Sports Fandom and Commercialization
April 13th, 2008 by abreche1I was thinking about the ways in which our conversations about media fandom based around television or film have focused on the commercialization of of fan texts as a corporate strategy. Clearly, certain fan texts (Star Wars leaps to mind) have a massive corporately-owned commodity culture associated with them. Others may be equal in terms of the collection of items such as unofficial costumes and fanfic, but some of this fan activity has been connected with the idea of the gift economy.
Sports franchises also sell costumes in the form of jerseys, and officially licensed trading cards and baseballs and footballs and the like. I was wondering whether or not the class considered sports fandom more commercialized than other fandoms we have examined, as well as to what extent the fans who buy the items associated with their team are participants in the corporate structure of the leagues vs. in the ideas of avatar and identification we have discussed in earlier weeks i.e. the wearing of a favorite stars jersey while playing in order to play out a fantasy.
Posted in Fandom, Industry, Sports Fandom | 6 Comments »
Not to diminish the successes of particular media franchises, but I believe that the commodification of sports fandoms is much more ubiquitous. Like Alex said in class, the ideals that are inherent in the infrastructure of various sports fandoms and the psychology behind them oftentimes incorporate and promote more mainstream ideals, such as regionalism/nationalism and capitalism. So whether it be the producer or the consumer, there is far less flack from either end of the exchange to sell or buy these goods. With less to impede the system, it thrives (as we see today).
Since we didn’t talk much about sports merchandise, I’ll just throw in: There seems to be a lot of emphasis on authenticity in sports merchandise. People WANT the licensed products. Surely this is true to some extent in most commercialized fandoms, but many fandoms have more of a focus on creativity. For example, it’s GREAT if someone creates their own Jedi outfit. It should look “authentic”, but it’s not nearly as cool if someone buys the official Lucas-licensed Jedi outfit. Whereas in sports fandom (I’m an outsider, so please correct me if I’m wrong) it’s frowned upon to wear knock-off jerseys or shoes.
I wonder if this idea of sports fans being concerned over authenticity of merchandising is pertinent throughout the greater world of fandom and not just in sports fan communities.
This concept reminds me of something I have noticed about the music industry. Look at artists like The Game, 50 Cent, etc who have recorded dozens of tracks with independent producers and labels prior to mainstream recognition. These tracks tend to find releases through labels like Koch Records, Get Low Records, etc and are typically of low quality and little, if any, of the revenues are paid to the artists due to outdated contracts signed prior to their mainstream success.
Fans often refuse to purchase these albums legally, if at all, as residuals are not being paid to the respective artist. With sports merchandising people seem greatly concerned over the concept of getting authentic merchandise and I’m wondering if its for a lot of the same reasons. If you don’t wear an official Johnny Damon jersey, you aren’t really a true Johnny Damon fan. The sales of knock off jerseys certainly aren’t supporting the respective player/team and therefore wearing an inauthentic piece of merchandise can be perceived as revealing regarding your fan identity. This sort of loyalty is experienced throughout fandoms as their is always an emphasis on supporting a given text to allow it the commercial viability to continue to prosper.
The extent of commercialization inherent in sports is accepted, it seems to me, because everyone is aware of how costly an operation a sports team is (ad infinitum discussion of player salaries helps). Given, a TV show or a movie can be very expensive to make, but people can still be fans of it many years later, once it no longer is costing anyone anything. Think about My So-Called Life or Arrested Development or Firefly: these are all canceled TV shows, with no more production costs, that have fan followings despite the lack of new material. But if there were no more NBA games, I bet people wouldn’t keep re-watching the old ones to nearly the same extent. Fans know this, and so commercialization, as a means of supporting the very existence of the text, is acceptable. I think this is a decent example of the nature of the text affecting fan behavior and ethos — it would be a mistake, as we’ve seen, to say that there’s one mode of fan behavior across all texts, and this is one of the reasons why.
Hmm… Ariel, that’s an interesting theory.
In purchasing Eagles merchandise, I never once thought about how I was financially supporting my team. On the contrary, I’d rather not give the corporation money since – on a very superficial level – it disgusts me how much sports’ merchandise costs. On the other hand, I bought my high school football team’s gear because I had school pride and saw how my financial contribution directly benefited the team.
This is a bit different in music though as Noah mentioned. I’m much more sensitive to supporting my favorite artists through concerts and merchandise.
But I wonder if I’m the only sports fan who doesn’t think of my team’s financial longevity. If anything, I see purchasing fan gear as being able to visibly associate yourself with a community. I view a fan’s financial commitment through purchasing merchandise as another layer of proving one’s status as a “true fan.”
A while ago, I stumbled across a new clothing brand targeted specifically towards female sports fans called Phoxy.
I know very little about this brand except for what they clearly present on their website. I find Phoxy very interesting for numerous reasons because: 1) it’s an example of fans attempting to profit from their fandom; 2) it creates an accepting space/community for female sports fans; 3) it further blurs the line between fan and producer… where the fans are the producers; and 4) it highlights yet another layer of the commodification of fan texts.
I don’t know how popular and successful this brand is, but it is overwhelmingly ingenious. I also see this as another example of how the commodification of sports is more widely acceptable. I have yet to see a brand of clothing that is all about incorporating sci-fi into your daily wardrobe, but is that even possible or acceptable?
It seems to me (as an outsider and what I gathered from Ben’s post) that half of the fun of costumes for other fandoms, is the creative process and originality.
As this seems like a new company- what about their fan-base will either make this company excel or crash? (i.e. if it’s true that sports fans are more concerned with authenticity, will this line of clothing not work?)
also- would this model of fan produced objects do well in other types of fandom?
finally- are there any other examples of profitable fan-produced objects?