Finding Devoted Sports Fans in the Coldest Place on Earth

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Last summer, as I worked on an article about the global fan base of the N.B.A. star LeBron James, I bragged to a friend that I had interviewed a resident of every continent.

“Even Antarctica?” she asked.

Well, no.

But I loved the idea, so I followed the thread, not knowing exactly where it would lead. Surprisingly, it took me to a different sport, and a different fandom, entirely, resulting in one of my favorite articles of all I’ve written, about Buffalo Bills fans in the coldest place on Earth.

It was a bit of a departure from what I normally cover.

I came to The New York Times in 2021 to report on the N.B.A. for the Sports section, and moved to the Business section two years later when The Times Sports desk was dissolved.

My job is to write about the business of sports, and I focus on the N.B.A.’s global initiatives. I’ve traveled to Dakar, Senegal, to write about Africa’s growing interest in basketball; to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to report on the ethical complications of the N.B.A.’s business there; and to Paris, where I covered the league’s future prospects in Europe, as well as its young star, the 7-foot-4 French player Victor Wembanyama.

In Senegal, I met many people who said they loved basketball because of James. A few months later, in July, I flew to Las Vegas during a training camp for the U.S. Olympic basketball team; there I interviewed James after a practice, while he recovered in a cold tub.

It was 120 degrees that day in Las Vegas, the city’s hottest day on record. But in Antarctica, in the Southern Hemisphere, it was winter, and at the South Pole, the average winter temperature is minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit.

I asked a press representative at the National Science Foundation, a government agency that funds research in Antarctica, if she knew of someone there who loved James’s game. She said it would be easier if I could wait a few months; the population on the research bases is much larger in the summer, when the weather allows for more types of research.

By the time I connected with Ken Halanych, a scientist, my article on James had already been published. But Halanych, who had taught at Auburn University when it had an excellent football program, told me about how he had tried to keep up with his favorite teams while on research vessels and at bases in Antarctica, especially back when internet access was extremely limited.

As advancements in internet technology have made sports news, highlights and games such a pervasive part of everyday life in most of the world, Antarctica seems to be suspended in time. One has to work a bit harder to access sports content. I wondered what would drive someone to make that effort, so I kept reporting.

One of the great things about sports is the way they can make a person feel they are a part of a larger community. Sports fandom can become a part of a someone’s identity, and that allegiance may not end when a fan moves somewhere new. What better place to test the power of the bond than on a research vessel or base that is hundreds, even thousands, of miles from the nearest continent?

I spoke to researchers and technicians who gave me glimpses of their lives (and endured my bad jokes about “The Thing,” a 1982 movie about researchers in Antarctica who encounter an alien). I couldn’t meet any of them in person, as the N.S.F. had halted press trips for the 2024-25 season, so my conversations unfolded on video calls and in text messages.

Eventually I found Meredith Nolan, a bubbly, 24-year-old Buffalo Bills fan who had spent most of the past four football seasons in Antarctica. Nolan had missed four Christmases, four Thanksgivings and her grandmother’s funeral while studying zooplankton at Palmer Station, an American research base. But she was passionate about the work, and her family had understood what a good opportunity it was.

She kept tabs on Bills games on social media and through text messages with her father, who grew up in upstate New York. Toward the end of her stay, her YouTube TV account had begun working, and she watched games, or parts of them, when she wasn’t on her research boat.

The Bills faced the Kansas City Chiefs in the A.F.C. championship game last month. Nolan watched it from aboard a Ukrainian research vessel that was taking her part of the way back to southeastern Virginia, where she lives.

In some ways, it would have helped my article if, for the first time since 1994, the Bills made it to the Super Bowl. But the Bills lost the championship, and the Chiefs advanced.

But Bills fans are famous for believing in their team despite a long series of crushing disappointments. Nolan texted me from the ship that she was still proud of the season.

Win or lose, the Bills keep her connected to home.