Will “Heated Rivalry” contribute to change in the sports industry?
Words: Ma’Net, Los Angeles
With the current success of the show Heated Rivalry, audiences witness a quiet love story between two queer men falling in love with each other and their sport, ice hockey. However, with this show currently being the most praised on the internet, I’m left to wonder what this will mean for queer athletes worldwide. Will the treatment of queer athletes change? Will the negative connotations towards being queer in much of the media soon become positive? As I’m left wondering, I land on one question in particular, why were queer athletes treated terribly in the first place?
With the close of the recent 2026 Winter Olympics, and tournaments such as the World Cup, Olympics, and Paralympics approaching I feel like this conversation is necessary to have. The main reasons holding back progress in sports are mainly due to gender stereotypes and fan harassment. Both of these factors cause erasure of queer voices in the sports industry and stimulate the idea that there’s no representation when that’s simply not true.
Many equate sports to the idea of masculinity, especially in male-dominated sports. Due to homophobia, queerness is attributed to being more feminine, and is therefore looked down upon in sports like hockey or American football. Numerous fans want their favorite players to be the epitome of masculinity, and if their favorite athletes were to come out as queer then it ruins the entire vision that they had for them. This leads fans to believe that it will cause irreparable damage to how outsiders will view the sport itself, and in turn also reflects the fans of that sport.
There’s also a double standard for athletes who come out due to their gender. In general, women in general in sports are more likely to be accepted in society for being queer due to gender norms ingrained into society. Women carry a sense of fluidity that can feel much safer than a man stuck within the rigid standards of toxic masculinity. Women have gained much more social freedom to explore their identity and freely express who they are. With this freedom of expression, they also don’t face as much backlash as men can. This causes a double standard when coming out, especially for athletes. Many believe that a female athlete coming out doesn’t cause any threat to sports, but a male athlete coming out can. This is what causes a large problem for queer men in sports. Factors like this make it harder for male athletes to come out, while female athletes are often more accepted in their respective communities.
In most cases where male athletes have come out, they have faced harassment from people who were once fans. Athletes such as Olympic climber Campbell Harrison and soccer player Josh Cavallo experienced extreme backlash in the form of death threats, rumors, and trolling. These fearmongering tactics often scare future sports prodigies to not come out; athletes fear for what may come to their status if they choose to come out to the world. Female athletes who are out tend to be more praised in the sports industry. Examples include Amber Glenn and Brianna Scurry. Amber Glenn has just recently won a team gold medal at the Olympics, and is also the first openly queer woman representing team USA in figure skating. She has received an immense amount of support from the figure skating industry and the audience watching the winter olympics. US women’s soccer player Brianna Scurry was already out when her team won the 1999 Women’s World Cup. She describes how her team was supportive and didn’t treat her any less than her other teammates, although at the time there was still media and sponsorship pressure deterring players from coming out.
The difference between the treatment of male athletes compared to their female counterparts shows the clear disconnect between how sports audiences treat their players. Unfortunately, it also shows how much homophobia and fragile masculinity truly impact industries like the sports industry. But, with shows like Heated Rivalry, we can see a change in how sports fans will treat their athletes in the future. Maybe instead of fear mongering and harassing them until putting those athletes in harm’s way, we can show them love and appreciation.
This newfound diversity in Heated Rivalry has also provided representation to youth that some never thought they would find. They can confide in these athletes who found solace in their identity, knowing that their sexuality would not change the way they played in games or ruin the way the sport was viewed. In fact, for many young queer athletes, they feel inspired by these new stories coming out. For queer athletes across the world, they can put themselves into the shoes of these fictional characters as well as real athletes who are paving the way to break traditions built from years of homophobia and toxic masculinity.
As a queer athlete, I’m a fan of what shows like Heated Rivalry are doing for sports audiences across the world. Not only that, industries are ever-changing. Being able to witness shows and books being released that slowly lead to change in such a toxic and competitive industry makes me excited to see how everything transpires for future generations of athletes.
Ma’Net is is a Los Angeles-based participant in Youth Media Forward: meet the Los Angeles participants here