Social representations of digital merchandise in contemporary sports consumption

Purpose Digital merchandise has recently transformed the consumption of sports. Existing research has focused on individual adoption behaviors or broader cultural implications, overlooking how fans collectively construct meanings around these digital innovations. As authenticity and belonging are central to fan identity, however, examining how digital merchandise is socially represented offers deeper insights into its integration within fandom than individual adoption metrics alone. To address this gap, this research aims to examine how football fans collectively represent the meanings of fan tokens as a form of digital merchandise. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Social Representation Theory, this study involved 20 focus groups and 84 in-depth interviews with a total of 166 participants to investigate how digital merchandizing has transformed sports consumption and fan engagement. Findings The study reveals two hegemonic social representations of fan tokens: as fundraising instruments for clubs and as mechanisms for fan engagement and base expansion. Each hegemonic representation generates opposing polemical representations, with supporters framing fan tokens as investments in their passion and tools for expanding the fan base, while detractors perceive them as exploitative mechanisms that threaten authentic fandom values. Unlike traditional merchandise, digital merchandise disrupts established anchoring mechanisms and generates strong polarizing ideological divisions. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature on sport merchandizing by demonstrating that digital merchandise elicits more divisive social representations than traditional merchandise, which may further jeopardize fan community cohesion. The study offers deeper insights into digital merchandise integration within fandom by examining collective meaning construction rather than focusing solely on individual adoption metrics.