Attending a live sporting event is linked to changes in hormone levels and physiological alignment among fans. New research published in Translational Psychiatry suggests that watching a college basketball game is associated with shifts in oxytocin, a hormone involved in social bonding, alongside synchronized heart rates across the crowd. These physical changes tend to correspond with feelings of unity, enjoyment, and a desire to return for future games.
Oxytocin is a chemical messenger often referred to as a bonding hormone. It plays a role in social behavior, emotional regulation, and how humans connect with one another. Cortisol is a different hormone that serves as a primary indicator of physiological stress. Heart rate synchrony occurs when the cardiac rhythms of multiple people naturally align in response to shared experiences or emotions.
Medical treatments aiming to boost oxytocin through nasal sprays to help with social difficulties have produced mixed results in clinical settings. This inconsistency motivated scientists to look for everyday activities that might naturally stimulate the body’s own hormone production, known as endogenous oxytocin.
“Because clinical trials of intranasal oxytocin have produced modest and inconsistent effects, we became interested in natural, non-pharmacological ways of engaging the body’s own oxytocin system,” said Takashi Matsui, an associate professor at the Institute of Health and Sport Sciences at the University of Tsukuba in Japan.
Previous investigations into martial arts and competitive video gaming, or esports, provided a starting point for this project. “My own background in judo also shaped how I approached this research,” Matsui explained. “I have long been inspired by judo’s principles of Seiryoku-Zenyo, making the best use of one’s physical and mental energy, and Jita-Kyoei, mutual welfare and benefit, which have led me to view sport not only as a means of personal development but also as a setting for mutual growth and social connection.”
Sports events generate shared emotions and unified attention among large groups of people. “Our previous work found that judo practice promotes endogenous oxytocin release, while our subsequent research showed oxytocin release and heart-rate synchrony during face-to-face competitive and cooperative esports without physical contact,” Matsui said. “These findings led us to ask whether spectators might similarly become connected simply by sharing their attention and emotions at a live sporting event.”
The researchers observed 60 adult spectators, including 21 women, who attended one of two home collegiate basketball games at a university in Japan. “The study was conducted during TSUKUBA LIVE!, the University of Tsukuba’s home-game initiative,” Matsui noted. Most attendees were students or local residents rather than highly devoted fans. This allowed the scientists to study casual fandom rather than extreme sports devotion. To preserve the natural viewing experience, the researchers did not systematically control for factors like menstrual cycle phases or the use of hormonal contraceptives.
Before the game began, the attendees provided a saliva sample and filled out questionnaires about their current mood. The attendees also wore an optical heart rate sensor on their upper arm to continuously monitor their cardiovascular activity. At halftime and immediately after the game ended, the participants provided additional saliva samples and completed follow-up surveys. The researchers later analyzed the saliva for concentrations of oxytocin and cortisol.
The surveys asked attendees to rate their momentary enjoyment on a sliding scale. The participants also indicated their sense of unity with both the home and away teams, as well as with other fans, by choosing overlapping circles that represented interpersonal closeness. At the end of the game, the attendees answered questions about their level of immersion, known as a flow state. This concept describes a feeling of being completely focused and losing track of time.
Finally, the participants rated their intention to attend future games. To measure heart rate synchrony, the researchers mathematically calculated how closely the heart rate patterns of individuals sitting in the same physical section matched each other over time. They specifically looked at time lags to see if one person’s cardiovascular changes mirrored those of their neighbors. Following these measurements, the authors evaluated how the biological data related to the psychological survey responses.
The hormonal responses varied depending on an individual’s starting point. Spectators who began the event with relatively low oxytocin levels experienced an increase over the course of the game. Those who started with high baseline levels maintained those elevated concentrations throughout the event.
“What surprised me most was that oxytocin increased among spectators who began with lower levels and remained elevated among those who began with higher levels, without direct physical contact being required, a particularly notable finding because touch is one of the strongest natural stimuli for oxytocin release,” Matsui said.
At the same time, cortisol levels dropped across the board, resulting in an overall increase in the ratio of oxytocin to cortisol. The data provides evidence that live sports spectating shifts the body toward a socially receptive state rather than a stress-dominated one. Higher oxytocin levels corresponded with greater enjoyment and a stronger sense of unity with both the players and the fellow fans. Statistical models indicated that the increase in enjoyment provided a bridge connecting the oxytocin levels to the feelings of unity.
During the game, the cardiovascular rhythms of the spectators began to align. This synchrony increased during both halves of the basketball game, meaning that the patterns of the fans became more tightly matched from moment to moment. “Second, ‘heart-rate synchrony’ does not mean that everyone’s heart was beating at exactly the same rate or at the same instant,” Matsui clarified. “It means that their patterns of heart-rate change became increasingly similar over time.”
This physiological alignment was stronger among people attending the same game and sitting in the same section, suggesting it was a specific response to the shared local environment. The researchers found a positive association between the absolute levels of salivary oxytocin and the degree of heart rate synchrony among the crowd. People with lower baseline oxytocin showed the most pronounced connection between their hormone levels and their physiological alignment.
The alignment of heartbeats was also linked to psychological outcomes. During active play, closer heart rate alignment was associated with stronger unity toward the home team and a deeper state of immersion in the game. “At these games, spectators’ patterns of heart-rate change became more synchronized during and after play, while higher oxytocin levels and stronger synchrony were associated with greater enjoyment, a stronger sense of unity, and an intention to attend again,” Matsui said.
The authors noted that perceived unity seemed to connect the physical heart rate responses to the positive psychological experiences. “Moreover, these responses emerged not at an elite professional or international competition, but at local university basketball games involving largely casual spectators,” Matsui said. “World-class sporting events can generate extraordinary emotion and shared excitement, but attending them in person is difficult for most people.”
“Our findings suggest that people may not need to travel to a major global competition or watch elite athletes to experience the social value of live sport: even local university games may provide an accessible setting in which sharing attention and emotion is accompanied by coordinated hormonal, physiological, and psychological responses.”
The observational design means the findings do not guarantee that watching the game directly caused the hormonal and physiological changes. Other elements of the environment, such as the score, the crowd noise, or the time of day, could play a role. Natural daily rhythms typically cause cortisol levels to drop in the evening, which might explain some of the observed hormone shifts. Measuring oxytocin in saliva provides a convenient estimate, but it does not definitively map onto oxytocin levels in the brain.
The hormonal and biological shifts also differed from person to person. “First, our findings do not mean that watching a sporting event makes everyone’s oxytocin rise in the same way,” Matsui told PsyPost. “Spectators who began with higher levels maintained their elevated concentrations, whereas those who began with lower levels showed an increase.”
The study focused on young adults at a modest college game, so it remains unknown if similar biological alignment happens in larger professional sports environments. It is also uncertain how these findings might apply to more diverse age groups or highly passionate sports fans.
“Our current study showed that oxytocin responses differed according to spectators’ pre-game levels,” Matsui said. “Building on this finding, we are now examining additional factors, including age, previous experience playing the sport, whether the supported team wins or loses, and live versus at-home viewing, to understand when and for whom shared spectatorship fosters physiological synchrony and a sense of unity, and how viewing environments might strengthen this social connection and potentially help alleviate loneliness.”
Testing these biological markers in virtual or digital viewing settings could also offer insights into modern social connection. “From a translational perspective, we want to test whether heart-rate synchrony can serve as a scalable, non-invasive indicator of endogenous oxytocin-linked social engagement and guide low-burden, non-pharmacological approaches built around shared attention, collective emotion, and social exchange, from community sport to esports and socially engaging live streams,” Matsui said.
“Ultimately, through controlled studies with clinical researchers, we hope to evaluate whether carefully designed shared-viewing environments can support social connection among people with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental conditions involving difficulties in social functioning.”
“One reason I find sports spectatorship promising is that, unlike direct physical contact or active participation in sport, it can be accessible to people across differences in age, fitness, and playing ability,” Matsui said. “Live sport may therefore offer a valuable everyday setting for studying, and potentially supporting, how shared attention and emotion help people feel connected.” He added, “Because loneliness is a major health risk, accessible community sporting events may offer valuable everyday opportunities for people to feel part of something larger and connect with others.”
The study, “Endogenous oxytocin-linked heart-rate synchrony and social connection during live sports spectatorship,” was authored by Takashi Matsui, Takafumi Yamaguchi, Daisuke Funabashi, Shion Takahashi, Hiroki Matsuoka, Ren Takamizawa, Yukina Tachibana, Shohei Dobashi, Kiyonobu Kigoshi, Shinzo Yamada, and Hideki Takagi.