Summary

• Passionate fan communities—both in-person and online—are transforming women’s college sports by driving visibility, shaping narratives, and acting as grassroots marketers through authentic content and engagement.
• Stan culture and social media are blurring the lines between sports and pop culture, as fans build deep, personal connections with athletes and amplify their stories beyond traditional media.

An explosion of fans following women’s college sports are highly visible, showing up to games, watch parties, and tailgates in record numbers. The surge of interest is also driving growth in online communities of superfans--slightly less visible perhaps, but just as passionate or more about their favorite athletes and teams.

The heady mix of idols, adulation and internet culture drive intense engagement among clusters of devotees, a kind of superfandom known as Stan Twitter. The term originated from the 2000 song “Stan” by Eminem about an obsessed fan. Today, Stan Twitter showcases many passions, mainly in pop culture and entertainment, including music, TV shows, movies, fictional characters, actors, and celebrities.

Take Taylor Swift and the Swifites, for example. Swifties hang on her every word and stop at nothing to help their idol soar to new heights. If her fans are lucky, she’ll share a photo or be caught by paparazzi with her “excellent if gigantic boyfriend,” Travis Kelce, to quote another pop culture icon, Hugh Grant. Even Swift herself identifies as a Hugh Grant stan.

Sports is no exception, and for fans of women's sports, Stan accounts let them connect with and actively participate in a growing, engaged, supportive group of like-minded people who also see athletes as game-changers, inspirations, and idols.

Follow sarah (PAIGE BUECKERS’ LEGS #1 FAN) on X, and you’ll see an account dedicated to celebrating both Paige and her relationship with former teammate, Azzi Fudd, and her accomplishments on the court as a WNBA All-Star. Plus as expression of fandom becomes more fluid, same account tweeting about Paige is also tweeting about Taylor Swifts’ rumored 12th album. Sports are entertainment after all.

Sasha (@sushiskers), 18, started casually watching Nebraska volleyball in 2018 when Lexi Sun joined the program, but fell in love with Nebraska Volleyball in 2021, Sun’s last year on the team, and a year Nebraska finished as the runner up in the national championship. Currently, a photo of Lexi Sun is her profile picture.

“I realized that volleyball is such a huge, passionate thing over there, and they have such a big fan base. It's deeply devoted to all the players, and it's everything I've wanted to see for a women's volleyball team,” Sasha said.

The program is regarded for its decades-long success on the court and its diehard fan base. The program has 337 consecutive home sellouts dating back to 2001. Plus, the program hosted 92,003 fans for a game in Memorial Stadium, where the UN football team plays.

Also a Nebraska Volleyball fan, Hannah (@HannahBananza33), 30, got hooked at 8 years old during a Nebraska Volleyball spring scrimmage in Ogallala, Nebraska. Born and raised in Denver, Co., her mom is from nearby Paxton.

“I do remember going to that game, and my mind was just blown,” Hannah said.

Industry observers say these parallel creators are making a big difference in how the athletes and teams are perceived. They essentially act as free PR advocates and marketers.

“In-person experiences—games, tailgates, athlete meetups—fuel the kind of raw, authentic content that thrives on social. And the online engagement helps scale those moments beyond just the people in the room,” Cassie Ackemann, the leader of Collegiate and Women’s Sports Partnerships at Greenfly, explained over email.

Creators also force broader coverage of athletes and teams, picking up on what mainstream media might miss. They control how certain narratives get told, how, and when, “forcing broader coverage and shifting the narrative on what stories get told. We’ve seen that play out time and again in women’s sports,” she said.

In 2022, Sasha launched an X account dedicated to all things Nebraska Volleyball. It was her interest in them as athletes and people that spurred her on. So while she watches all the games and shares commentary, she also reshares photos of incoming recruits at Nebraska’s Dream Team camp, admires players’ new hairstyles, and celebrates life events, like defensive specialist Maisie Boesiger’s engagement.

“I try to cultivate a really big interest in just them as people, because that's what I relate to the most, and I think that something you see with fan accounts in general is being a fan of just the people as celebrities, as who they are, off the court,” she said.

Hannah decided to turn her existing Twitter account into a Nebraska Volleyball account two months ago. Still in Denver, she wanted to connect with fans she wasn’t finding in Colorado.

“You get back what you give, so if you're not going to be commenting, you're obviously not going to be getting back from anybody else in return,” Hannah said.

Hannah uses X to share countdowns to the NCAA Volleyball National Championship,, posts meme clips from last season, and gives her opinion on the potential lineup for the season.

“This year was kind of the first year that I really got excited about recruiting day. I have since spent the last week after recruiting day just watching highlights for these girls who are 17, 18 years old, who aren't even going to be coming to Nebraska for two years,” Hannah said.

Sasha and Hannah have similar motivations for building a deeper connection with others, but take different approaches to their online presence.

Sasha is a leader in the space. She has 2,500+ followers, including current, future, and former Husker volleyball players. Her online presence resulted in an opportunity to write for VB Adrenaline and to offer her perspective on the team’s prospects for the upcoming season. She’s even going to school at the University of Nebraska this fall.

“I've been a fan my whole life. I have ADHD, so I get very, like, all consumed by, like, my passions. And it's obsessive to a point where it's just like all I want to talk about, all I want to think about. When I can implement my interest into creating things, that’s peak fan behavior for me,” Sasha said.

Hannah said, “I just do it because I love it. I just want to have conversations with folks.”

“It's everything I've wanted because they're all interested in the same thing. We get to talk about the things I love,” Sasha said.

In Lincoln, she’s looking forward to attending the games and meeting other fans who care about the players and the team as much as she does. Hannah attends one game a year with her family. “If I could have the opportunity to meet up with some of these folks and have conversations with them while I'm in Lincoln, then that's even cooler, right?”

Creators aren’t a “nice to have” anymore—they’re a key part of the content and brand ecosystem. Schools that equip and empower them (with tools, access, and recognition) are going to win on social and beyond,” Ackemann said.

Women’s sports are here to stay, and so are the many fans who pour their hearts and souls into uplifting their idols.