From team attachment to sport appreciation: A concentric spheres model of contemporary sports fandom

This study investigates the evolving landscape of sports fandom by examining how digital-era engagement practices intersect with traditional fan identities. Through semi-structured interviews with 30 Israeli sports fans, stratified into three distinct participant groups based on their engagement with traditional team support and fantasy sports participation, the research explores the multidimensional nature of contemporary fan identity construction. Findings reveal three theoretically significant themes: (1) the dialectical tension between emotional team attachment and analytical sports appreciation; (2) the contrasting community formation patterns across different fan types, from collective identity-based traditional communities to knowledge-exchange networks in fantasy sports; and (3) the spectrum between partisan emotional investment and detached analytical neutrality in sports engagement. The study's theoretical contribution lies in its development of a concentric spheres model conceptualizing sports fandom as operating across three distinct yet interconnected planes of engagement: traditional team-centric fandom characterized by emotional proximity and local identification; globalized mediated fandom marked by transnational team affiliations and digital community participation; and analytical sports appreciation centered on athletic aesthetics, entertainment value, and competitive participation. This framework advances sport sociology by reconceptualizing fandom as a dynamic continuum rather than a set of discrete categories, demonstrating how contemporary fans navigate between different engagement spheres while retaining knowledge legitimacy as a transcendent element across all fandom forms.