Friends or Foes: Predicting Chinese Basketball Viewers’ Attitudes Toward Naturalized Athletes

Nationality swapping in sports has surged in the age of globalization but stirred controversy in the Chinese context. Drawing from social identity theory and the disposition theory of sports spectatorship, the current study utilized a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment to examine how national team identity and two types of nationalism predicted Chinese basketball viewers’ mixed attitudes toward nonethnic naturalized athletes. Results demonstrate that Chinese women’s national basketball team identity, civic nationalism, and Russia as the country of origin increase sports-related national pride, whereas ethnic nationalism and naturalization costs decrease sports-related national pride. National team identity also boosts media enjoyment, although naturalization costs reduce such enjoyment. Media enjoyment, lower ethnic nationalism, and sports-related national pride boost acceptance of naturalized athletes. Moreover, naturalization costs strengthen the positive relationship between national team identity and media enjoyment, alongside the positive relationship between national team identity and sports-related national pride.