When the Denver Broncos season ended in a gut wrenching 10-7 loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC Conference Championship Game last Sunday, fans took to social media to vent their frustration and mourn the end of a terrific season, a common occurrence in a league with so few dynasties. For a new group of fans, however, this was their first-ever playoff heartbreak.
New fans adopt sports teams all the time, be it participating in family or community bonding or connecting to a new team through outside media. Thanks to the internet, the latter phenomenon has become much more common, broadening fanbases globally instead of traditional localities from which they drew support.
This season, the Denver Broncos were in the center of a unique fan experience. Slowly, starting in September, videos of highlights from the team’s wins showed up on social media, overlaid with music from the anime Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a show about girls with horse traits going to a specialized academy to learn how to compete in horse races. First, anime fans kept posting more and more edits, and more and more people started watching them. Then sports fans started getting in on the trend, adopting the styles similar to anime creators. Eventually, cosplayers who love the characters from the anime started going to Broncos games, hyping the trend up even more and cementing a new community of fans. Cosplayers in Denver routinely started going to games in character and meeting up with other cosplayers for professional photoshoots.
“I love meeting new people, but am painfully awkward. Cosplay breaks down the uncomfortable barriers and gives you an instant connection with someone,” Grey, a Denver-based cosplayer and Umamusume fan, said about the trend.
For them, sports have always been a part of their life as an avid snowboarder, but watching professional teams had never been an interest. Their family is from Philadelphia, and diehard fans of the city’s sports teams. Yet, thanks to this blossoming community, they’re showing off Broncos colors in cosplay.
“Last week, I actually turned on a [Broncos] game voluntarily because of Umamusume.”
Umamusume: Pretty Derby was a Japanese game that released in 2021, as well as an anime series that ran from 2018 to 2023 with 39 episodes over three seasons. But interest in the series, especially globally, revived in June 2025 with the English release of the Umamusume: Pretty Derby mobile game.
Shortly after, TikTok user its.a.shyday started posting edits of Umamusume characters mashed up with his favorite NFL team, the Denver Broncos. These videos gained some traction online, but it wasn’t until a video posted on September 30th that the edits started to take off and inspire others to join in.
@its.a.shyday ♬ original sound - its.a.shyday
At the time the Broncos were 2-2 and it was unclear how their season would go. Following that win, the Broncos proceeded to go 12-1 the rest of the regular season and make the AFC Championship Game, one game away from the Super Bowl.
“Why the Denver Broncos? Well... their mascot is a horse, which fits perfectly with the whole Umamusume vibe,” Shy said in an interview about his process. “It just felt natural to combine the two, and I think people have really enjoyed seeing it.”
Having first watched the anime in 2018, Shy said he first noticed a few other small accounts creating similar edits and realized there was a potential fanbase crossover. When the edits first started taking off his TikTok account had only around 200 followers, which has since ballooned to just under 10,000. He says that he thinks “at least 100” people have started watching the anime because of his edits.
“I hope it follows us into next season. I can’t wait,” he said.
Many NFL players are anime fans and have embraced their inner otaku, bringing imagery from popular series and mangas to press conferences and on their gear. Teams like the Seattle Seahawks and Houston Texans have embraced anime fandom on their social media. The Los Angeles Rams even did a gameday collaboration with the anime One Piece in 2023.
With the advent of streaming services, more and more people in the United States are being exposed to anime, leading to a massive upheaval in what a stereotypical anime fan is like, said Sandra Annett, an Associate Professor in Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.
“Anime and sports fandoms don't generally cross over, since anime is associated with ‘geeks’ and sports are associated with ‘jocks,’ to use the old high school categories,” she said. That being said, Arnett added that “this perception has been changing since 2020,” as more and more western media has embraced animated shows for all ages.
Nicole Carpenter
Arnett said that another wrinkle that makes this crossover unique is how anime in Japan tends to be targeted towards a more conservative gender role, meaning that a show about horse girls racing may not have the same audience as a sports anime aimed at male viewers.
But in the United States, nearly half of NFL viewers are female, and the league claims that almost 70% of women and girls in the country are fans of the NFL. Female fans have been drivers of fandoms and fan edits across many genres in the U.S., especially when it comes to sports.
For Sammi, another cosplayer in Colorado, being surrounded by the Broncos successes all her life and cosplaying since 2008 meant that creating her own Umamusume-inspired Broncos cosplay was a no brainer.
Once the Broncos made the playoffs she created “UmaMiles,” a character based off the Broncos mascot if they were in the Umamusume universe. Thrifting an old Broncos jersey, Sammi, Grey and other cosplayers got together before the team’s first playoff game against the Buffalo Bills to take professional photos of their cosplays.
“I think everyone needs a little bit of joy and laughter when things can be tough,” Sammi said about what this football season and budding community meant to her. “I hope to have more opportunities as UmaMiles, and maybe get to go to a game next season. I hope to meet more Umamusume cosplayers and continue this fun we have going!”
Grey says they usually cosplay as the character Manhattan Cafe from Umamusume with a Broncos twist, but the playoff run inspired her to create an original character based off the infamous blue horse statue outside Denver International Airport named “UmaBlucifer”.
“It was really fun getting to mix a piece of Colorado culture with the anime horse girl game. That’s probably part of what led me wanting to be part of the Uma x Broncos silliness,” they added.
The Denver Broncos did not respond to requests for comments about the Umamusume craze, and it’s unclear if the team will capitalize on the new fanbase, something Grey says is “silly” to miss out on.
“Umamusume fans have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for retired race horses,” they said. “The community is worldwide.”
One NFL team, the Seattle Seahawks, was brave enough to acknowledge the Umamusume fandom on its team page, even if they were not the franchise driving the trend. Following their divisional round win over the San Francisco 49ers, the team posted on X an Umamusume meme about their victory. Unlike the Broncos, however, the Seahawks will be playing in the upcoming Super Bowl, hoping to be the ones crossing the finish line in the race for an NFL championship.
Nathan Grayson
