Abstract This article examines democracy-related attitudes of German sports club members. It employs a framework derived from the neo-Tocquevillian theoretical works about democracy to argue that the depth of individual involvement in a club, in conjunction with the club’s political and democratic culture, is crucial for determining attitudes conveyed by members. A representative sample of the population ( N = 3,049) indicates that there is only a slight difference in the levels of political interest, political efficacy beliefs, cosmopolitan orientations, or satisfaction with democracy between sports club members and non-members. However, more nuanced models for sports club members indicate that active participation, as well as a club culture that encourages initiative, open political debate, and diversity, is predictive of pro-democratic attitudes. Based on these findings, we propose a perspective that no longer treats sports clubs as a homogeneous group, but acknowledges the existence of a range of club cultures.