The Football Pilgrimage Ritual of the Village Super League

This study links the theories of Interaction Ritual Chain and liminoidity to memorable experiences in village sports tourism. We integrated Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling with qualitative content analysis to deconstruct 33,813 reviews published by participants of the Village Super League. By dividing intersubjective interactions into three layers (ritual stimulus and pre-liminoid phase; ritual progression and liminoid phase; ritual consequences and post-liminoid phase), the study delves deeply into the ritual process, emotional output, and transformation of participants’ self-identity. Our analysis emphasizes the regional distinctiveness of sports events and their sociocultural catalysts, while advancing interaction ritual theory to demonstrate how noncommercial sporting rituals cultivate place identity. The resulting framework equips destination managers with strategies for culturally-grounded event design and prioritizing resident-visitor bonds over commercialization.