“We're Gators … Not Just Gator Fans”: Serious Leisure and University of Florida Football

TLDR

The study applies the serious leisure framework to explore the meanings, rituals, and practices of University of Florida football fans. The authors argue that UF football fans exemplify the serious leisure hobbyist. The authors conducted face‑to‑face in‑depth interviews with 20 fans and analyzed the transcripts using constant comparison and grounded theory. The analysis revealed themes that confirm Stebbins’ six characteristics of serious leisure and indicate that being a Gator fan provides personal identity and a sense of belonging in a fragmented society.

Abstract

AbstractThe concept of serious leisure (Stebbins, 1979; 1992) was used to examine the meanings, rituals, and practices associated with being a University of Florida Football fan. We contend that Gator football fans typify the serious leisure category of the hobbyist. Face to face in-depth interviews were conducted with four female and sixteen male fans. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using constant comparison and grounded theory methods (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998 a & b). Themes emerging from the data confirmed Stebbins' six characteristics of serious leisure. The results suggest that being a Gator football fan provides both a source of identity for the fan as an individual and a sense of belonging in an increasingly fragmented postmodern society.KEYWORDS: Serious leisureidentityfootball fanssense of belonging