Abstract
This study examines the following of European soccer leagues within the United States as a manifestation of emerging cultural capital and cosmopolitan dispositions. Utilizing Bourdieu and neo-Bourdieusian frameworks of cultural capital, it investigates how the consumption of European soccer leagues by Americans signifies new forms of social distinction, influenced by factors such as socioeconomic position, age, political orientation, and social attitudes towards openness and diversity. Using unique and highly recent survey data, results of regression modelling reveal that engagement with these leagues is significantly associated with higher educational attainment, age, and cosmopolitan values of openness and diversity, although not liberal politics, challenging traditional notions of cultural capital and suggesting a reconfiguration of social stratification within the context of global sports consumption while raising compelling questions for further research.
Keywords
Introduction
Soccer (football) in Europe has historically often been rooted in working-class communities, where the sport developed as a cultural practice of laboring populations and subsequently as a form of mass spectacle and popular culture associated with larger social classes in these societies (Bourdieu, 1978; Fürtjes, 2016; Holt, 1992; Pope, 2015). While definitions of ‘class’ are contested, especially concerning the working class and its culture, class remains analytically relevant for understanding how cultural and sporting practices are patterned and understood. Indeed, Pope (2015) suggests that many of these class-based cultural associations around sport in the UK have not disappeared. Therefore, soccer has often been identified with working-class cultures, yet also with processes of social mobility, exclusion, and commercialization that contemporarily complicate this association.
In the United States, scholarly analysis often foregrounds race and gender, with class occupying a marginal role in sport studies and broader social science (Das, 2018; Wright, 2015). Likewise, US sport sociology has emphasized identity while leaving class underdeveloped, and little work has examined class and sport consumption (Andrews and Silk, 2012; Carrington and McDonald, 2009; Gemar, 2019a). Even in studies of social position and cultural engagement, sport is often absent (Gemar, 2019a; Kahma, 2012). There is, therefore, a need to address the significantly understudied relationship between sport and social class (Cunningham, 2023; Gemar, 2024).
The concept of social class is also inextricably linked to politics and the state (Das, 2018). In the American context, this relationship has drawn greater attention in the aftermath of the 2016 election of Donald Trump and debates surrounding class-based political realignments, notably the education–culture divide (Hopkins, 2024). With regards to sport in the American context specifically, where sports teams generally do not have formal or popular party or broader political associations, the political views of fans are also not well understood. I argue that the politicization of previously less politically associated areas of culture demands greater consideration in a more polarized socio-political landscape that is the contemporary United States. Indeed, Heltzel and Laurin (2020) argue that the United States has reached unprecedented levels of socio-political polarization, also now clearly present in sport, such as political debates around Black Lives Matter activism and transgender inclusion. This article is thus positioned within this shifting terrain of sport, culture, politics, and their underestimated and under-examined relationship to social class—an intersection I seek to begin addressing here.
The presence and popularity of European and other forms of soccer on the American sociocultural landscape is at a historical high point (Gans, 2023). The top soccer leagues of England, Spain, Italy, and Germany all have complete broadcast rights contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with prominent American broadcasters (e.g., NBC/Universal, ABC/ESPN, and CBS/Paramount). Rights holdings include Spanish language rights, a key and growing demographic in the United States, and one traditionally underserved when it comes to both sports broadcasts and other fan engagement (Cardenas, 2022).
However, little scholarly work has been done to understand the nature and complexities of American following of European soccer leagues. Almost no sociological work has been done to understand the social position of these followers or their social attitudes, both of which may influence whether and how they choose to follow these leagues. For instance, rising costs and a fragmenting media landscape may be cost-prohibitive or confusing to those without the time and money to facilitate consumption across these platforms. Because of their foreign origins, American consumption of European soccer offers an interesting site to investigate dynamics of cosmopolitan cultural consumption in an age of globalization. The dynamic of their native contextual associations with the less privileged adds a different but related dynamic for theoretical interpretation.
The concept of cultural capital, as proposed by Pierre Bourdieu (1984), remains an important framework for understanding the relationship between cultural consumption and social stratification. Bourdieu argued for the role that educational qualifications and social status play in shaping individuals’ cultural engagement, arguing that the most socially privileged possess dispositions towards participation in what are conventionally regarded as more ‘legitimate’ forms of culture. Such dispositions are frequently misinterpreted as innate intelligence by educational systems, further entrenching societal divisions and reproducing inequalities through formal education (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992).
However, there has been a discernible shift in the perceived value of elite/highbrow forms of culture, with technological advancements facilitating the emergence of new, more accessible forms, marking a diminished reliance on elite cultural forms as indicators of social distinction, and giving rise to the concept of ‘emerging’ culture and ‘emerging cultural capital’, characterized by engagement practices rather than the inherent nature of the activities themselves (Prieur and Savage, 2013; Savage, 2015). This shift has manifested in substantial generational differences in consumption (Prieur et al., 2023).
The spread of digital platforms has lowered barriers to cultural participation, generally, as well as in sport. Prieur and Savage (2013) thereby posit that cultural distinction now lies less in distinctions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of culture than in how practices are engaged with and integrated into daily life, thus helping to explain why younger cohorts adopt hybrid repertoires that blur these elite/popular boundaries (Prieur et al., 2023). In sport, while subscription fees and paywalls may reinforce class-based barriers to accessing live broadcasts, the proliferation of podcasts, social media highlight reels, mobile gambling, fan forums, and streaming platforms likewise reflects this ‘emerging culture’ model of engagement, where participation is defined more by the ‘how’ of engagement than whether one engages.
This shift suggests a move towards understanding embodied aspects of cultural capital and a reevaluation of the mechanisms through which cultural distinctions are constructed and maintained. Echoing Bourdieu, Friedman (2011) illustrates how the socially privileged utilize embodied cultural capital, through a type of intellectualized disinterested engagement, to interact with mainstream cultural products, such as comedy, in a manner that reinforces social exclusivity. My investigation extends this dialogue to the domain of professional spectator sports, an area historically entrenched within the realm of popular culture (Bourdieu, 1978; Rowe, 1995).
While previous research has suggested that North American professional soccer leagues may be a place where these dynamics can be observed (Gemar, 2019b), I hypothesize that American engagement with foreign soccer leagues, emanating from foreign and seemingly ‘exotic’ cities in Europe, both large and cosmopolitan and small and ‘authentic’, may offer an even better avenue for articulating and embodying cosmopolitan tastes (Cappeliez and Johnston, 2013; Emontspool and Georgi, 2017; Prieur et al., 2023; Prieur and Savage, 2013; Rössel and Schroedter, 2015; Savage et al., 2018) and values that emphasize openness and tolerance (Coulangeon, 2017; Ollivier, 2008; Pedersen et al., 2018).
I therefore investigate the social position and dispositions towards openness of Americans who consume arguably the two most high-profile European soccer leagues, the English Premier League (EPL) and La Liga. These leagues exemplify cosmopolitan consumption due to their countries of origin, global appeal, and high-profile team locations in either highly global cities or more ‘authentic’ cities that embody a type of ‘exotic’ foreign culture. This investigation contributes to the broader sociological literature on new and emerging forms of cultural capital and fills a prominent gap in understanding how they relate to contemporary sports consumption, underscoring the connection between societal stratification, cultural practices, and emergent forms of social distinction.
Emerging forms of cultural capital and social distinction
Rather than treating sport as a peripheral domain for testing cultural capital theory, as is often the case in such research, this article positions sport consumption, and particularly foreign soccer consumption, as a paradigmatic example of where social class distinctions may be contemporarily produced, displayed, and contested in American society. Soccer consumption, from styles of knowledge and performance to embodied comportment in fan and other cultural spaces, provides a stage on which Bourdieu’s dynamics of distinction and cultural capital can be enacted and observed. In these ways, soccer fandom can exemplify how consumer practices generate these forms of distinction, while also linking to broader sociological debates on globalization, citizenship, social class, and politics (Giulianotti, 2002; Giulianotti and Numerato, 2017; Rowe, 1995).
Bourdieu highlighted how societal divisions based on educational qualifications and class status influence cultural consumption, with the more privileged engaging in what is deemed more ‘legitimate’ forms of culture, socially recognized as embodying high taste and intellectually advanced engagement (Bourdieu, 1984). These cultural practices, often institutionalized through theaters, museums, government support, and educational curricula, establish a framework for cultural capital with the high-status cultural signals used for social and cultural exclusion (Lamont and Lareau, 1988). Bourdieu argued that engaging in these cultural activities not only bolsters one’s social position through the accumulation of cultural capital but also intertwines with the accumulation of social and economic capital. However, these opportunities are also structurally constrained by social and class position. Soccer consumption can likewise be understood not as something separate from cultural capital but as a prominent cultural domain in which these logics of distinction and inequality play out. Sport is embedded in global consumer culture and provides a stage where stratifications of class, taste, and distinction are enacted, making soccer consumption and spectatorship a visible local and transnational medium through which individuals reproduce and signal cultural capital (Giulianotti and Numerato 2017).
Cultural capital, as outlined by Bourdieu, is primarily instilled during childhood in more affluent families, fostering an appreciation for ‘legitimate’ culture, leading to an ‘embodied’ form of cultural capital that is often misinterpreted as natural intelligence within educational systems, thereby reinforcing societal distinctions (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). The reason for this is that cultural capital is intrinsically linked to educational institutions, leading to credentialization, which has made formal educational attainment a widely used proxy for cultural capital in empirical studies.
Relatedly, Bourdieu also noted a ‘disinterested aesthetic’ in cultural consumption among higher classes, a sign of an intellectualized appreciation that contrasts with the more emotional responses typical of lower-class fractions, suggesting that educational systems play an important role in the cultivation and recognition of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984, 1986). Friedman (2011) contends that the concept of embodied cultural capital, as described by Bourdieu and characterized by a disinterested aesthetic, enables those with social privilege to engage with mainstream cultural entities, such as comedy, in a way that reinforces exclusivity. In this investigation, I similarly focus on the realm of professional and otherwise spectator sports following, a domain that has long been firmly entrenched within the realm of popular culture (Bourdieu, 1978; Rowe, 1995).
As Friedman (2011) shows in his study of comedy audiences, an intellectualized, disinterested engagement functions as a form of cultural capital by distinguishing middle-class consumers through irony, reflexivity, and detachment. This disposition is also relevant to US-based followers of European soccer leagues, where knowledge of clubs, supporters, and tactics can similarly signal distinction. In such environments, adopting an intellectually distanced disposition carries symbolic value in the form of cultural capital, which also helps to understand how cultural capital circulates within transnational soccer fandom, shaping hierarchies of taste and legitimacy among US consumers. This dynamic also has political valence and resonates with research on soccer supporters as ‘citizen–consumers’, whose fandom ties market and social distinction to civic and moral identities (Numerato and Giulianotti, 2017). Just as Friedman (2011) identifies ironic consumption (among other reflexive and distanced styles) in comedy as markers of distinction, US followers of European soccer may emphasize intellectualized distance over ‘hot’ loyalties, aligning with Giulianotti's (2002) taxonomy of ‘consumer/cool’ and ‘flâneur' fans—spectators oriented less to local attachments and more to global consumption, aesthetic appreciation, and symbolic identity work. In this way, the analogy to comedy underscores my argument that US-based soccer fandom involves reflexivity and detachment consistent with broader forms of ‘cool’ engagement.
In the decades since Bourdieu’s observations of French society, it is argued that there has been a notable decline in the symbolically presumed prestige of elite art and culture, as Van Eijck (2000) articulates, highlighting a diminishing inherent value in what was traditionally considered highbrow culture. This shift is further facilitated by the advent of technologies that introduce newer, more accessible cultural expressions. Savage (2015) suggests that the importance of elite cultural forms as markers of social distinction has waned due to the emergence of diverse cultural expressions not traditionally associated with highbrow status. Rather than relegating these new or increasingly significant cultural expressions to the disparaging category of ‘lowbrow’, Prieur and Savage (2013) propose the concept of ‘emerging’ culture. This concept is characterized not by the nature of the activities themselves but by how they are engaged with and discussed. This perspective aligns with findings by researchers such as Friedman (2011) and Jarness (2015), who emphasize the significance of the mode of cultural engagement over the content consumed, suggesting a shift towards the valuation of embodied cultural capital over objectified forms in the creation of social distinctions.
These kinds of arguments posit that while emerging cultural forms have yet to be recognized as fully legitimized forms of culture that convey objectified forms of capital by their engagement, they do serve as arenas where embodied cultural capital is more prominently utilized (Friedman, 2011, 2014; Savage, 2015). This reflects a move towards privileging embodied cultural capital over solely objectified cultural capital, especially among younger demographics, suggesting a shift in the foundations of culture-based social distinction. These contemporary discussions resonate with Holt (1997), who observed a blurring of lines between popular and elite cultural objects, leading to a predominance of embodied cultural capital. However, Gemar (2020) argues that there are also forms of culture that are new on the cultural scene, similarly represent opportunities to display embodied cultural capital, but are also distinguishing by their objective engagement.
Supporting this narrative of emerging cultural capital, studies highlight a clear age-related stratification in cultural engagement, distinguishing traditional highbrow pursuits from others (Coulangeon, 2017; Roose, 2015; Savage, 2015). Savage (2015) outlines a significant and deep-seated age gap in British cultural engagement, suggesting the existence of two distinct types of cultural capital: ‘highbrow’ and ‘emerging’. This generational divide, rather than differences in class or economic capital, is central to understanding the dynamics of emerging culture. Despite the age disparity in cultural practices, younger generations may show comparable levels of income and education, the conventional measures of economic and cultural capital, respectively. This result indicates that the observed consumption patterns across generations are best interpreted through a lens of cohort influence (Coulangeon, 2017), reflecting a continuity in aesthetic appreciation across different cultural forms favored by successive generations. This is all to say that this phenomenon does not stem from a radical divergence in aesthetic preferences. Instead, it arises from the tendency of the privileged and elite of older generations to gravitate towards cultural expressions more unique to their era.
In contrast, the younger elite similarly aligns with cultural manifestations specific to their own time. Consequently, both cohorts exhibit parallel aesthetic tastes, characterized by a distanced and selective engagement with, and appreciation for, the cultural artifacts that resonate with their generational identity, even as the embodied cultural capital with which they consume these cultural forms creates similar symbolic boundaries and forms of distinction. Prieur et al. (2023) argue that the age axis, as opposed to the economic axis proposed by Bourdieu (1984) of cultural consumption, is now a primary driver of difference in patterns of cultural engagement, with the highest cultural capital-possessed older groups more likely to enjoy classical highbrow forms of culture, while younger age groups increasingly display tastes for contemporary forms of culture, even highly commercialized ones (Bennett et al., 2009).
Related works conceptualizing aspects that may be related to emerging culture also explore alternative avenues for establishing distinction beyond objectified cultural capital. This includes markers such as ‘openness’ (Coulangeon, 2017; Ollivier, 2008) and ‘cosmopolitanism’ in consumption patterns (Cappeliez and Johnston, 2013; Emontspool and Georgi, 2017; Prieur and Savage, 2013; Rössel and Schroedter, 2015), suggesting that these traits can redefine and emphasize new distinctions in cultural consumption. Indeed, dispositions and expressions towards cultural diversity are highly valued amongst cultural elites (Khan, 2011). Ollivier (2008) and Holt (1997) highlight how dispositions towards openness and the consumption of the exotic reflect broader socio-economic and cultural hierarchies within leisure and cultural consumption. Institutions of higher education, which often cultivate openness and appreciation for diverse cultures, play a crucial role in perpetuating these values. This connection and interplay between education and culture suggests a nuanced form of cultural capital, characterized by a reflexive and open engagement with diverse cultural forms and people from diverse backgrounds (Bennett et al., 2009: p. 194; Gemar, 2025). Coulangeon (2017) further argues that cosmopolitan tastes may themselves constitute a contemporary manifestation of cultural capital.
However, Coulangeon (2017) highlights how not all forms of cultural consumption that ostensibly may signal cultural openness are necessarily imbued with an emerging form of cosmopolitan cultural capital. Indeed, Woodward et al. (2008) draw a clear line between superficial engagement with diverse cultural forms, which is an increasingly common occurrence in the realm of cultural consumption (Chaney, 2002; Regev, 2007), and a more thoughtful, reflexive cosmopolitan approach. The former often results from the global expansion of cultural offerings and increased opportunities for travel, presenting as a somewhat automatic reaction (Coulangeon, 2017). In contrast, the latter involves a deliberate embrace of a mindset oriented towards cultural differences, along with aesthetic and intellectualized appreciation (Skrbiš and Woodward, 2013). This approach to cosmopolitanism is not merely about consumption but includes a comprehensive set of intellectual, political, and ethical commitments that advocate for cultural diversity, human rights, and global governance, signifying a willingness to be profoundly affected by encounters with the unfamiliar (Skrbiš and Woodward, 2013). This form of distinction regards the phenomenon of globalized consumerism (Woodward et al., 2008) that can be understood through arguments for emerging forms of cultural capital that ultimately layer upon Bourdieusian understandings of embodied cultural capital in cultural appreciation and consumption.
With regards to possibly more explicit dimensions of emerging cultural capital, it has been suggested that the professed openness and tolerance characteristic of ‘omnivorous’ cultural consumers are reinforced by the observed relationship between eclectic preferences and a commitment to liberal views and political ideologies (Chan, 2013). Studies have demonstrated that left-leaning liberalism is often associated with substantial cultural capital, among other forms, reflecting the privileged and elite paths expected for young individuals with these views, who are likely to ascend into elite future positions in line with these trajectories (Achterberg and Houtman, 2006; Flemmen and Haakestad, 2018). Pedersen et al. (2018) find that many young people of a ‘new left’ orientation include a strong focus on open-mindedness, tolerance, and liberal principles that convey and structure cultural capital among peers, even as these symbolic boundaries are reinforced in less tolerant ways (i.e. these values and associated language are strictly policed amongst these groups). Additionally, it is argued to be a type of activism-based cultural capital (Mischi, 2019), which may be more characteristic of certain groups, such as young people. This type of cultural capital may also be on the rise in the era succeeding the first election of Donald Trump, which it has been argued served to crystallize and exacerbate often culturally bifurcated solidarities of cosmopolitanism and nativism (Tucker, 2017). Likewise, Inglehart and Norris (2016: 3) posit that ‘the classic economic Left-Right cleavage is overlaid today by a new cultural cleavage dividing Populists from Cosmopolitan Liberalism’. While ‘nativism’ is often juxtaposed to ‘cosmopolitanism’, particularly in cultural and political contexts and discourse surrounding immigration, this dichotomy is not an exhaustive categorization of ideological or political orientations. While it reflects the dominant language of public discourse and much research in this area, this binary risks excluding alternative traditions (e.g., socialist internationalism, which emphasizes cross-border solidarity while critiquing capitalism, inequality, and imperialism). Though not well represented in the mainstream of US politics, such perspectives highlight that attitudes toward global consumption and migration cannot be reduced to a single continuum. Therefore, a cosmopolitanism–nativism lens can be understood as a theoretically supported heuristic for assessing mainstream orientations, rather than an uncritical or exhaustive analytical frame.
These new cultural divisions, and the potential cultural capital represented by them, are perhaps most exemplified in American society through the views of the Black Lives Matter movement and attitudes towards immigration, among a few others (Tucker, 2017). Theories on the relationship between cultural position and attitudes regarding the amount of threat that people feel from immigrants also posit that those who are in weaker cultural positions in society, those with less cultural capital and lower levels of education, will feel more of this threat, which some empirical research also supports (Manevska and Achterberg, 2011). With regards to economic capital, higher income groups may be less likely to perceive immigrants as economic ‘threats’, while lower income groups, facing greater precarity, may experience greater anxieties around competition for resources and opportunities (Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Scheve and Slaughter, 2001). This suggests that economic capital operates alongside cultural capital in structuring immigration attitudes, and in some cases may even be more influential. My emphasis on cultural capital reflects the theoretical focus of this article. However, I recognize that disentangling the relative weight of income and education is essential for future research, and control for economic capital (income) in this analysis.
Regarding sport specifically, research has found that participatory sport, including exercise, has been increasingly aestheticized and consecrated as a form of legitimate culture (Savage et al., 2018). A reason for this is that emerging forms of cultural capital today emphasize engagement with sports and physical activity far more than earlier versions (Savage et al., 2018), which distanced intellectual pursuits from bodily exertion (Bennett et al., 2009; Prieur and Savage, 2011). This shift is especially prominent in cosmopolitan urban environments and has become emblematic of urban cultural lifestyles of both individuals and cities more broadly through distinguished internationally recognized soccer teams (Savage et al., 2018). Empirical studies have demonstrated the presence of cosmopolitan dynamics in sports consumption (Gemar, 2019a; Gemar and Vanzella-Yang, 2022; Lozada, 2008; Rowe and Gilmour, 2009, 2010), including consumption of Major League Soccer (MLS) in Canada (Gemar, 2019b). Gemar (2019b) observed that MLS followers in Canada possess higher levels of cultural capital, suggesting that the league serves as an exemplary cultural form for expressing and showcasing cosmopolitan tastes in sports.
Research on the Indian Premier League shows that global sport spectacles can be appropriated differently across class lines, with elites consuming them as formulations of cosmopolitan identity (Khondker and Robertson 2018). The embrace of European football by specific social groups in the US likewise represents a site of transnational cultural engagement with sport in a way that marks social distinction, political and moral identities, and cosmopolitan belonging. Specifically, I argue that the consumption of foreign soccer leagues—especially those from European countries and cosmopolitan global cities, and thus characterized by diverse cultures, languages, and global appeal—might offer particularly sophisticated avenues for embodying and displaying cosmopolitan tastes and values. This can even play out through simple linguistic categories, with some US-based followers of European leagues deliberately using the (English) language of ‘football’, such as ‘nil’, ‘result’, ‘supporter’, among many others, as a form of linguistic distinction that signals authenticity and alignment with global fandoms. This (often) playful yet meaningful discursive orientation itself can operate as a form of cultural capital, marking symbolic boundaries within fan communities.
As investigated in the following analysis, American soccer fans may engage in these practices in ways associated with, or that reflect, not only the acquisition and display of cultural capital, but also the negotiation of classed and cosmopolitan identities in a global consumer field. Soccer fandom and consumption are thus not external to Bourdieusian cultural theory, but a core site for examining how consumer culture and social distinction intersect. By situating the empirical findings within this literature, I underscore soccer’s role as a central arena of consumption, thereby answering calls for more robust integration of fan studies and cultural capital frameworks (Giulianotti and Numerato 2017; Bodet et al., 2018).
Hypotheses
Although soccer lacks the deep historical roots of other US sports, it has been a spectator sport for some time. However, the accessible consumption of European soccer is a relatively recent phenomenon in the American cultural landscape, representing a new form of cultural practice. It may therefore be more characteristically adopted by younger cohorts, consistent with theories of “emerging” cultural capital that highlight generationally distinct repertoires (Prieur and Savage, 2013; Savage, 2015).
If following these leagues represents objectified cultural capital, we would expect it to be disproportionately associated with higher levels of formal education and income (Bourdieu 1984). While the consumption of these leagues may only be sites where embodied forms of cultural capital are deployed regardless of the objective patterning of consumption, the quantitative analysis deployed in this paper is only capable of clearly capturing objective cultural capital of these leagues but could also strongly hint at embodied forms of their consumption. This data thus cannot directly capture embodied cultural capital or the mode of engagement. Such indicators may reflect broader socio-demographic correlates rather than specific practices of fandom. However, the observed patterns in education, age, and political orientation offer indirect signals of these dynamics. I therefore proceed with the following hypotheses. H1: Following European professional soccer leagues will be associated with younger respondents. H2: Followers of European leagues will be associated with elevated levels of formal education and higher incomes. H3: Followers of European leagues in the US will be associated with liberal political orientations and social attitudes emphasizing openness and tolerance, tested here via views on immigration and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Data and methods
Much of the scarcity in scholarly literature on the dynamics of social class, politics, and sport can be explained by a shortage of accessible data for academic researchers. This study leverages a novel and contemporary dataset that captures such views from a national sample of the US. The dataset originates from a national survey designed by academics and commissioned to Momentive/SurveyMonkey, who distributed it to a large online survey-taking population in December of 2023. Respondents were recruited, compensated, and monitored for quality assurance by Momentive/SurveyMonkey. The survey process involved initial random selection within this population, followed by an algorithmically stratified random adjustment during collection to ensure final representativeness of the sample for gender and age, as determined against official US population figures. Therefore, the survey ultimately employed stratified random sampling of this specific population. Most survey takers did so on mobile devices, and there were 2032 total responses, which are all used in the analysis of this paper.
Although direct comparison with specific census categories is challenging due to differing classifications, key demographics like age, gender, geographic region, and income are broadly reflective of the US population. Educational attainment within the sample generally aligns with national trends, albeit with a slight underrepresentation of high school diploma holders and an overrepresentation of individuals with graduate degrees. The survey accurately represents indigenous groups but shows a skew towards higher numbers of Asian Americans and lower numbers of Latinx Americans, along with marginal overrepresentation of White Americans and underrepresentation of Black Americans. While some of these variations are less significant than those seen in other recent sociocultural and sports research surveys in the US (e.g., Applebaum et al., 2023; Sutton and Knoester, 2022), and are typical of surveys in general (Spitzer, 2020), they may pose some limitations for specific analyses and conclusions from this data. However, the overall alignment with population data across most socio-demographic categories and a sample size that surpasses thresholds of statistical robustness lends credibility to the dataset for the specific research aims and analysis conducted in this paper.
aReference category = not following.
b*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
To assess the social makeup of Americans who follow these prominent European soccer leagues, I perform two logistic regression analyses. The dependent variables for each of these analyses are the binary following or non-following for each of the two leagues that I investigate in this paper, the EPL and La Liga. The Independent variables assessed in these regression models include social class measures of income and education, along with demographic measures of gender, race, and age. The final four independent variables include political party identification, political views, support for Black Lives Matter, and the degree to which respondents want the annual number of immigrants to increase, stay the same, or decrease. Both the relative frequencies for these independent variables and the results of the multinomial regression analyses appear in Table 1.
Regarding the measure of immigration attitudes, it captures broad orientations but does not fully reflect the diversity of underlying political rationales. For example, one might favor lower immigration less out of hostility to migrants but rather from the perspective that structural ‘push factors’ such as conflict, geopolitical instability, and socio-economic inequalities should be reduced, thereby resulting in decreasing migration. Such views could be classified as ‘negative’ toward immigration flows in survey terms, depending on the respondent’s thought process. I therefore interpret this variable cautiously, as a proxy for dispositions towards immigration policies, while recognizing that it cannot capture the full range of ideological positions and their underlying motivations.
Findings
The regression results in Table 1 reveal several key patterns. For both the English Premier League (EPL) and La Liga, respondents with graduate degrees are significantly more likely to be followers of these leagues than those with lower levels of formal education. Because education emerges as one of the strongest predictors, this highlights cultural capital as operationalized through educational credentialization (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Household income plays a slightly weaker role, though higher-income respondents are more likely to follow the EPL, with La Liga showing weaker and non-significant trends. This supports H2 and aligns with research demonstrating that cultural and economic capital intersect in structuring this type of global sports consumption (e.g., Gemar 2019b).
The results also reveal stratification by race and ethnicity. Black and Asian Americans are significantly more likely than whites to follow the EPL, while Black and Latinx respondents are more likely to follow La Liga. Both leagues are also stratified by sex and age: men are substantially more likely to follow than women, and younger and middle-aged cohorts more likely than the oldest. Followers are especially concentrated among Millennials (30–44), though both 18–29 and 45–59 year-olds are also significantly more likely to follow. These age effects support H1 and resonate with theories of “emerging cultural capital” (Prieur and Savage 2013; Savage 2015), which emphasize younger cohorts’ adoption of new global practices as markers of distinction.
Political variables show that Democrats and Independents are less likely than Republicans to follow La Liga, while no significant party effects emerge for the EPL. At the same time, those on the ideological right of the political spectrum are more likely to follow the EPL than those on the left, with similar though non-significant results for La Liga. These results might seem to contrast with evidence that respondents supportive of Black Lives Matter or increased immigration are much more likely to follow both leagues, with particularly strong effects for La Liga and more consistently linear results for BLM support. Broadly, this supports H3, which is to say that this soccer consumption aligns with cosmopolitan dispositions and liberal social attitudes, even if partisan alignments qualify these results, and the existence of a substantial number of political ‘Independents’ reveals complications with two-party binaries.
Taken together, the findings support H1–H3: younger, more educated, and cosmopolitan-leaning Americans are more likely to consume European soccer, at least in the forms of the EPL and La Liga. They show that this consumption is thus a socially patterned cultural practice embedded in broader logics of distinction, inequality, and cosmopolitanism. Through these results, this analysis suggests that European soccer consumption functions as a symbolic resource for identity. Supporting globally dominant clubs (e.g., Barcelona, Real Madrid) may signal cosmopolitanism (or conversely a lack of sophisticated taste within these spaces), while choosing less prominent teams (e.g., Villarreal, Burnley) may reflect authenticity and specialized forms of knowledge, consistent with Holt’s (1997) analysis of cultural hierarchies and Giulianotti’s (2002) taxonomy of ‘cool’ and ‘flâneur' fandom. These dynamics also echo Friedman’s (2011) findings on irony and reflexivity in comedy audiences, as well as research on soccer supporters as ‘citizen–consumers’ whose fandom intersects with both market and civic identities (Numerato and Giulianotti 2017). This analysis captures these dynamics indirectly, as these regression results cannot directly measure embodied cultural capital or modes of engagement. Thus, while the patterns strongly hint at embodied practices of distinction, caution is warranted because survey indicators may reflect socio-demographic correlates rather than lived practices. Future qualitative or mixed-method research will be needed to trace how cultural capital is performed within transnational soccer fandom.
Discussion and conclusion
This paper provides a highly contemporary analysis of a possible site where emerging forms of culture manifest in updated and reconfigured ways that embody and exhibit new forms of cultural capital, such as openness, tolerance, and cosmopolitanism. To accomplish this, I utilized data from the end of 2023 and assessed the relationship between social position and socio-political attitudes and the following of prominent European soccer leagues in the United States. In investigating the relationship between emerging cultural capital, cosmopolitan dispositions, and the consumption of these leagues, my investigation draws heavily upon Bourdieu’s (1984) foundational theory of cultural capital and neo-Bourdieusian arguments for an extension and reconfiguration into emerging forms of culture and cultural capital that they provide (e.g. Prieur et al., 2023; Prieur and Savage, 2013; Savage et al., 2018). The results primarily provide evidence for the existence of emerging forms of cultural capital in the consumption of both the English Premier League (EPL) and La Liga.
My first hypothesis posited that following European soccer leagues would be more characteristic of younger respondents. A prominent reason for this may be the relatively recent emergence of these forms on the cultural landscape of the US. This expectation also aligns with Bourdieu’s notion that cultural capital is not static but evolves, reconfiguring between different contexts and generations, adapting to shifts in societal values, technological advancements, and globalization (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Prieur et al., 2023). The findings corroborate this hypothesis, highlighting a generally younger cohort of Americans that follow these European leagues, especially among the Millennial generation, but especially not among the oldest generational cohorts. This shift is reflective of broader reconfigurations of cultural capital, where the consumption of, in this case, global sports like European soccer likely signifies a form of cosmopolitan cultural engagement (Prieur and Savage, 2013; Savage, 2015). The demographic preference of younger cohorts for European soccer leagues underscores the dynamic nature of cultural capital and its alignment with contemporary global cultural practices and societal changes, around social class and otherwise.
The second hypothesis explored the likelihood of followers of these leagues to possess elevated levels of formal education and, potentially, income. This aligns with Bourdieu’s assertion that cultural capital is closely linked to educational attainment, serving as both a product and a perpetuator of social distinctions (Bourdieu, 1984). The analysis reveals a strong predictive relationship between high educational attainment and the consumption of European soccer, underscoring the role of education in facilitating appreciation for global cultural forms, along with possibly both symbolic and physical access to consuming these leagues. Coupled with the results around age, this finding extends the concept of cultural capital beyond traditional highbrow cultural activities, illustrating how this European soccer consumption has become embedded within the framework of emerging cultural capital. The association between European league following and higher education levels highlights the importance of educational systems in shaping cosmopolitan tastes and global cultural orientations, suggesting support for scholars who argue for reconfiguring traditional views of the relationship between cultural capital and social stratification (Friedman, 2011; Prieur et al., 2023; Savage et al., 2018).
My third hypothesis focused on the political and social attitudes of EPL and La Liga followers, anticipating that those consuming these European soccer leagues in the United States would exhibit politically left-leaning orientations and liberal social attitudes, emphasizing openness and tolerance in a show of a cosmopolitan disposition. This hypothesis draws on the notion that emerging forms of cultural capital are increasingly characterized by cosmopolitan dispositions and openness to global cultural forms (Coulangeon, 2017; Ollivier, 2008; Savage et al., 2018). The findings partially support this hypothesis, revealing a nuanced dynamic where cultural capital, in the form of this foreign, exotic, and globally focused sports consumption, intersects with liberal social values of openness to immigration and support of social activist movements such as BLM, but does not show a connection to more liberal politics. Indeed, the results suggest that followers of these leagues, while having these more liberal social views, might hold more conservative political ideologies and identifications. Thus these results partially support both the third hypothesis and the studies upon which it was built (e.g., Pedersen et al., 2018; Tucker, 2017), while also complicating them. This complexity may suggest that the appeal of European soccer transcends traditional political divides, reaching audiences with diverse political ideologies while still aligning with specific liberal and cosmopolitan social values. Understanding the apparent nuanced (dis)connection of these variables should be investigated in further research on emerging forms of cultural capital.
However, for social and political attitudes, along with racial and age categories, there may also be significant connections to identity and overlapping cultural connections to these leagues. This is evident in the results, which indicate a strong comparative likelihood among the Latinx population to follow La Liga and support both BLM and increased immigration. Therefore, further updates to understanding emerging forms of cultural capital should also consider emerging forms that may be based on minority ethnic or racial identity, as these are quickly growing and oftentimes relatively younger populations with high cultural salience in many national contexts. However, this dynamic is generally ignored in the literature on emerging cultural capital and calls for further research.
By situating US soccer fandom within Bourdieusian theories of distinction and the literature on global sport consumption, this study demonstrates that European football provides a crucial arena for examining how cultural and political capital are negotiated in contemporary American society. The findings indicate that engagement with these European leagues is systematically structured by age, education, income, political orientations, social attitudes, and, likely, symbolic identity work. This highlights sport as a prominent domain of consumer culture in which cultural capital is actively performed, contested, and redefined.
Drawing on recent survey data, this research contributes to the still limited body of research on cultural capital in emerging cultural forms and on American consumption of European soccer leagues in particular. While recent research has highlighted cultural and political contestation surrounding domestic teams, such as the US Women's National Team (e.g., Allison et al., 2025), this analysis extends cultural capital theory by showing how engagement with foreign leagues operates as a dynamic form of cultural capital that embodies cosmopolitan dispositions and, at times, cosmopolitan social attitudes—though not uniformly aligned with left-leaning political identities. The findings also highlight the need for theoretical attention to the ways in which global cultural practices are consumed within local contexts, shaping stratification and distinction in increasingly complex ways. Future research should investigate the intersections of global cultural flows and local cultural capital, exploring the implications for understanding social identity and distinction in what remains the most globally interconnected period in history, yet one increasingly challenged by resurgent nationalist, protectionist, and anti-globalist movements. These tensions suggest that the trajectory of globalization and cosmopolitanism is not linear, but contested, fragile, and politically contingent in ways that demand ongoing scholarly attention.
To advance this agenda, future work must move beyond survey indicators to examine how embodied cultural capital is enacted at the level of clubs and supporter cultures. Such inquiry could consider, for example, how political histories of clubs and their locals, localist policies, or tensions around commercialization, are appropriated by US fans, and if they intersect with moral or political positioning that creates cultural distinction. Qualitative and mixed-methods approaches would be especially valuable for capturing how fans mobilize these associations to signal cosmopolitanism, authenticity, or political and moral values. Importantly, cosmopolitan tastes may not simply align with supporting globally dominant clubs, but also with selective critiques of commercialization and with solidarities around less globally popular teams. Consumption of European soccer in the United States thereby illustrates how global sport can serve as both a marker of distinction and a contested site for negotiating identity, social and political moralities, and cultural belonging. This study thereby contributes to the broader project of rethinking cultural capital in an era of globalization. It shows that transnational fandom provides a particularly revealing lens on how cosmopolitan dispositions are signaled, how classed and political identities are reproduced, and how consumer practices shape the evolving dynamics of inequality and cultural distinction.
Footnotes
Funding
Some financial support for this research was provided by the University of Cyprus.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.