Sports fandom has changed a lot. It has changed so much that it is not like we always knew fans to be. In fact, it’s nothing like it was before.
Fans are no longer mere followers of their favorite sport nor are they the devoted, committed and fully-immersed-with-their-loved-game people that you would always meet at a stadium or at some pub watching a live sporting event.
They are not the usually stubborn supporters of teams or athletes – especially in highly competitive sports – who would get to fight with friends or relatives over who beats whom or who is better than the other.
They are not the casual sports bettors who would place their wagers on bookmakers in Australia based on their intuition and emotions toward a game, instead of calculative and systematic analysis. They are not even the fans that stick to a sport that they really love and focus every bit of betting skill they have on that sport.
Fans today are different. They are transforming into the sports viewers of tomorrow, who are far from the known territories. The internet, the social media and of course the generation of fans itself have all been very critical in the new sports fandom.
The internet has changed everything we know about sports viewership and attendance. Fans no longer need to physically attend a game in order to get a rich experience of the event.
The Internet
Of course being able to watch live a sport is notably different from watching it streamed, but with the ease and convenience of the web, we have two things that are different now: first, sports get to reach more target audiences and so the number of sports fans grows and second, fans can receive the pleasure of watching a game live as it unfolds from literally anywhere.
But the role of the internet does not stop there. Fans are getting more involved in everything concerning their favorite sport. They are actively acquiring more knowledge, they are more easily engaging with a sporting event through betting on Australian bookmakers’ websites or even in online casinos in Slovakia, such as those at stavkovekancelarie.tv, and they are closely following the lives and everyday routines of teams or athletes of the sport they love. Eventually, fans are getting more of an insider’s perspective instead of the pure spectators that they once were.
The Social Media
We don’t exaggerate when we say that social media has changed everything in our lives and this happens also in the case of sports. Fans are no longer the same because of and through social media. There are online communities and social network groups completely devoted to fandom and this means that sports fans don’t need to wait until physically interacting with others to talk about sports. They can do it 24/7 and within the ‘boundaries’ of the communities.
Plus, they are no longer mere spectators. They get to have a say and they express – often all too vividly – their own opinions on games, teams or players. And in doing so they may also influence the dynamics of games or whatsoever.
Social media has done another thing as well for the birth of the ‘new’ fans. People get to have a direct conversation with the sports organization, the agents, the athletes, the officials, the managers, the coaches and every single agent or constituency of the sport that they support. Nowhere in the past was this possible and the privilege of communicating and interacting directly with any of all these was the privilege of few.
The Generation
Generation Z is a different generation on its own in all the ways that have a role to play in the kind of fans people are. Gen Z fans are more active, they don’t simply follow a sport but they want to feel connected and engaged. For example, they like to demonstrate their love for a team by purchasing merchandise, following the players on social media, and adopting behaviors and styles of the people they admire.
It is a brand new generation giving birth to a brand new type of fans. Fans that don’t always love the best player, but the one who can get more to their hearts or minds. Fans that don’t like the static nature of sports viewership or attendance, but want more action whether this can be achieved online or offline. Fans that certainly want more engaged sports people as well – people who are not only athletes but social actors.
