"Little Me" by Sofia Kalafatis

From Fanship to Identity: Decoding Female Sport Fans Through Social Psychology by Dr. Beth Dietz

When I began studying female sports fans 25 years ago, the field was largely uncharted territory. My 1999 study (Dietz-Uhler et al, 1999), examining sports fan behaviors among male and female college students, revealed early insights into how gender shapes sports fandom. More than twenty years later, I expanded on those findings (Dietz et al., 2021), applying social identity theory to explore these differences and their impact further. Now, reflecting on this journey, I see how far we've come—and how much remains to be explored. I will summarize both studies in this essay and explain where we go.

My foray into the study of sport fandom in general and female sport fans in particular is personal. I grew up in a family of die-hard sports and (fans of all Pittsburgh (my home town) teams in particular). My entire family worshipped sports and many dinner-table conversations were focused on sports. I was lucky to find a neighbor who lived next door and was as passionate about sports as I was. Lisa and I hosted our own “football analysis” show in my basement every week, where we spent time analyzing the previous Sunday's football games. Boy, I wish I still had those cassette tapes so I could hear what we had to say then! As this was in the 1970s, suffice it to say that we were one of the few girls who had such a strong interest in sports, let alone who could be conversant enough to host our football analysis show. Remember that in the 1970s, there were few opportunities for girls to even participate in sports.

Fast forward about 20 years – I am now in graduate school to obtain my PhD in social psychology, with an emphasis on social identity theory. Briefly, social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) posits that individuals derive a significant part of their self-concept from the social groups to which they belong, leading them to categorize themselves and others into in-groups and out-groups, which influences behavior, attitudes, and perceptions. I found myself in social situations with my soon-to-be husband where he (and not me) was approached to talk about the latest sports results. The problem is that he was not a sport fan and knew nothing about the latest scores or news. But I did, and I routinely rescued him from what was essentially a front to his masculinity. You see, sport was (and still arguably is) a predominantly male domain, where males are expected to know all things about sport. Yet here I was, a knowledgeable female, who knew a lot about sports and was not respected for what I knew. This began my research into female sports fans.

The first study of female sport fans that I conducted was in 1999 (Dietz-Uhler et al, 1999). It was at that time one of the first studies that examined female sports fans. The goal of the study was to look at differences and similarities in male and female sport fans (note that at

the time, gender was, in the social sciences, largely regarded as binary). The results proved to be interesting. Both males and females considered themselves to be sport fans (via a simple question asking if you consider yourself to be a fan), but males identified more strongly than females with being a sport fan (measured via a scale to assess the strength of their sport fan identity). This result comported well with my personal experience and observation; that being a sport fan is akin to being male. The results also showed that males engaged in more sport fan behavior (such as watching sports on TV, discussing sports, and seeking information about sports) than females. The one exception was that an equal number of males and females reported attending sporting events. Finally, in a qualitative analysis of the reasons for being a fan of sport, males tended to report more agentic reasons (to acquire information about sports), while females focused more on communal reasons, such as attending games with friends and family.

At the time, this study was largely the first of its kind in the sense that so few prior studies focused on female sport fans. Thankfully, since that time, there have been many more studies and investigations about female fans, which are reviewed in a paper I published in 2021 (Dietz, et al., 2021), so I will not review that here. Instead, I will describe the motivation for replicating and extending this study. In the 22 years since the publication of the “Sex Differences” study, participation alone in female sports expanded greatly. When I wrote the paper for the 1999 study, the WNBA was just beginning. By the time of data collection for the 2021 study (which was in 2020), the WNBA had come a long way but was still a far cry from what it had become in 2024. Still, I wanted to examine some of the similarities in sports fans for those who identified as male and those who identified as female.

Using most of the same measures, we found that those identifying as male were more likely (on a simple “are you a sports fan” measure) than those identifying as female to report being a sport fan. This result is quite a bit different than what we found, which was parity, 22 years prior. There were several other differences as well. Males were more likely than females to report thinking of themselves as authentic sport fans, possessing more sports knowledge than females, and engaging in more traditional sport-fan behavior than females. So in fact, the difference between males and females has gotten larger in 22 years, despite the rapid increase in sports participation for females and despite the growing popularity of women’s sports (eg., Olympics, Soccer, NCAA). Trying to dig into that a bit more, we examined two potential mediators of the relationship between gender and sports fan behaviors. One is a construct I mentioned earlier – social

identity, or in this case, the strength to which one identifies with being a sports fan. The other was social dominance orientation, which refers to one’s belief that status hierarchies are necessary and desirable (Pratto, et al, 1994). In a nutshell, we found that males are more likely than females to engage in traditional sport fan behaviors because they identify more strongly as sports fans. Social dominance orientation proved to be a less worthy mediator of the relationship between gender and sports fan behaviors, but did show partial mediation. In other words, believing that a status hierarchy should exist helps explain the gender differences in sports fan behavior.

As I reflect on these studies, the first conducted 25 years ago, the other just 3 years ago, I think about how far we have come in the study of female sport fans. We have a much larger literature to draw on, and many more theories and ideas to test. Yet, before 2024—when women’s sports surged to unprecedented levels of global attention—I felt a lingering disappointment. Research consistently showed that sports fandom was still perceived largely as a male domain, and female fans were often viewed as less legitimate or authentic (Dietz et al., 2021). But 2024 may well have changed everything. The attention to and celebration of women’s sports represent a cultural shift, which may bring female sports fandom to the forefront. This attention to female sports not only challenges stereotypes and consensual beliefs of sport fandom but also creates new opportunities to define what it means to be a sport fan. The attention to the WNBA and women’s NCAA basketball is inspiring a new generation of fans who see themselves reflected in the athletes they are cheering for. At the very least, this moment in time has the potential to foster a more inclusive and diverse fan base.

Dietz-Uhler, B., Harrick, E. A., End, C., & Jacquemotte, L. (2000). Sex differences in sport fan behavior and reasons for being a sport fan. Journal of Sport Behavior, 23(3), 219.

Dietz, B., Bean, J., & Omaits, M. (2021). Gender differences in sport fans: A Replication and extension. Journal of Sport Behavior, 44(2).

Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A

personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 741.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33-37). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

For more, read the first edition of the scoreboard here!