Reddit's online football communities are places where fans can share news, express opinions, and have discussions. This study examines how toxic language affects formation of the news sources network in Turkish Super League subreddits. It focuses on how toxicity and similarity of toxic language influence tie formation among news sources. We used an affiliation network approach and exponential random graph models to specifically find that news sources with similar levels of toxicity are more likely to be shared together. This indicates strong patterns of homophily. We also find that toxicity in general does not affect the number of ties a news source forms in the network. Our model results also reveal that the engagement score received by news posts, as descriptive variable in an extra tested set of content characteristics, was significant such that higher scores yielded higher connectivity within the network. This has managerial implications for involved stakeholders such as social media platforms, news agencies, governing bodies, football clubs and fanbases. Social media platforms should reevaluate their strategies for reducing toxicity and fostering balanced interactions.