Sport in Society: Issues

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Sport in SocietyIssues Controversies

• Chapter 13
• Sports and Politics
• How Do Governments
• Globalization Influence Sports?

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Definitions

• Power the ability to influence others and
  achieve goals even in the face of opposition from
  others
• Authority a form of power that comes with a
  recognized and legitimate status or office in an
  organization or set of relationships

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Reasons for Connections Between Government
Sports

• Safeguard the public order
• Maintain fitness physical abilities
• Promote the prestige power of a community or
  nation
• Reproduce dominant values
• Increase support for political leaders and
  political structures
• Promote economic development

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Safeguarding Public Order

• Governments make rules about
• What sports are legal or illegal
• How sports should be organized to protect rights
• Who has a right to play sports
• Where sports may be played
• Who can use public facilities and when they can
  use them

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Maintaining Fitness Physical Abilities

• Government support traditionally was based on the
  notion that playing sports improves fitness,
  fitness improves health, and good health reduces
  medical costs
• Recent government support is informed by research
  showing that
• Illness is related to environmental factors more
  than worker fitness
• Competitive sports have few benefits when it
  comes to productivity
• Concerns about sport performance may increase
  demands for health care

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Promoting Prestige Power

• Government support traditionally has been based
  on the notion that success in sports provides
  recognition and status for the sponsoring
  governmental unit
• National teams can bring international
  recognition
• Local teams can bring needed publicity to
  communities

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Promoting Identity, Belonging, Unity

• Governments most often use sports to promote
  identity and unity when constituents are diverse
  or when change is rapid and widespread
• Sports often constitute invented traditions to
  reaffirm social ties
• Sport-based unity usually is temporary and
  superficial
• Sports do not change the realities of everyday
  differences and inequalities

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Emphasizing Values Consistent With Dominant
Ideology

• Sports may be used to promote the idea that
  success is based on discipline, loyalty,
  determination, and fortitude
• Sports in nations with market economies also are
  associated with competition and individualism
• Using sports to promote dominant values does not
  work when governments lack legitimacy

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Increasing Support For Political Leaders

• Political leaders may use sports to boost their
  legitimacy in the eyes of citizens
• Most citizens see through this strategy when
  leaders lack legitimacy already
• Some men who were former athletes have used their
  celebrity status from sports to gain popular
  support
• Jesse Ventura (Minnesota Governor)
• Bill Bradley (Senator Democratic Presidential
  hopeful in 2000 primaries)

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Promoting Economic Development

• Cities may use public resources to bid on major
  sport events
• The stated goal is to bring new revenues into the
  city as a whole
• Special interests in cities may be the primary
  economic benefactors of major events, although
  sponsorship is promoted in terms of the common
  economic good

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Critical Issues Questions

• Government involvement in sports often fosters
  the interests of some people more than others
• When government support occurs, priority often
  goes to elite sports
• Those who represent elite sports are more likely
  to be organized and to have resources that can be
  dedicated to political lobbying

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Ideals Underlying International Sports

• There has been longstanding hope that
  international sports could
• Open communication lines between people and
  leaders from many nations
• Highlight shared interests among people in
  different cultures and nations
• Demonstrate that international friendships are
  possible
• (continued)

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Ideals Underlying International Sports
(continued)

• Foster cultural understanding and eliminate
  national stereotypes
• Create a model for international relationships
• Establish working relationships that might close
  gaps between wealthy and poor nations

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Realities of International Sports

• Sports have no influence when it comes to serious
  diplomacy
• Sports do not affect matters of vital national
  interest
• Leaders do not use sports in discussions of vital
  national interest
• Sports may be useful at the level of public
  diplomacy
• Sports provide opportunities to meet and
  talk (continued)

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Realities of International Sports (continued)

• Nation states often use international sports to
  foster self-interests over international peace
  and understanding
• Ethnocentrism and nationalism often have been
  promoted in international sports
• Self-interests have influenced bid processes,
  media coverage, and boycotts

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Nation-states, Sports, and Cultural Ideology

• The conditions events in international sports
  clearly favor the interests of powerful nations
• Sports can then become tools of cultural
  imperialism
• The participation of poorer nations usually
  depends on assistance from wealthy nations
• Sports can then become vehicles for gaining
  control over important forms of popular culture
  around the world

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Political Realities in an Era of Transnational
Corporations

• Nation-states have been joined by transnational
  corporations in global power relations
• Nationalism still exists in international sports,
  but consumerism may replace patriotism when it
  comes to identifying with athletes and teams
• Corporations tend to use sports to fuse their
  interests with national and local symbols with
  which people identify
• (continued)

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Realities of International Sports (continued)

• The Olympics and other international sport events
  have become showcases for transnational
  corporations, their products, and the ideology of
  consumerism
• Corporations pay billions to sponsor global
  sports so they might become global cultural
  commissars
• Corporate images tied to sports do not dictate
  what people think, but they influence what people
  think about

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Sports and Global Political Issues

• Athletes as global migrant workers
• Raises issues of personal adjustment, labor
  rights, national impact of talent migration, and
  national identity
• The production of sport equipment and apparel
• Raises issues of international labor exploitation
  and the need for international labor rights
  efforts such as the Nike transnational advocacy
  network

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Making Sense of New Political Realities

• As the meaning , organization, and purpose of
  sports have changed around the world, there is a
  need to ask many new questions about sports as
  social phenomena
• The most helpful research on the realities of
  global trends has presented data from both global
  and local levels
• This helps us understand local expressions of and
  responses to global processes

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Politics in Sports

• Political processes revolve around
  issues such as
• What qualifies as a sport?
• What are the rules of sport?
• Who makes enforces the rules?
• Who organizes and controls events?
• Where will events take place?
• Who is eligible to participate in sport?
• How are rewards distributed?

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The Olympic Games How to Control Nationalism
Commercialism

• Suggestions include the following
• Do away with national uniforms for athletes
• Revise the opening ceremonies so athletes enter
  the arena by event
• Eliminate national anthems and flags during
  awards ceremonies
• Eliminate or revise team sports

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The Olympic Games How to Control Nationalism
Commercialism

• (continued)
• Add more traditional demonstration sports to
  the games
• Use multiple sites for each Olympics
• Emphasize global responsibility in media coverage
  and commercials
• The goal is to make the Olympics something
  more than a global marketing opportunity for
  transnational corporations and a political stage
  for wealthy nations to promote ideologies