Daily social activities to sport events

In the interview, the sport fans’ daily life interaction with their peer-group were also been revealed. It has found that there are variety of interaction related to the sport event between our informants and their peers. Here we present the perspective of our informants about their daily interaction with their peer-groups.

A. Factors of social interaction with sport peers

a.1) Sport events as a beginning chatting topic

Most of our informants referred that sport events would usually become the beginning topic of the chatting between their peers in their daily life, especially when meet face to face or even playing the related sport together. Usually, the conversation would quickly shift away from the sport events to an unrelated topic, such as gossip about other peers or life anecdotes.

“It is common to talk about sport events when I meet friends who have interest about the game, but not necessarily knowing them have watched the game or not. And this would usually at beginning of the talking, but not lasting long.”(P1)

a.2) Active Interaction only if peers interest

Probably one of the most silent facts shared by our informants, they would share the information about the sport events with their peers only if they knew the peers might interest about the game. Moreover, the sharing activity would be more actively if the topic itself is about the “significant games” which were mentioned above, since they know both of them would pay highly attention to this kind of game.

“I want to talk or share the information about the sport events with my peer only if the game itself is important and they might feel interesting about it” (P4)

a.3) Sharing significant games and important moments

In the interview, each of our informants also talks about the information they usually share or discuss with their peers in their daily life. Most of the topics are about the “significant games” or “important moments” which we aforementioned, they are: games with

monumental or classical meaning, games that are played by the player and team which our informants and their peers loved, games that the results are critical to them, especially with dramatic results, and the last and most mentioned, the “burst events”, such as astonishing movement or unexpected moment which are rare to see during the games.

a.4) Sport topics constantly popping out

Throughout the interview, some of our informants reflect that sport events seem took a great part of the interaction between them and the peers. In the pair interview, two informants both recalled that the sport topics would constantly prompted out when they hanging out together. These topics would always suddenly appear in anytime and anywhere, such as when dinning, shopping or even watching the movie, and would also easily triggered by related things, such as walking by a sport store then start talking sport events.

“No matter what we do together, we would always unintentionally talked about the sport event we both loved, it just natural to us” (P5, P6)

“I think it’s just because there are too many things to talk, since the news of sport events are update so frequently, and even a single game have such verity facets to discuss” (P5)

B. Sharing under different context

b.1) Public sharing to attract the best attention

An common phenomenon have found in the interview, the sport fans would share the information or their thoughts about sport events with their pees via network, especially through their social network sites. The phenomenon usually happened when they have received something interesting about the sport events or they have some strong thought after watched the sport events, but they do not know who might feel interesting about the thing they want to share. Therefore, they would simply post it publicly on their wall and see if there is anyone who is interesting to discuss with them.

“Sometime I might have a strong feeling about the information, but I just don’t know who to share, so I’ll put the information on my wall and hope someone would come and discuss with me” (P5)

b.2) Private sharing specific to special person

Conversely, once our informants have an idea about some particular peers who might also feel interesting about the information, they would directly share the information to them in order to make sure their peers would receive, such as post on their wall, tag their name, or

privately share via message. Additionally, they would usually add annotate with the information when share to particular person, and expecting their reply.

“Sometimes when I see some fool plays by a particular player, I will link to some of my peers who support him, and share this highlight directly to them with some teasing words.

It just how fun to see their reaction, and they will do the same mean thing to me!” (P1)

b.3) Synchronous interaction if urgent

Our participants reported that they would sometime chat about the game with their peers via cellphone or instant message, but only if the information itself are very important and particularly link to some of their closest peers. This usually happen when the game just finished since the exciting atmospheres are still exist, or there are something they are urgent to tell or share, such as a recommendation or invitation of the coming significant game.

C. Factors of social interaction with strangers

c.1) Stranger’s discussion creating plenty of pleasure

Our informants also say they would frequently link to BBS as a habit in the daily life, but they will widely browsing every board related to each sport events they loved, rather than just focusing on a particular board which they would do during the game time.

“I love to watch the discussion on the BBS boards, as there are many funny teasing words between strangers and I could also learn some knowledge from others’ analysis of the game, this brings lot of energy of my life.”(P3)

Through browsing these boards, they could update news about every sport events they loved, and what more important is, each news would frequently followed with some interesting comments by other strangers. Watching these comments, as our informants report, are one of their favorite recreations, since these comments are sometime informative or even hilarious, poring great pleasure into their daily life. Many of our participants also report the discussion on the board would affect their viewing chose of the future sport games.

c.2) Conservative interaction with strangers

However, most of our informants report that they do not actively interact with these strangers on the BBS boards. They would post or share information only if they are familiar with the sport events or having a strong feeling about the content on the board, such as feel being offended. The reasons are exactly the same as their concerns while watching sport

events we have mention above, check paragraph 4.2.

“Usually, the dialogue with others strangers on the BBS was only focus on the sport events, unless there is someone saying something that are really interesting or provoking, the conversation would turn to unrelated topic” (P6)