In a world where sports fans are increasingly expressing their frustration and dissatisfaction with team policies, fan protest stories offer a window into the power of fandom as a powerful force for change. Whether supporting a boycott of professional sports teams that segregate stadium seating or rallying behind players in the name of civil rights, fans can harness their collective passion to make real changes.
For example, when a Pittsburgh Pirates manager reprimanded his staff for using the word “nigger” during a pregame press conference in 2007, fans walked out of the game and threatened to leave their season tickets for good. Despite the fact that only a few hundred fans actually left the stadium, this action was symbolic and helped to bring about change within the organization.
The same sentiments were at play when many Tottenham fans supported a group calling for the removal of club owners Enic and the Glazer family after the former saddled the club with massive debts and presiding over a decline in sporting standards. A blogger described the situation as one of the club’s “slowly dying before our eyes”, and supporters wore black during matches to demonstrate their opposition to the current ownership structure.
This article offers a comparative analysis of fan activism in western Europe and Ukraine, exploring relational and glocal motivations and tactics of these communities. It also explores the implementation of Activism of Care, a form of activism that caters for specific communities’ structures, skills and intersectional positionings. It demonstrates how this is done in Tumblr-based fan fiction communities to promote the destigmatization of mental illnesses and celebrate neurodivergent participants.