Magid’s EmotionalDNA® Reveals a Hidden Thread Between Football and Anime Fandom

At first glance, football and anime seem worlds apart. Until you understand what emotionally drives the fans of each.

There are few things in media that feel further apart than football and anime. One is hard-hitting tackles, Sunday rituals, and deeply American. The other is an expressive, highly stylized genre built on fantastical storytelling and global fandom. But thanks to Magid’s EmotionalDNA® (eDNA), we now know that when it comes to what emotionally draws people in, football and anime aren’t just neighbors, they might be long-lost cousins.

At the heart of eDNA is a deceptively simple idea: people don’t just watch content. They feel it. 

And when we understand those emotional fingerprints, we unlock powerful insights into why audiences stay loyal, how they choose what to watch next, and how they connect with stories across wildly different genres.

So we asked the question: what emotional themes define the people who live for football? And what about those who binge anime deep into the night?

Watch Magid’s Cooper Henckel, explain how Magid’s EmotionalDNA® reveals the emotional connections between football and anime fandoms.

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Using our eDNA database, which quantifies emotional responses across thousands of titles and tens of thousands of viewers, we built audience profiles based on emotional resonance. And what we found was surprising.

Despite their surface-level differences, the two fandoms share two dominant emotional drivers: adrenaline and relatability. Essentially, excitement is the specific emotion attribute that links these shows together. Makes sense. 

These are audiences who want to feel the rush of a comeback. They root for underdogs. They crave stories about triumph, perseverance, and resilience. They want to see characters and players rise to the occasion. It’s the same emotional beat, whether it’s a quarterback leading a fourth-quarter drive or an anime protagonist unlocking their next level of power.

To be clear, not every football fan watches anime. And not every anime binger watches football. 

It’s a specific subgenre of football viewers: young Black fans. This group resonates with storylines that are just as common in anime arcs as they are in sports games. By understanding that nuance, brands and networks can uncover powerful new ways to connect across content types and cultural spaces.

And it goes beyond emotion. These viewers are highly engaged. They go deep into their fandoms. They follow the storylines, share content, argue on forums, and wear their allegiance like a badge of honor. That behavior creates powerful opportunities for marketers and content creators. Because when you tap into the emotional thread that binds audiences together, you can make more strategic bets on what content to create, where to distribute it, and how to speak to your audience in a way that lands.

It also proves something we see across all eDNA work: emotion transcends genre.

Marketers often get stuck in surface-level segmentation. Sports fans. Anime lovers. Gamers. Drama watchers. But those buckets miss what really makes an audience tick. And when you understand emotional drivers, when you know what emotions unite two seemingly opposite groups, you can start to create unexpected connections, identify crossover potential, and even predict what kinds of stories will resonate next.

This emotional clarity is what makes eDNA such a powerful tool. It allows brands to get past what people are watching and tap into why they’re watching it.

And in the case of football and anime, it’s not about touchdowns or transformations. It’s about the thrill of the struggle and the payoff of victory.

So the next time someone tells you football fans and anime lovers couldn’t be more different, just smile. You know the emotional truth. And it might just change how you reach them both.

Want to learn more about how EmotionalDNA® can help your business? Let’s Talk »