If you have ever attended a sporting event housed in a stadium, you are probably familiar with “the wave.”
Ever wonder where this originated from?
Wikipedia’s entry on it is pretty thorough. Ask Yahoo! has a fairly concise overview. And FAQ Farm has pretty much the same responses.
While there is no consensus on the matter, they all point to events in the ’70s and ’80s — specifically the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, due to the presence of international media, for popularizing it.
I am curious though, is there any historical evidence of the “audience wave” occurring in previous centuries or millennia? I get a kick out of thinking that it may have been observed during gladiator competitions at the Roman Colesium or on the slopes of a mountain or in a valley.