Bonding and Abandoning

Abstract

Using data on 396 fantasy sports participants, we explore how fantasy sports participation impacts players’ perceptions of their relationships with others, with attention to how and why outcomes are sexed and gendered. We find male players are more likely than female players to report bonding with friends through their participation, particularly via highly masculinized bragging and “smack talk” with others in their male-dominated leagues. Female players also discuss fantasy sports as a means of relationship building or strengthening, particularly with friends in their leagues or men in their lives; but our analyses suggest they may trade off social connections, as women who are highly involved in other groups are less likely to use fantasy sports to connect with others. Finally, male players, more so than their female counterparts, indicate fantasy sports participation strains relationships with their partners and families, an effect seemingly attributable to their greater emotional and mental investment in fantasy sports.

Do Chinese viewers watch e-sports games for a different reason? Motivations, attitude, and team identification in predicting e-sports online spectatorship

“…On the other hand, because of the nature of e-sports and the relatively novelty of this phenomenon (Macey et al, 2022), the primary influencers when people first started watching esports were their close friends (Qian et al, 2020b). Therefore, it is common that sharing with close friends about e-sports games in China not only creates an environment that extends beyond mere socialization (Funk et al, 2004), but also treated as a means of relationship strengthening (Kissane and Winslow, 2016), particularly with friends in their social circle. Prior work on this topic found that escapism (Hamari and Sjöblom, 2017) and knowledge acquisition (Hamari and Sjöblom, 2017;Tang et al, 2022) positively predict e-sports spectatorship.…”