Using Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, which analyzes how nations establish loyalty among vast amounts of people who will never meet personally, I apply Anderson’s concepts to the world of professional sports in order to...
moreUsing Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, which analyzes how nations establish loyalty among vast amounts of people who will never meet personally, I apply Anderson’s concepts to the world of professional sports in order to understand how fans form loyalties with professional sports teams. The essay begins by establishing the groundwork of Anderson’s theory by defining the history of communities, the traits of a successful community, and Anderson’s theory of “simultaneity,” which postulates that nations use the newspapers to develop a sense of connection among diverse groups of people to create loyal citizens. Anderson’s theory of simultaneity is essential to both the existence of nations and sports communities, although it has become outdated since its first introduction, given the many different forms of media available in the modern age of technology. Anderson’s theory of simultaneity is supported by the rhetoric of Paul Virilio, whose ideas regarding the use of media further argue the role of media as an imagined meeting place for people far and wide, as well as a source of propaganda for nations and sports franchises.
Like nations, sports franchises need to influence independent people into becoming loyal fans. They accomplish this through various forms of media, namely television broadcasting, creating artificially constructed imagined sports communities. The four major U.S. sports leagues accomplish this by breaking up the United States into artificial media markets, which hold a television monopoly over the people within their market through the use of television blackout laws and contracts with media broadcasters. With fans being allowed reliable media access to only one particular team (usually a local one), certain geographic areas of the U.S. are cajoled into accepting the “official fandom” (a play on Anderson’s “official nationalism”) of only one particular franchise, while also being denied the opportunity to connect with other competing sports franchises through careful regulation of media broadcasting. Since media access is tied directly to the sense of simultaneity needed to sustain an imagined community, professional sports leagues artificially break up the United States into media markets, dictating which geographic areas may become fans of which team based on media access.
Working against the official fandom organized by the professional sports teams and their media markets is a group of people who defy local media influence by following a team of their choice outside of their region’s official fandom. These people who go against local media broadcasting become consumers of the sports leagues’ premium television packages, which allow them reliable access to their particular franchise’s sports games. The irony is that these rebellious fans are only playing into the success of media monopolies by paying a premium to sustain their sense of simultaneity with their sports teams. Ironically, there would be no need for premium television packages without the league’s own rules restricting television broadcasting to only certain areas.
