“Is this a church? Such a big bunch of believers around here!”: Fan expressions of social support on Floydlandis.com.

This study examined how fans displayed social support for American cyclist Floyd Landis via their comments posted to his website floydlandis.com. The examination spanned the course of 7 months in which Landis battled doping allegations. The fan comments were posted in response to consistent updates provided on floydlandis.com as part of the Landis defense campaign. A thematic analysis using constant comparative methodology of 831 fan postings revealed five themes related to social support: (a) empathy and sympathy, (b) confirmation, (c) testimony, (d) sharing a common enemy, and (e) offerings. In addition, the analysis displays how the qualitative nature of social support evolved and shifted over time.