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Bridget McKennitt (bridgetmkennitt) wrote in sports_rpf,
@ 2008-03-21 17:10:00

Entry tags:

works: meta

Meta: Sports Fandom
I decided to try my hand at meta and in my new fandom at that. If I mess things up or if you think I should add more, please let me know.

Sports Fandom

Background - Or once upon a time...

Before I begin, there are sports fans, then there is sports fandom, and the difficult thing to understand is that someone can be both - sometimes at the same time.

Sports fandom is the fannish side of sports enthusiasts. We all know of someone in real life who loves or watches sports, from figure skating to American football to golf. They know the statistics and history of teams/players, they dress in the team's colors in the freezing cold, they camp over night for tickets, they go crazy for games/players, etc. And this is one side of being a sports fan that we see in the media and is, for lack of a better term, "real life" approved. And members of sports fandom can be those fans, but we go a little deeper. We dip into RPF/RPS (real person fiction/real person slash) of our athletes. We icon, we picspam, we fanmix and fanvid, and we fic about our athletes. We do the same fannish things as in any other fandom.

When I mentioned above that we can be the sports fan and the fannish sports fan, it's true, and we do it often. As I watch a game of the New England Patriots playing, I can appreciate Tom Brady throwing a perfect spiral into Randy Moss' arms and landing that touch down. I cheer just as loudly as anyone else. I just also happen to notice the really big hug and groping between the Patriots and take it a step further.

If there's one thing I enjoy about sports RPF is that it's not so much us fans slashing the athletes as it is watching them slash themselves. Examples? Tim Duncan and Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team (here, here, here, and here). Also a Youtube clip of the two of them. Sometimes the slash is so blatant that the media notices it and takes note (here as a commentary about goals for the Spurs is "Most of the organization wants Tim and Tony to "just freaking get it over with and make out already."").

Sports - Or what constitutes as part of being in sports fandom...

Well, rpf about any athlete in any sport. *g* There may be some discussion about what is a sport, but I like to count them all in. American football, soccer football, basketball, baseball, hockey, figure skating, Olympics, speed skating, NASCAR, hockey, golf, tennis, volleyball...the list goes on and on. If you can watch it on ESPN or they have covered it, you can pretty much count it as a sport.

Pairings - Or why are the pairings the way they are...

As a part of RPF fandom, you may be wondering how pairings take place. Sometimes people write the athletes with their significant others already there in real life. Sometimes they get written with an original character, male or female. Most of the time, however, they get slashed (in this case slash refers to the / in pairing naming) with other athletes.

There is a system to how an author chooses the pairing by starting with the athletes themselves. Either the athlete is on their favorite team, is their favorite athlete (like Tiger Woods in golf which are usually singles games), or the athletes are mentioned frequently in the media that you can't help but know of them.

Then the pairing can begin. Usually athletes are paired with their rival in their individual sport (Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts with Tom Brady of the New England Patriots), with their best friend (Tim Duncan and Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs) or their positions. The last format I want to talk about in depth. Quarterback/Wide Receiver is an important position relationship in football so Tony Romo/Terrell Owens or Tom Brady/Randy Moss fics happen. Or between quarterbacks like Brett Favre/Tony Romo, Eli Manning/Tom Brady (which can also fit into rival category because of the last Super Bowl), Peyton Manning/Tom Brady (again, can also fit into rival category).

It is not encouraged to randomly stick two athletes together for no reason, even if they do play in the same sport. There has to be some connection.

Misc - Or what are these stories about...
Just like in any other fandom, it can be about anything. Usually it deals around an athlete's specific sport (stories told before/during/after games) but it doesn't have to. Most authors write in the now, but there have been cases where they write during a specific period in the athlete's career (before they got traded to a team as an example).

There can be meta commentary within the stories about the players, the world around them, etc. There usually is inside jokes within the stories as well - whether an inside joke between writers or something winked at from the athlete's life itself.

Sports - Or why be part of sports fandom...

Why not? I can't speak for anyone else, but I get the same rush and thrill from sports fandom as I do in any other fandom I've ever been in. I love seeing my teams win or bond over the littlest thing. And that's a great thing about sports fandom - it's everlasting. Book canon ends when you finish the last page. TV show canon ends at the end of a series and new episodes happen for only part of the year. Sports? All year round for years on end.

Sure, each sport has its "off" season, but it's not really off season. Take for example the NFL. The NFL's season "ended" after the Super Bowl on February 3, 2008, but there was the Pro Bowl a week after that in Hawaii. Then there was free agency. Upcoming in April is the draft and training camp. Pre-games. Then we get right into the season all over again. And because we're dealing with real life people, just because the game ends doesn't mean the news coverage ends. Tom Brady wasn't playing a game when ESPN analysts were gossiping about his ankle brace while he was in New York.

Even when athletes retire and their personal canon may end, there's still new up and coming players in the sports or the fact that the teams are still there, still chugging along.

The best part about RPF is that you don't necessarily need to know much about the athletes to get into a story. Many authors provide pictures or at least full names so you can Google image the athletes, and give you enough information that you won't be confused.

Sports Fandom Communities - Or where I can get in on the action...
On Livejournal:
nba_slash
nfl_rps
sports_slash
sportsslashnews
baseball_slash
rpfs_sports - Real Person Femmeslash in sports
germadian_lovin - Steve Nash/Dirk Nowitzki slash

On Insanejournal:
sports_rpf

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bridgetmkennitt
2008-03-22 10:00 pm UTC (link)

Haha, just scan through any sport pictures of the athletes. Most of them are shot in SUCH slashy manners, it's amazing! In fact here. That's the picspam I posted earlier in this asylum. Most of those pictures are from a gallery on NBA.com. The gallery? Is dedicated to both of them. Not one or the other, but both at the same time. Most of their coverage is about how close they are, even when Steve Nash was traded to the Suns from the Mavs. And when the two teams play each other, the media goes insane with the Nash/Nowitzki angles. And here's an audio interview with Dirk with cute mentions about Steve Nash.

I like to link basketball examples simply because you can see them better in their uniforms as compared to the NFL uniforms, but on the NFL side of things, they tend to get just as slashy. I'd link the videos, but I can't recall which ones off the top of my head. I do know that when Randy Moss was still uncontracted with the Patriots, the media would bring up how much Tom Brady would fuss or how much Tom wants Randy or how much Randy wants Tom, etc etc. "Where Randy goes, I go."

There's also slash moments/articles/etc in baseball, but I'm still working my way through that fandom. Though

linaerys linked a five second ship manifesto of A-Rod and Derek Jeter.

It's like watching slash stories in real life. I love it. *g*

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	iulia_linnea 2008-03-22 11:53 pm UTC (link)
	Come to think of it, even I've heard mentions of A-Rod and Jeter, and I don't go in for sports at all. :D I love it when things overlap! (Reply to this) (Parent)

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