Sports and nationalism: When imagined communities become national

Abstract Can expressing nationalism be conditional? Literature on sports and nationalism suggests that people experience nationhood when they involve themselves as spectators during international sporting events. Therefore, expressing a nationalistic feeling under such circumstances appears logical. However, the question of what kind of nationhood is experienced and how it can be facilitated or impeded by social media affordances needs to be explored. This study attempts to answer these questions by analysing the tweets made during India's matches during the International Cricket Cup 2019. It locates the study of nationalism at the core of where it operates today: in popular social media‐based discourse. This discursive approach towards nationalism (see Fox and Miller‐Idriss (2008)) of imagined sporting communities suggests that mere international competitiveness is insufficient grounds for nationalistic expression to emerge as a dominant discursive theme. Instead, nationalistic expressions are activated when two competing nations share an existing rivalry and it forms part of its popular culture. Nationalism during sports, therefore, is proposed as a conditional phenomenon. Moreover, the idea of the expressed nation and who comes to belong to it remains malleable and fluid to elevate the embodied gaming experience.