Soldiers of hate: Brand reflection of the love and hate wars within the virtual fan communities

In our age, there are sharp changes about people's feelings and thoughts about life. Especially, the parallel development on information and communication technologies with the rise of internet have created virtual community platforms that facilitate interaction among individuals. These rapid changes have significantly affected many different sectors, brands and industries. The fan behavior was significantly influenced by these digital transformations. Physical fan communities have now been replaced by virtual supporters and actually, virtual fans. In the light of those information, the main purpose of the current study is to determine the general appearance of hate and love-based battles among the virtual supporter groups of the teams, which are expressed as three big clubs in Turkish Football. In order to reach the objectives of the research, netnography method supported by in-depth interviews was used. The obtained data were analyzed under grounded theory in accordance with the general methodological principles. The findings are supported by various theories in the literature and interpreted under various titles and sub-headings. The fact that our research was one of the pioneering studies in the literature contributed to the expansion of the limited theoretical framework. In addition, the comprehensive results have provided important tips for sports marketers.