Male Friendship, Basketball and “Bonds of Real Strength”

There will be wings. There will be beers. There will be lots of yelling when someone misses a crucial late-game free throw. Most all, when members from City Dads Group chapters all around the country get together tonight for NCAA men’s college basketball viewing parties, there will be many bonding moments. In other words, male friendship. Thanks, Dove Men+Care.

This is appropriate as the men’s grooming products company, our partner for a third straight year in hosting “March Madness” viewing parties for our more than 5,000 members, recently commissioned the “Bonds of Real Strength” Friendship Research project to explore the wonder that is male friendship.

Dove Men+Care, as part of parent company Unilever, worked with Edelman Intelligence and author Michael Kimmel, a sociologist specializing in gender studies and a longtime friend of City Dads Group, to survey a representative sample of 1,000 U.S. men, ages 25 to 54, about their friendships with other guys. The results of this “Bonds of Real Strength” project show:

Guys place a high value on male friendship

• 87 percent of men surveyed say male friendships are important in their lives.
• 94 percent said male friends have a positive impact on their life and overall well-being.

Male friendship — it’s more than just fun and games

• 91 percent of men agree a few meaningful friendships are preferred to having many acquaintances.
• 90 percent agree their friendships are built on trust, not having a good time.

Sports play an important role in strengthening male friendship

• Over two-thirds of men bond with friends over sports or fitness
• “March Madness” is third among the list of sporting events that bring friends together

Our friendships are different than what you see in the media

• 74 percent of men agree pop culture does not give enough credit to the support and care involved in men’s friendships
• 69 percent agree the importance friendships play in a man’s life and well-being are downplayed in pop culture
• 68 percent agree a stigma exists in pop culture that men are not good at forming meaningful friendships

These findings help propel Dove Men+Care’s new “Bonds of Real Strength” ad campaign featuring former University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun and his friend, former player, protegé and successor Kevin Ollie. If these don’t make you want to call a friend to join us at our “March Madness” viewing parties tonight to talk, share and connect, we don’t know what will.

Thanks again, as always, to Dove Men+Care for being a friend to City Dads Groups everywhere, and partnering with us for tonight’s events.