Other Sociology Commons^™

We Are The 'Who Dat' Nation: City Identity, Narratives Of Renewal, And Football Fandom In New Orleans Public Realm, Casey Knoettgen

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Research often frames the relationship between sports and the city in terms of economics as researchers debate the costs and benefits of using public subsidies to build stadiums, retain professional teams and host mega-events. However, people assign symbolic or intangible values to their home sports teams that cannot be measured through economic frameworks. My research examined the ways in which urban residents create value around their home professional sports team that other researchers dismissed as hard to measure. Using the New Orleans Saints as a case study, this research incorporated interviews, questionnaires, content analysis and participant observation to provide greater …