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Overview of university sport in Iran
This article focuses on the structure and management systems of sport at Iranian universities. The method of this research was through an analysis of documents. Sport in the system of Iranian universities is divided into three different categories. The physical education department of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran is responsible for […]
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Of Menace and Mimicry: The 2008 Beijing Olympics
This article examines the Olympic narratives of young, educated urbanites in China to consider the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ role as a “diagnostic event” through which global conflicts and controversies coalesce and national identities are constructed. It illustrates how students and young professionals analyzed the Beijing Olympics to invoke discourses of similarity in the form of […]
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Olympic boomtown: The social impacts of a one-time mega-event in Utah’s Heber Valley
We extend the research on the individual and community-level impacts of rapid growth development (boomtowns) to include communities that have been affected by a short-term, yet large-scale “mega-event”—the Olympics. Testing the assumption of generic similarities of social impacts between these two types of communities, we examined longitudinal survey data from six survey years (between 1999 […]
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Olympic city bidding: An exegesis of power
In this article I analyse the bidding process to host the olympics as a complex set of power relationships between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and candidate cities. My analysis looks at both macro-political conditions and relationships and the micro-motives and psychological predilections of IOC members and the principals of candidate cities. Unlike traditional political […]
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Olympic rings of peace? The Olympic movement peacemaking and intercultural understanding
This article examines the historical and contemporary links between Olympism and peacemaking. It traces the development of thought and praxis in relation to the Olympic movement’s aim and capacity to promote peaceful coexistence and intercultural understanding from the ancient Olympic Truce to the revival of the modern Olympic Games by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, to […]
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Olympics 2012 security: Welcome to lockdown London
As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark. 1 The much-derided ‘Wenlock’ Olympic mascot is now available in London Olympic stores dressed, no less, as a Metropolitan police officer. For £10.25 you, too, can own the ultimate symbol of the Games: a member of by far the biggest and most […]
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On Balinese cockfights: Deeply extending play
In this article, I advance three points, each in service of “extending play” as a critical conceptual category. The article begins with Clifford Geertz’s essay “Deep Play,” tracing through its lens the possibilities for “deeply extending play.” The essay extends Geertz’s argument that games and play are in/as/of/through culture. Games and play are not generative […]
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On roads traveled and journeys ahead for IRSS
Now entering its 47th year of publication, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport is the oldest and most international of the scholarly journals devoted to the study of sport, culture, and society. While over the years we have consistently endeavored to publish the strongest and most engaging scholarly work on sport, IRRS has […]
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On the conceptualization, design, and evaluation of appealing, meaningful, and playable digital games for older people
While older people tend to be regarded as actual, or potential, players of digital games within literature on game studies, human-computer interaction, and gerontechnology, they are also often considered non avid users of digital technologies. This contradiction prompted us to conduct a literature review, which revealed (a) insufficient involvement of older people within the design […]
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On the Limits of the New and the Lasting Power of the Mediasport Interpellation
This essay comments on the limits of new and social media to change the contemporary landscape of mediated sport in meaningful ways. The first part of the essay speaks to the “limits of the new.” Here, the forces of “monetization” and the transition of new media into mainstream are considered. Arguments are presented that the […]
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On the terms of the recipient? Norwegian sports development aid to Tanzania in the 1980s
This article discusses the donor–recipient relationship in a sports development aid context, and identifies potential dilemmas occurring when aiming to give aidon the recipient’s terms. Using the case of the Norwegian sports development aid project Sport for All, it is argued that the Norwegian Confederation of Sports was clearly in control of the project throughout […]
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Online Community or Electronic Tribe? Exploring The Social Characteristics and Spatial Production of an Internet Hockey Fan Culture
Scholarly interest in the relationship between sport and new media has increased significantly in recent years, yet research about online sport fan groups remains limited. This article contributes to this body of literature through an ethnographic examination of a fan-produced hockey blog called Nucks Misconduct. The article examines the blog’s social characteristics by conceptualizing it […]
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Neoliberal urban entrepreneurial agendas, Dunedin Stadium and the Rugby World Cup: Or ‘If you don’t have a stadium, you don’t have a future’.
This chapter presents a case study set in Beloit, a fishing village located on Ataro Island, 30 kilometres across the sea from Dli, capital of Timor-Leste. Tourism is an industry that could help promote the natural and cultural assets of Timor-Leste. It explores the tensions between tourism development, food security and marine conservation in a […]
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New Europe, new chances? The migration of professional footballers to Poland’s Ekstraklasa.
The intention of this paper is to offer a preliminary analysis of the migrations of professional footballers to Poland’s top division – the Ekstraklasa. Based upon a series of interviews conducted with migrant players located at an Ekstraklasa club, the paper focuses specifically on the factors that influence the players’ decisions to migrate to that […]
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New media, professional sport and political economy.
New media technologies are seen to be changing the production, delivery and consumption of professional sports and creating a new dynamic between sports fans, athletes, clubs, governing bodies and the mainstream media. However, as Bellamy and McChesney (2011) have pointed out, advances in digital technologies are taking place within social, political, and economic contexts that […]
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New screen action and its memories: The “live” performance of mediated sport fandom
The experience of watching sport on television is changing with the proliferation of screens, the diversification of screen-based content, and the extension of interactive screen-facilitated communication. In recent decades, sports broadcast television viewing opportunities shifted from a primary reliance on a single “box in the corner” in the domestic living room environment to the availability […]
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Nice Korea, Naughty Korea: Media Framings of North Korea and the Inter-Korean Relationship in the London 2012 Olympic Games
This study examines mainstream news media framings of North Korea and the inter-Korean relationship in the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games, focusing on the role that the media played in privileging particular understandings of nationalism, conflict and reconciliation. Print news articles from South Korea and English-speaking western nations were collected and analyzed. The results illustrate […]
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Non-mega sporting events’ social impacts: a sensemaking approach of local governments’ perceptions and strategies.
Research question: The literature investigating non-mega sport events’ social impacts remains limited. Furthermore, these impacts have mainly been examined from the point of view of spectators or residents. This article explores how these impacts are perceived by local governments. Based on the theoretical framework of strategic sensemaking, we analyze how local sport officials collect and […]
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Not an “extraordinary event”: NFL games and militarized civic ritual
In this article, which was delivered as the Alan G. Ingham Memorial Lecture to the 37th annual conference of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, I extend Ingham’s ideas regarding sport as civic ritual and combine it with my own work on the relationship between sport and the increasing militarization of US […]
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Not everybody is a golfer: Bourdieu and affluent bodies in Mexico
The present article analyzes processes of social reproduction among upper-middle- and upper-class individuals in contemporary Mexico City, using affluent golf clubs as a case study. Drawing on ethnographic data, it shows how private golf clubs are invisible sites for the average city dweller, both metaphorically and literally. This characteristic fulfills a dual political role, by […]
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Nothing but medals? Attitudes towards the importance of Olympic success
States intervene increasingly in financing and organization of Olympic elite sport in order to maximize national success in the medal table. In Germany and many other countries too that includes practices that have been criticized as unacceptable in democratic societies: funding of medal-promising sports only, early selection and specialization of young athletes, authoritarian tendencies in […]
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Moving bodies beyond the social/biological divide: toward theoretical and transdisciplinary adventures
In this paper I call for ‘new forms of thinking and new ways of theorizing’ the complex relations between the biological and social in sport and physical culture. I illustrate the inseparability of our biological and social bodies in sport and physical culture via the case of exercise and female reproductive hormones. Inspired by feminist […]
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Multiple Voices: Improving Participation of Muslim girls in Physical Education and School Sports
This study reports on data from a larger-scale research project in one city in the West Midlands, England. The study was commissioned by the local education authority because of the rising incidence of parental withdrawal of Muslim girls from physical education. The aim was to provide evidence-based guidance to schools on improving the inclusion of […]
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Narrating goals: a case study on the contribution of Digital Storytelling to cross-cultural leadership development
This case study and evaluation of a Digital Storytelling (DST) workshop for young women identifies the strengths, limits and challenges of transformational feminist leadership development within sport for development programmes (SDP). Based on postcolonial feminist approaches and empirical evidence, the findings demonstrate how leadership development for girls and young women from the Global South is […]
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National identity and important Australians
Aspects of the national narrative of an advanced industrialised nation are examined in this research. Nationally representative survey data suggest the most important collective figures for Australian identity are the Anzacs, colonial free settlers and post-Second World War immigrants, while sporting heroes have a negligible influence upon what it means to be Australian. Although many […]
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Nationalism in the United States and Canadian primetime broadcast coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics
The CBC’s and NBC’s primetime broadcasts of the 2014 Winter Olympics were analyzed to determine differences between the media treatment of home nation and foreign athletes. The CBC results showed that Canadian athletes represented 48.5% of total athlete mentions and constituted all of the top 20 most-mentioned athletes. NBC results showed that American athletes represented […]
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Natural disaster arrhythmia and action sports: The case of the Christchurch earthquake
Taking inspiration from French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s theory of ‘rhythmanalysis’, the author advocates new ways of thinking about the impact of natural disaster on the bodies and everyday mobilities of those who continue to live in disrupted spaces. Drawing upon interviews conducted with residents living in Christchurch, New Zealand, before, during and after […]
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Nautical small-scale sports events portfolio: A strategic leveraging approach
Research question: This study analyzes the leverage process of a nautical small-scale sports events portfolio, hosted in a tourist community of Portugal. Strategic goals were identified and the implementation process examined, according to economic and social leveraging models. Since these models have lack of empirical research, their application to real contexts may improve their contribution […]
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NCAA Academic Performance Program (APP): Future Directions
This paper represents the first major effort to conduct a comprehensive review of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Academic Performance Program (APP) and to recommend to the NCAA Board of Directors those modifications that will lead to further improvement in graduation performance. They fall into four categories: (a) new initial eligibility standards; (b) new […]
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NCAA academic reform: History context and challenges
The purpose of this article is to offer a sociohistorical overview of academic reform in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). To do so, the author draws heavily from football history and its association with academic reform in the broader intercollegiate athletics context. Intercollegiate athletics has undergone significant changes in professionalism and academic integrity over […]
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Negotiating “new” narratives: Rio de Janeiro and the “media geography” of the 2014 FIFA World Cup
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is currently in the midst of an extraordinary period of mega-event hosting. While a large number of articles have been keen to illustrate the transformative potential and dilemmas of utilizing mega-events to advance an urban agenda, less understood is the role that media play in the construction of the “media geography” […]
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Negotiating the ‘F-word’ in the field: Doing feminist ethnography in action sport cultures
This paper examines the potential of social theory for enhancing researcher reflexivity and praxis in the ethnographic field. More specifically, we advocate the potential of feminist interpretations of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “regulated liberties” for helping critical ethnographers navigate some of the embodied political and ethical tensions and challenges encountered in male-dominated physical cultures. Drawing […]
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Neighborhood stigma and the sporting lives of young people in public housing
This paper spotlights the sporting lives of young people who live in ‘Redcrest’, a public housing community in the Niagara region of Canada. We report on data culled from neighborhood-centric documents (municipal data, planning council reports, media coverage) and ethnographic fieldwork (interviews, community mapping, go-alongs) collected over eight months with 14 young people. This paper […]
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Neoliberal freedoms, privatisation and the future of physical education.
Focussing on the ideological aspects of privatisation, this paper explores ways in which ‘freedom’ has been activated discursively to justify actions involving changes to both the structure and the content of formal education in the UK. Empirically, the paper will analyse examples in England of UK Government ‘new provider’ rhetoric relating to ‘Academies’ in order […]
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Mentor functions in NCAA women’s soccer coaching dyads.
Team performance in sport is not limited to the players, but extends to the coaching staff and their relationships. This study aims to identify mentoring functions reported by NCAA Division I assistant women’s soccer coaches within a head coach-assistant coach dyad and examine gender impact on these functions. The Mentor Role Instrument questionnaire, completed by […]
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Messengers of hope: A boy with autism his church and the Special Olympics
Messengers of Hope is the story of Michael Leon, an adolescent on the autistic spectrum, his church, and the Special Olympics. It is a story of transformation. Michael’s parents and family, Michael, and Montrose Church are all transformed through their participation in the Special Olympics. This article is primarily constructed by the author summarizing what […]
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Minding the terrazzo gap between athletes and nonathletes: Representativeness, integration, and academic performance at the U.S. Air Force Academy
The tension between focusing on collegiate athletic or academic performance has persisted for decades. A recent study finds that recruited athletes in college athletic programs underperform academically, earning lower grades than predicted. It postulates that increased representativeness and integration efforts will enhance the academic value of college athletes’ experience. The U.S. Air Force Academy system […]
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MoneyRoundball? The drafting of international players by National Basketball Association teams
National Basketball Association (NBA) teams have drafted international players regularly since 1996. Did NBA teams value international prospects accurately relative to U.S. players? Regressions of NBA performance reveal that international players drafted through 2001 tended to outperform expectations adjusted for draft positions. Teams subsequently drafted more international players, but first-round picks tended to underperform, implying […]
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More than just games: the global politics of the Olympic Movement
This paper is rooted in the premise that the Olympic Movement represents an important – yet often overlooked – global political site, and it begins by situating the Olympic Movement within the global policy by focusing on its role as a forum in which participating states can both affirm their sovereignty and propagate a virtuous […]
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Managing Black Guys: Representation, Corporate Culture, and the NBA
This article explores the intersection of representation, management, and race in the National Basketball Association (NBA) through a larger question on the relationship between corporate strategies for managing racialized subjects and popular representations of race. The NBA “brand”is situated in terms of recent developments in corporate and popular culture and then analyzed as an example […]
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Managing ethnocultural and ‘racial’ diversity in sport: Obstacles and opportunities
Diversity involves coming to terms with alterity (otherness) and negotiating inclusion (togetherness). That goal is more likely, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argues, when people usually separated – socially culturally, politically, economically geographically – are brought together in consensual face-to-face contact and in social contexts where equitable interpersonal co-operation and group cohesion are fostered (Burggraeve, 2002, 2008). […]
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Managing sport for social change: The state of play
•Sport can build social capacity and develop healthy communities.•Critically engages with sport management theory with sport for social change.•Discusses associated practical and policy implications for sport for social change.•Future research: local engagement, innovative methods and broader scope. Sport-for-development (SFD) provides a platform for sport to be used as a tool or “hook” to contribute to […]
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Maximizing the benefits of youth sport.
Research Findings on Social Benefits of Youth Sport * Playing informal, player controlled sports provides young people with opportunities to organize group activities, resolve interpersonal conflicts, solve problems, and sustain the consensus and cooperative relationships required to play competitive games (Martinek & Hellison, 1997). * Playing organized, adult controlled sports provides young people with opportunities […]
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Media consumption and the contexts of physical culture: Methodological reflections on third generation study of media audiences
In this paper we argue that sport media research would be enhanced by: (a) engagement with the audience research tradition, including “third generation” audience studies that emphasize relationships between viewer interpretations of media and everyday social practices; and (b) the adoption of multimethod research approaches that are sensitive to contradictions and complexities that exist in […]
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Media events spectacles and risky globalization: a critical review and possible avenues for future research
We review the research conducted to date on media events and media spectacles. We posit that the main phenomena challenging the current conceptualizations of media event and media spectacleare (1) the understanding of risk, (2) the context of disasters and (3) globalization and the mediation of news in the context of transnational and transitional societies. […]
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Media representations of multiracial athletes.
There is a substantial body of research examining racialized narratives about Black and White athletes. However, there is an absence of literature that has specifically explored multiracial identities in the sport context. The purpose of the current study was to examine narratives constructed in the media when discussing the race(s) of multiracial athletes. Investigators conducted […]
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Mediating mega events and manufacturing multiculturalism: The cultural politics of the world game in Australia.
Contemporary global politics is characterized by intense debate about the status of multiculturalism. Framed within discourses of crime, counter-terrorism and moral decline, multiculturalism has been declared redundant just as the Australian government has rehabilitated the term in local citizenship legislation and policy making. Tensions between the local and the global are complex and multifaceted, taking […]
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Mega events in sports and crime: Evidence from the 1990 Football World Cup.
Despite an increasing desire to host major sport events there is almost no research that tries to identify and measure the possible negative spillovers they generate. In particular, there is limited understanding about crime responses. This article investigates the causal relation between hosting the 1990 Football World Cup and crime rates at the province level. […]
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Mega sport events: A probabilistic social cost–benefit analysis of bidding for the games.
The debates on whether to bid for organizing a mega sports event like the World Cup Soccer or the Olympic Games ignore either the bidding costs or the probability not to win the bid or both. In this short article, I discuss why the bidding costs and probabilities should be taken into account and I […]
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Megaeventos esportivos e Educação Física: alerta de tsunami
Este texto analisa as implicações dos megaeventosesportivos em diferentes âmbitos da realidade nacional. Nesteínterim, a partir da relacional Estado, organização esportiva emercado, problematiza as relações de hegemonia e estratégiasde acumulação inerentes à agenda Rio 2016. Além disso,apresenta uma discussão sobre como a Educação Física e asCiências do Esporte se inserem neste processo, registrandoalguns apontamentos para […]
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Lifestyle and Adventure Sport Among Youth
An important characteristic and intensifying trend in the twenty-first century within Western sporting cultures is an increase in the range and diversity of sports practices, particularly more informal and individualistic activities. A vibrant example of this trend is the emergence and growth of what the academic and popular literature has variously termed extreme, alternative, adventure […]
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Lifestyle sport, public policy and youth engagement: Examining the emergence of parkour.
In this article we consider the development of parkour in the South of England and its use in public policy debates and initiatives around youth, physical activity and risk. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with participants and those involved in the development of parkour in education, sport policy and community-based partnerships, we explore the potential […]
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Limited or lasting legacy? The effect of non-mega sport event attendance on participation
Research question: It is often claimed by event promoters that hosting major sports events will inspire increased participation at grassroots level. However, evidence of this linkage is scarce. This paper addresses the research gap by examining the legacy effect of ‘non-mega’ events on the sport participation levels of those who attend them. Research methods: Data […]
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Lively Infrastructure
This paper examines the social life and sociality of urban infrastructure. Drawing on a case study of land occupations and informal settlements in the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, where the staples of life such as water, electricity, shelter and sanitation are co-constructed by the poor, the paper argues that infrastructures – visible and […]
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Living by numbers: Media representations of sports stars’ careers
This article will address the making and unmaking of elite sporting careers, by focusing on the media reporting of the rise and fall of two elite sport stars, Roger Federer and Lance Armstrong. Sport stars are not simply the raw, unmediated products of innate or mysterious physical ability. Their physical capital is constituted through techniques […]
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Local meanings of a sport mega-event’s legacies: Stories From a South African urban neighbourhood
Studies on sport mega-events and their legacies often seem only loosely connected to local experiences. Stories on sport mega-event legacy appear as a setting-the-scene or function as a reference to illustrate specific types of legacy. However, stories themselves are never the primary focus in these studies. What is generally lacking from these studies is an […]
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Lockouts and player productivity: Evidence from the National Hockey League.
We implement a propensity score matching technique to present the first evidence on the impact of professional sports lockouts on player productivity. In particular, we utilize a unique natural experiment from the 2012-2013 National Hockey League lockout, during which approximately 200 players decided to play overseas, while the rest stayed in North America. We separate […]
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London 2012 and beyond: concluding reflections on peacemaking sport and the Olympic movement
The 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games have reinvigorated the debate on Olympic legacies for peace and development. Addressing this debate and building on the articles in this collection, this epilogue argues that the theoretical-conceptual understanding of peace and peacemaking remains poorly developed within the peacemaking discourse espoused by the Olympic movement. The authors draw […]
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London 2012 and sports participation: The myths of legacy.
Today’s young people play far less sport than before. Or do they? The evidence, says Ken Green, shows quite the reverse. We have been promised “a deep and lasting legacy” from the Olympics. The evidence shows the Olympic sports model to be irrelevant to youth participation. Have we a misguided response to a fictitious illness?
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London 2012: A legacy for disabled people—setting new standards, changing perceptions.
DCMS and the Office for Disability Issues have worked with a range of organisations to publish a report outlining the opportunities available…
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Looks Good on Your CV: The Sociology of Voluntourism Recruitment in Higher Education
The recruitment for what has become known as ‘voluntourism’ takes place on campuses at many universities in Australia. Under the banner of ‘making a difference’ students are solicited to travel to developing countries to aid poor communities, to enjoy the sights and tastes of the distant and exotic ‘other’, the ‘experience’ touted as a useful […]
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Love thy Rival: what Sports’ Greatest Rivalries Teach Us about Loving Our Enemies
In his first book, the best-selling God & Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC, humorist Chad Gibbs explored his own struggles to balance faith in God with passion for pigskin. Now Gibbs is back asking how Christian fans can love their enemies, when we can’t even love rival fans.
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Major League Baseball Attendance and the Role of Fantasy Baseball
Many explanations exist for the resurgence of the Major League Baseball (MLB) fan base following the 1994-1995 strike. The most prevalent explanations include the 1998 McGuire-Sosa home run race and Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games record. While such explanations certainly impacted fan interest in the sport, it is remiss to ignore the impact of online […]
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Making the global turn: The USLPGA, commissioner rhetoric of difference, and “new imperialism.”
Focusing on the cultural and structural contours of the global sport of golf, this analysis features the rhetorical power of U.S. Ladies Professional Golf Association (USLPGA) commissioners in narrativizing this “American” global tour. Selected mediated rhetoric of each of these commissioners is read within a post-title 9/11 context, attending to Winant’s notion of “new imperialism” […]
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Knocked out: Ritual disruption and the decline of Spanish boxing
Scholars have written extensively on the emergence of mass sports in modern industrial societies, and the factors that have facilitated the development of ‘hegemonic sports cultures’. Less has been written on how the structure and content of ‘national sport spaces’ change over time, and the reasons that certain sports cultures have failed to sustain their […]
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Learning the game: Football fandom culture and the origins of practice.
Based on the partial results of a doctoral programme, this article explores the significance of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice for explaining the experiential processes involved in becoming a football fan. Whilst recognizing value in the theoretical construct habitus, in the sense that football cultures appear to be self perpetuating (in part) based on histories […]
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Learning to get drunk: The importance of drinking in Japanese university sports clubs
This paper draws on two ethnographic research projects in Japanese university sports clubs to examine the role alcohol plays in the social and cultural education of students. Over the course of a four-year membership, the university sports club is a site where members learn to negotiate drinking. This negotiation is demonstrated by the range of […]
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Leveling the Playing Field? Perspectives and Observations of Coed Intramural Flag Football Modifications
Although sport is regarded as a bastion of male hegemony, coed settings offer females the opportunity to compete alongside males. Coed environments, however, often include rule modifications that intend to facilitate female participation, which promote female inferiority assumptions. This study sought to critique modifications in the divisive world of coed flag football through the lens […]
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Leveraging parasport events for community participation: Development of a theoretical framework
Research question: Sporting events have become highly sought after tools for economic, tourism, and social development in cities around the world; however, little is understood about how to effectively leverage events. This purpose of this paper is to present a framework for leveraging small-medium scale sporting events for increasing community accessibility and opportunities for persons […]
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Leveraging sport mega-events: new model or convenient justification?
A range of recent studies have shown that the social and economic impacts of mega-events are often disappointing. This has stimulated interest in the notion of leveraging; an approach which views mega-events as a resource which can be levered to achieve outcomes which would not have happened automatically by staging an event. This paper aims […]
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Life at the track: Country race clubs and social capital
The aim of this article is to report the findings of a study that explored both the contributions of country race clubs to social capital within rural and regional communities as well as their utilization of social capital. The article reviews the key concepts associated with social capital and their relationships to sport, and presents […]
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Is There Salary Discrimination by Nationality in the NBA?: Foreign Talent or Foreign Market
The authority of the National Basketball Association (NBA) over the past decade has actively internationalized the game by recruiting potential international players and expanding overseas markets. This article examines the determinants of salaries for NBA players, aiming to identify the existence of nationality discrimination on players’ salary and whether the market size of international players’ […]
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ISSP Position Stand: Culturally competent research and practice in sport and exercise psychology
The multicultural landscape of contemporary sport sets a challenge to rethink sport and exercise psychology research and practice through a culturally reflexive lens. This ISSP Position Stand provides a rigorous synthesis and engagement with existing scholarship to outline a roadmap for future work in the field. The shift to culturally competent sport and exercise psychology […]
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It’s a Long Way to the Super League: The Experiences of Australasian Professional Rugby League Migrants in the United Kingdom
This article investigates the embodied experiences of a group of professional sports labour migrants whose experiences have largely been ignored by sociological literature: southern hemisphere rugby players playing professional rugby league in the United Kingdom. The migrant pathway from Australasia to the UK is well established. Moreover, rugby league is a sport in which debate […]
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Jacques Mornève: Narrative Glorification of Catholic Sport
The article analysis the role of a writer committed to spreading moral and religious values and who, through popular sports novels, deciphers the signs concerning the spreading of ideological messages by Catholic intellectuals or those in charge of charity work. Following the trend of Catholic writers who wished to re-establish religion in France through complementary […]
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Kicking “No-Touch” Discourses into Touch: Athletes’ Parents’ Constructions of Appropriate Coach–Child Athlete Physical Contact.
It has been suggested that sport is increasingly becoming a “no-touch zone” as some coaches, driven by a desire for self-protection, restrict their use of physical contact with (child) athletes in the belief that this reduces their risk of being accused of abuse. Research on coach–athlete physical contact is limited, however, and no studies have […]
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Introduction to special issue on sport and alcohol: On the contemporary agenda of research on alcohol within the sociology of sport
This introductory essay by Special Issue Editor, Catherine Palmer, introduces a double issue of the International Review for the Sociology of Sport focused on the contemporary agenda of research on alcohol within the field of sociology of sport. In introducing the articles in the special issue, Palmer considers the diverse intersectional concerns relevant to understanding […]
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Introduction: Sociology as a combat sport.
This introduction sets out from the unresolved paradox to be found in the writings of Bourdieu, namely the theoretical impossibility of public sociology and his own sustained practical engagement with publics. I appropriate and develop his concept of the ‘field’ to account for his success as a public sociologist. It requires us to understand that […]
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Investigating corruption in corporate sport: The IOC and FIFA
Global sport governing bodies proclaim lofty ideals and espouse generic principles that set high moral standards for themselves and others. None more so than two of the world’s largest, most influential, and most high profile sporting organizations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Behind the façades of principled […]
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Investigating corruption in corporate sport: The IOC and FIFA.
Global sport governing bodies proclaim lofty ideals and espouse generic principles that set high moral standards for themselves and others. None more so than two of the world’s largest, most influential, and most high profile sporting organizations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Behind the façades of principled […]
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Involvement in sport and social connectedness.
This paper explores the relationship between involvement in sport and non-sport community organisations and social connectedness. Data were collected on types of community involvement, selected demographic variables and social connectedness. The findings support the contention that involvement in sport organisations is associated with increased levels of social connectedness. Sport involvement was found to be a […]
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Is hockey just a game? Contesting meanings of the ice hockey life projects through a career-threatening injury
This study is situated within an existential-narrative theoretical framework to examine the impact of career-threatening injury on professional ice hockey players’ well-being and career construction. Professional ice hockey culture is construed as a privileged space characterised by hegemonic masculinity, fierce competition as well as high-risk behaviours often resulting in sports injuries. In this paper, we […]
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Is it in the Game? Reconsidering Play Spaces, Game Definitions, Theming, and Sports Video Games.
From the very first days of digital gaming, sport-themed video games have been a constant and ever-popular presence. However, compared with many other genres of games, sports-themed video games have remained relatively under researched. Using the case of “sports video games,” this article advocates a critical and located approach to understanding video games and gameplay. […]
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Is Nadeshiko Japan “Feminine?” Manufacturing Sport Celebrity and National Identity on Japanese Morning Television
When the Japan women’s soccer team, more affectionately dubbed “Nadeshiko Japan,” emerged FIFA World Cup champions in 2011, its members became celebrities overnight. However, central to their celebrityhood is the media’s obsession with “femininity.” Through constructing sport celebrities, or tarento (“talents”), I argue that the Japanese media shift between representations of Nadeshiko Japan as glorified […]
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Is there an expertise of production? The case of new media producers
The rise of Web 2.0 has prompted debates around the legitimacy and contributions of professional and amateur producers in fields such as journalism and popular culture, but it also begs the question: what is the substance of the expertise now under threat by the anonymous, amateur masses? This article extends recent debates in Science and […]
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Inconspicuous dressing: a critique of the construction-through-consumption paradigm in the sociology of clothing
Based on ‘wardrobe interviews’, this article studies how young Dutch men dress themselves. We argue that existing sociological studies of clothing have gone too far in emphasizing the symbolic aspects of clothing and have not paid sufficient attention to the role of routines and rules in daily dressing. Moreover, we find that young Dutch men […]
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Increasing Lower Extremity Injury Rates Across the 2009-2010 to 2014-2015 Seasons of National Collegiate Athletic Association Football: An Unintended Consequence of the “Targeting” Rule Used to Prevent Concussions?
Background: Sports-related concussions (SRCs) have gained increased societal interest in the past decade. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has implemented legislation and rule changes to decrease the incidence and risk of head injury impacts. The “targeting” rule forbids initiating contact with the crown of a helmet and targeting defenseless players in the head and […]
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Individual and contextual determinants of stable volunteering in sport clubs
This article addresses factors that influence voluntary sport club(VSC) members’ loyalty to voluntary engagement. The question asked is an issue of VSC volunteers’ commitment; whether they decide to quit or continue their engagement. A multilevel approach was used that considered both individual characteristics of volunteers and corresponding contextual features of VSCs to analyse members’ voluntary […]
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Individual and Institutional Influences on Faith-based Health and Wellness Programming
The majority of the US population is affiliated with faith-based organizations (FBO). Health and wellness activities (HWAs) within FBOs have great potential for reach, though the factors influencing faith-based HWA are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine individual faith leader and institutional influences on HWAs offered within FBOs. A national […]
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Inspired by the Paralympics: Effects of Empathy on Audience Interest in Para-Sports and on the Destigmatization of Persons with Disabilities.
Theories of eudaimonic entertainment and destigmatization concur to suggest that empathic feelings elicited by portrayals of Paralympic athletes can increase audience interest in para-sports and can lead to prosocial attitude change toward persons with disabilities in general. Three experiments were conducted to examine this dual, mutually reinforcing function of empathy in promoting public awareness and […]
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Intellectual property enclosure and economic discourse in the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Special legislation associated with mega sporting events has enabled new forms of cultural enclosure, effectively commoditising aspects of cultural expression that previously remained in the public domain. In this article, the authors examine the tension between economic and political justifications for hosting the Olympics and the intellectual property enclosures that are imposed upon host nations. […]
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International Sport Federations in the World City Network
In this article, we analyze the transnational urban geographies produced by international sport federations (ISFs) through their global, regional, and national headquarter locations. Data on the global urban presence of 35 major ISFs are examined through connectivity analysis and principal component analysis. The connectivity analysis reveals the relative dominance of cities in Europe and Pacific […]
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International Student-Athletes in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS): Perceptions, Motivations, and Experiences
This exploratory study investigated the landscape of international student-athletes participating in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the governing body for university sport in Canada, with respect to number, sport, and gender breakdown, as well as their perceptions, motivations, and experiences. Of the over 11,000 CIS student-athletes competing in 2012-14, 5.1% were international. In addition, the sports […]
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Interrogating States’ Soft Power Strategies: A Case Study of Sports Mega-Events in Brazil and the UK.
Central to this article is the use of sports mega-events as part of a state’s “soft power” strategy. The article offers two things: first, a critique of the “soft power” concept and a clearer understanding of what it refers to by drawing on the political use of sports mega-events by states; second, the article seeks […]
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i9 and the Transformation of Youth Sport
In this article I present an analysis of how traditionally run competitive, organized team sports reproduce multiple socio negative effects for youth who play them. After explicating how the structure and culture of traditionally run competitive team sports operates in western cultures, I explain that cultural resistance toward changing sport is beginning to wane. I […]
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Ideology doesn’t just happen: Sports and neoliberalism.
Research on sports in society is discouraged by essentialist beliefs that define sport as a fixed, innate expression of human impulses. This has undermined an awareness of sports as cultural practices and forms of social organization that are commonly used to reaffirm national and global processes of neoliberalization. This paper clarifies the contemporary meaning of […]
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Impact of sports’ characteristics on the labor market
The purpose of this article is to analyze how the characteristics of different sports affect their respective labor market characteristics. To that end, we first classified Korean sports into the following four groups according to number of spectators and playing population (participation): Popular, Non-popular, Leisure, and Media. One sport was selected for each classification, and […]
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Impacts and strategic outcomes from non-mega sport events for local communities
The staging of sport events directly impacts the quality of life of people living in the host communities. Sport events are temporal and can trigger a variety of short- or long-term, positive or negative impacts, which lead to positive or negative outcomes, and if sustained, these outcomes have been called ‘legacies.’ Impacts may result from […]
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In-ger-land, In-ger-land, In-ger-land! Exploring the impact of soccer on the sense of belonging of those seeking asylum in the UK
Utilising research conducted in Sheffield (UK) with people seeking asylum, this article explores the ways in which soccer might be used to create a sense of belonging in the host country. It explores participant feelings about soccer and its potential to alleviate the pressures that the status of being an ‘asylum seeker’ brings. The ways […]
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Hockey as a Religion: The Montreal Canadiens.
Sport is all about play and game, aesthetic and strength, passion and emotion, challenge and rivalry. But because sometimes players and fans look for a little extra help from God, gods, spirits or any other Supreme Being, sport is also a matter of beliefs and Faith. Often, sport uses religion if the sport itself does […]
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