# What country invented "The Wave"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-country-invented-the-wave/128620>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 16, 2002, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-country-invented-the-wave/128620 "2002-09-16T00:36:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tvz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@tvz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tvz)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2002, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-country-invented-the-wave/128620/1 "2002-09-16T00:36:15Z")

</div>

Does anyone know where “the Wave” (you know the cheering thing fans go during sporting events) originated - in stadiums in the USA or Mexico?? I could’ve sworn it was the US. A number of European friends insist the Mexicans invented it & European soccer commentators apparently refer to the wave as “the Mexican wave”.

The Wave entered Europe’s conciousness during the '86 World Cup in Mexico. I just did a preliminary google search & I found a website that claimed that it was invented by a University of Washington cheerleader in 1981.

Can anybody give me the definitive answer???

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2002, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-country-invented-the-wave/128620/2 "2002-09-16T01:30:04Z")

</div>

Welcome to the Boards.

This question was answered here within the last month or so. Please use the Search function at the top right of the page and you should find it pretty easily