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METHODOLOGY
This study was conducted over the course of the one-month-long 2014 FIFA World
Cup. Using McCann Truth Central’s proprietary mobile research tool, the Truth App,
interviews with soccer fans were conducted in 24 markets globally, including:

North/Central America:
Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad
and Tobago, US
South America:
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru
Europe:
Germany, Greece, Italy, UK
Asia-Pacific:
Australia, Hong Kong, Japan

Middle-East and Africa:

Saudi Arabia, South Africa

Quantitative data was used from the Truth About Globalization study, which

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surveyed 25+ markets worldwide.

In addition, a social listening exercise was conducted in the following countries:

English:
Australia, Hong Kong, Kenya, South Africa, UAE, UK, US
Spanish/Portuguese:
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Portugal, Spain

Lastly, a focus group with teenage soccer fans was conducted in the United States.

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INTRODUCTION
The best thing about being a
fan is that the world stops when
your team is playing. It’s like a
drug. Being a fan is great.
– Chilean soccer fan

The Truth About Fans: Sports Edition is inspired by

the recently concluded 2014 FIFA World Cup. The
event provided an ideal opportunity to study sports fans
because a full 7 of 10 people globally say that they have
an interest in sports, and a further 7 out of 10 said they
were looking forward to the World Cup games in Brazil.
The following pages will tease apart insights into fans of
soccer in particular and of sports in general, although
some of the biggest insights apply to fans of anything in
the broadest sense.

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FANS MATTER
Fans, simply by virtue of the passion and connection
they feel for a hobby/personality/pursuit, are a very
special group of people. They are the most likely to talk
about the thing they’re passionate about, evangelize it to
others, and according to some studies, spend more than
non-fans.1 This spirit of loyalty comes through loud and
clear in one South African soccer fan’s description of
what it means to be a fan:

[Being a fan] means supporting

a team through thick and thin.
This is more than just a game;
this is a lifestyle.

By virtue of these characteristics, brands today are

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obsessed with cultivating fans of their own. However,
fan behavior is changing drastically in the face of new
technology, social media and the overwhelming mass of
content that is vying for their attention. How can brands
understand their new behaviors in order to best engage
with them? The Truth About Fans seeks to answer this
question. But before it does so, it is worth exploring this
idea of fans at the broadest level.

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q
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Think about things like music, film, sports, celebrities

and brands. In general what kind of “fan” are you?

5% There are things I’m completely obsessed

with; I’m a die-hard fan.

35% There are things I love and I would definitely

describe myself as a fan.

60% There are things I like but I wouldn’t say I’m

a fan of anything in particular.

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Die-hard fans by country

12%
11%
9%
8%
8%
7%
7%
6%
6%
5%
5%
5%
5%
5%
5%
5%
5%
4%
4%
4%
4%
3%
3%
3%
Spain 2%

Hong Kong 2%

China 2%
Japan
US

S. Africa

Poland

Italy

Turkey

France
UK

Germany

Sweden

Netherlands

Indonesia
Australia

Global

India

Philippines

Russia

Brazil

Argentina

Mexico

S. Korea

Colombia

Singapore

Chile
40% of people globally would describe themselves as fans of
something (including only 5% of people who could call
themselves die-hard fans)

These figures vary by country. 12% of Americans, for

instance, would describe themselves as die-hard fans,
more than any other nationality. This is in keeping with
the strong thread of individualism in American culture,

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where being a fan is a way of indicating one’s interests,
allegiances and identity. There are also variances by
demographic: more American males than American
females would consider themselves die-hard fans.
The numbers are particularly high among younger
Americans, with nearly 20% of people aged 18–24
considering themselves die-hard fans, dropping to
13% among 25–34 year-olds. China, on the other
hand, has the lowest number of self-reported die-hard
fans, at a mere 2%, explicable by the as yet nascent
entertainment industry in that country, although this is
quickly changing.

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PART I. HOW FANS ARE FANS

Personal Side
Family Side
Local Side
National Side

PART II. THE MODERN FAN: NEW BEHAVIORS

Neighborhood Expert > Global Guru
Ticket Holder > Commentator
Fortune Teller > Data Junkie

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PART I. HOW FANS ARE FANS

There are many different dimensions to being a fan. On
the one hand, there’s the personal side, which is about a
fan’s personal journey with the thing they’re a fan of. On
the other hand, there’s the public side, which is about
the fan participating in a larger group of like-minded
fans. These different sides can be illustrated as follows:

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PERSONAL

FAMILY
These sides are not separate, but rather co-exist within
the fan. The strongest fandoms are those that are able
to provide for the fan’s personal growth as well as their LOCAL
need for community. However, each of these sides
does present brands with unique opportunities for
engagement, as the next four sections will illustrate. NATIONAL

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THE PERSONAL SIDE The Most Intimate Side of Fandom

Being a fan of a band, singer, actor, or sports star is

about finding role models who you feel speak to you
and understand your hopes, dreams and fears, and with
whom you take a personal journey. This is the most
intimate side of fandom. At its core, the personal side
of fandom is about helping a fan build their identity. As
one soccer fan from Hong Kong put it:

I am a soccer fan because I'm

a fan of two specific idols –
Ronaldo and Rooney. Being a
fan of soccer drives me to do
more sports and be fit because
I aspire to play as well as my

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idols. To me, being a fan means
being very passionate about
the game as well as its players.
From childhood through adolescence, into working life,
and eventually changes in family stage, fans find new
idols of emulation and ideas of inspiration. Many of us
recall with semi-embarrassed fondness our adolescent

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years, the feelings of confusion and the rebelliousness Screenshots from video tours of American
that are part and parcel of being a teenager. Discovering teenage soccer fans:
a K-pop band, for instance, or the works of Pablo Neruda
might be moments where we suddenly find ourselves
understood, and cause us to become fans. Over time, our
fandom during these moments helps define who we were,
and becomes a shortcut to memories and emotions. One
soccer fan from Puerto Rico explained this best from the
point of view of sports:

I like baseball and basketball

more [than soccer]. It’s a
cultural thing. It wasn't until my
high school years that I started
following soccer.
At its strongest level, fandom can even become a sort of
organizing principle in the lives of people. In focus groups
with teenage American soccer fans, they were asked to
bring in video tours of their bedrooms. Many of them
had filled their rooms with soccer merchandise – soccer
ball pillows, lamps and footstools. Others showed off
their carefully arranged soccer championship trophies.
One fan laid out every piece of soccer players’ equipment
on his bed, and extolled the virtues of his beautiful
new shin guards and his “nice fresh white Nike cleats”.
Beyond merely collecting memorabilia and possessing
pieces of their passion, these fans had made these objects
centerpieces of their rooms, not just physically but also
emotionally. Their lives–friends, family and school–were
in a sense all ‘arranged around’ their passion for soccer.

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FOR BRANDS
It can be a delicate matter for brands to make themselves part of the conversation
between a fan and his or her personal passion. When speaking with fans, distracting
in any way from the thing they’re passionate about will only make them resistant to
the brand and its communications. Given the intimacy of the conversation, it can
also feel like an unwelcome intrusion. The most successful brands focus instead
on fans and their passion, and cast themselves in a strictly supporting role. Brands
must think like fans in order to best connect with other fans.

MasterCard did this brilliantly with their “Something for the Fans” campaign
around the 2014 Brit Awards. The brand teamed up with celebrities including Kylie
Minogue and Pharrell Williams to give fans of these singers a priceless surprise,
by taking these idols to visit fans as they were going about their daily lives. The
campaign expertly captured the essence of the personal side of fandom by enabling
this intimate one-on-one connection. The campaign is as much about the fan’s
personal journey as it is about the star. For example, when Justin Timberlake meets
his fan, he listens to her playing guitar and even declares himself to be her fan!

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 THE FAMILY SIDE Where a Fan Is Born

Many lifelong allegiances are inherited from our parents

and other close relatives. Few of us do not have sights,
smells, sounds, tastes and things that we cherish from our
childhood. This could be a grandmother’s famous churros,
a favorite kimono, or even the memory of the whole family
gathering around the TV to watch Bollywood movies. Each
of these things enables a very strong and special connection
back to what we tend to see nostalgically as a simpler and
happier time. This is the idea behind being born a fan. The
objects, memories and rituals of our childhood tie us back
to our roots, and are some of the strongest anchors we have
as human beings to our sense of identity. It is because of
this that we inevitably remain lifelong fans of the favorite
authors, singers and sports teams of our childhood. A soccer
fan from the UK perhaps said it best when he explained:

It's the extension of my youth. Of

my carefree childhood moments
when I was out on the street
playing with my friends. When
I was putting up posters in my
room of my favorite team. When
I was able to follow relentlessly
all the matches of my team.
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Particularly in the case of sports, fandom becomes not

only a shared passion among the family, but also as
much a part of family tradition as anything else. In the
words of one fan from Paraguay:

I grew up in a soccer family.

All my brothers and I love this
sport! It's my favorite hobby.

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FOR BRANDS
When it comes to fandom in the family layer, the idea of family tradition, and
tapping into the sentiment of nostalgia, should be central for brands. This is exactly
what the NFL has done successfully in its “Vikings, Bengals, Eagles, Steelers,
Cowboys Family” spot, in which a family of Vikings becomes a family of Vikings,
Bengals, Eagles, Steelers and Cowboys as children move away, marry people from
different cities and have children of their own. But the whole family is united by its
love of football and despite wearing different jerseys, still very much carry on the
tradition of love for the game. The spot brilliantly captures what one Mexican fan
described as his experience of growing up in a family of soccer fans:

I love soccer, and that's the way I grew up, getting

together with family and friends just to watch and
enjoy a game, to live the moment, whether you
lose or win. No one can take that feeling away.

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THE LOCAL SIDE The Most Powerful Community

Some allegiances are born of being part of a city or

locality with a distinct culture, passion or idol of its own.
An example might be developing an expertise in wine
as an inhabitant of the Bordeaux region in France, or
a passion for flamenco as a resident of Seville, Spain.
In the case of sports, this could refer to city teams that
compete against each other in national leagues. For
fans, it is about knowing the neighborhoods where the
local team’s players grew up and attending the school
they went to. One Italian soccer fan described a fan as
someone who is …

Part of something, who belongs

to the team of their city, it's
the link with their friends. It’s

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a way of belonging to the city
where you are from.
Cities or localities are often the first extended
communities that people are part of, beyond friends and
family, and that shape their identity. For this reason,
local allegiances are perhaps the strongest of all, often
even more so than allegiance to the national team. In an
age of mass production and commodification, interest
in local culture has seen a major revival in recent

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years. Finding the “authentic” local experience is the

new motto of tourism; restaurants like to boast that all
their ingredients are locally sourced, as the farm-to-table
movement grows; and the Detroit renaissance is based
largely on the idea of “Made in Detroit,” or reinvigorated
local manufacturing, which is at the heart of the city’s
identity. Brands such as Shinola, for instance, have become
tremendously popular for their devotion to supporting the
local economy. All of this has put a spotlight on local self-
sustenance and community pride in a new way.
When it comes to sports, strong affection for
local teams is prominent in the photograph
below, taken of England fans at the 2014
World Cup. These fans are carrying English
flags with the name of the local clubs of which
they are fans. For them, the representation
their local clubs receive in the national team
is as important as the national team itself.

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FOR BRANDS
Dunkin Donuts has a long association with popular American sports, including
football, baseball and basketball through sponsorships of players as well as teams.
However, instead of opting for large national activations around games, they have
instead leveraged their national network of stores to create unique local campaigns in
cities in which they have a presence, thus giving stores in different cities the freedom
to connect with fans in personal ways. For instance, every time the Philadelphia
Eagles win a game, fans in Philadelphia who have the Dunkin Donuts mobile app will
be sent a coupon for a free hot or iced coffee. Meanwhile, in New York, the brand has
teamed up with New York Giants player Eli Manning to throw a masquerade party in
the Commissioners Club in MetLife Stadium. Fans who use their ‘DD Perks’ rewards
card to purchase an iced coffee will be entered into a draw to attend this once-in-a-
lifetime event. Such an approach to marketing allows a national chain to become part
of local fan communities.

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 THE NATIONAL SIDE Where Fans Unite

I love being a fan because I like

to feel excited, encouraged,
and even to suffer to feel part
of my team and of other fans.
– Argentinian fan

Sometimes, a game comes to define a fan as much as

other aspects of their nation’s culture, such as language,
food or clothing. For instance, one Brazilian fan, asked if
there was a sport she liked more than soccer, responded
“No, I am Brazilian.” Such is the importance of the sport
in her country that for her, it was synonymous with
national identity.

It is perhaps at the national level that every fan is part

of the largest community. Anyone who has been to
a sporting event, concert or political rally can testify
to the intensely powerful feeling of togetherness and
exhilaration that these events create. Being one of a
mass of people, all gathered for a single purpose and
passion, can be an emotionally charged experience. In
the words of another fan from Brazil:
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I don’t have words to explain how

I feel about it. I walked into the
stadium earlier today to watch the
Netherlands v. Chile match and
it was like I had lost my air. I’m
loving having the World Cup in
Brazil. It’s my dream come true.
Collective Effervescence
Nothing evokes feelings of national togetherness and
patriotism as much as a sporting event. During such major
sporting events, a fan’s community is a whole country. One
fan from Germany, talking about what she loves most about
being a fan, interestingly spoke not about her own love for
soccer, but the feeling of togetherness it brings about:

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I would say “solidarity.” By this, I
mean everyone seems to become
wilder than before, during the
soccer game. I like to party with a
lot of people and with the whole
country if we win.

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This phenomenon is something that sociologists

have called ‘collective effervescence’ since sociologist
Émile Durkheim developed the concept in the early
20th century. It served initially as his theory for
religion in tribal societies – that when the whole tribe
gathered together to perform a single activity, the high
emotional energy and feeling of togetherness made
those occasions sacred.

The parallels are hard to miss when it comes to soccer

fans in particular. Roaring and chanting with a thousand
other people serves the same purpose as a prayer and
rising up in a wave or breaking out into a dance serves
the same purpose as ritual. The soccer ball becomes
a sacred object, and the players become priests. No
wonder then, that many fans from around the world
echoed what this fan from Puerto Rico had to say about
the sport:

Being a fan is all about heart.

It is a duty to support your team.
Soccer is a religion that must be
worshipped and respected.

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National Teams as Metaphors for National Values

In the specific context of the 2014 FIFA World Cup,
much of the language in both the media and the fan
interviews reflects a deep-seated association between
soccer teams and national identity. The Brazilian team,
for instance, is frequently described as playing “beautiful
football [soccer],” infused with dance and rhythm, very
much in tune with the stereotype of the happy-go-lucky
Brazilian national character. And of course, there has
been no shortage of commentary on the clinical, lethally
effective play of the German team, and how it reflects
the famous precision of German engineering. Fans come
to see themselves and their country in the team. In the
words of one fan from Honduras:

To be a fan is to feel that the

whole country is united in one
feeling. The best thing about
it is the feeling of joy to see

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your team representing you in
the world.

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Sociologists, psychologists and historians have argued

back and forth about whether or not national culture
and a country’s socio-political situation can help predict
the outcome of matches. But irrespective of its basis in
reality, it is undeniably the case that every defeat is, in
the eyes of fans, an attack on their beliefs and way of
life, and every victory a triumph, as is evident in this
observation by Truth Central’s Japanese representative
Hiroki Ito:

[Fans] really cheer the team

from their hearts and project
themselves onto the team. The
team could be considered as
the Japanese itself as it faces
similar challenges and fate.
Many Japanese try to learn
something from the games.
Interestingly, a May 2014 analysis by Goldman Sachs
showed that historically, nations that have been
victorious at the soccer World Cup even see greater
economic success in the short term. According to
their analysis, victor countries see their stock markets
modestly outperform the global average for the first
three months after the final, while runners-up see a
small relative underperformance.2

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FOR BRANDS
Large international events such as the World Cup, or the Eurovision Song Contest
are occasions when patriotic sentiment comes to the forefront in a major way.
Truth Central representatives in countries such as Germany and the UK spoke
about how these are among the few times when it is acceptable to fly the national
flag or openly express patriotism, acts which would otherwise be socially taboo.

While being mindful of coming across as overly nationalistic, brands should not
be afraid to express national pride in their activations around these events. One
much lauded example of a brand that successfully did so during the recent World
Cup is Banco de Chile, which produced a moving spot featuring the now famous
miners who “defied death itself” when trapped underground for 69 days. The
spot, directed at the Chilean soccer team, asks them to remember that “Nothing is
impossible for a Chilean.”

Even outside the world of sports, brands are experimenting with ways to bring
people together around shared national traits. For example, when Coke realized
that Peru ranks low on the global happiness index, and that most Peruvians look
glum in their national ID card photos, they decided to do something about it.
The brand set up free photo booths around Peru that would only be activated
when people smiled. The word soon spread and Peruvians began to recognize

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that they had several reasons to smile – a rich heritage, a growing economy and
great natural beauty. This is an excellent example of a brand bringing a country
together by promoting a shared national value.

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CONCLUSION
Balance the Personal and Communal
There are many sides to fans ranging from the
deeply personal to the expansively communal.
The most enduring fandoms engage the many
different sides of fans to balance personal
growth and communal belonging. Brands too
need to think about how they’re satisfying both
these needs as they interact with fans.

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PART II.
THE MODERN FAN:
NEW BEHAVIORS
Part I of this study dealt with some universal core
truths of fandom. Part II will deal with the changes in
behavior among fans that have emerged in the last few
years. These changes are broadly motivated by advances
in technology and their impact. The following three
chapters will discuss these changes in the form of three
main shifts.

NEIGHBORHOOD EXPERT > GLOBAL GURU

TICKET HOLDER > COMMENTATOR
FORTUNE TELLER > DATA JUNKIE

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NEIGHBORHOOD EXPERT > GLOBAL GURU

Fundamentally, this shift has to do with the extreme interconnectedness
of the world today (in ways that were difficult to imagine even ten
years ago) thanks to the power of the Internet and social media. While
once upon a time, a fan might have been the go-to expert on their area
of passion within their small circle of friends, the world is now their
audience. People’s ability to connect with others who share their interest
across geographic boundaries has become immeasurably greater. As they
congregate in online communities, fans who at one time may only have
had a voice in their local fan groups, now have an opportunity to express
their passion on a global scale.

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Sports Is a Great Human Unifier Perhaps the one sport that is able to bring
about this togetherness more so than any
Sports fans in particular have benefited from this shift,
other is soccer. One fan from Ecuador even
as it is a passion with an unusually strong power to bring went so far as to say:
people together. According to consumers, global sporting
events such as the World Cup or the Olympics have
the greatest ability to make humans around the world
feel most connected to each other, more so than major
Where there is soccer,
religious holidays or global crises such as climate change. there is no war.

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q Which of the following events has the greatest ability to

make humans around the world feel most connected to
each other?

Global sporting events 42%

International peace days 37%
Global crises 33%
Large scale natural disasters 32%
Major religious holidays 31%
A collective human achievement 30%

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The death of a well loved celebrity 28%
Shared appreciation for food 24%
Potential pandemics 19%
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Soccer and the Global Village

Soccer’s popularity around the world is growing as
major events like the World Cup start to be followed
with enthusiasm in countries where the sport is still
relatively new. It’s popularity in new markets such as
the US and Australia is growing at the grassroots level
through immigration from countries where soccer
has long been a national passion. According to the
Australian Truth Central representative Danish Chan:

For a period support of soccer

was limited to a small number
of cultural groups, generally
the domain of the Italian,
Greek and Slavic communities.
However, good results in the
international stage, a national
competition and greater
marketing presence have led to
the democratization of soccer
at a grass roots participation
and supporter level.
Soccer fervor is also not limited to countries that have
soccer teams. People in countries such as Peru and

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Tunisia, whose teams did not make it past the qualifiers,

spoke about the intense excitement in their countries
around the World Cup. In the words of a Truth Central
representative in the Dominican Republic:

It doesn’t matter that we don’t

have a national team in the Cup;
this is a time when Dominicans
become Brazilians or Argentines
and support the teams of their
foreign neighbors.
Soccer is thus one of the major drivers of global
connectedness, if defined as the fluid movement of
people, ideas and culture, across national borders. It is
an important way in which people are exposed to other
cultures. Indeed 76% of people globally say that sports
has introduced them to new countries and cultures,

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rising to 88% in India and 86% in Colombia (both
countries with traditions of global sports – cricket in
India and soccer in Colombia). One fan in Saudi Arabia,
speaking about the reason why she likes soccer, said:

I love soccer quite a lot because

of its internationalism.

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Participants in Truth Central’s ethnography in

Guatemala even used the World Cup as an opportunity
to learn about other countries by setting up an
elaborate half-time game involving a quiz on the flags of
participating countries.

“Learn the Flags” game, Guatemala

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Global Brands Should Have a Global Perspective By contrast, KLM suffered a public relations
setback when it posted a tweet saying “Adios
In this inter-connected, global world, fans recognize that Amigos!” when the Dutch team eliminated the
brands have a vital role to play. In fact 69% of people Mexican side from the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
believe that if it weren’t for global brands, events like the
Olympics or the World Cup wouldn’t be possible. In response, an outraged Mexican actor, Gael
Garcia Bernal, tweets his disapproval to his two
million Twitter followers. KLM apologized and
Some brands have recognized the opportunity of removed the tweet from its feed, but the damage
communicating with the global audience that major was done, and KLM showed that it misjudged
sporting events draw. For example, Chevrolet recently communication with a global audience.
signed a deal with British soccer club Manchester
United to put the brand’s iconic bowtie logo on team
jerseys, despite the fact that Chevy vehicles are not
available in the European market. The move signals
Chevy’s recognition of the tremendous popularity
Manchester United enjoys globally, especially in growth
markets in Asia. For an American brand to sponsor an
European soccer team to appeal to fans elsewhere in the
world shows the brand’s sophisticated understanding of
the global inter-connectedness of fans.

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!@#$
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TICKET HOLDER > COMMENTATOR

In this globally inter-connected world, fans are using social media to
actively write the narrative of sports. This is the idea behind the shift
from ticket holder to commentator. Fascinatingly, however, they are
commentating in a multi-cultural, inter-referential language of fandom
that is new and universal.

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The New Global Language

Seconds after a momentous event, the Internet swings into
action. Millions of tweeting, texting fans create GIFs or
memes; share them with friends; and contribute in some
measure to making that piece of content viral.

Looking at these memes, it’s fascinating how these

references work across a vast range of popular culture,
from politics to commerce to entertainment and beyond.
In a sense, soccer fandom, or indeed any other fandom that
people feel passionately about, will be subject to collage,
mimicry, reinterpretation and adaptation in the Internet
age. In The Truth About Youth, Truth Central described
Millennials as the ‘remix generation’. This is very much the
remix generation in action.

Instant memes and updates

made sure we all got the
information we wanted by the
second. It was an overload of
information coming from all
social media and devices. There
were definitely people who
never follow soccer but fell into
the meme craze.
- Marvin Duron, Truth Central Panama

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Searches for games, players and teams during
2010 World Cup Spain vs. Netherlands match
Source: Google Data, July 11, 2010, Indexed
Search Query Volume, United States
Searches for games, players and teams during
2014 UEFA Champions League Munich vs.
Madrid match
Source: Google Data, April 29, 2014, Indexed
Search Query Volume, United States
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Fans Are Publishing Powerhouses
Fans are speaking this new language on laptops,
smartphones, tablets – devices that we used to
collectively call the second screen. Considering this
is the case, a group of fans huddled together around
a television but focusing entirely on their personal
electronic devices isn’t an uncommon sight, and the
evidence suggests that this trend is only going to
continue. A recent Google study3 found that even four
years ago in the 2010 World Cup, most searches were
conducted on desktops and toward the end of the
match, as fans were focused on the big screen during
play. By contrast, in the 2014 UEFA European soccer
championship, searches peaked during the game, and
mostly on mobile.
In this world, the big screen, and the game itself, are no
longer of sole importance. As mobile devices become
more dominant, we’re undoubtedly moving to an era
where fans’ experience of a particular event, and the
broadcasting of that experience, have become almost as
important as the event itself. This has led some to suggest
that the TV has actually become the new second screen.
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The collective content that fans generate has become in
itself a valuable record of sporting events. Going through
sites curating the various memes and GIFs that were
created during the World Cup tells a vastly richer story
than merely going through highlights assembled by a
traditional news source. It is a story as told by fans, the
way they see it, making them the ultimate commentators.
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Brands Should Speak the New Language of

Fandom, and Speak it as a Fan, Not a Brand
The traditional model of broadcast media advertising
relies largely on making brands look good in front of
fans. This is still important, and broadcast advertising
is still very relevant – one has only to see the affection
in which people hold big, exuberant Super Bowl ads
to know that this is so. However, when brands are
attempting to speak with fans in the new language of
fandom, this model now needs to co-exist with a new
model, where brands help fans look good in front of
their audiences.

EA Sports did precisely this with their NFL GIFerator,

a comprehensive library of animated GIFs that fans can
choose from, customize and share as they taunt, tease
and congratulate each other during games. These GIFs
are a spot-on way for EA Sports to integrate itself into the
spontaneous and witty language of fandom in a way that
feels seamless rather than intruding. In the process, EA
Sports makes fans look good, and therefore wins major
exposure among fans through their social networks.

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Social Media Clutter

However, there is an underside to this empowerment
of fans. All these millions of stories generated in real
time every day are responsible for a tremendous amount
of clutter. In the specific case of the 2014 World Cup,
Twitter has estimated that approximately 672 million
tweets were sent around the entire tournament,
peaking at 618,000 tweets a minute when Germany
defeated Argentina to claim the trophy. In focus groups
with American teenage soccer fans, they spoke about
tweeting their thoughts in stream of consciousness
style. For them, it is an essential part of expressing
themselves. As one American teenager said:

I’ll tweet things like “Nooooo…

#hadtohappen” or like,
comment on other things going
on in the game. I would feel
lost if I was watching the game
without my phone.
This attitude toward social media is very much the spirit
of the adage “Tweet or it didn't happen,” emphasizing
the need to be current and relevant, or risk your tweet
vanishing into obscurity.

Perhaps as a result of this, there seems to be a growing

backlash to the uncontrolled stream of information on
social media. Many fans spoke about how social media
was detracting from the experience of watching the

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game and enjoying it in the moment with friends and

family. One fan from Colombia said:

Social media has made the

experience of watching soccer
worse, in the sense that many
people become aggressive and
others don't pay attention to
the match because they are
checking their social networks.
Fans also spoke of the frustration of not knowing whom
to trust on such an open source platform. In the words
of one fan from Trinidad and Tobago:

Social media has made

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the game better because
sometimes you can't be near a
TV or radio, but it’s also worse
in that there's misinformation.

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Curate, Don’t Clutter

However, as brands create content, they also have an
opportunity to fight the negative aspects of social media
when it comes to watching sports by helping fans curate
their mobile activity. This would free fans up to enjoy
the real-life experience of watching sports instead of
toggling between tabs and switching between apps.

Hyundai started to do this during the 2014 FIFA

World Cup with its Tumblr microsite based on the
#BecauseFutbol hashtag that it used in all of its World
Cup activations. This Tumblr page had lots of neat
features that allowed fans to centralize all their online
activity in one place, including the ability to tweet and
Facebook without leaving the page, create and share
memes on the microsite itself, and even search for
public places that were broadcasting the match in their
zip code. However, the microsite had no functionality
for fans to pull content from their social networks, or
select content from around the web to feed into the
microsite, which was a missed opportunity.

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Brands Can Grant Access

Further, the shift from ticket holder to commentator
does not only apply to online activity. Being a
commentator is also about being up front and center,
in the middle of all the action. Some brands are
recognizing this and casting themselves as enablers
of unique real-life experiences. For instance, one of
the experiences MasterCard offers under its Priceless
Cities initiative is meeting sports stars on the sidelines
of the pitch before the game. The brand’s charming
‘Chatterbox’ spot features a young boy going through all
the questions he wants to ask his sports idol when they
meet, but when they do finally meet, he’s speechless. It
is precisely unique experiences such as these that fans
want, and brands can play a vital role in making these
dreams come true.

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FORTUNE TELLER > DATA JUNKIE

In the online world, curation will represent an even greater opportunity in
the future because of a shift that’s going to further bring mobile devices to
center stage. This is the arrival of Big Data in sports, which will help fans
move from fortune tellers to data junkies. Whereas sports fans might once
upon a time have relied on intuition to make predictions about a game, the
vast amounts of data that will become available to them in real time, thanks to
advances in technology, will make them extremely knowledgeable and savvy
participants in the conversation. But some are wary of data detracting from
the fundamental humanity and creativity of sports.

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The Magic of Sports Some of the best good luck rituals from
Every sports fan will have felt moments of nail-biting, around the world
heart-stopping suspense or of elation after a moment of
unexpected brilliance. Every sports fan will remember
moments of serendipitous victory that went down in
history and became legend. And over the years, fans
have invented a rich and creative tradition that goes
with watching sports. Some fans consult animal psychics
(such as Paul the Octopus, who correctly predicted the
outcome of the 2010 FIFA World Cup). Others have
developed pre-game rituals to wish their team luck. For
example, Brazilian fans put a glass of water on top of
the TV during the game to wash away bad luck. Fans in
Saudi Arabia eat two dates as a good luck charm before
the match begins. One fan from Peru told us:

I kiss a medallion of Jesus

three times, and always enter
the room on the right foot.

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Big Data Comes to Sports

Some of this stands to change when Big Data comes to
sports. After all, why rely on intuition, gut instinct or luck
when there’s irrefutable data?

In late July of 2014, the NFL announced that it would

be embedding RFID tags into the shoulder pads of
every player in the league. The tags would transmit
data including velocity, location, distance run and other
statistics which would be available for fans all over the
world to access for free. According to Fast Company, the
NFL calls this initiative ‘Next Generation Statistics’ and
is introducing it for the added entertainment of fans, who
in the future might obsess over stats that scarcely existed
before the introduction of this technology.5

Similarly, the NBA has opted for the alternative technology

of automated cameras that will follow and record players’
every move, but the output will similarly be featured on an
online dashboard with free and open access to all.6

Power to the Fan!

This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way
fans watch and experience sport. Already, without data,
fans are increasingly vocal about their views on social
media. In the words of one Greek fan talking about the
2014 FIFA World Cup:

We even created a Facebook

page requesting our coach to kick
out from the start a player who
wasn’t playing very well.
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The combination of Big Data and social media could

enable fans to break down the barrier even further by
allowing them to petition based on fact rather than
instinct. It is conceivable that within a few years, fans
will be making astute predictions based on real-time
data and lobbying for substitutions or strategy changes
during play.

The Darker Side of Data

However, not everyone is excited about this data-
dominated future. In a recent article in New York
Magazine, Will Leitch writes that all this data isn't
As we become more necessarily making watching sports better.4 He bemoans
the fact that statistics conferences at prestigious
obsessed with data universities are rivaling football games in their
downloads, some of importance to fans, that brilliant last-minute scores
are dismissed as statistical outliers and that scrutiny
the greatest sports of numbers has obscured the joy of watching fluid
athleticism in motion.
moments start to
seem less like feats This is precisely what happened when baseball star
Derek Jeter made the game-winning hit in the last
of heroism and more home game of his career. This incredible fairy-tale

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ending to his career might even a few years ago have
like statistical outliers been celebrated as legendary. Instead, within moments,
the Internet was abuzz with conspiracy theories based
-Will Leitch on complex calculations of probabilities and standard
deviations. Could such an approach to sports, if it
were to become par for the course, threaten the magic,
humanity and creativity that is so key to its enjoyment?

Keep the Magic Alive

Nike’s ‘The Last Game’ spot during the 2014 FIFA World
Cup did seem to pre-figure this threat. In the spot, all
soccer players have been replaced with ‘perfect’ robots

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that never make mistakes and are totally predictable in
their maneuvers. Pretty soon, sports stadiums lie empty,
as fans grow bored and frustrated. A coalition of players
from the old days, forced to take up new professions,
band together once more and challenge the robots to a
game. The human players’ ingenuity and ability to think
on their feet enables them to beat the robots, and bring
life back to soccer. The spot celebrates precisely the
exhilaration that comes from uncertainty and risk-taking
in sports.
While this is a literal interpretation of the idea of
serendipity, brands have an opportunity to think about
how they can help fans balance the benefit of data with
the magic and humanity of sports for the best experience.
55
Verizon FIOS’s ‘Football Girl Steals the Show’
spot is a charming example of the more
light-hearted side of data. In it, a young girl
whose brother and his friends refuse to let her
join them in a game of football, uses Verizon
FIOS to get up-to-the minute intelligence on
everything that’s going on in football games.
She ultimately ends up as a commentator
on TV, much to the shock of her brother, and
the consternation of other commentators.
Data in this case is portrayed as a great
equalizer and also as something that enables
a better appreciation of the game, rather than
detracting from its magic.
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CONCLUSION
Insider > Outsider
All the shifts in fan behavior described above can
be summed up by one meta-shift, and that is from
outsider to insider. While once upon a time fans were
outsiders, looking enviously at the insiders (be they
sports stars, their managers or the media), fans today
are far from being passive participants, and are instead
actively shaping the story of sports. This change in the
power dynamic is the single biggest change that brands
need to navigate as they seek to engage with sports
fans. A summary of 5 principles to help brands in this
quest, already outlined in the study, is provided on the
following page.

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5 THINGS BRANDS CAN LEARN

1. Balance the Personal and Communal:
Fandom is a deeply personal exploration of identity as well as a means for
belonging. Brands must think about ways in which to connect with individual
fans, and in turn, connect those fans with a larger community of fellow fans.

2. Global Brands Should Have a Global Perspective:

Fans today are more global and more inter-connected than ever before. Global
brands should recognize that they too have a global audience, and change their
communication strategy to take advantage of this opportunity.

3. Speak the New Language of Fans; Speak It as a Fan Not a Brand:

Brands need to learn the multi-cultural, inter-referential and highly visual new
language of fandom. As they learn it, the emphasis should always be as much
on making fans look good in front of their audience as on making the brand
look good in front of fans.

4. Curate, Don’t Clutter:

As the pace and quantity of social media content creation grows, there will be
a tremendous need for curation, lest social media detract from the experience
of watching sports. Brands have a tremendous opportunity to play curator.

5. Keep the Magic Alive:

As Big Data comes to sports in a big way, it threatens to undermine some of
the magic that is so crucial to being a sports fan. Brands can help fans balance
the advantages of data with humanity and creativity.

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SOURCES
Kristin Burnham, “Why Facebook Likes Are Worth $174 to Your Brand,” CIO, April
1

23, 2013.
Chantal Tode, “Facebook Fans Spend Almost 50pc More at Grocery Stores: Report,”
Mobile Commerce Daily, September 26, 2014.

2
Peter Oppenheimer, “The World Cup and Equity Markets,” Goldman Sachs, May
30, 2014.

Jordan Rost, Brad Johnsmeyer, and Allison Mooney, "2014 World Cup: What a
3

Difference 4 Years Makes," Think With Google, May 2014.

Will Leitch, “Why Fans Are Now More Into Free-Agent Negotiations Than Games,”
4

New York Magazine, July 27, 2014.

5
Matt Hartigan, “The NFL Announces It’s Tracking RFID Chips on Every Player for
2014,” Fast Company, July 31, 2014.

6
Matt Hartigan, “How the NBA’s Big Data Strategy Will Change the Way You Watch
Basketball,” Fast Company, November 24, 2013.

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MANY THANKS TO ALL THOSE FROM MCCANN

WORLDGROUP WHO CONTRIBUTED
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Obando, Bruno Corneli, Cagil Tamguler, Callie Dickens, Carlos Filippetti, Carlos
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Cruz, Oliver Duarte, Panos Vatsis, Patricia Leyton, Patricia Po-Hu, Pietro Soldi,
Rafael Camacho, Rafael Vargas, Renato Sepulveda, Ricardo Sanchez, Robson
Andrade, Rodrigo Coelho, Rodrigo Revoredo, Sameer Islam, Sanjay Kumar, Silvana
Kalil, Silvia Batres, Simge Tezel, Socrates Tsatsoulas, Sabine Steffan, Stephanie Tiez,
Stephen Look Tong, Suhani Jain, Tahaab Rais, Tanja Lenz, Teo Pollini, Thomas
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