Some thoughts about the Sports Fan
February 24th, 2008 by rturner1The sports fan seems to be relatively overlooked in most of the literature we have read for the class due to the “mainstream-ness” of it… I, however, feel that this is not the case. Yes, there are some inactive fans that get season tickets or go to championship games; however, is this so different from average consumers who watch episodes of shows without any real connection to the fandom? There are a variety of subcultures surrounding sports; take fantasy sports like football and baseball. Fantasy sports allow for mock drafts, player rankings, and fantasy games that seem quite similiar to fan fiction (in that the fans are taking the characters and putting them on different teams and created situations to see how they will fare.) It also seemed to fit into several of the “Ten ways to rewrite a television show” that Jenkins discusses on pg. 163. There can be a refocalization on players that a fan might feel has been overlooked by the media, as well as cross overs and dislocation in the form of different team members playing together.
Fan artifacts such as jerseys, signed baseballs…etc often illict as much money (if not more) than some of the klingon forehead pieces that we saw on the Trekkies documentary. The culture of the fans creates the worth of the artifact. Even though some athletes are more widely recognized, the true fans are a distinct group. Just as Harry Potter is incredibly mainstream– the fandoms, fan fic, slash and conventions are set apart from the average reader. I feel that sports fandom is quite similar and worth investigation.
Posted in Fan representation, Sports Fandom | 9 Comments »
I agree completely.
Sports fandom seems to manifest itself in remarkably similar ways as those we have discussed. So a Star Wars fan plays all of the board games associated with the movies? The football fan plays the NFL version of monopoly. A Harry Potter fan buys a PC version of the Prisoner of Azkaban? A boxing fan buys the latest Fight Night.
All of these fantasy leagues and betting sites are just made and marketed to appear more masculine as they are not associated with a fantasy element but with a reality element (I.E.-Athletic skill). Regardless of how they are marketed, it seems difficult to deny the degree of to which these two are similar. One could say they are just both experts in their respective fields.
+1. I think that, like wine or anything else, Sports are clearly areas in which fandom can be explored. Jenkins is quick to dismiss sports fans in the first chapter as being very mainstream, but I think that sports fans do just as much poaching as any other fandom (in terms of commentary, discussion forums, fan vids, etc.).
Also, I think that looking at sports fandoms is a good way to evaluate how fandoms form hierarchically. Certain sports fandoms are seen as less than other fans ( For Ex: Figure Skating as opposed to Hockey). Moreover, gendered approaches to fandom could also be mapped in terms of cultural power in sports as well.
In addition to the gendered components, this is one of the places where class becomes an issue. It doensn’t come up often in Jenkins, because the fans he describes tend to be upper-middle class, but we could look at popular stereotypes regarding NASCAR fans and the limited cultural capital they are seen as wielding despite racing being one of the most popular spectator sports in the country. I also think the massive collections of NASCAR models that some people own nicely parallels owning the full line of TIE fighters.
There seems to be a double standard in fandom when it comes to sports. On one hand, fans complain (and rightly so) that because sports are so mainstream, sports fans are not subjected to the same stereotypes as other types of fans. They sometimes express bitterness over the fact that society considers sports to be an acceptable object of fandom, but not Star Trek. On the other hand, Fan Studies overlooks sports for the very same reason. Because this type of fandom is so widely shared and accepted, many scholars feel that it’s not worth exploring. However, I feel that the very fact that it’s unlike any fandom that we’ve looked at gives it tremendous potential as an area of study.
I actually think that what Ari described is the stereotype that frustrates sports fans– they are all grouped together as one big “jock.” Intricacies of the fandom—the subcultures that spring up around different sports, different levels of play (pro, college, high school), different teams and different players are not considered for study. We may find more similarities than are expected…
I definitely agree that sports fandom is worth studying. However, I don’t think it can be grouped with other fandoms. It is too easy to be a fan of sports. Sports are incredibly mainstream. Every daily paper has the box scores of professional, college, and often times high school sports contests. You can follow a sports team without ever having to watch the team play. I don’t think that is true about Star Wars. Can you really be a fan of Star Wars without ever watching any of the movies?
Also, while fantasy sports is definitely a form of poaching, I have trouble accepting it as a type of fan fiction. To the best of my knowledge, fan fiction is often times done for only the enjoyment of the fans. Fantasy sports has a different incentive. If you were to eliminate the gambling aspect of fantasy sports, their popularity would diminish. Despite some of the very insightful similarities brought up by Noah and Rachel, I personally think sports fandom is too different from media fandom because of how widespread sports are. Nearly a third of the United States watched the entire Super Bowl, about 97.5 million viewers. I guess I’m just not comfortable comparing something that at least intrigued that many people to fandoms that people are often ridiculed for liking.
While I don’t know of anyone who’s a Star Wars fan without having seen the movies, fandoms do exist where most fans haven’t seen the original text (the most notable that I’ve heard of being The Sentinel, where people write fic based entirely on canon they’ve gleaned from other fic). So, yes, it’s definitely possible. I imagine that most people who are fans of sports teams would watch most games if they had the time and the games were available to them, just as most media fans would watch/read the text in question if they could. The difference here is that it’s not always possible to watch games, especially if you don’t live near your favorite team. TV shows and books are far more readily available and, typically, less time-consuming.
I agree with most of what has been said above. I think in general a sports fandom is so mainstream and acceptable that sports fans are usually not considered outside of the norm. However, I think perhaps one of the biggest differences comes in the level of fandoms at sports. Like in Star Trek where there is a contrast between fans who just watch the show and those that go to conventions etc, there are differences within sport fandoms. But I think the biggest differences that occur in “judging” fans of sports come in what sport they watch, rather than the level of participation.
For example, a person that dresses up in face paint and a jersey to all of his NFL team’s games and who knows all of the facts about his team, is not considered unusual or out of the norm. On the other hand, fans of the NHL and NASCAR often carry strong stereoptypes with them, even though the popularity of both is still strong.
Many of the the stereotypes these two sports carry with them can be compared to the “Trekkies” stereoptypes listed in Jenkins on page 10. I think a, b, c, d, f, and g all apply to the stereotypes of these fans. How often are these obsessed fans protrayed with people saying, “It’s just a game!” Fairly often, if I’m not mistaken.
Anyway, I agree that sports fandoms are different because of the mainstream-ness of the fandom, but I also think that perhaps we have to look at each sport as a separate fandom, and then analyze it.
Well I think it is sort of problematic to say that someone adhering to or being a fan of something mainstream or something “within the norm” is outside of the fan cultures we acknowledge.
For instance, I am a huge UFC fan and as much as that appears to be the sort of antithesis of the sort of fandoms we are currently critically looking at, no one can convince me that MMA isn’t as much a fandom as any other example we have been considering.
We use terms that outsiders typically don’t understand such as “can”, “TD defense”, “BJJ” or “suspect chin”. There are animated videos of fights we wish to see on youtube, long drawn out messageboard debates over who has better submission defense, and there are dozens of MMA related conventions and seminars. All of these seem pretty in keeping with the types of communities we have been looking at.
This example is not perfect given the fact that MMA is far from being the established pastimes that football and baseball are but nonetheless, fans adhere to standards of both traditional sports fans and those of much more niche oriented communities.