| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 體育學系 === 104 === Sports fields are always regarded as the place for male. Yet in recent years, the number of female baseball spectators has been steadily growing in Taiwan. Sometimes they even showed a high degree of loyalty to the team and become a new segment. To date, most studies in the literature on sport fans were based on male spectators without paying much attention to female sport fans. Therefore, this study was focus on female sport fans, in particular the true female sport fans. From focus-group interviews and in-depth interviews, the researcher collected and analyzed the experience and behavior of ten participants in order to uncover their road to form their identity and the meaning behind. The results showed that female sport fans learned about baseball at their early ages from their fathers, peers and international baseball events. They began their journeys from establishing emotional connections to devoting their passion for the team and finally developed their loyalty. The critical time when they developed their passion for the team usually began from the time when they became adults, economic independent, and have control of their own time. With high attendance to the games, they developed the identification with their team and players. Such an identification was not from the attractiveness of the players’ appearance, but rather their skills, performance, characters, attitude, team spirit, the way the team operates. These female sport fans used their professional knowledge to break the conventional gender barrier and proved they were real fans. They also developed the identification with the community. Therefore, baseball became the main part of their lives which enabled them to put in their enthusiasm and passion on the baseball field, and brought about the practice of female sport fans behavior. This comprises the passion for care, the reproduction of text, and high consuming power. Thus, team managers should pay more attention to this group of highly motivated, passionate, enchanted and having high consuming power by maintaining their loyalty and to search for more zealous female sport fans. More studies on female sport fans still need to be conducted which will uncover the diversity instead of stereotyped images.
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