1st Edition

Routledge Handbook of Sport Fans and Fandom

Edited By Danielle Sarver Coombs, Anne C. Osborne Copyright 2022
    426 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This is the first book to explore the full significance of sport fans and fandom from an international and interdisciplinary perspective, across different sports, communities and levels of engagement. It gives a comprehensive overview of the undeniable economic and cultural influence of sport industries for which fans are the driving force.  

    The book examines different theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of fans, including typologies of fandom, and presents cutting-edge discussion across broad thematic areas such as performance and identity, the business of fandom, and fandom and media. It considers the experiences of diverse and marginalized fan groups, with an emphasis on intersectional analysis, and shines new light on key contemporary themes such as fan activism, violence and deviance, mobility and migration, and the transformative effects of digital and social media. This volume includes chapters by many of the leading scholars responsible for having laid the foundation for sport fan research as well as early-career scholars who examine the newest developments in media technologies, legalized betting, gaming, and fantasy sports. 

    Including perspectives from disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, management, economics, and media studies, this book is essential reading for anybody interested in the study of sport and wider society or fans and subcultures more broadly.

    1. Editors’ Introduction

    Danielle Sarver Coombs and Anne C. Osborne 

    Part I: What Is a Fan and How Do We Know? 

    2. Imagining the Citizen-Fan: Sport Metaphor in American Politics and Implications for Democratic Culture

    Michael Butterworth 

    3. Using Sport Fandom to Fulfill Personal and Societal Needs

    Daniel L. Wann 

    4. Experiences of Female Fans in a Female-Defined Sport: Central, Valued and Visible       

    Toni Bruce and Margaret Henley

    5. Understanding Demand for Women’s Sports Begins with Understanding Men’s Sports History

    David Berri 

    6. Comparing the Cost of Fandom in European Football

    Selçuk Özaydın and Cem Tinaz 

    7. Building Civic Identity around a Suburban Ballpark District

    Tim Kellison and Beth A. Cianfrone 

    8. Studying Sports Fans through Ethnographic Method: Walk a Mile in their Shoes  

    Jessica Richards, Keith Parry and Daniela Spanjaard 

    9. Media Coverage of Sports Fans: A Framing Analysis

    Mark Turner

    10. Rebounding as Praxis: Interrogating Positionality and Proximity in Sporting Fieldwork

    Courtney M. Cox 

    11. Should We Admire Athletes?

    Ben Bradley 

    12. Centering Race in Sport Fan Research: A Call to Action

    Anne C. Osborne and Danielle Sarver Coombs 

    Part II: Who Fans Are 

    13. Sport Fandom: The Complexity of Performative Role Identities

    Shannon Kerwin and Larena Hoeber 

    14. Women Sports Fans

    Katharine Jones, Stacey Pope and Kim Toffoletti 

    15. The Sports Fanship Lifecycle

    Irene I. van Driel, Walter Gantz and Lawrence A. Wenner 

    16. The Olympics Sports Fan: A Distinctive Demographic

    Andrew C. Billings, Samuel Hakim and Qingru Xu 

    17. Para Sport Fandom: Fans and Followers of Paralympians

    Linda K. Fuller 

    18. English Football, Sexuality, and Homophobia: Gay Fans’ Perspectives on Governance and Visibility        

    David Letts and Rory Magrath 

    19. Photography, Autoethnography & Mapping Sporting Transformations: A Discussion of Stuart Roy Clarke’s Work on British Football

    John Williams 

    20. The Ecosystem of Football Supporter Groups in Brazil: Traditions, Innovation, and Hybridity

    Ana Carolina Vimieiro 

    21. Athletes with Disabilities and their Use of Social Media to Cultivate Fandom

    Joshua R. Pate and Robin Hardin 

    22. Engaging the Non-Local Sport Fan

    Dorothy Collins 

    Part III: What Fans Do 

    23. Digital Sport Fandom

    Heather Kennedy, Josh Gonzales and Ann Pegoraro 

    24. Online Performances of Fandom: Selective Self-Presentation, Perceived Affordances, and Parasocial Interactions on Social Media

    Kathryn Coduto 

    25. The Construction of Sports Fandom by Sports Betting Companies

    Jason Kido Lopez 

    26. Fandom in the Realm of Fantasy Sport

    Brody J. Ruihley and Robin Hardin

    27. Understanding Sport Videogames: The Extensions of Fan

    Steven Conway 

    28. Sports Fans Hunt for Women’s Games: Beyond News Media Coverage

    Anji L. Phillips and Dunja Antunovic 

    29. Twitter Discourse in the Southeastern Conference: The Nick Saban Effect

    Vincent L. Benigni and Lance V. Porter 

    30. Football Fan Reactions to Video Assistant Referee: No More Hand of God

    Yuya Kiuchi 

    31. Reconfiguring Transnational Fan Experience through Digital Media: European Football in China

    Yuan Gong 

    32. The Commodification and Mediatization of Fandom: Creating Executive Fandom            

    Brett Hutchins, David Rowe and Andy Ruddock 

    33. Football Fans and Food: Feeding the Desire

    Keith D. Parry and Jessica Richards 

    34. Fan Reactions to Athlete Activism: “Stick to Sports”

    Stephen Warren

    Biography

    Danielle Sarver Coombs is Professor in the School of Media and Journalism at Kent State University, USA. She has published extensively around politics, sports, and the politics of sport. 

    Anne C. Osborne is Professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, USA. Her research and teaching focus on gender, media, and sport.