At the same time cyberspace has provided opportunities for football fans to
create new supporter networks and in several cases has enabled supporter
associations to mobilise support for clubs under threat. In the mid-1990s the
supporters’ club of Brighton and Hove Albion used the internet to distribute
posters, to arrange boycotts of team matches and to organise a national campaign
to ensure the future of their team in Brighton, particularly after the team’s
matches were relocated some 70 miles away to Gillingham.33 On a larger scale
fans of the Cleveland Browns team in the US National Football League (NFL)
ran perhaps the largest e-campaign to date in their opposition to the relocation
of ‘their’ team to Baltimore in 1995. The fans’ efforts resulted in the NFL
awarding an expansion franchise to Cleveland, and the new Browns began
playing in 1999.34 Supporter campaigns have had some success in mobilising
support against mergers and relocations; however, the main structures of the
media–sport complex remain largely unscathed.