Football Belongs to the People: A Social Identity Perspective on Attitudes Toward the European Super League in the English Premier League

The announcement of the European Super League (ESL) led to massive protests in England. While the ESL is officially being reshaped and may resurface, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the motives associated with attitudes toward the ESL. In this research, we explored attitudes toward the ESL...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychology of sport and exercise p. 102764
Main Authors Bertin, Paul, Green, Ricky, Biddlestone, Mikey
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 11.10.2024
Subjects
collective narcissism
consumption intentions
English Premier League
European Super League
soccer
team identification
soccer
team identification
English Premier League
collective narcissism
consumption intentions
European Super League
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Summary:The announcement of the European Super League (ESL) led to massive protests in England. While the ESL is officially being reshaped and may resurface, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the motives associated with attitudes toward the ESL. In this research, we explored attitudes toward the ESL among Premier League fans by conducting an online survey 36 hours after the ESL announcement (N = 1,346 fans of Premier League clubs, among which 832 fans of the Big Six clubs involved in the ESL). Fans of the Big Six held more positive attitudes toward the ESL compared to fans of the Other 14 Premier League clubs. However, fans of the Big Six also perceived the ESL as more threatening to their relationship with their team and reported less consumption intentions toward their clubs. From a social identity perspective, team narcissism among fans was positively linked to support for the ESL, primarily through glory hunting—a form of fair-weather fandom. In contrast, secure team identification was negatively related to ESL support. We discuss attractiveness of the ESL for team narcissists and the threat it represents for long-standing fans. •The European Super League triggered massive protests in the English Premier League•We collected data during this crsis to capture attitudes toward this tournament•Premier league fans with high levels of team narcissism had favourable attitudes•This relationship was mediated by fair-weather fandom tendencies•This event harmed the attachment of long-standing fans toward their clubs
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ISSN:1469-0292
1878-5476
1878-5476
DOI:10.1016/j.psychsport.2024.102764