Can Football Reduce Out-Party Animosity? Evidence from 142 Games Played by the English National Team

Common in-group identity is gaining popularity as an antidote to affective polarization. Experiments have repeatedly shown their effectiveness in reducing partisan animosity. It remains a question whether this replicates in the real world. I test the ecological validity of this claim through a regular and subtle common in-group identity prime: national football games played by England. I leverage a scheduling overlap between 10 years of election surveys and 142 international matches in a regression discontinuity design that compares interviews taken in a close, maximum 3 days vicinity of each match. While the findings show a short-term attenuation in affective polarization, surprisingly, it is driven by lower in-party favorability and not warmer out-party feelings. At the same time, I find that citizens are less likely to recall freely partisan negativity when asked about politics after matches. Additionally, on the supply-side, I measure a shift away from partisan news in news content. Overall, de-emphasizing identity rather than changing attitudes offers a more feasible intervention to affective polarization.