Although existing research has examined the linguistic and cultural meanings of sporting nicknames, less attention has been paid to how they participate in constructing and negotiating global athletes’ identities within local context and digital environments. Drawing on qualitative critical discourse analysis of 96 Chinese nickname entries, this study investigates their construction, circulation, and sociocultural implications. The findings identify five recurring naming mechanisms, including phonetic domestication, appearance-based naming, incident-based naming, playing-style-based naming, and achievement-based naming. Through these mechanisms, nicknames selectively foreground athlete attributes and generate culturally situated representations. These nicknames also circulate through fan interactions, hashtag-based discussions, and multimodal content on Chinese digital platforms, with part of the expressions gaining recognition from athletes and sporting institutions. At the social level, naming practices may reproduce gendered hierarchies and convey shifting evaluations, revealing the coexistence of participatory creativity and discursive power. Integrating these findings, the study proposes “platformed cultural reframing” as a conceptual perspective linking symbolic reconstruction, platform-mediated circulation, and sociocultural evaluation, contributing to scholarship on sports communication, digital fan culture, and the cultural politics of sport globalization.
Sports commentary is more than a descriptive accompaniment to live sport; it is a discursive system through which sporting events are interpreted, emotionally mediated, and ideologically framed. Despite the prominence of multilingual broadcasting in Indian cricket, comparative analyses of vernacular and English commentary remain limited. Addressing this gap, the present study undertakes a comparative discourse analysis of Hindi and English commentary during India’s fixtures in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026. Using a corpus-assisted mixed-methods framework integrating content analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and thematic framing analysis, the study examines differences in lexical density, analytical engagement, narrative framing, and discursive bias across the two commentary systems. The findings indicate that Hindi commentary demonstrates significantly higher lexical density and stronger discursive alignment toward the Indian team, while English commentary exhibits comparatively greater analytical engagement and tactical explanation. Qualitative analysis further identifies recurring mytho-cultural, pop-cultural, and political framing patterns within Hindi commentary, situating cricket within broader narratives of nationalism, collective identity, and mediated spectacle. The study argues that Hindi and English commentary constitute distinct communicative systems shaped by differing assumptions regarding audience engagement, emotional mediation, and broadcast performance.
Digital innovations in sport broadcasting are reshaping consumption by altering visual presentation. Drawing on the Components of User Experience (CUE) model, this research examines how broadcast perspectives (first-person vs. third-person) influence viewers’ perceptions and intentions across contexts. Two online experiments with Chinese adults were conducted via Credamo. Study 1 used MotoGP footage ( N = 400) and Study 2 used soccer footage ( N = 400). Participants viewed a 3-min clip and reported embodiment, presence, perceived ease of use, broadcast effectiveness, flow, imagery fluency, viewing intention, and attendance intention, with sport involvement as a moderator. First-person perspective increased embodiment and presence, whereas third-person enhanced broadcast effectiveness and ease of use (soccer). Presence, ease of use, and effectiveness, but not embodiment, predicted flow and imagery fluency. Both responses predicted continuous viewing intention in both studies. Imagery fluency predicted attendance intention in both studies, whereas flow did so only in Study 1. Sport involvement moderated several perspective effects, but not uniformly across outcomes or studies. Findings inform perspective-based broadcast design and audience segmentation.
The inclusion of transgender athletes is one of the most contested issues in sport today. Drawing on original survey data from Germany, this study examines how framing, gender, and political values shape public attitudes toward transgender participation in elite sport. Using a vignette-based design and ordered logistic panel regressions, we manipulate inclusion versus fairness framing and examine responses across gender and political orientation. The results indicate that fairness framing tends to increase support for exclusionary regulations relative to inclusion framing, extending prior US-based evidence to Europe. Notably, men are more likely than women to oppose transgender inclusion, and this gender gap is significantly moderated by political values: polarization concentrates among conservative-leaning women, while men’s opposition remains stable regardless of political orientation. The findings point to a value-moderated form of gender polarization. We discuss implications for policy communication and design, sport governing bodies, and future research.
This study aims to investigate consumer responses to sponsorship across sport and esports context, focusing on the moderating roles of event-sponsor fit and brand awareness. The current study employed a 2 (event type: sport vs. esports) × 2 (event–sponsor fit: high vs. low) × 2 (brand awareness: high vs. low) × 2 (sponsorship presence: yes vs. no) experimental design. Specifically, consistent with prior sponsorship research, football and soccer were selected to represent the sport context, whereas League of Legends and Counter-Strike were selected to represent the esports context. A total of 514 participants were exposed to sponsorship stimuli, after which consumer attitudes, perceived product value, and purchase intentions were measured. The results revealed that consumer responses differed across contexts. In sport context, brand awareness primarily drove consumer responses, with sponsor fit having minimal effect. In esports, event-sponsor fit interacted with brand awareness: well-known brands with high fit generated more favorable responses, while lesser-known, low-fit brands were less effective. High-fit sponsors, regardless of awareness, are recommended for esports to boost visibility and engagement. This study extends sponsorship literature by comparing sponsorship effectiveness across sports and esports while simultaneously examining the combined effects of brand awareness and event-sponsor fit. The findings provide practical guidance for sponsorship strategy development, suggesting that esports sponsorship requires a more strategic alignment of both fit and awareness, whereas sport sponsorship depends primarily on brand awareness.
