ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the online expression of crisis remediation attempts among sports fans across social media platforms. A review of published academic literature focused on sport crisis communication on social media was conducted to explore how sports fans engage the rhetorical arena in an attempt to remediate sport-related crises. We explore the willingness of fans to engage in social media to create complex and dynamic rhetorical arenas for sport crises. This chapter reviews the theories and crises or paracrises reported in the literature, and more precisely, the actions and reactions of sports fans on social media when their beloved sports entity's reputation comes under fire. Rivalry fan behavior and discordant communication, which in sport is a form of social support, are discussed to offer the distinct considerations of how sport consumers differ from the traditional organizational consumer or organizational stakeholder. This chapter concludes with a deep-dive discussion on how practitioners might best harness that fanship expression by equipping sports fans with effective and recommended strategies to navigate the rhetorical arena.
