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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…
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…
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…
This paper uses an autoethnography to recount my experiences with SportHelp, a UK youth sports charity. Using a layered account format, which jumps through time and space, I demonstrate the extent to which neoliberal values have influenced the continuity and…
Policy and research portray sport volunteering as a means by which young people can develop skills and perform active citizenship. This paper draws on qualitative research with participants in a UK sport volunteering programme to critically examine young people’s volunteering…
Elite sport is often regarded as one of the main vehicles for articulating national pride and stimulating national cohesion. In this article, we explore a variety of different notions of pride and nationality as related to success in elite sport.…
This article will theorize the relationship between stardom and documentary by considering the ways in which documentary representations contribute to the discursive formation of a star. Specifically, the article will explore the central role that documentary film has played in…
Previous research on the home advantage in the history of the Olympic Games has found initial evidence that host nations have won more medals than non-hosts. In this paper, we argue that these findings are a myth of sports history,…
My dissertation research examines how cultural organizations, particularly ethnic sports leagues, shape racial/ethnic and gender identity and community building among later-generation Japanese Americans. I focus my study on community-organized youth basketball leagues – a cultural outlet that spans several generations…
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…
Introduction. Most of the U.S. population is affiliated with faith-based organizations (FBOs) and regularly attends services. Health and wellness activities (HWA) delivered through FBOs have great potential for reach, but the number of FBOs offering health programs and the characteristics…
On 8 February 2012 Fabio Capello resigned from his position as manager of the England men’s national association football (soccer) team. The date this decision became public coincided with the acquittal in court of Harry Redknapp following the Tottenham Hotspur…
According to Bourdieu, habitus is an important, and class-specific, foundation for behaviour. However, he hardly explained how the habitus is acquired. Based on Bernstein’s elaboration on the various contexts in which group-specific behavioural principles are acquired, this article demonstrates how…
Throughout North America, the open air public feasting and drinking that surrounds an athletic event, most commonly football, is labeled “tailgating.” In this article, we explore how consumers infuse their place-creating activity with a well-modulated aura of revelry that energizes…
The objective of this article is to highlight the relevance ideological debate plays in the study of popular culture texts and in particular in that of video games. Every text is a reflection of the ideological forces (cultural, economic, social,…
This study addresses the governance of the London 2012 Olympics legacy. It presents legacy not as a retrospective but a prospective concept concerned with shaping the future through interactions between the state, market and society. This entails designing systems of…
Owing to the changes in its technological and economic environment, the national contexts that previously defined the world of sport have changed dramatically. The contribution of sport in defining national identity has been discussed by many scholars across a range…
Sport philosophy is in crisis. This sub discipline of kinesiology garners little to no respect and few tenure track lines in kinesiology departments. Why is this the case? Why isn’t philosophy held in greater esteem? Is it possible that philosopher…
This article analyzes the long-term effects of Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Financial Fair Play on competitive balance using a multi period adaption of a professional team sports model. This study accounts for the empirical fact that a club’s…
Asia’s sports-mediascapes are increasingly globalized and regionalized, as are the roles played specifically by global sports in the processes of reconstituting national imaginaries among local populations as they undergo the larger experience of globalization. As such, the thesis of “glocalization”…
TV Globo is the leading television channel in Brazil and is among the biggest television networks in the world. Globo is internationally renowned for its soap operas, but football has also been an important part of its popularity. Domestically, Globo…
Within this paper we “hold together” an amalgam of intensive and extensive glocalization and the simultaneous reinscription of the importance of the global growth rationalities to aid understandings of contemporary Pacific Asian sporting spectacles. Through a series of four vignettes,…
This paper develops our prior work to examine how glocalization may be applied to examine Asian sport. We begin by discussing the different usages of glocalization in social science, and the role of Asian scholars in developing and applying the…
This article highlights sport broadcasting as an emergent battlefield of “globalization from above and below” based on analysis of the strained relationship between Al-Jazeera Sport (AJS) and sports fans in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) over subscription fees to…
Because of the international nature of university sport, the appearance of transnational areas, events, results, and actors occurred very early. Therefore, the harmonization of the national and international factors influencing the functioning and development of student sport has been necessary…
Sport for Development and Peace (sdp) has been adopted as a ‘development tool’ by Western development practitioners and a growing number of development organisations. Sport is frequently referred to as a ‘global language’ and used to promote international awareness and…
This paper introduces the Special Issue of the Journal of Consumer Culture on the theme of ‘Global Sport and Consumer Culture’. We begin by briefly setting out how the interrelations of global sport and consumer culture have intensified through three…
The majority of physical activity resources are too difficult to be easily read and understood by most U.S. adults. Attempts to ensure that such resources are written in the most accessible manner possible have been advanced (e.g., 2010 U.S. National…
I employ Marshall Berman’s and Stephen Kern’s cultural analysis of modernity in late 19th-and early 20th-century Europe and the United States to examine basketball’s invention, rules, and technical and institutional development. This yields two overlapping images of basketball. First, I…
Overshadowed by the events of WWII and Germany’s responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust, German–Israel relations are both sensitive and complicated. The memories of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes continue to pervade many areas of life in Israel, as these memories…
This article explores the claim that generalized trust and community participation are positively associated and reports results from a survey that collected data on individuals’ involvement in sport and non-sport community organizations. Data were collected on levels of involvement in…
This study examines both the general narratives of baseball in Taiwan and particularly New York Yankees-related narratives since Taiwanese player Chien-ming Wang joined the team in 2005. By reviewing newspaper coverage and TV ratings data, I argue that a nationalistic…
As Aristotle once said, “If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.” When Dr Ian Brittain started researching the history of the Paralympic Games after beginning his PhD studies in 1999, it quickly became clear that there…
To measure relationships between Olympic media viewing and nation-based attitudes, 6 nations (Australia, Bulgaria, China, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and the United States) were surveyed in the 5 days immediately after the 2012 London Olympics. A total of 1,025 respondents answered…
This research explored how University of Cincinnati football fans used Facebook to manage a social identity threat arising from head football coach Brian Kelly leaving the school to become the head coach at the University of Notre Dame. A thematic…
In this article, I explore the characteristics of the informal social hierarchy within the skateboard subculture as well as how the elite members maintain their power and status within the subculture. Drawing from Fox’s detailed mapping of the punk subculture…
This paper reviews the remarkably rapid switch in 2008, still under new Labour, from ‘sport for good’ policies (stressing external benefits to society) to ‘sport for sport’s sake’ (stressing intrinsic benefits to sport). It then catalogues a series of issues…
This paper examines the relationship among male touring professional golfers from a figurational sociological standpoint. The paper is based on 20 interviews from players with experience playing at various levels on the European Professional Golfers Association professional tours and a…
Television broadcasters often exhibit bias in the reporting of sport events. Through framed discourse, networks embed multiple storylines to build and maintain audiences over the duration of an event. Research has typically focused on mega-events occurring every four years. This…
In 2008, Marion Jones was convicted and sentenced to 6 months in a federal prison for lying to federal prosecutors about steroid use and knowledge of a check-cashing scheme. This article explores the Jones scandal and the aftermath in the…
The aim of this article is to make sense of the effects of foreign player involvement in English football’s elite youth academy system. Based upon a series of interviews conducted with academy directors, managers, and coaches at Premier League clubs,…
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how racism manifests ‘behind closed doors’ in the backstage private domain. We do this with reference to recent high-profile controversies in the US and UK. In particular, we use the concepts of…
This essay explores the political economy of the 2010 World Cup as it is defined by the major commercial, corporate and political forces that have come to be prevalent in the organization of the FIFA finals. It examines the interchange…
The intention of this paper is to examine the range of interdependent processes that influence the decisions of Irish footballers to migrate from teams based in the League of Ireland to English Premier League and Football League clubs. Using data…
The aim of this study is two-fold: first, to investigate how the production practices of the TV coverage of the Norwegian Men’s Football Cup Final rely on journalism, drama and entertainment and, second, to analyse how the production practice has…
This paper explores how Arab writers in diaspora present football in their literary works. Through an examination of Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine, Laila Lalami’s Secret Son and Leila Aboulela’s Lyrics Alley, the paper highlights the way in which Arab…
Football fascism and fandom provides a rare look beneath the surface of Italian neo-fascist hardcore football fandom. The book is the product of ethnographic dissertation research conducted by Alberto Testa on two of these fan groups (called UltraS) in Rome,…
This article draws on the responses of 1,500 fans from across the United Kingdom to an online survey posted from August 2013 to November 2013 regarding their experience of football violence. Reflecting the 2013 Home Office report that indicated a…
This article explores the establishment and development of fan-owned association football club, F.C. United of Manchester. It does this by drawing upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews, observations and an analysis of multiple texts, such as fanzines, web-based and media…
This article advances the claim that a new ‘fitness boom’ has arrived, one marked by the proliferation of devices such as wearable fitness trackers. The first fitness boom of the 1970s/1980s was characterized by the heightened availability of fitness ‘tools’…
The interest in mixed martial arts (MMA) in the United States has escalated since its advent in 1993. In the last 10 years, there has been a heightened interest in Christian MMA (CMMA). Several evangelical churches across the country have…
This paper examines how marathoners develop multiple and diverse subjectivities within this distance running space. Specifically, we engage in a case study and critically explore the various ways that a small but growing running group called the “Marathon Maniacs” positions…
One of the absolutes in professional sports, and a reason for its success, is the uncertainty of the outcome of individual games, seasons, and championships. This uncertainty impacts a team’s attendance and financial operation. While leagues cultivate uncertainty through various…
The experiences of female sports fans have largely been neglected in academic research to date with socio-historical accounts focusing almost exclusively on male fans. Through an excavation of the sporting histories of female football fans this article aims to make…
Kim Bain-Moore galvanized public interest as the first female competitor in the 2009 Bassmaster Classic fishing tournament. To examine the extent to which women were depicted by the fishing media during and after this watershed event, as well as how…
In 2009, Brazil won the right to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. International media coverage of the bid process revealed the involvement of the then Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the project application. To further…
In a climate where the “obesity epidemic” is a consistent focus within discussions of public health, the theory that the environment is one of the main drivers of the “obesity epidemic” is coming to the fore. In this paper, we…
The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) are the newest addition to the Olympic Movement and, in light of recent discussions of the education of high-performance athletes, represent a change within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from a philosophy of ‘winning by…
Media interactivity in the field of sport functions as both a lure and a way of transforming a viewer’s relation to a game. Sport websites, along with the more traditional medium of television, have taken on the pedagogical task of…
English national identity has undergone significant challenges post-1945 which means this national construct has reached a point where its very nature is uncertain. The aim of this paper is to discuss debates between football fans regarding the possibility that the…
The purpose of this study was to explore factors associated with the use of research evidence in Canadian National Sport Organisations (NSOs). Data were collected via individual semi-structured interviews with 21 representatives from Canadian NSOs. A qualitative description approach was…
Objective: Megachurches (churches with 2,000 + attendance) represent a community institution with extensive reach within the United States population, although little is known about their health and wellness programming (HWP). The purpose of this study was to examine factors associated…
To face an unequal world requires us to interpret and explain it, to be sure, but also to engage it, that is, to recognize that we are part of it and that we are partly responsible for it. In other…
Research question: This paper examines event leveraging for public health benefits with the outcome of increasing physical activity participation. While event leveraging provides the foundation for this research, social ecological theory is additionally applied to further examine how leveraging efforts…
A recent study finds that Olympic Games host countries experience significant positive, lasting effects on exports. They interpret their results as an indication that countries use the hosting of such events to signal openness and competitiveness. The authors challenge these…
This article examines the structural problems that have accompanied South Korea’s increasing emphasis on success in elite international sport. After discussing how this was brought about by the political context of the 1960s and 1970s, we focus on three particular…
Researchers have postulated that hope may be an important factor associated with burnout. Consistent with hope theory contentions, low-hope individuals may be susceptible to burnout because they are prone to experience goal blockage, frustration, and negative affect, all of which…
Although sport can serve as a valuable mechanism for social change, this does not imply it can single-handedly solve large-scale problems; rather, sport should be utilized with passionate leadership, efficient and innovative program design, and ancillary cultural enrichment activities to…
The article focuses on spirituality on two semantic levels: the first one analysis participants’ experiences during a winter expeditionary course on snowshoes and considers the question of whether residing in the winter landscape with a community of other people may…
Multicultural scholarship in sport and exercise psychology should help us understand and apply cultural competencies for all to be physically active. In the present study, two Asian countries, Japan and Singapore, were chosen. The participation rate for physical activities among…
This article examines how the United Kingdom’s media represents contemporary China. Using the context of the Beijing Olympics, the article examines the UK media’s representation of China through the prisms of ideology, history and geopolitics. Using Content Analysis, the inquiry…
The present study investigated birthdate (known as the Relative Age Effect; RAE) and birthplace as determinants of expertise in an international sample of elite ice hockey players. The sample included 566 World Junior (WJR) ice hockey players from four countries…
Sporting event attendance is determined by ex ante expectations about the quality of the game, but because changing television channels costs nothing, sporting event viewership is influenced by actual game progression. This implies that demand determinants for televised baseball may…
A number of studies have pointed to a plateauing of athletic performance, with the suggestion that further improvements will need to be driven by revolutions in technology or technique. In the present study, we examine post-war men’s Olympic performance in…
What does it mean to wear a routine? This article explores a number of implications for the engagement of wearable fitness technology in everyday life. It straddles both a critical hermeneutic that explores the institutional prescription of wearable technology to…
Sports media offer a unique discourse site because the nationalistic nature of reporting is often radicalized and in most cases ‘the national flag is waved with eternal enthusiasm’. Therefore, this study examined changes in the coverage of the Israeli national…
Book Review: Chris Rojek, Event power: How global events manage and manipulate
The problem of how to adapt criteria of evaluation to stylistic change will always be with us. Our current era of multiculturalism, postmodernism and globalism, however, confounds the problem almost beyond recognition. Multiculturalism, an heir of cultural relativism, asks us…
Extreme endurance sporting events and participation in these events have grown exponentially since the 1970s. Events such as Iron-distance triathlons, marathons, ultramarathons, ultra distance cycling, and military-style obstacle courses now attract millions of participants in the United States annually. Although…
We estimate Canadians’ willingness to pay (WTP) for medals won by Team Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games using data from contingent valuation method (CVM) surveys of nationally representative samples conducted before and after the Games. The results permit…
This article draws on a range of sociological literature including studies of sport, subculture, interspecies relationships and animal advocacy to understand the social processes that have contributed to the horse being defined as an athlete in equestrian sports. Using a…
In recent years, scholars have understood the increasing use of the St George’s Cross by football fans to be evidence of a rise in a specifically ‘English’ identity. This has emerged as part of a wider ‘national’ response to broader…
The author offers a robustly theological account of compassion, highlighting its bodily nature. Divine mercy is presented as being conveyed through human bodies to remake and enliven both the human agent and recipient. Culminating in a story of a physically…
This paper explores the interrelationship of space, the elements and the embodied experiences of water-based physical activity. It draws upon alternative forms of research and representation to draw out the embodied nature of the experiences in exploring the practices of…
Background: The previous two decades have witnessed an increasing number of policymakers and practitioners using sport programmes to achieve broader social development aims, particularly in countries in the Global South. A core element of these programmes has been the use…
One of the most touching scenes in Jim Sheridan’s Oscar-winning film My Left Foot features a penalty kick in a street game of soccer. The film tells the story of the Dublin artist Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral…
This editorial outlines the important role that IP issues are increasingly playing across the media industries. It identifies some of the key sectors discussed in this issue of the journal and why particular media industries face specific IP challenges even…
In the preface to the special issue on Africa which we published in March 2006 (Harris, 2006), we indicated that in future issues of the journal we hoped to publish more articles on the economic, political, and social challenges faced…
Ecological modernization refers to the idea that capitalist-driven scientific and technological advancements can not only attend to the world’s pending environmental crises, but even lead to ecological improvement, thus allowing sustainability and consumption to continue in concert. In this paper,…
In December 2015, the National Hockey League (NHL) was invited to present on a special sport panel showcasing the green leaders of the sport industry, which was hosted as part of the COP 21 United Nations climate change talks in…
In December 2015, the National Hockey League (NHL) was invited to present on a special sport panel showcasing the green leaders of the sport industry, which was hosted as part of the COP21 United Nations climate change talks in Paris.…
The contribution in this introduction, and in this monograph issue of Current Sociology itself, is to explain how patterns of inequality associated with global capital have been reconfigured in different contexts and have historically produced varied results. The definition of…
On October 24, 2012, the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League announced a plan to move from their current stadium in Nassau County to the recently opened Barclays Center in the borough of Brooklyn, marking the end of…
This article investigates the domestic, intra-state labour mobility of professional footballers. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with a snowball sample of 49 male professional footballers who represent a range of career trajectories; the specific object of 19 interviews was to…
Using data from the 2011-2012 season of the Premier League, we study empirically and theoretically the impact of soccer suspension rules on the behavior of players and referees. For players facing a potential one-game suspension, being one versus two yellow…
According to a thesis which is today authoritatively supported by some authors, the scarce recognition given to sport sciences in our culture should be ascribed to Christianity. This paper, in addition to attempting to refute this thesis, wishes to enrich…
This article explores public expenditure in Brazilian sport from 2004 to 2015 and aims to understand if hosting sport mega-events has influenced investments in different types of sport (elite sport and educational/participation sport). Data were collected through governmental records and…
The objective of this study was to explore beliefs and attitudes of students studying exercise science in Australia towards sports concussion. A secondary objective explored differences between gender and previous experience of concussion. A total of 312 participants (m =…
This article presents the findings of a discourse analysis carried out on 48 association football (soccer) message boards from across the United Kingdom concerning fans’ views towards the presence of gay footballers. It draws on over 3000 anonymous posts to…
This article has three main objectives. Our first is to turn to sport as a particularly illuminating and revealing example of consumer culture in the making. Marketplace logic suffuses consumer culture, and exploring practices of fandom as performed thus becomes…