Chinese Fans’ Engagement with Football: Transnationalism, Authenticity and Identity

Abstract

Football in China is undergoing an unprecedented expansion, the result of targeted industrial policy, private sector investment, and the increased popularity of the world’s most popular game in the world’s most populous nation. Yet, as China’s own football infrastructure matures and foreign clubs seek to establish new fanbases there, little is known about Chinese football fans themselves, the ways in which they express their fandom, or the methods by which they consume football. This study aims to take a first step in identifying and exploring football fandom in the People’s Republic of China, with a view to critically understanding the context out of which it has emerged, and its likely trajectory of development in the short-to-medium term. Adopting an inductive approach to survey research to explore the attitudes, behaviours and activities of Chinese football fans, an online survey resulting in 710 usable responses was conducted on a Chinese online survey platform Wenjuanxing (问卷星) for three weeks in March 2018. Our research identifies similarities with fandom found elsewhere in the world, yet with key differences generally characteristic of Chinese football fans resulting from the geography, distance and league structures of China’s domestic football infrastructure. A tendency to support more than one club, often one domestic and one foreign club, is also noted, with distinct methods of consumption which eschew traditional forms such as match attendance.

Keywords:

• Fans
• engagement
• transnationalism
• authenticity
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Wechat including QQ is the most popular and the largest social media platform thus far in China which owned by Tencent Co.Ltd.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Sullivan

Jonathan Sullivan (Ph.D., University of Nottingham)is Head of China Programs and Co-Director of the China Soccer Observatory at the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute. is a China specialist and political scientist. Since visiting the country for the first time in the 1990s, he has spent more than twenty years learning and using Chinese, including studying for a BA in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds. He has Masters degrees in Asia Pacific Studies (University of Leeds) and Political Science (University of Nottingham) and completed his PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2010, under the supervision of Cees van der Eijk, Will Lowe and Phil Cowley. Dr Sullivan is interested in most aspects of Chinese life, from his specialist research on political behavior and political communications to distinctly amateur interests in Chinese literature, movies, music, and, naturally, food.

Yupei Zhao

Yupei Zhao (Ph.D., University of Leicester) is an “Hundred Talent Program Young Professor” and doctorial tutor in college of Media and International Culture in Zhejiang University (PRC). Her research interests widely include digital culture and politics, intracultural communication and popular media. Her research has appeared in International Journal of Cultural Studies, Social media + Society, Journal of Cultural Economy, International Journal of Communication, Social Science Quarterly, Sage Open, Media International Australia etc.

Simon Chadwick

Simon Chadwick (Ph.D., University of Leeds)is Professor of Sports Enterprise at the University of Salford in Manchester, where he is also Director of the Centre for Sports Business. He is also Director of the Centre for Sports Business.

Michael Gow

Michael Gow (Ph.D., University of Bristol) is a Lecturer in International Business at the School of Strategy and Leadership at Coventry University. His research focuses on the mobilisation of non-state institutions in relation to state building projects in contemporary China, with a focus on consumerism; media, entertainment and cultural industries; higher education and civil society organisations.