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"The Changing Face of Football Fandom"

https://www.ecaeurope.com/news/eca-report-highlights-the-changing-face-of-football-fandom/

The report quoted by the Real Madrid president to justify changing the length of games and the "super" league

Based on survey responses, the football fanbase can be separated into six distinct groups, which are categorised by their primary routes into the sport:

  • 27%: FOMO Followers
    • Moderate fans – claim to follow the sport closely, but don’t identify as “huge fans” and rather follow football for social currency
  • 19%: Main Eventers
    • Moderate fans – keep up to date with news and watch on TV, with engagement increasing around big matches/tournaments
  • 19%: Tag Alongs
    • Lightest football fans, with low emotional and intellectual engagement, and interest prompted by friends/family
  • 14%: Club Loyalists
    • Highly engaged, long-term football fans who are emotionally invested in their club, which helps provide their identity
  • 11%: Football Fanatics
    • Follow football in its entirety, with strong emotional engagement – football provides a sense of community which is key to their enjoyment
  • 11%: Icon Imitators
    • Moderate to strong football interest, which is increasing, following specific players and playing regularly themselves - preference for playing than watching

Given the fact that you are reading this on Charlton Life you, I guess, most likely fall in club loyalist or football fanatics


The report says that "The wide-ranging report, which surveyed 14,000 respondents across seven different markets globally" so may well not reflect English football culture from which most, but not all, of us are drawn.


How much of this is a "change" I don't know.  I know people who fall in to all groups but it was ever thus in my limited experience.


Full report here


https://www.ecaeurope.com/media/4816/eca-fan-of-the-future-defining-modern-football-fandom_website.pdf

Comments

  • Telling that while the report covers the UK and India as well as Holland, Brazil, Germany, Poland and Spain it doesn't cover China or the US, surely two of the biggest markets for any super league or the Champions league/Premier League
  • edited April 2021
    Great, thanks for posting this up, Henry, I was trying without success to get info on this. I am sure @Weegie Addick will be equally interested, as will some market research pros who are big footie fans, (with 'legacies" both in football and in market research, a highly relevant combination :) )


  • As a club loyalist I was interested in the responses to further questions from that group. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I found myself responding as a neutral to all of them. I suspect it's probably a sign of the cynicism of a long term fan of a club that's led a bit of a roller coaster existence with more downs than ups. Of course it bothers me when we lose or when a decent player leaves, but I've developed a mentality beyond that of an eight year old so I'm not going to sulk all day about it. As for who we are playing, I'm there to watch Charlton; the level of the opposition is more or less irrelevant. 

      
  • edited April 2021
    One thing I notice immediately is that they "engaged MTM Sport to provide a holistic view of what it means to be a football fan today...",. A quick look at MTM Sport shows that they cannot possibly have been the market research agency that actually designed and conducted the research, they will have contracted an agency. At this stage I don't see any reason to cast aspersions on either MTM or whichever research agency did the work. But it means there is already a long chain of actors in between the opinions of those who took part in the survey, and the interpretation of those opinions uttered by Senor Perez as justification for his actions...

    I fully agree with Henry that fan culture here may be different from elsewhere, and good research would be designed to tease this out and weigh up the differences (although e.g in CZ the response was just as furious as in UK, as it was seen to further marginalise clubs from smaller countries); and indeed it is very odd that it did not include China (or SE Asia, Japan) or the US. That is a baffling set of omissions.

    Edit; I found another page on MTM's website that led me to more people than the two that appear on their front page, including people with MR experience, so they do indeed have to bear the primary responsibility for the design and implementation of the research. 
  • Stig said:
    As a club loyalist I was interested in the responses to further questions from that group. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I found myself responding as a neutral to all of them. I suspect it's probably a sign of the cynicism of a long term fan of a club that's led a bit of a roller coaster existence with more downs than ups. Of course it bothers me when we lose or when a decent player leaves, but I've developed a mentality beyond that of an eight year old so I'm not going to sulk all day about it. As for who we are playing, I'm there to watch Charlton; the level of the opposition is more or less irrelevant.
      


    I find myself nodding to all this. My first match was the year we came back to the Valley, and I've now got to the point that I don't even bother with the "world" of football. I never watch Match of The Day, and couldn't care less what other clubs are upto.  I'm only interested in Charlton, and even then, with all the drama that comes with the business side of the modern game, and the ludicrous wages even at upper echelons of League One level, find that I very soon get over big losses and relegation. I still consider myself a "proper" fan, and get up to the Valley whenever I can regardless of the importance of the match or what league we're in, but life's too short to become too mentally affected by what these days has just become a big business.
  • edited April 2021
    Thanks for linking this, Ben. Will take a proper look.

    The actual segments sound pretty realistic, though not quite sure how they justify the ESL nonsense!

    Agree with Prague that it seems a major ommission not to include USA and China.

    And to quantify properly, you'd also need to know what % of the population of the country fall into the segments, as there will be a large chunk of non-football fans. (Just seen this is in full report.)

    On the Qs @Stig posted, it's interesting they include a neutral option. I prefer to design surveys where people can't sit on the fence - give a scale of four or six without a middle option. Makes for a more robust segmentation when you are combining and analysing the data.
  • Not read the report, but looking at the section Stig posted the first question feels like two extremes. You are either eying up the garage and the hosepipe, or you are dancing through buttercups. I don't think either option reflects the way most real fans feel after a loss. The "neutral" option just does not cover it. It also has no accounting for circumstances of the match; either it's significance or the way it has panned out. I felt very different after yesterdays game to the way I felt after the game at London Rd. 

    It very much feels like a survey put together by a champage Arsenal fan who sees the match as a networking opportunity as much as a sporting event. 
  • Thanks for linking this, Ben. Will take a proper look.

    The actual segments sound pretty realistic, though not quite sure how they justify the ESL nonsense!

    Agree with Prague that it seems a major ommission not to include USA and China.

    And to quantify properly, you'd also need to know what % of the population of the country fall into the segments, as there will be a large chunk of non-football fans. (Just seen this is in full report.)

    On the Qs @Stig posted, it's interesting they include a neutral option. I prefer to design surveys where people can't sit on the fence - give a scale of four or six without a middle option. Makes for a more robust segmentation when you are combining and analysing the data.

    It entirely depends on the subject matter in my opinion, but in general I would agree with an even numbered Likert scale, not least because the middle option (often termed 'neither agree or disagree') is open to different interpretations.
    That said, when using an even scale I would normally give a side option of 'Don't know' or 'No opinion' and then disregard responses that tick this option.

    Questionnaire design is a very complex process.
  • Pros and cons. Even numbers lead waverers into a decision, but you need to be careful because the nature of that decision is that it is forced; sometimes you'll get a reasonable answer, but sometime's you'll get a "fuck it. I'll put anything down" response.
  • Stig said:
    Pros and cons. Even numbers lead waverers into a decision, but you need to be careful because the nature of that decision is that it is forced; sometimes you'll get a reasonable answer, but sometime's you'll get a "fuck it. I'll put anything down" response.

    Agreed - and no middle option can lead to the person completing the questionnaire being disengaged. That's why I said it depends on the subject - emotive topics need to give the person a middle option 'opt out' (or, as I suggest with an even scale an actual opt-out if the person genuinely doesn't know or have an opinion).
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