For most of the 20th Century, historians assumed that the Blues and the Greens of Byzantine Constantinople weren't really just sports fans, but represented the upper class versus the lower class or the religiously orthodox versus the heretical or some neighborhoods versus some other neighborhoods. After all, nobody would get that worked up over sports, would they?
But in the 1970s, historian
Alan Cameron, referencing the soccer hooligans of his own day, argued that we shouldn't overlook how important sports were in the Byzantine Empire to young men: "The truth is (of course) that Blues hated the Greens, not because they were lower-class or heretics -- but simply because they were Greens."
But that raises the question of whether sports rivalries can be uncorrelated with other subdivisions of society. Generally, sports rivalries in the modern world correlate with all sorts of demographic traits because they are territorial: teams have their home fields, which tend to attract local fans.
However, the home turf of both the Greens and the Blues was the vast hippodrome in downtown Constantinople.
A vague modern analog might be the NBA's Los Angeles
Lakers and Clippers, who have both played in the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles for the last 15 years.
Traditionally, the Lakers are more successful and more popular, especially with movie stars, but it's not particularly clear that fans of the Lakers or Clippers represent different neighborhoods or classes or ethnicities. The Lakers tend to appeal to Angelenos who like winners and don't mind spending money to associate themselves with winners (i.e., most of them) , while I presume the Clippers appeal to the budget-conscious (the Clippers charge about half as much as the Lakers for the same seat) and those who like underdogs. A
marketing plan for the Clips speculates:
The Clippers' current fan base is of a low income bracket, probably young and from out of town, doesn not want to be seen as a bandwagoner, prefers to avoid the mainstream teams and is hoping the Clippers will write a Cinderella story.
On the other hand, the Lakers v. Clippers rivalry is low intensity by the standards of Chicago Cubs v. Chicago White Sox, much less
Rangers v. Celtic in Glasgow. One reason for this is the lack of success of the Clippers hasn't generated much loyalty toward them.
Another is that Southern California hasn't been conducive to local sports animosities -- only USC v. UCLA in football generates much heat. Los Angeles Dodger baseball fans, for instance, often root for the Anaheim Angels if they are winning and vaguely wish them well when they aren't. In general, as
James Q. Wilson noted after moving from L.A. to Boston in the 1940s to attend Harvard, Angelenos don't have turf, they have cars.
Finally, since enthusiasm (such as it is) for the Clippers has been distributed less regionally or ethnically than psychologically, with the Clippers appealing to random frugal eccentrics, there's not much this rivalry does to tap into human territoriality.
On the other hand, it's hard for me to fathom how the Blues and Greens couldn't come to be correlated with other factors such as class or neighborhood.
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