A Brief Look at the Evolution of Sports Fan Engagement

From the grandstands to the sports journalism degree student, all walks of life can be found in the realm of spectator sports. It can be great fun to watch the game with family and friends, and indeed some households make it a tradition of theirs to watch their sport of choice, engage in content and news around it, hold their own games, or even use statistics and logic to create their dream team.

But where does this behavior come from? How did we get to this tech-savvy age of sports spectatorship? Most importantly, what do modern spectator sport fans look like?

The Age of Antiquity

The earliest instance of sports spectators and avid sports fans comes from ancient Greece and Rome. The Greeks regularly held the Olympics, a series of events at the base of Mount Olympus as tribute to Zeus, while the Romans celebrated the bloodshed of the colosseum, where favored gladiators engaged in deadly combat for crowds of hundreds of cheering fans. Eventually, these sports carried on from the classical era to the Renaissance and Elizabethan era, where sports such as animal baiting, falconry, and recreations of medieval-style tournaments with events such as fencing, archery, martial arts, and even jousting took place.

Colonialism, Industry, and Cricket

As time went on, the course of history would be changed by one of the most well-known and viciously expansionist empires the world has ever seen – the British Empire. During their global conquest, the British brought their language, culture, and customs onto foreign shores. Part of these cultural invasions were the sports of the British. This means the earliest forms of cricket, football, bowling, snooker, hockey, equestrian, tennis, and more.

As the empire expanded, they brought these sports with them, and as the western cultures dominated the ones they invaded, the sports they brought over were more practiced and celebrated. This paradigm only accelerated with the advent of the industrial revolution, as machines and the production line took over the factories of the world, the streamlined production processes freed up more time for leisure. This meant people were investing more time in sports and sports spectating.

Spectatorships in Modernity

As technology continued to develop and lines of communication and information sharing opened up, not only did the way people interact with each other become inherently different, but so too did how we interact with our hobbies, not least of which was spectator sports.

Early on, following a sport was simple enough; you either went to the event, or you tuned into the radio or television broadcast. If you missed that, you had to engage in a bit of light reading and check the results of your favourite games in the newspaper.

Of course, technology did what technology does – it kept development. Soon, it wasn’t just that televisions and radios were getting crisper and cleaner audio and visual, and it wasn’t that entire publications dedicated to particular sports arose – but by the 80s, the internet was commercialized, and the way we interacted with sports would change forever.

Now, not only was there media and print covering the sports world, but fans could tune in for real-time play-by-plays, all the information around their favorite sports and athletes available at the touch of a button. With the advent of streaming and sports channels, people can tune into their favorite sports where and whenever they want.

Now, with sports being a largely internet affair, there are brand new ways for people to watch and engage with sports. Not only can people stream specific matches, but they can also engage with sports content creators, indie sports journalists,