Sports Fans Research Articles

Dynamic expectations: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of sub-second updates in reward predictions

Expectations are often dynamic: sports fans know that expectations are rapidly updated as games unfold. Yet expectations have traditionally been studied as static. Here we present behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of sub-second changes in expectations using slot machines as a case study. In Study 1, we demonstrate that EEG signal before the slot machine stops varies based on proximity to winning. Study 2 introduces a behavioral paradigm to measure dynamic expectations via betting, and shows that expectation trajectories vary as a function of winning proximity. Notably, these expectation trajectories parallel Study 1’s EEG activity. Studies 3 (EEG) and 4 (behavioral) replicate these findings in the loss domain. These four studies provide compelling evidence that dynamic sub-second updates in expectations can be behaviorally and electrophysiologically measured. Our research opens promising avenues for understanding the dynamic nature of reward expectations and their impact on cognitive processes.

Digital social engagements and knowledge sharing among sports fans: Role of interaction, identification, and interface

This study adds to our understanding of the role that information and communication technologies play in facilitating social connections between sports fans and the organizations that cater to them. We examine the features that encourage frequent IT-mediated social interactions among fans, which in turn increases fan engagement. Participation at a high level is essential for effective knowledge dissemination through digital media and social networks. The current research uses UCINET 6 to analyse focus group network data. Nine specialists, including five marketing academics and four sports fans, were convened to explore the relationship between the influencing factors. On average, the panellists were 32 years old, and they had been avid sports viewers for at least seven years. Based on the findings, digital interventions are being implemented to improve some crucial characteristics that affect fan engagement in the sports business. Interaction, identification, and interface were found to be the most important elements to support effective digital social engagement and information sharing in the sports ecosystem. This study adds new insight to our understanding of the brand consumer-consumer-brand triad in an IT-mediated sports communication network.

Watching Women Watch Sports and (re)Claim Their Fandom in Popular Culture

This conceptual paper explores the gendered framing of women as sports fans in literature and pop culture and the surveillance of their fandom in the stands. By investigating what it feels like to be watched while watching, and the complex ways in which gendered practices complicate the position of women as spectators of sport, we can see how some women are actively challenging the stereotypes of sports fandom in popular culture. Through using the method of reflexive autoethnography, (see Delamont, 2009; Ellis et al., 2010 and Holman Jones, 2016) this paper will re/address how women are framed as fans in the sports fan space and the activism they demonstrate in these presentations that has gone unnoticed and under-researched in the sports fan space.Through autoethnography I intend to also add personal reflections to connect to, challenge and re-position some representations of women as sports fans through this framework in order to explore different ways of engaging with the existing research. This method builds on innovative approaches to exploring fandom through mixed method and ethnographical investigations that have been developed in studies by key researchers in the field such as Hoeber & Kerwin’s (2013), McParland (2012) and Richards (2015 &, 2018).Applying the lens of reflexive autoethnography as the primary methodology will further allow me, an engaged participant myself, to re-explore my previous experiences to give gendered perceptions of sports fandom further nuanced consideration. This approach aims to offer alternative ways to consider how women show activism in challenging their surveillance and presenting their multi-layered and complicated experiences of fandom by re-viewing how women as fans are represented in popular culture.This paper will move through an examination of the existing research on gender and sports fandom, and touch on concepts of surveillance and present examples of women as fans in several text that perform elements of activism to challenge the ‘female fan’ stereotype to connect key ideas to the reflective autoethnographical entries, bringing a different way to understand the gendered experience of being watched while watching sport in a stadium.

Impact Calculation of The Players Using the Cricket Commentary Corpus

This research paper focuses on the use of natural language processing techniques for extracting insights from cricket commentary. This study proposes a framework that considers the commentary text, evaluates each player’s performance, and gives valuebased scores to define their impacts. This research relies on sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and NER to analyze a large corpus of cricket commentary data and develop a model for calculating the impacts of the players. The findings of this study will be of great interest to sports analysts, coaches, players, and fans of the game. This research explores cricket analytics and performance evaluation evolution, utilizing advanced textual analysis on cricket commentary to uncover hidden dimensions of player performance. This study has the potential to revolutionize player performance evaluation in cricket by identifying ”hidden gems” that may have been overlooked based on conventional statistics alone.

World-class sporting events as arenas of emotional eruptions on social media

ABSTRACT Sporting events are arenas of emotional bursts, and social media is a place where such emotional irruptions of fans are encoded in their words and button clicks. This study investigates the use of Facebook reactions by sports fans during the most significant world-class sporting events in 2016: the UEFA Euro, the men’s football championship of Europe, and the Summer Olympics Games, a major international multi-sport event. Our research challenge is to find out how people react to sports content and underscore the importance of emotional processes in shaping collective outcomes. In the paper, we propose a model for measuring the intensity of emotional charge, in terms of Facebook reactions and virality, and the results show what Facebook users think and feel about both sports events. According to our findings, the Olympics are the sporting arena of “emotions of peace”, and the Euro is the sporting arena of “war of emotions”.

The Strategies Sport Fans Used to Cope with the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown of Sporting Events

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down occurred, virtually all sports leagues—from recreational sports to professional leagues—were paused or canceled. This left a gap for fans of those sports to fill. The purpose of the present research study was threefold: 1) to examine what strategies sport fans used to cope with the loss of the live sport viewership/spectatorship; 2) determine how effective fans believed those coping mechanisms to be; and 3) examine fans’ behavioral intentions once sports were allowed to resume. Participants were recruited via a snowball sample and the Amazon MTurk platform. A total of 384 sport fans responded to the survey. While not all participants responded to all items, 168 indicated coping mechanisms for dealing with not watching sports and 219 reported coping mechanisms for not attending sports. The most common coping mechanism was watching old sporting events on television or via the internet. These mechanisms were reported to be very effective in helping participants cope with the loss of sports (M = 5.76, SD = 1.68 on a 1 to 8 scale). These findings provide support for the Team Identification – Social Psychological Health Model and suggest areas for interventions for sport marketers who are looking to maintain fans’ loyalty during future shutdowns of sport seasons, or other instances of missed sporting events.

The influence of event-related factors on sport fans' purchase intention: a study of sponsored products during televised sporting events

PurposeIt is not possible for every fan of a sport to watch matches at stadiums because of the capacity and location constraints. Furthermore, although sport fans could not physically attend sporting events during the COVID-19 pandemic, corporations still showed interest in sponsoring such events. To better understand this phenomenon, this study examined the effects of fans' event involvement on event reputation, event commercialization, corporate brand credibility, corporate brand image and purchase intentions of the corporate sponsor brand.Design/methodology/approachA total of 646 responses were collected from fans of Indian Premier League teams. Confirmatory factor analysis and covariance-based structural equation modelling analyses were conducted on the collected data.FindingsResults showed that fans' involvement in televised sporting events had a positive influence on the events' reputation, which, in turn, had a significant impact on their corporate brand credibility and image. Furthermore, the corporate brand credibility and image had a positive impact on the fans' purchasing decisions.Originality/valueThis study provides valuable implications for marketing managers aiming to enhance their understanding of the impact of event sponsorship on corporate brands. In addition, the findings provide insight into how to support the development of effective sponsorship strategies in the future. The results suggest that sponsoring companies should consider maintaining the credibility and image of their brands to achieve the desired outcomes from sponsoring such sporting events.

Who doesn’t like sport? A taxonomy of non-fans

ABSTRACT The motives and behaviour of sports fans are heavily researched. Past work has distinguished “fans” and “supporters” on engagement with teams or athletes and identified “non-fans” who have little interest in sport; the latter are rarely investigated further. Sport’s ubiquity, both socially and in media, means that, unusually, disinterested people are often interacting with sport. A better understanding of non-fans could assist strategies to grow sports markets and encourage engagement. This paper describes a study, using both theory-driven and machine learning approaches, of types of self-identified non-fans of a professional sport. A nationally representative sample of 3,496 adults enabled investigation of non-fandom. Five segments of non-fans are identified, differing in terms of consumption of and passion for professional sport. There is a clear hierarchy of likelihood to consume, driven by social contacts, experiences and access to the product, and impeded by satisfying alternatives. To enable easier practical application of this work, a simplified (four question) segmentation process is also presented. This simplified process maintains a high degree of classification accuracy.

Halina Konopacka: Famous Polish Female Athlete and Woman of Arts (Sport, Literature, Painting)

Sports heroes have long been drawing the attention of scholars. Their achievements resonate widely, and their stories are engraved in the collective memory of fans. Halina Konopacka was one of the early pioneers of female sport. She was the first woman to win an Olympic gold in track and field (discus, 1928). She was also Poland’s first Olympic gold medal winner. She therefore became an embodiment of success in the newborn Polish state and the first interwar celebrity, confirmed by the social reception of her accomplishments. Konopacka had an all-round personality; apart from being an outstanding sportswoman, she was also a poet and painter. Thus, her legacy is rich and multifaceted, demonstrated by sports press reports, interviews and fans’ opinions, as well as Konopacka’s utterances and biographies of her.

How to Improve Sports Fans’ Attitudes Toward the Sponsor Through Brand Management? A PLS and QCA Approach

Abstract The aim of the article is to explain attitudes towards the sponsors of a sporting event from brand management, especially considering the perceptions of congruence with the sponsor, quality, value, and two less common variables of innovation and popularity. The analysis has been carried out using two methodological approaches: a Partial Least Squares (PLS) model and a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). PLS results indicate that congruence, innovation and popularity significantly predict attitudes towards the sponsor, explaining up to 61% of it. On the other hand, QCA analysis shows nine interactions capable of producing the expected result, where congruence, quality innovation and popularity have shown a relevant role. This study has implications at a theoretical and practical level, contributing to understanding consumer behaviour in the context of sporting events and providing marketing managers with valuable information to help improve the performance of their sponsorships.

Retracted: Machine Learning-Based Emotion Factor Analysis of Sport Fan Community

Retracted: Machine Learning-Based Emotion Factor Analysis of Sport Fan Community

Meters Wide: A Failed Mediatic Annexation of Sporting Heroes During Pandemic Times?

Abstract This sports media research uses a single case study approach to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mediatic consumption of sports heroes. The case of airing the “3mm” documentary film about WTA tennis player Simona Halep on Romanian television is being analyzed. The theoretical framework is set around the concept of parasocial interaction specific for the mediated relationships between sports fans and their favorite sports brands. The research question asks about the factors induced by the COVID-19 pandemic that might have influenced the rather low audiences of the broadcasted documentary. Results show that, indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic might have well had a considerable impact upon audience figures, mainly because, due to the pandemic situation, the patterns of parasocial interaction between sports fans and sports brands have been altered. The paper discusses the changes in parasocial interaction which occurred due to the pandemic.

Editorial introductions.

Editorial introductions.

Application and prospect of new media in sports news dissemination

In the process of the rapid development of Internet technology, new media has been maturing with the development of information technology, providing a new way for information dissemination. The media promotes sports and draws people's attention to them. In this research, the same topic was revealed with documentary data, the qualitative method was used to clarify the topic, and all the accurate information that was published in reliable books, scientific magazines, and internet sites was collected. The application of new media in the process of sports news dissemination requires research and analysis of the application and development of new media, which is conducive to mastering the application of new media in sports news, understanding the development trend of new media, and giving full play to sports news. spread effect. Research findings suggest that new media has revolutionized the way sports news is disseminated and consumed. With the rise of social media platforms, sports fans now have access to instant updates and analysis from a variety of sources, including traditional news outlets, blogs, and social media influencers. The application of new media in sports news dissemination has led to increased engagement between sports fans, athletes, teams, and media outlets. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook allow for real-time communication and interaction between these groups, creating a more immersive and interactive experience for fans.

The Attitude of Romanian Sports Fans towards Psychological Counseling

Understanding the attitudes of athletes towards sports psychology is crucially important because if psychologists understand the barriers and hesitations of athletes towards psychological counseling, they can intervene educationally to foster a mindset and belief. In the current study, we aim to examine the existing differences between high-performance sports and non-professional (junior) sports regarding psychological counseling. The SPAR (Sport Psychology Attitudes-Revised) questionnaire was applied to a set of 84 athletes, aged between 12 and 36 years old. In junior sports, the scores on the sub-scale of stigma tolerance are lower, and they are less concerned with the stigma issue, preferring to seek psychological counseling only when absolutely necessary.

Fan responses to ownership change in the English Premier League: Motivated ignorance, social creativity and social competition at Newcastle United F.C.

Over recent years there has been a significant increase in foreign ownership within the English Premier League, with ‘sportswashing’ being identified as a key motive for some new club owners. Whilst the effects of changes of ownership have received considerable focus, especially in terms of their impacts upon the club, less attention has been paid to the status of the owners themselves, how any perceived sportswashing strategy impacts upon fans, and how that impact is managed, especially in terms of the strategies that are used by fans to maintain a sense of identification. This paper focuses on the takeover of one Premier League football club, Newcastle United, and explores fan responses to its high-profile and controversial takeover by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF). The paper explores the identity-maintenance strategies used by fans to maintain a positive association with the club using existing frameworks related to social creativity and social competition, as well as through the application of a novel strategy that has yet to be explored within the sport fan literature, that of motivated ignorance. The results demonstrate that whilst social creativity and social competition strategies are evident, motivated ignorance also provides an additional mechanism through which social identities may be protected from identity threat.

Aggressive Motives and Fan Passion Across Different Types of Sports

Abstract: On-field aggression can attract and entertain sport consumers. However, the promotion of aggression in sport has been controversial, as societal shift s raise questions about how much aggression in sport is appropriate. Therefore, this study seeks to better understand the relationship between on-field aggression and fandom by examining how two motives (physical aggression and violence) predict sport fan passion for three categories of sports (limited-contact, full-contact, and combat). An online questionnaire was utilized to solicit responses from 540 adult sports fans. Overall, results of this study showed consumers’ physical aggression motive influenced sport fan passion for low-contact and full-contact sports except for ice-hockey. However, consumers’ violence motive influenced combat sport passion (i.e., boxing, MMA). Results inform marketers how aggression motivates consumers and how to market this type of content across different sports.

How long is life-long? Evaluating and measuring time through life-long/long-term fandom

When reflecting on the passage of time and how it intersects with our fan identity and perception of self, we often find individuals who identify as ‘life-long’ or ‘long-term’ fans. The intersection of time and fandom are often examined in fan studies, as is evident in the plethora of studies on long-term/life-long fans. Despite the prominent use of terms like ‘long-term’ or ‘life-long’, such concepts are rarely explained or critically examined in the literature. Therefore, the current study aims to unpack such terms and reflect on what makes one a life-long fan. Based on an open-ended online questionnaire completed by 94 self-identified life-long/long-term fans of movies, music, anime, sports and video games, this study delves into the subjective construction of time and temporality among fans. It explores the process of or the threshold to becoming a life-long/long-term fan, and the importance of the term to one’s identity and status in the community. By examining life-long/long-term fans, this article demonstrates how time can serve as cultural capital, play a significant role in the fan’s identity work and create a sense of belonging and certainty.

Fanatic or Ultras: Tribune Culture in Turkey

The fandom and the tribune both generate their own cultures. Fandom can be positioned in a variety of contexts while establishing this culture. In this sense, hooliganism, ultra-groups, and fandom all gain popularity. This study assessed tribune culture in Turkey. The study further performed ethnographic and netnographic observations in addition to the tribune culture and its facets. During the ethnographic observance phase September-December 2019 period, eight and two home and away matches were watched, respectively, with Bursaspor spectator groups, including Texas, Marathon, and Uni-crocodile (Ünitimsah). The notes conveyed here served as the basis for the first stage of the study. The second stage comprised the netnographic method to review the official Twitter accounts of the fan groups between September and December 2019. During this period, @teksasorg, @maratonplatform, and @unitimsah accounts shared 146, 30, and 230 tweets, respectively. These profiles appeared to create a fan culture that was similar both in real life and the digital environment. As a result, the study concluded that the structure of the sports fan organizations in Turkey is ultra-featured.

Coping with losses: Need unfulfillment, coping strategies and temporal well-being of sport fans

ABSTRACT This study investigates how sport fans psychologically process and cope with the loss of one’s team and how the process is linked to temporal well-being. Grounded on need theory and Lazarus’ model of stress, need unfulfillment is introduced as a psychological threat derived from a loss, which triggers coping strategies to deal with the negative well-being effects associated with the loss. With a two-wave survey-based natural field study conducted with identified NFL team fans, the relations among need unfulfillment (of arousal, achievement and social needs), coping strategies (i.e., seeking social support, positive reinterpretation/growth, venting, denial and CORFing) and temporal well-being (i.e., self-worth and negative affect) are examined with structural equation modeling. Need unfulfillment after a loss, particularly achievement unfulfillment, was found as a meaningful antecedent of coping behavior. The five coping strategies had distinctive effects on self-worth and negative affect. Strategies to help fans effectively cope with losses are discussed.