense rivalries such Man U and Liverpool. Or when people’s politics spill into sport such as the booing on Adam Goodes recently in the AFL by a handful or narrow minded, ignorant, racist, morons. To put it lightly. But with Rossi, it is all about the man himself.

There’s two examples that show the extremity of this when it comes to Valentino Rossi.

The first is that infamous, frankly disgusting, Day of Champions at Donington Park in 2007. I wrote a big article about it at the time and was attacked for it by Rossi fans. And, in many respects, the parallels to Adam Goodes, although in an entirely non-racial way I must add, are obvious.

Rossi was struggling in 2007. The tyres and the bike were not to his liking. He had lost the championship last year for the first time since most of his fans had become fans. Rossi had fallen. They were already on the defensive, ‘blasting’ Nicky Hayden as lucky and undeserving as a champion. Nonsense of course and, as Julian Ryder is often quoted as saying, the more distance we get from 2006, the more we appreciate Hayden’s achievement that year. But in 2007, Rossi’s climb back to the top that had been largely tipped, had not arrived. There was a new kid in town on a new bike. They hadn’t liked Mick Doohan back in the day, and now here he was again, only this time calling himself Casey Stoner.

Stoner had said that he wasn’t a huge fan of Donington Park (many weren’t, especially the spectators) and this was supposedly the kicking off point. But, I’d argue, that’s bollocks.

The biggest cheers of the Day of Champions, a superb day of fundraising for the Riders for Health Charity held annually at the British Grand Prix, were always reserved for Rossi, the local riders and usually Colin Edwards who fitted the mould of everything the British crowd loved. Gutsy, a good laugh and a man who knew his place at Yamaha. Don’t beat Rossi. So when Casey Stoner, leader of the title chase at this point, came on stage one might’ve expected him to not get the sort of cheers of the others because he was a relative unknown, didn’t have that big personality and so on. Instead he was roundly booed. At a charity event. It was entirely appalling.

The excuse was he had bashed Donington. Or that he had bagged out England. Or something . He had lived in England for years, began his career there and was hugely fond of the place. So none of that rang true. At this stage he hadn’t even publicly said something non-glowing about Rossi as he later would. All he had done was beat him, fair and square. He was the enemy of the highest order. He was an attack, the first real, sustained, genuine one there had ever been, to Rossi and his diehards. Rossi was already down but 2007 was meant to be the comeback year. And yet here was this kid, this really, really talented kid from Australia of all places, already a mortal Ashes like enemy of England.

And so the only defence was to attack him. Belittle him as a way to prop themselves up. It was the bike, not him. The tyres, not the rider. Rossi just had bad luck etc etc. And they booed. I remember it well. It was the first time I’d ever seen such a thing in a MotoGP, a sport where the upmost respect was usually given to all riders. They were after all risking their lives for our entertainment. The defence was it had nothing to do with him winning, it was about his attitude, or his comments about Donington or anything else. ‘It’s because he stages for free kicks, not because his Aboriginal’.

This was when I first began to think about the collective identity, and all that came with it, of Rossi-Mania. With Stoner it just grew and grew. Logic went out the window. Stoner was the antichrist. The antirossi. From Laguna 2008 to Jerez 2011, it was literally impossible to have a sensible discussion about Casey Stoner with most MotoGP fans because most of them were only interested in a Rossi defence first and foremost. I once likened it to a fellow MotoGP writer that it felt like arguing with a creationist at times.

The second example is simply, the internet. Sporting websites have always been a place for debate and ribbing of opposition supporters and so on. Most of the time it is good natured or genuine debate save for a few bad apples. Though to stumble onto a pack of rapid Rossi fans on an internet forum wherein someone has dared to suggest that, perhaps, Jorge Lorenzo or Casey Stoner has some modicum of talent, is to suggest that you wish to render their children orphans. The blind defence of The Doctor is incredible. I have, in all honesty, never seen such a thing.

To go back to basketball, Lebron James is, right now, clearly the best player on the planet. But to read the comments under an article about him on ESPN is a mix of love, hate and indifference. To read the comments under any MotoGP article on somewhere like Crash or MCN and it will invariably have turned into an argument about Rossi. It might be someone simply saying, ‘Nice lap by Lorenzo’. Within a few comments you will find, ‘Fuck Lorenzo, he’s only good because he stole Rossi’s setup’. It might be an article about Suzuki but you’ll end up with ‘Rossi could win on a Suzuki tomorrow’. It is the Godwin’s Law of MotoGP online.

The speed of the defence. One could argue, as I will throughout these articles, is hugely scary for MotoGP. The fanbase for Rossi far outweighs the fanbase of motorcycle grand prix racing. Rossi fans support, unquestionably, their hero. They will occasionally root for the underdog, a non-threat to Rossi such as Colin Edwards, and then even the respect begins to wane for the rest. Lorenzo was fine, till he started beating Rossi. Marquez was a fun new novelty, and for a while it was fine he was beating Rossi because Rossi openly liked Marc. And then he didn’t, especially post Assen this year, and now he’s a public enemy of Rossi fans everywhere. He’s suddenly been ‘found out to be a fraud’. A four time world champion we’re talking about here. It’s the world’s most predictable graph. The sort of thing Matt Parker drools over. I’ll take a look more into the online nature of Rossi-Mania with the media section in Part Two.

Sports fans will defend their teams though, that’s not uncommon, what intrigues me with Rossi is the level of ‘blasting’ and CORFing that takes place. Why is it? Perhaps, it’s to do with my first point, the spectator versus fan situation. A great deal of Rossi fans came to the sport via him, and so, without him, there is no MotoGP to them. If Rossi falls, there is no Plan B. Every other rider is simply a background artist to the Rossi Show. And so he must be defended at all costs for without him, there is no MotoGP. It’s entirely possible that this the subconscious thought at play in the minds of many a Rossi fan. And that’s a massive problem for the sport and it’s an idea I will later argue is not exclusive to fans.

Now, all of this is not necessarily to ‘have a go’ at Rossi fans although I think it’s fair to say some of them could tone it down a little, and I am sure this article in particular will be seen as such. It’s also not to have a go at Rossi the man, nor his career. The latter speaks for itself and we’ll be looking into the former a little more in the next part, although in my infrequent face to face dealings with him as a member of the MotoGP press over the years I have found him to be no more or less pleasant than most of the other riders on a race weekend.

I just think it’s one of the largest unexplored phenomens in MotoGP. You can dismiss much of the pshycology as mumbo jumbo if you like, but you’d be wrong, at least on a scientific level. These are human processes that exist, and have been tested over and over, I am merely attempting to apply them to the sport I cover. You can dismiss gravity if you like, it’s still taking place.

Next time, we look at the media and I don’t exclude myself from that. So that should be fun.

Part 2 is here.

All referenced papers can found via the links in the main body of the article. Special thanks to Cardiff University neuroscientist Dr Dean Burnett for his assistance. Photo Sources credited where information was available. Please contact the page if you feel something has been incorrectly attributed.