Routledge Handbook of Sport Fans and Fandom

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.

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.

1. Editors' Introduction, 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, 3. Using Sport Fandom to Fulfill Personal and Societal Needs, 4. Experiences of Female Fans in a Female-Defined Sport: Central, Valued and Visible, 5. Understanding Demand for Women's Sports Begins with Understanding Men's Sports History, 6. Comparing the Cost of Fandom in European Football, 7. Building Civic Identity Around a Suburban Ballpark District, 8. Studying Sports Fans Through Ethnographic Method: Walk a Mile in Their Shoes, 9. Media Coverage of Sports Fans: A Framing Analysis, 10. Rebounding as Praxis: Interrogating Positionality and Proximity in Sporting Fieldwork, 11. Should We Admire Athletes?, 12. Centering Race in Sport Fan Research: A Call to Action, Part II: Who Fans Are, 13. Sport Fandom: The Complexity of Performative Role Identities, 14. Women Sports Fans, 15. The Sports Fanship Lifecycle, 16. The Olympics Sports Fan: A Distinctive Demographic, 17. Para Sport Fandom: Fans and Followers of Paralympians, 18. English Football, Sexuality, and Homophobia: Gay Fans' Perspectives on Governance and Visibility, 19. Photography, Autoethnography and Mapping Sporting Transformations: A Discussion of Stuart Roy Clarke's Work on British Football, 20. The Ecosystem of Football Supporter Groups in Brazil: Traditions, Innovation and Hybridity, 21. Athletes with Disabilities and their Use of Social Media to Cultivate Fandom, 22. Engaging the Non-Local Sport Fan, Part III: What Fans Do, 23. Digital Sport Fandom, 24. Online Performances of Fandom: Selective Self-Presentation, Perceived Affordances, and Parasocial Interactions on Social Media, 25. The Construction of Sports Fandom by Sports Betting Companies, 26. Fandom in the Realm of Fantasy Sport, 27. Understanding Sport Videogames: The Extensions of Fan, 28. Sports Fans Hunt for Women's Games: Beyond News Media Coverage, 29. Twitter Discourse in the Southeastern Conference: The Nick Saban Effect, 30. Football Fan Reactions to Video Assistant Referee: No More Hand of God, 31. Reconfiguring Transnational Fan Experience Through Digital Media: European Football in China, 32. The Commodification and Mediatization of Fandom: Creating Executive Fandom, 33. Football Fans and Food: Feeding the Desire, 34. Fan Reactions to Athlete Activism: "Stick to Sports"