World Cup Football: The Mexican Wave
During this current World Cup taking place in South Africa a few matches have seen the wonderful fan celebratory expression called the Mexican Wave. This great phenomenon can be seen when one looks at a crowd of people and sees some of them going up and then down and the rest following suit. The wave then travels all over the stadium and reaches back to the people who started it and sometimes it continues again around the stadium. But it is interesting to note how this fantastic crowd movement started and is there any science behind it?
The Mexican Wave which is called ‘the Wave’ in America and ‘La Ola’ in Mexico can be explained as a wave effect that passes around a stadium full of spectators when all the fans stand up with their arms raised and then sit down again. This effect can be seen in many sports around the world not only in football. It has been seen in American football, baseball, and even in cricket.
The origins of the Mexican Wave are disputed with some people saying it started in Mexico in the 70’s but a majority believes that it actually started in America in the 80’s. Two men both lay claim to the origins of the Wave, although there is no way to verify their claims. The two guys who make the claim are Rob Weller who says it was he who first came up with it during American football games. George Henderson is the second gentleman who says that it was he who started it at a baseball game. Even though these two guys say they both started the Wave, it actually gained popularity during the 1986 FIFA World Cup held in Mexico which was why it is known as the Mexican Wave.
After watching a recent World Cup game, the commentator started talking about the Mexican Wave that was going on around the stadium. It seems that a wave starts only when fans are bored and they want to find a way to entertain themselves. So if a match is particularly bad or if one team is dominating the entire proceedings, a Mexican Wave usually starts around the stadium. People use it as a way to justify the very expensive tickets that they have bought to watch a boring match. It seems that whenever a Wave reaches the VIP enclosure, it breaks because the VIP’s do not participate and are subsequently booed by the other fans.
A very interesting aspect of the Mexican Wave is that a scientist found that there is a lot of science behind this fan phenomenon. A scientist named Tamas Vicsek from the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest conducted a lot of experiments to try to and find out how the wave works. Along with his colleagues, he found out some very interesting facts about human waves. One of the things he found out was that for a proper wave to start, a minimum of 24 people are required. A wave starts with an initial 24 people who set the wave off and then slowly and steadily, other people get involved at a different pace. However, it looks even and symmetrical when seen by the cameras around the stadium. Another very interesting fact that Professor Tamas found out from his experiments was that a Wave travels around at approximately 27 mph around the stadium. Other interesting experiments that have been conducted have apparently shown that Mexican waves that are done in the northern hemisphere tend to go counter clockwise for some odd reason.
It is very interesting to think that a simple fan movement around a stadium could be so fascinating. The fact that some people have actually scientifically measured this movement is even more interesting. We might even see the next version of a fan started stadium movement soon after people grow tired of the Mexican Wave. It'll take some crazy fan to come up with something that will catch on and spread around the world.
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