ABSTRACT
The football fan park, originally a 'surrogate stadium' for fans without tickets, has now become a live venue in its own right, and a new arena in the culture of football fandom. In these sites of exceptionally high 'media density', football fan identities become flexible and mobile, as participants in these venues interact with an increasingly mediatized social environment. Research on fans and fan identities has undergone significant theoretical development over the years and can be traced to more general debates within audience studies on the relationship between structure and agency. The central role of public viewing in connection with global sporting events signifies a gradual intensification of the mediatization of football fandom. The commodification of sport has changed the social organization of fan cultures around the world, but it has not diminished the social significance of sport to the formation of collective identity.
