By: Dylan Kretchmar

We are spending more time than ever communicating across digital spaces. From group chats to social media to livestreams and comment threads, our social interactions are increasingly taking place online. Social media use by athletes is also on the rise. These platforms allow athletes of all ages and skill levels to connect with their fans, celebrate their achievements, communicate with coaches, or engage with teammates and training partners. Yet, alongside the rise of positive digital interactions, the number of harmful interactions has also increased. Cyberbullying has become an increasingly prevalent issue in sports, affecting athletes of all ages and levels of competition. If left unchecked, Cyberbullying can harm an athlete’s experience and negatively affect their mental and physical health. This article discusses Cyberbullying in sports – what it looks like, who it affects, and what steps are being taken to protect athletes and their love for their sport. 

What Cyberbullying Is, What it Looks Like, and Its Impact on Athletes   

Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that takes place through technology. It involves the use of computers, smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices, and takes place across a range of digital platforms. These platforms include social media, messaging apps, online forums, gaming communities, and comment sections of news articles or videos. Cyberbullying includes name-calling, threats, harassment, spreading rumors, sharing embarrassing or private information, creating fake accounts in someone’s name to post damaging messages, and using homophobic, transphobic, or racial slurs with the intent to harm, humiliate, or intimidate (U.S. Center, 2019; UNICEF, 2025). 

Unlike face-to-face bullying, the online format of Cyberbullying can make it more difficult to trace or hold perpetrators accountable. Social media allows its users to hide behind fake names, create multiple accounts when blocked, or use bots to spread harmful content. The overwhelming volume of posts also poses a significant challenge when it comes to monitoring and regulating online spaces, especially during major sporting events where millions of viewers are tuned in and communicating across their accounts. 

Sports offer many physical, mental, and emotional benefits to athletes. Participation in sports can teach sportsmanship and leadership and help develop one’s sense of belonging and confidence (U.S. Center, 2019).  Despite these benefits, athletes are not immune to the adverse effects of Online Abuse. Cyberbullying can severely impact an athlete’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being by triggering or worsening feelings of shame, negative self-talk, insecurity, guilt, judgment, and anxiety (UNICEF, 2025). These emotional determinants may cause athletes to withdraw or lash out at their support systems – their fans, teammates, coaches, and family – and lead to increased isolation (UNICEF, 2025). Over time, this can cause athletes to lose motivation, diminish their love for the sport, or overshadow the joy of achieving major goals (Heath, 2024).

Cyberbullying in Youth Sports 

Kids are gaining access to and using technology and social media at increasingly younger ages. According to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, over 25% of youth reported experiencing some form of Cyberbullying, with 38% of girls compared to 26% of boys experiencing online harassment (U.S. Center, 2019). 

Monitoring and managing Cyberbullying among younger athletes can be especially challenging. Even with close monitoring, parents and coaches often struggle to distinguish between normal online communication among friends and true cyberbullying. Social media platforms also make it easy for their users to lie about their age, allowing children to pose and be treated as adults by others, which increases their exposure to inappropriate content and harassment. 

To combat this, parents and coaches can have open conversations with their athletes about Cyberbullying and online behavior and position themselves as trusted support figures. By fostering a safe and judgment-free environment, they can encourage athletes to speak up if they experience or witness Cyberbullying, ensuring that both a child’s privacy and needs are being balanced. 

Cyberbullying in Collegiate Sports

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is an organization that governs and organizes college athletics for over 1,100 schools and 500,000 student-athletes across the United States. Its purpose is to protect and enhance the experience of student athletes. 

In 2024, in response to the growing issue of Cyberbullying in collegiate athletics, the NCAA partnered with Signify Group to gain a picture of online harassment across 7 NCAA championships and the College Football Playoff National Championship. Of the 1.3 million posts and comments left on student athletes’, coaches’, and officials’ social media pages, 72,000 of them were flagged by Signify Group’s Threat Matrix AI algorithm for harassing language. More than 5,000 of those messages contained stark, abusive, discriminatory, or threatening content (Heath, 2024). 

Among these flagged messages, 18% contained sexual content, 12% were related to sports betting abuses, 10% included racist language, 9% contained homophobic language, and 6% included violent threats. Notably, 92% of the messages and comments containing sexual content were found to be sent from bot accounts that contained links directing users to engage in off-site sexual content (Heath, 2024). Additionally, the NCAA found that 80% of total messages were directed at Match Madness student athletes, with women’s basketball players receiving approximately three times more threats than male basketball student athletes (Heath, 2024). 

In response to their findings, the NCAA called on fans and social media companies to curb this Online Abuse. Additionally, D1 athletic programs are now required to provide mental health services to all their athletes. The NCAA also expanded its online e-learning courses, which are mandatory for all student athletes, to cover topics such as how to manage Cyberbullying, the resources available to them if they are experiencing Cyberbullying, and the risks of sports betting and gambling (Heath, 2024). These efforts aim to better equip student athletes to recognize, respond to, and mitigate the harms of Online Abuse. 

Cyberbullying in Professional Sports

Social media has become a significant part of many professional athletes’ lives. It offers professional athletes a direct way to connect with fans worldwide, share training updates, and celebrate their accomplishments. Social media has also become a powerful tool for athletes to build their brand and fulfill sponsorship or endorsement deals (Sport Resolutions, 2024). 

For the fans, the growth of social media platforms offering livestreams and event replays has significantly enhanced the accessibility of watching professional sports. Currently, X (previously called Twitter) is the most popular platform for watching live sporting events (Sport Resolutions, 2024). These platforms let fans engage in real-time conversations, share their thoughts, and show their support. This creates a more interactive and connected experience that goes beyond the stadium.

Adversely, this increased online connectivity also enables the perpetuation of Cyberbullying, allowing users to post abusive and harassing comments directed at athletes, coaches, and officials. These messages often include sexist, racist, and sexually explicit content, creating a toxic online environment. There has also been a notable increase in the use of emojis as a way to circumvent the platform’s anti-cyberbullying guidelines, flagging algorithms, and spread Online Abuse (Sport Resolutions, 2024). These messages can harm the mental health of athletes and can cause them to post less or stop posting during competition periods and off-seasons, diminishing the experience for both the athletes and their fans. 

In 2024, World Athletics released a Comprehensive Four-Year Cyberbullying Report, documenting the amount and types of Cyber Abuse directed at athletes, coaches, and officials at major sporting events. They noted that during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, 132 posts out of 240,707 posts directed at 161 athletes were verified as abusive. Of these, 29% contained sexist language and 26% contained racist language. Notably, 63% of the abuse documented was targeted at female athletes (Sport Resolutions, 2024). During the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships, World Athletics reported a significant increase in abusive posts, with racist comments alone rising by 12 times (Sport Resolutions, 2024). During the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, 809 out of 355,873 posts directed at 1,917 athletes were flagged as abusive by the NCAA. Among these, 18% contained racist language, 13% included sexual comments, and 17% were sexist. Notably, just two athletes from the 1,917 examined accounted for 82% of all abusive comments examined (Sport Resolutions, 2024). 

To protect athletes from the rise in Cyberbullying, World Athletes now offers athletes year-round AI-protection on their social media accounts to flag, identify, block trolls, and bully accounts and content. They offer athletes educational resources on how to protect themselves and their online presence from cyberbullies (Sport Resolutions, 2024). 

What Can You Do? 

If you’re a sports fan, one of the most impactful things you can do is maintain a respectful online presence. Share only positive or neutral content about athletes and sporting events, or if you disagree with something, express your opinions respectfully and constructively. If you witness any Cyberbullying occurring, take action by reporting the post and the account to the social media platform so it can be documented and removed. 

If you are an athlete, finding a healthy balance with social media can help protect your well-being and reduce the impact of online negativity. Building a strong in-person support system is equally important. It can be difficult to ignore hurtful comments, but it can be helpful to remember that many of them are designed to provoke rather than offer meaningful feedback. The best thing to do is to prioritize your mental health, take breaks from social media, and focus on the reasons you love your sport. 

Even if you’re not a sports fan or an athlete, Cyberbullying remains a widespread issue. Maintaining a healthy relationship with social media and posting respectfully is just as important.

 

If you or someone you know has experienced cyberbullying, or if you would like to know more about online abuse in sports, visit AbuseRefuge.org for support and further information. We bring solutions and real-time education for 28 different abuse types including Narcissism, Sexual, Physical, Psychological, Financial, Child, Self, Cyberbullying (Including Online Abuse), Bullying, Spousal, Workplace, Elderly, Isolation, Religious, Medical, Food, Authority, Educational, Child Sexual Exploitation, Sex Trafficking, Political, Weather and we’ve added six services and protocols including Norm Therapy® for PTSD, Educators, Police, Prisons, Suicide, and Military. Support our efforts by visiting AbuseRefuge.org and NormTherapy.com to sign up for Norm Therapist® Training to become one of our dynamic staff members who serve Victims and Survivors of abuse worldwide, schedule Norm Therapy® sessions, become a Live Stream volunteer, join our mailing list to learn how you can make an impact on the Abuse Care Community, and provide life-saving financial assistance with a generous donation.

 

Sources
 

Heath, S. (2024, Oct. 10). NCAA calls on fans, social media platforms to curb abuse as it releases first online harassment study. NCAA Media Center. https://www.ncaa.org/news/2024/10/10/media-center-ncaa-calls-on-fans-social-media-platforms-to-curb-abuse-as-it-releases-first-online-harassment-study.aspx

 

Sport Resolutions. (2024, Dec. 20). World Athletics releases comprehensive four-year cyberbullying report. https://www.sportresolutions.com/news/world-athletics-releases-comprehensive-four-year-cyberbullying-report 

 

UNICEF. (2025). Cyberbullying: What is it and how to stop it. https://www.unicef.org/stories/how-to-stop-cyberbullying 

 

U.S. Center For SafeSport. (2019). Preventing Bullying: What Great Coaches Need to Know. https://uscenterforsafesport.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/US-Center-for-SafeSport-Preventing-Bullying-What-Great-Coaches-Need-to-Know.pdf