Sports Fandom: Pathway to Community Belonging

For many Americans, sports is one of the few places where people from all walks of life reliably come together. From tailgating at a football game to filling out a March Madness bracket in the office, fandom is a shared cultural ritual, often inherited from family, carried between cities, and picked back up with friends every season. 

At the same time, life in the United States feels increasingly fractured. Political institutions are viewed with skepticism, partisan divides feel stronger than ever, and loneliness continues to rise. In a country this large and diverse, connecting with our communities matters a great deal, but it has rarely been harder to do. 

This report, produced in partnership with FOX Sports, examines the relationship between sports fandom and community belonging, and asks where the connections that come with fandom most often happen. We surveyed 5,572 US adults from May 28-June 11, 2026 and paired that data with a qualitative panel of 210 Americans who answered open-ended questions about sports in their own words. This report traces fandom outward from the individual, to the people around them, and to the communities and social networks that sports touches. 

This research builds on our August 2025 report, Fans, Politics, and the Power of Sports, which explored the impact of sports fandom on civic life and social connection. That research found that sports fandom takes the edge off political engagement, allows men to express themselves and connect, and is connected to greater support for democratic norms and values. 

To classify fandom, this study again uses the framework Ben Valenta and David Sikorjak introduced in their seminal 2022 book Fans Have More Friends. The report sorts respondents into Non-Fans, who do not follow sports at all, and Low Value, Mid Value, and High Value fans, with High Value fans following sports most closely and passionately. 

Here are our key findings.  

Key Takeaways

1. Sports is one of the few spaces where Americans still connect across political difference.

As partisan divides deepen, Americans have fewer and fewer places where they are simply around people who vote differently from themselves. Sports is a rare refuge to build bridges across these differences. 

• The fan bases of most major sports split roughly evenly across Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Combat sports, the NFL, the NBA, college football and basketball, international soccer, and Major League Baseball all draw supporters from across the political spectrum. 

• Most people—and High Value fans especially—see sports as a place to enjoy something alongside people they disagree with politically (79% of High Value fans, versus 52% of Non-Fans). 

• The stronger the fan, the more interested they are in working across the aisle: 72% of High Value fans say they are interested in pursuing a shared community goal with someone whose politics differ from theirs, compared with 49% of Non-Fans. This replicates a finding from our August 2025 study of sports fans. 

Openness to connection across difference grows alongside fandom. The most avid fans are the most likely to see sports as a place where people on opposite sides can still share something enjoyable. 

2. Fandom is closely linked to community belonging.

Across our data, deeper fandom corresponds with a greater presence in community life. Stronger fans tend to feel more connected to the places they live and more inclined to contribute to them. 

• Belonging rises steadily with fandom: 87% of High Value fans agree they belong in their local community, versus 74% of Non-Fans. 

• High and Mid Value fans are more likely to trust their local government (61% and 58%) than Low Value fans and Non-Fans (46% and 45%). 

• Stronger fans are also the most likely to contribute where they live: 69% of High Value fans frequently help out neighbors, 58% have worked with others to improve their community, and 49% have volunteered for an organization. 

• The connection extends to everyday socializing. High Value fans visit more types of community spaces than Non-Fans — an average of 9.8 places versus 8.3 — and 71% use sports as a way into conversation with someone new, compared with 13% of Non-Fans. 

The pattern holds across belonging, trust, neighborhood connection, and volunteering. The fans most invested in the game tend also to be the ones most invested in the community around them. 

3. The more people watch sports alongside others, the greater their sense of belonging. 

Watching sports with others frequently is linked to a stronger sense of belonging, no matter where people watch—bars, stadiums, a friend’s house, or public spaces—and regardless of how big a fan they are. 

• The pattern holds at every level of fandom. Even Non-Fans tend to report a greater sense of belonging when they attend alongside others more often. 

• When sports feel central to a town, people report higher feelings of belonging. That relationship is strongest for High Value fans. 

• The most cited reason Non-Fans and less avid fans skip sports gatherings is simply not having someone to go with.