Abstract
Scholars have identified a new wave of athlete political activism and/or advocacy, often led by the example of women. Yet despite the importance of fan responses to political expressions in sport to public conversations and sport and corporate organizational reactions, little empirical research has considered how fans make sense of women athletes’ political engagement. We draw from in-depth interview data collected with 53 U.S. adults who attended the 2019 Women’s World Cup and were highly-identified fans of women’s professional soccer. Specifically, we consider fan responses to Megan Rapinoe’s kneeling to protest racist police violence and declaration that she would not visit the Trump White House and Jaelene Hinkle’s declining a call up to the U.S. Women’s National Team to not wear an LGBT Pride jersey and comments in opposition to marriage equality. Fans’ responses to these two athletes reveal that women’s sports are perceived to be uniquely political, that athletes are understood to have rights to political engagement that should be exercised with an awareness of their risks, and that fans love a winner, with athletic talent strengthening political activism/advocacy work when an athlete’s ideology aligns with fans’, but generating internal conflict among fans when it does not.
Keywords: Sport, Politics, Soccer, Gender, Race, Sexuality
