7 Bizarre Sports Traditions Winning the Loyalty Game

*This post first appeared on Waterfall's blog, Mobile Demystified. 

Let’s face it, sports are weird. No matter how much we love watching people throw balls around or punch someone’s lights out or glide over chest height hurdles, sports are just, at least a little, strange. I will wholeheartedly admit that I’m not the biggest sports enthusiast, however, I do find myself intrigued by the effect sports have on people’s behaviors. Sports turn generally sane and rational people into crazed over-the-top fanatics. Sports make people scream their lungs out with excitement, then shrivel up into a ball of sadness when inevitable defeat strikes.

Among 18-29-year-olds, 72% watch sports regularly and 52% are avid sports fans. Fan or not, sports motivate people to act in absurd ways. I mean, come on, who in their right mind would wear a Cheese Hat (I’m looking at you, Wisconsin). It’s obvious that avid sports fans feel an incredible loyalty to their teams and will stop at nothing to support them.

What’s interesting to me, is the bond that sports teams create with their fans and how brands could create that same level of loyalty with their customers. Industrious companies create loyal customers by tapping into what those customers actually care about. Perhaps brands can harness the same psychology that makes fans do crazy things for the sake of their teams to turn them into avid customers and eventually, brand promoters. So, let's take a moment to celebrate the quirky traditions that bind sports teams with their fans. Below are 7 of the wackiest traditions in sports that I’ve ever heard:

1. Portland Timbers – After every goal, the Portland Timbers soccer team celebrates by picking up a giant chainsaw and sawing into a log. After every win, the team runs around the field with the mammoth pieces, while the fans go crazy. Talk about some serious fan buzz.
2. Hockey Playoffs – When playoff season rolls around each year, so, too, do the grizzly beards. A once upon a time superstition for the New York Islanders turned into a fashion sensation for the entire sport of Hockey (and beyond): the Playoff Beard.
3. New Zealand’s All Blacks Rugby Team – Most teams shout out some type of chant to pump everyone up. None, however, comes close to the Haka dance, a war cry originally choreographed by the indigenous people of New Zealand called the Maori. The Haka gets everyone in the All Blacks stadium ready for rugby battle. Sidenote: I have a good friend from New Zealand, and she taught me the Haka, which is actually incredibly fun to perform.
4. University of Wisconsin’s Badgers Football – Between the 3rd and 4th quarters of the football game, House of Pain’s song, “Jump Around,” blares out of the speakers and the entire stadium trembles from the thunderous stomping of 80,000 fans- you guessed it – jumping around.
5. Detroit Red Wings Lucky Octopus Toss – This just might be the strangest tradition on this list. Formed in 1952 when the road to the Stanley Cup took only 8 wins, a pair of brothers celebrated each of the 8 games by tossing an octopus onto the ice. That’s right, an octopus. You could say the tradition really “stuck” and since its inception, more than 50 octopi have been chucked onto the ice. There are even “Octoquettes” (pamphlets) prepared by the Superior Fish Market, that contain best practices for octopus tossing, including tips to avoid the octopus from sticking to the ice and permissible times for launching the octopus without getting fined.
6. University of Pennsylvania “Toast Toss” – Another tossing event, but instead of a mollusk, students at the University of Pennsylvania throw toasted bread onto the field. The toast toss takes place after the third quarter of every home football games while the students sing “Here’s a toast to dear old Penn.”
7. University of Florida’s Gator Chomp – If you’re a University of Florida alumni, you’re on board with the Gator Chomp. UF fans greet fellow gators with open, extended arms and a jubilant “chomp.” The chomp is not reserved for only sporting events; wherever there are two Gators fans, they will undoubtedly greet each other with a Gator Chomp.

Building loyalty does not hinge on coupons and offers. It hinges on connecting with someone in a genuine and authentic way to foster a feeling of mutual support. Sometimes, loyalty is simply sharing in bizarre and unexplainable traditions to support your favorite team, and sometimes it’s sharing an offer with your friends from your most treasured brand. Brands should draw from these wacky sports traditions and let loose to build their own culture with loyal customers. Take Amazon, for example. They recently created Prime Day, a special day for Amazon Prime members filled with “more deals than Black Friday” and other fun happenings. Or, Taco Bell, a bona fide beacon for creating unconventional customer loyalty programs that resonate with their Crunchwrap Supreme aficionados.

Regardless of the environment, let’s take a page from these sports teams. Don’t be afraid to build eccentric and unique cultures and traditions that inspire customers to jump on the loyalty bandwagon.

For more tips about how to build a loyal community, check out our eBook, Sharing is Caring.