The Impact of Fantasy Football on the NFL Fan: Exploring Differences between the Fantasy Football Participant and the Traditional Fan
Dr. Stefan Sleep is an assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Gwinnett College. He earned his doctorate in Marketing from the University of Georgia. His research focus is on intra-organizational relationships, sales, and big data. His research has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and the Journal of Service Research.
Dr. Stefan Sleep is an assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Gwinnett College. He earned his doctorate in Marketing from the University of Georgia. His research focus is on intra-organizational relationships, sales, and big data. His research has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and the Journal of Service Research.
Dr. Michael L. Thomas, is an associate professor and chair, Department of Marketing, at Georgia Southern University. He received his MBA and Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His research streams include marketing strategy, cause-related marketing and customer delight.
Abstract
Fans of the National Football League (NFL) often identify themselves not only with a specific team but also in terms of a broader social group, fantasy football participant. This research utilizes a social identity perspective and data collected from an online context to compare those fans with a team-specific identity to those who also actively participate in fantasy football. Our results show that fans often form a dual identity with the league and the team. This is an important consideration for managers, because while previous research shows that fantasy football participants may attend more games, social identity theory suggests that fan behavior may change. A dual identity can have a negative impact on local teams as fans may increasingly adopt the low cost superordinate identity, watching league games at home, versus the high cost subordinate identity, watching games in the stadium.
