The Group Chat: Sporty and spicy

If you’ve noticed a meteoric rise in sports-themed romance novels lately, you’re not alone — the genre has exploded thanks to BookTok and a growing pool of nontraditional, multidimensional sports fans.

• But sports romances are more than a trend: They’re building a fandom that finally reflects female and LGBTQIA+ fans.

• These sweet, steamy, sporty novels make for the ultimate beach reads, so today, we’re exploring how sports culture influences romance literature — and vice versa.

Romance novels are nothing new, and neither are books about sports. But the inclusion of athletic-themed stories as a standard romance trope — i.e., a narrative and thematic pattern many romance novels follow, like “enemies to lovers” or “forced proximity” — is very hot right now (in more ways than one *wink*).

• Why do people — especially women — love sports romances? Unlike your favorite team’s season, they always have a happy ending…and they also cater to the diverse interests of female fans, who engage with athletes on and off the field of play.

• Fiction about players and their intimate relationships is a natural outlet for this curiosity. What better way to feel like you really know an athlete than by reading about their steamy locker room hook-ups?

As women’s sports undergo massive growth and the “Taylor Swift effect” continues to ripple, female fans are revolutionizing sports culture with their unique expressions of fandom. Sports romance novels are a huge part of this increased representation for women in the sports world.

• This is doubly true for LGBTQIA+ fans, who can see themselves represented in the thriving queer sports romance subgenre in a way that’s sorely lacking in men’s sports.

Growth often begets growth, and that’s the case here too. While existing fans helped make sports romance a thing, the genre is also bringing more fans to the game. Many new fans report first becoming interested in a sport’s on-field action because of a romance book. Fascinating.

The genre’s most popular sport? Hockey. With their trademark illustrated covers and classic tough guy-turned-softie characters, some of the most popular titles in the genre — think Stephanie Archer’s Vancouver Storm series, or Shoot Your Shot by Lexi LaFleur Brown — are based around the rink. Icy and spicy.

In literature, romance novels haven’t always been taken seriously, a feeling female fans in traditional, male-dominated sports spaces can relate to. But as more readers dive into sports romance (which comes in all levels of spiciness, BTW), they’re helping validate both the genre and female sports fandom.

Whether you start a book club with your fellow sporty smut lovers, tear through titles while the big game is on a commercial break, or even write some fanfic of your own to share on Wattpad, sports romance novels are an amazing way to engage with different aspects of your love for the game.