Super Fans
On the surface, a “super fan” is just like any other serious fan – wears the team colours, knows the history and follows the team with a passion bordering on religious devotion.
Underneath the surface though, the super fan is a channel through whom other fans can experience and bring to life their own love for the team.
A super fan in today’s world could be a blogger or forum moderator, and will most certainly be accepted with their social group as the most prominent and ardent fan of their team. People look to you for answers, they come to talk to you about the team, it’s a part of your identity and it’s one of the things people end up talking about with you (your team, not necessarily the sport).
Why are we interested in super fans? One, they’re the key to creating high-value community sites around any topic (and in football, any team). And two, they are the most effective path to bringing a large number of regular fans to your website, and hence are quite the attractive money-makers.
Not all super fans are created equal though – and here’s a list of things it takes for a ‘serious fan’ to be considered a ‘super fan’:
- Good communication skills.
The super fan must be able to articulate his passion for his team clearly and with conviction. Command over language is a must, but more important is the ability to ‘talk’ to people.
- Access to stuff not everyone has.
Either you’ve got a geographic advantage (you live nearby) or you’re just good at finding things online – access to more information about your team than the average ‘serious’ fan is important since most people will expect you to know more than they do (that’s what you’re a super fan). Sometimes you get more access as your super fan status grows (and people feed you more info).
- Platform to power.
A super fan who doesn’t gather other fans around him isn’t worthy of being called a super fan. Find a way to connect to fellow fans whether that’s through a mailing list, a blog, a forum, a podcast or your own radio show.
- Time and Consistency.
Super fans have one thing going for them – the longer they spend ‘being’ super fans, the greater their reach is and the more popular and more successful they’ll become.
- Extraordinary Passion.
There are people who are religious, and then there are those who preach. Super Fans are evangelists, preachers, those who feel that it’s their mission in life to pimp their team. Extraordinary passion simply allows super fans to do more – go the extra mile – in supporting their team.
- Understand & Believe What Fans Want.
To believe on an emotional and rational level what being a particular team’s fan means – or at least be able to think and feel the same way. If you understand it and don’t believe it, then you’re going to be in constant conflict and attract more criticism than praise. If you believe it but don’t understand it, you can’t leverage it to your advantage.
Popular examples of super fans would be Edward Harrison, the gentleman behind Harry Hotspur, our friend Red Ranter, Andrew (arseblog) and others.
On the other hand, many ‘team bloggers’ (without naming names) and bloggers in general are NOT super fans. They’re just fans who run football blogs / forums (with varying degrees of success in making money / bringing in readers).
Those who can genuinely attract other fans to them on a consistent basis? Those are real super fans.
