Social Identity Can be a Team Game: Social Identity and Other Factors that Widen and Bridge Partisan Gaps in Political Perceptions of Sports Media Topics

Sport and politics are often intertwined, as political and social issues “play out” during a game. Not all sports media consumers may read the same news topics as political, however. By analyzing data from three years of cross-sectional surveys of sports fans in the United States, we generate inferences about how political perceptions of sports media topics may vary by political party and other key variables. Guided by social identity theory, results support the idea that social identification with a person’s political group may be associated with seeing some sports media topics as more political and may increase partisan differences in political perceptions. By contrast, social identification with being a sports fan may have the opposite relationship for some sports media topics. Political efficacy may also decrease partisan differences for some sports media topics. These results are discussed in the context of contemporary political debate around sports issues.