Tribalism is key to fandom in sport but the challenge is commercialising and gorwing them, writes Ed Warner.
To the Kia Oval for an exercise in tribe creation. Conscious that in most enterprises the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts, I have been working with the help of chairs across Britain’s sporting bodies and board specialists Kinsey Sears to create a network for non-execs from GB’s Olympic and Paralympic governing bodies.
First base was the launch of The NEDwork last week, a gathering of what I hope will become a powerful tribe elevating Britain’s medal chances at LA28, French Alps 2030 and beyond.
There are approaching 50 separate bodies overseeing the individual sports that make up Team GB and ParalympicsGB. Although the public sees single GB teams at Games time, the reality is that a jigsaw of organisations administer the sports and work with the athletes that come together episodically to form a British whole.
You won’t be surprised to know that the pieces don’t always fit together easily, nor is it always clear who is the puzzler charged with directing the completion of the picture.
On the day, the Duchy Suite at The Oval was crowded with representatives from the vast majority of these disparate sports, from the heavyweights such as aquatics, athletics and cycling to the more niche pursuits, of which I’d include my “own” wheelchair rugby.
The overt purpose of the event was to up-skill sporting NEDs through shared learning, but it was clear from our surveying that pure networking was the top of delegates’ priority lists. We all, it seems, get an endorphin rush from a tribal experience.
It was a happy coincidence that our keynote speaker focused on the importance of tribes in building fan bases for sports of all sizes. Gareth Balch, a former international 800m runner, is the founder of Two Circles, the go-to consultancy for all things relating to an understanding of audiences in the sports industry.
As well as hitting us with some stupidly big numbers – try getting your head around 3tn hours of sports content consumed globally each year – he unpacked the tribal experience as a motivator of sports fandom and following.
In a global sports industry currently growing at seven per cent per annum, clearly outstripping the developed world economic average, almost all Olympic and Paralympic sports are struggling for public headspace, broadcaster airtime and commercial revenue.
Squeezed by the mega professional sports, in particular football, each is subject to the temptation of aping the leaders’ playbooks and in the process attempting to find shortcuts to growth.
Gareth Balch’s message was very much that tribes grow organically and that governing bodies would do best to create conditions that might nurture this growth rather than attempting to determine it.
The concept of tribal following in the entertainment, cultural and sporting worlds is of course not new. Mods, rockers, Swifties, Ring Cycle groupies, book festival tourists, Donmar members, football ultras, Barmy Army, Tartan Army, Hyrox evangelists, the members of your local short mat bowls club.
Nor are tribes exclusive entities. You could be a headbanging Wagner fan who spends your winter weekends behind the goal, your summers in Edgbaston’s Hollies Stand and your spare evenings laying up behind the jack in the village hall. You might even have Taylor Swift as a guilty musical pleasure. Or maybe not.
Such groups thrive not just because they create a sense of community, but also because they feel authentic. Even if they revolve around a commercial entity – a band or a football team, say – there is a sense that they are created by the people, not for the people. There is a fine line between commercialising tribes and their innate enthusiasms and exploiting them.
Football is the archetype. From Premier League clubs to grassroots sides, tribal identity is woven into the fabric of the game. Football fandom is a masterclass in belonging. Clubs have long understood this, monetising loyalty through season tickets, memberships, and merchandise.
Yet the challenge of balancing authenticity with commercialisation has become far stiffer in our social media age in which the cultural agenda is often set by, and almost always shaped by, its tribes.
In the lead up to the Ashes, which gets underway in overnight, there has been much coverage of the Barmy Army’s organisation of tens of thousands of English cricket fans’ trips Down Under to watch the Tests.
What began as a group of 30 fans on an Ashes tour in 1994-95 has evolved into a corporate entity which boasts 24 corporate partners on its website and ABTA protection for its tours – albeit still with an irritating trumpet that puts your teeth on edge. Proof that tribes can develop into something commercially powerful, without losing their “edge”.
The Barmy Army’s social media followers number in the hundreds of thousands, putting the totals for many sports governing bodies in the shade.
One takeaway from The NEDwork’s inaugural conference, however, was that there is no escaping social media as the key facilitator of tribal growth. Translating an online following into bums on seats at events and commercial success is something else, though.
Try this challenge for size. At GB Wheelchair Rugby our online video content has generated 182m views in the past year. Phenomenal reach for one of the smallest Paralympic sports with a commensurately tiny tribe of committed players and supporters.
How do we harness our reach to expand our tribe? If there was an easy answer, every sport would have embraced it.
If I didn’t know it already, my day at the Oval has at least comforted me that we are not alone. Together we will be stronger. And if you think you have the answer, do please get in touch!
“Where were you in ‘79 when the dam began to burst?
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free”
Saxon – still delivering for their tribe after almost five decades
In a word this week
The Ashes: yes!
Anthony Joshua v Jake Paul: no!
Rugby’s Nations Championship: maybe…
In an emoji this week
Tierney and McLean: 😳
Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes his sport column at sportinc.substack.com