A rise in hate speech directed at athletes on social media has been shown by recent study. Initial findings from a study conducted by Dublin City University indicate an increase in homophobic language across a ten-year span in the UEFA Football Championships. 10.5 million English-language tweets on six UEFA European football tournaments from 2012 to 2022 were analyzed for the study.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0717/1460401-online-hate-speech-athletes