Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grand Canyon Rivalry

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was kept, but moved to Grand Canyon Trophy Game, shifting focus to the regular series of games played, rather than the question of whether a notable rivalry exists. BD2412 T 19:41, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Grand Canyon Rivalry

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This doesn't appear to meet the WP:NRIVALRY due to a lack of in depth, secondary coverage with which to meet the WP:GNG. The article was deleted under a different name in 2014 and recreated [[1]], but as it stands the current article seemingly fails in the same areas the previous one did. Let'srun (talk) 17:30, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sports, American football, Arizona, and Utah. Let'srun (talk) 17:30, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, the game has a trophy and the article has good sourcing. A notable rivalry is a notable rivalry, as Wikipedia articles on the subject of rivalries don't have to only focus on major college games (Ohio-Michigan, etc.). Randy Kryn (talk) 00:14, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I haven't done any digging yet, but none of the sources currently in the article represent WP:SIGCOV (i.e, in-depth coverage of a rivalry). Three of the five sources are clearly non-independent (published by the universities or the conference), and I don't believe FBSchedules.com has ever been recognized as a reliable, GNG-bestowing source. (The first two sources are reliable and independent but don't have real depth of coverage about the rivalry.) Cbl62 (talk) 01:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment this article was previously deleted in 2014. Joeykai (talk) 18:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 22:56, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. My source analysis is set forth in my earlier comment, and noothing else has been presented. I voted "Delete" at the 2014 AfD on this trophy, and nothing has changed materially. There is still a lack of SIGCOV wih in-depth coverage about the trophy or rivalry -- just some passing references in game coverage to the fact that the winner gets the trophy. Cbl62 (talk) 03:45, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, if this were a close case where there was some SIGCOV, other factors such as geographic proximity, the trophy, and competitiveness would weigh in favor of keeping, but I haven't seen anything that could be called SIGCOV here. Cbl62 (talk) 12:45, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but we have categorization and framing problems across a lot of articles like this. As a series of annual games with a name (whether it has a trophy is irrelevant), this appears to pass GNG, and would probably be better as Grand Canyon Trophy Game and rewritten to make it clear it is an annual series of games, instead of us claiming it is actually a sports rivalry. What's happened here is that this and several other things have "rivalry" in their names and are a class of things that are sometimes called "rivalry games", but they are not sports rivalries as WP and most sources are using that term. That is, "rivalry" is ambiguous, and writers of this article have confused one meaning with the other just because of the term being used in the name or being used in vague, amgiguous ways by some source material. A "rivaly game" is simply a periodic game (usually a form of exhibition game) between two teams for the entertainment of themselves and their fans, or occasionally as part of some league system but given a name and sometimes a trophy as a promotional mechanism.
The entire Category:Big Sky Conference rivalries and probably several others like it has completely confused the idea of such a game series with the idea of an actual sports rivalry: a subculture of animosity or faux-animosity between two teams/institutions and especially the fandoms thereof, a rivalry that has a life of its own and garners source coverage unto itself as a social phenomenon, not as promotional lingo used by coaches or athletic department administrators, not just passing use of "rivalry" as a word in routine game coverage, and not simply a game or game series name that happens to have "Rivalry" in it. This article sipmly has not been properly framed as an article on a series of games (which is what the subject is) instead of a sports rivalry (which it is not in any sense that is notable or what Wikipedia should care about).
The whole category structure relating to this stuff needs to be cleaned up so that exhibition games are classified as such and no longer classified as "rivalries". And lots of these articles need to be rewritten. E.g., to pick one at random, Beehive Bowl (which was quite properly moved away from Southern Utah–Weber State football rivalry in 2016, but was never rewritten) misleadingly opens with "The Southern Utah–Weber State football rivalry, known as the Beehive Bowl, is the annual football game between Southern Utah University and Weber State University"; clearly this is about an annual game series, not about a sports fan subculture of rivalry. The article has ridiculous WP:OR in it, like "In 2011, Southern Utah joined the Big Sky Conference, making it a yearly rivalry." Two teams coming into competition with each other by being in the same conference or other league system does not make them "rivals" (any more than any other two competitors in any sport are "rivals").
While AfD can make a few dents in the problem by picking off articles that claim to be about rivalries that don't have sufficient sourcing to exist as articles no matter how the content is reframed and renamed and recategorized, a more systematic approach is needed for dealing with the mess that has been created, because a lot of these articles on named series of games have been mis-written as rivaly articles, as if they are something like Liverpool F.C.–Manchester United F.C. rivalry, which they demonstrably are not. I'm not even sure where best to address this. The issue seems most common in American college football, but actually crosses sport and national lines. Maybe WT:SPORT is the place? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
College football rivalry games are not exhibition games. They are usually regular season games. On rare occasions, rivals may also play in post-season bowl or playoff games. Cbl62 (talk) 14:04, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: Even if one views the article as being about the trophy, I am not seeing SIGCOV about the tropy. Did you see sourcing that rises to the level of in-depth coverage about the trophy? Cbl62 (talk) 14:08, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, not about the trophy per se, but yes about the game series (which involves a trophy), which is why I didn't go with delete. I think the "nexus" of all of this, now that I've dug a little deeper, is List of NCAA college football rivalry games. There really does seem to be a term rivalry game but this is not the same thing as a rivalry in the sense WP means in its category system and as the term is used in more clearly written journalism than some of the sources at these articles. What's happened is that rivaly game sometimes get shortened in sports writing to rivalry (and in a few cases even in the name of such an event), but this is a different meaning, along the lines of 'organized series of periodic match-ups between a pair of teams in geographical proximity to each other'. It's an ambiguity we are not accounting for. We need to have a category on rivalry games (a series of such matches between two such nearby teams, often but not always with a trophy, and often but not always with a distinct name for the game series), and move the keepable articles to titles that make it clear they are about an event series not about an alleged rivalry in the other sense, of 'a subculture of sports-related antagonism between two teams' fandoms'. E.g. Central Michigan–Eastern Michigan football rivalry and pretty much every other article misnamed and miscategorized like it, are not about "rivalries" but about an organized series of "rivalry game" matches. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs) 17:09, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oxford Language (here) defines a "rivalry" as "competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field. 'there always has been intense rivalry between the clubs'" A series of rivalry games between two clubs seems to meet that definition to a T. I just don't see this particular "rivalry" having sufficient depth of coverge to pass GNG. Cbl62 (talk) 01:23, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 23:50, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 12:29, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Before heading to the reference section to confirm notability, I thought, "If I heard the phrase 'Grand Canyon Rivalry,' I would want to know what it meant, and this article addresses that neatly." I then went to the reference section and confirmed notability. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Darkfrog24: Did you find sources with WP:SIGCOV -- i.e., in depth coverage of this series as a rivalry? Cbl62 (talk) 03:01, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but call it Grand Canyon Trophy Game until secondary sources can confirm its indeed a rivalry at which point a re-name to Grand Canyon Rivalry would make sense. BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 00:55, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source	Independent?	Reliable?	Significant coverage?	Count source toward GNG?
Source assessment table: prepared by User:Left guide
https://www.thespectrum.com/story/sports/college/southern-utah/2015/11/18/suu-football-much-stake-years-grand-canyon-rivalry/75974816/		(presumably)	The title is misleading, as the first sentence makes a routine announcement of the upcoming game, and then diverts to discussing the Southern Utah coach and other aspects of the team's season the rest of the way. Not focused on the matchup/rivalry and says almost nothing meaningful about Northern Arizona aside from a single passing mention from the SUU coach: The guys have higher aspirations now. It’s about beating NAU and all that comes with it.	✘ No
https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/college/southern-utah/2015/11/19/suu-football-demario-warren-faces-former-teammate-grand-canyon-rivalry/76085934/		(presumably)	~ Doesn't really discuss the two involved teams as a matchup or rivalry, mostly about the two individual coaches from each team who happen to have a prior personal connection and their anecdotes about it. Not particularly focused on the matchup/rivalry but not entirely off-topic either.	~ Partial
https://bigskyconf.com/news/2015/11/14/FB_1114150039.aspx	It's the conference's website, so a primary source.		? Didn’t bother to read since it won't count for notability anyways.	✘ No
https://web.archive.org/web/20150907212820/http://www.nauathletics.com/sports/fball/2012-13/releases/20121106d133ob	It’s the website of one of the involved teams, so a primary source.		? Didn’t bother to read since it won’t count for notability anyways.	✘ No
https://suutbirds.com/news/2013/11/21/209319368.aspx	It’s the website of the other involved team, so a primary source.		? Didn’t bother to read since it won’t count for notability anyways.	✘ No
https://fbschedules.com/nau-southern-utah-schedule-12-game-football-series-2028-to-2039/		? The site says they’re a partner of USA Today, so I initially believed they’re reliable although another editor has expressed uncertainty about its reliability.	~ Most of this is WP:CRYSTAL but there are two paragraphs that offer overview-level encyclopedic coverage of the matchup as an established cohesive topic: Northern Arizona and Southern Utah, both current members of the Big Sky Conference, compete annually in a matchup dubbed the Grand Canyon Rivalry. However the Thunderbirds are leaving the Big Sky for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) beginning with the 2022 season. Northern Arizona and Southern Utah have played each other every season since 2008 and have met 25 times overall. The two schools played twice during the spring 2021 season, with the Lumberjacks coming out on top in both contests, 34-33 in Flagstaff and 28-20 in Cedar City. Northern Arizona currently leads the overall series 15-10.	? Unknown
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.

Comment: Attached above is my analysis of the sources in the article with regards to WP:GNG. Left guide (talk) 12:01, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.