In one of his best-selling books, “Think Again,” organizational psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant asks readers to challenge what they think they know. In a chapter titled “Bad Blood on the Diamond: Diminishing Prejudice by Destabilizing Stereotypes,” he illustrates how profound loyalty to sports teams can be by citing a study where researchers asked Boston Red Sox fans what it would take for them to root for the New York Yankees, the response was, “If they were playing Al Queda.” New York Yankees fans gave a similar response that they’d only root for the Red Sox if “they were playing the Taliban.”
Even the most casual observer of human behavior and sports has witnessed the intense passion of fans worldwide, whether it’s soccer in Europe and Latin America, baseball in Japan, or all the professional and college sports in the United States. Fan connection and loyalty run deep, yet it’s a phenomenon that doesn’t appear to be broadly studied.
When Dr. Tunisha Singleton, a professor, speaker, podcast host, consultant, and author who has been featured in Vogue, Wired, Bleacher Report, and ESPN, among others, decided to pursue her PhD in Media Psychology, she asked if anyone was studying the dynamics of sports fandom, and the answer was, “No.”
Singleton, who already had a bachelor’s in film and digital media from UC Santa Cruz and a master’s in TV, Film and New Media Production from San Diego State University, discovered her passion for sports, media, and storytelling in childhood, when a present sparked a creative drive in her.
“I grew up in Riverside, California, a kid of the ’80s,” she says. “I got a Talkboy – the gadget inspired by the one used in ‘Home Alone.’ You could record yourself and it would modify your voice. It was the greatest thing in the world for me. I was a huge wrestling fan, and I’d make up voices and cut promos. I realized I was hooked on media…on storytelling. From elementary school, I started doing the daily announcements over the school intercom and knew since then that I wanted to go to film school and pursue radio, media, and storytelling.”
After completing her master’s degree in San Diego, she moved to Los Angeles to start working in the industry, doing all types of jobs, as one does when trying to break in.
“I was in my 20s and wearing all the different hats – writers’ assistant, post-production, and editing – you name it. Then I started managing social media for music venues on Sunset Blvd., like the Key Club, the Viper Room, and the Rainbow. Though it was fun at the time, I realized I didn’t like that industry very much because it wasn’t sustainable.”
It’s not hard to imagine that late hours, loud music, and nonstop hustle can wear anyone down, even a young go-getter. Singleton began to reflect on what she really loved to get inspiration for her next move.
“There was always this big part of me personally and professionally that I wanted to tap into but I hadn’t – sports,” she says. “I grew up playing and I was a big fan of multiple sports. I noticed my patterns as a fan were changing with social media, which was now thriving. I couldn’t watch a game without live-tweeting it. Twitter was my digital sports bar, and I realized I wanted to study sports dynamics from a fan perspective. I found the media psychology program at Fielding Graduate University and chose sports fandom as my dissertation topic.”
After graduating in 2017, she decided she wanted a career where she could work where and with whom she wanted, as long as there was alignment. When COVID struck and everyone was hitting “reset” in their lives, she decided it was time to move.
“As we were all trying to figure out what would work for us professionally in this new world, I relocated to Las Vegas and started my agency. I founded an LLC for media consulting in sports and entertainment, which I’m continuing to build on and strengthen right now with cliens from various industries.”
She presents her prospective clientele with the five-word phrase, “Wouldn’t it be dope, if…” and then they brainstorm on what would be the coolest, most effective, impactful way to engage an audience, whether it’s someone mildly curious about a brand or team or a die-hard fan. Connection can be found and built upon at all levels.
“A big focus area for me is building activations with brands or athletes and creating incredible fan experiences with no expiration date,” she says. “I think it’s very cool when you can introduce something to someone and have them potentially become a huge fan. And that, in turn, can become generational.”
The rise of social media, particularly Twitter (now X), brought a new era of fan engagement. When it started surging in 2010, fandoms often helped to power it. Fans of music artists (Justin Bieber’s career was largely launched by his management’s innovative use of Twitter), sports teams, celebrities, TV shows and fictional worlds like “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter” came out of message board chat rooms and onto Twitter to connect over their shared passion. Later, that began driving the viral momentum of pop-culture phenomena like “Tiger King” and “Game of Thrones,” because so many people were tweeting about them. Others felt compelled to check them out.
“Friends and others would look to me as a wealth of information for anything social media-related because if they were still only on Facebook, they were asleep,” says Singleton. “Twitter became our water cooler, where we all meet and talk about things we cared about. Leslie Jones getting hired to live-Tweet the 2024 Olympics is a perfect example of how innovating on a platform like that can take careers to a new level and expand your reach. She was sharing her own natural excitement as a fan – an organic thing – and the International Olympic Committee recognized the value of her genuine enthusiasm and how impactful it can be to have an ambassador like that for your brand.”
In 2018, Singleton published a three-part series on “Digital Fandemonium,” where she explores the psychology behind fan identification and consumer behavior in sports, how brands can leverage that in their media strategies and eventually build a new content ecosystem. All fan engagement comes down to a variation of “want, need, should.” In February 2025, and now honored as a Salzburg Global Fellow, she published an article in the Psychology and Behavioral Science International Journal, called “Fan Free Agency: Reimagining Sports Fandom Through the Power of Choice and Identity.” In it, she examines why we have allegiances to our favorite sports teams (geography, family tradition, etc.) and permits people to buck those trends if they choose and seek out a team that resonates with them for other reasons, such as shared values and culture.
Through her teaching at UNLV, Fielding and Howard University, she continues to analyze and educate about the positives and negatives of our current, pervasive media landscape.
“I see radical chaos in what the media is doing now,” she says. “Some of it is positive, but it’s being overshadowed by misinformation. Through movements such as Black Lives Matter, and Me Too, we can see things others want to hide from us. It can be a positive in that sense. Where it’s a double-edged sword is that media can also be completely toxic, especially social media. And ultimately, we’re in the middle of a paradigm shift where the truth no longer matters. It’s value has been degraded.”
One way she champions the positive aspects of sports and fandom is as President of the board of the nonprofit Black Girl Hockey Club. The organization aims to inspire, empower, and support Black women in hockey by building a strong community that champions visibility, provides the necessary resources, and celebrates a more inclusive culture surrounding the game with programs like scholarships, mentorships, and opportuntiies to connect –– a mission particularly necessary for a sport where they’ve historically felt unwelcome.
Tapping into the intense passion of fans, sports fans in particular, is a powerful way to propel brands further. Dr. Singleton can show you how.
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