Abstract

Anti-social behaviors among fans are often witnessed in the sports domain. In the online space, verbal fracas are regularly seen among fans of opposing sides. The impact of using negative language online is far-reaching, as it can cause prejudices between communities, negative psychological effects on the targets, and possibly lead to on-the-ground communal violence. The distinction between hate speech and abusive language has often been neglected, although hate speech has been identified as the more harmful act that targets an entire social group. Examining online hating in terms of hate speech and abusive language in the sports domain can advance understanding of sports fan behavior and possibly why sports, commonly hailed as a unifying human activity, can descend into a source of hate generation. This study analyzed online hating as abusive and hate speech of fan comments on YouTube using content analysis of verbal data. Specifically, the study aimed to examine the characteristics of hate speech and abusive language, and their targets in fan interactions. Fan comments were selected using purposive sampling. Negative comments were categorized as hate speech or abusive language, and their targets identified following a set of criteria adapted from Assimakopoulos et al. (2020). Findings reveal that the number of hate speech occurrences was much lower than that of abusive language, and the targets of hate speech included the entities directly related to the sports event in the study, with LGBTQ as the exception. Notably, hate speech and abusive language appear quite tame without any observed association with violent incitement. That being so, the harm that hate speech in the sports domain can bring by perpetuating negative stereotypes should not be underestimated. The findings contribute to efforts to reduce hating in the sports domain to maintain the beauty of sports without fan violence.