The English Premier League(EPL) meets annually to determine the best teams in England. Among the teams that participate ‘Leicester city’ has won the trophy in 38 games of the 15-16 seasons with 23 wins, 12 draws, and 3 losses. Considering that the dividend rate for Leicester City’s victory calculated by the British betting company ‘William Hill’ was 5000:1, Leicester City’s victory was simply a miracle. With this article, let’s find out what an underdog is and the trends that encourage underdogs.

What is an Underdog?
  Underdog refers to a weak person or team that is less likely to win or succeed. The word originated from dog fights, where the dog weighing more is called the ‘top dog’ or ‘overdog’ and the dog weighing less is called the ‘underdog.’ The underdog effect is the psychology of wanting the weak to succeed and the phenomenon of supporting them.
  Then why do people support the underdog? Park Sang-hee, a professor of the Dept. of Psychology at Chungbuk National University said, “People sometimes cheer for the underdog because of several reasons. First, most people are unsatisfied with their life circumstances, so it is easier to identify with the underdog than the winner. Also, an underdog striving for success provides a great narrative that people can enjoy whether they miraculously prevail or tragically fail in their endeavor.” Then, let’s check out where underdogs come from in our society and which systems bring underdogs succeed.

1. Survival Program TV Shows
  A survival program is a TV show in which the participants of the program enter or leave the next stage depending on the results of the mission given to them. Most of the shows are for choose celebrities such as singers and actors. In the past, popular shows like ‘K-Pop Star’ and ‘Superstar K,’ and recently there have been many trot genre shows in Korea. Now, in the first half of 2021, there are lots of survival programs on other platforms than TV. For instance, ‘Jin Yong-jin’ hosted a survival program called ‘Money Game’ on his Youtube channel.
  One of the most popular underdog stories in survival programs is about a rapper ‘Woo Won-jae.’ He participated in ‘Show me the money 6,’ which is a famous hip-hop competition TV program broadcasted on ‘Mnet.’ He reached the final stage by beating with other famous rappers and endeared himself to many hip-hop fans. He was praised by the judges by expressing his painful past with his unique rap and won the third place.

2. Handmade beer
  Handmade beer is also called ‘craft beer’ made by individuals or small brewers with their own individual methods. In 2002, the Government implemented a ‘Small beer manufacturing license system.’ Before the system to permit existing beer manufacturing was implemented, that annual production had to be more than 6 million liters, but it was changed to just more than 60 thousand liters. Also, with the revision of the Liquor Tax law in November 2019, the tax based on the existing beer price was changed from the closing tax based on the sales volume. This situation led to numerous handmade beers pitting themselves against traditional large enterprises. As a result, the size of the handmade beer market has increased. The Korea Handmade Beer Association announced that the size of the homemade beer market in Korea stood at approximately 118 billion won in 2020, which is 2.7 times larger compared to 43.3 billion won in 2017.

3. UEFA Europa Conference League
  Starting in the second half of this year, the UEFA Europa Conference League will be held in the 21-22 season. UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) has announced that more leagues and teams are aiming to achieve balanced development through opportunities to participate in European competitions. In the past, there were only 2 competitions held by the UEFA. However, the competitions were like ‘A Pie in the Sky’ because mostly the top teams with good performance participated while lesser-known teams with low FIFA ranking could not even get a chance to play.
  The UEFA Europa Conference League gives a chance to compete for the winners of the cup competitions in European countries and the seventh-ranked teams in the BIG 4 League, which is in England, Italy, Germany and Spain. The winner of the competition can go straight to the UEFA Europa League next season. This can create a new underdog football team and fans.

  The expression ‘From Rags to Riches,’ is used when an unlikely person becomes successful in a difficult environment. Recently, however, there have been huge obstacles preventing ordinary people from succeeding, so many people think the weak are unlikely to succeed. This is compounded by cases where some parents use their power or money to secure admission to universities and scholarships, or good jobs for their kids. These cases are likely to make us feel hopeless, but people should take courage from the underdog phenomena. A CBT reporter sincerely hopes that the underdogs are given various chances through this article.

By Choi Jin-hyeok l jh41@cbnu.ac.kr