‘Like pulling down Durham Cathedral and building a brothel’: Women as ‘new consumer’ fans?

Abstract

The experiences of female sports fans have been largely marginalized in academic research. This article aims to bring women’s experiences as sports fans to the fore. It also explores assumptions of homogeneity which seem to underlie much research on male and female fans. This has perhaps led to a gendered binary whereby female sports fans are often depicted as ‘new consumer’ fans and are perceived as ‘inauthentic’ in their support. Drawing on Glaser and Strauss’s (2008) ‘grounded theory’ approach, 51 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female football fans in the East Midlands city of Leicester in England. This article focuses on two themes which emerged from this research: women, football and a sense of place; and women and stadium modernization. These findings begin to explore some of the complexities of female fan attachment and emphasize the need to examine the diversity of women’s experiences as sports fans. I propose that future research on sports fandom would benefit from a greater sensitivity to heterogeneity in both men’s and women’s experiences.