Sociology of Sports & PE

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 406 06/14/16 06:20 PM

(Source: © Lara Killick)

chapter

SPORTS AND POLITICS How Do Governments and Global Political Processes Influence Sports?

13

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers.

—Nelson Mandela, former president, South Africa (2000)

. . . the language of sports is universal; it extends across borders, language, race, religion and ideology; it possesses the capacity to unite people, together, by fostering dialogue and

acceptance. This is a very valuable resource!

—POPE FRANCIS (2013)

Many more people in the world are concerned with sports than with human rights.

—Samuel Huntington, political scientist (1997)

Just as athletes and athletic associations sell products, politicians try to associate with sport to help sell themselves and their agendas to a sport- loving public.

—Kyle Green and Doug Hartmann, sociologists, University of Minnesota (2012)

Final PDF to printer

407

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 407 06/14/16 06:20 PM

The Sports–Government Connection

Sports and Global Political Processes

Politics in Sports

Summary: How Do Governments and Global Political Processes Influence Sports?

Chapter Outline

• Know the differences between politics and government and between power and authority.

• Identify at least five major reasons for governments to be involved in sports.

• Provide examples of how government intervention in sports protects the rights and safety of athletes and nonathletes alike.

• Identify examples of how government intervention in sports may benefit some people more than others.

• Identify the traditional ideals associated with international sports, and discuss those ideals in terms of the realities of international sports.

• Discuss why the Olympic Games are a socially valuable event, and what can be done to make them more socially sustainable.

• Explain the connections between cultural ideology and the sponsorship of sports by nation-states and transnational corporations.

• Discuss the political issues associated with the globalization of sports.

• Give examples of politics in sports, and explain why politics will always be a part of sports.

Learning Objectives

Final PDF to printer

408 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 408 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Organized competitive sports have long been con- nected with politics, governments, and global politi- cal processes. When people say that politics has no place in sports, they usually mean that there is no place in sports for politics that differ from their own.

Politics refers to the processes of organizing social power and making decisions that affect people’s lives in a social world. Politics occur at all levels of social life, from the politics of friendship and family rela- tionships to national, international, and global affairs (Volpi, 2006). In the sociology of sport we study political processes in communities, local and national sport organizations, societies, and large nongovern- ment organizations (NGOs) such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Inter- nationale de Football Association (FIFA), the interna- tional federation that governs world soccer.

Governments are formal organizations with the power to make and enforce rules in a particular territory or collection of people. Because govern- ments make decisions affecting people’s lives, they are political organizations by definition. Govern- ments operate on various levels from local parks and recreation departments to nation-states, and they influence sports whether they occur in a public park or a privately owned stadium that hosts inter- national competitions. In the sociology of sport we often refer to “the state” because this concept includes the formal institution of a national gov- ernment plus those parts of civil society—such as education, family, media, and churches—that teach values and ideologies that extend the influence and control of the political agencies that make and enforce laws and govern a society.

Politics often involve the actions and interactions of governments, but rule-making in sports today goes beyond the political boundaries of the state and occurs in connection with global processes. For example, soccer is a global sport because British workers, students, and teachers brought the game to South America and British soldiers and mission- aries brought it to Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonized areas of the nineteenth-century British Empire. Soccer grew around the world through the global processes of migration, capitalist

expansion, British imperialism, and colonization— all of which involve politics.

Governments usually are involved in political pro- cesses, but today’s world includes such rapid global movements of people, products, knowledge, ideas, technologies, and money that these processes tran- scend particular states and involve transnational cor- porations and nongovernmental organizations such as Greenpeace, the Red Cross, and sport organizations such as the IOC and FIFA.

This chapter focuses on the relationships between sports and politics. The goal is to explain the ways in which sports are connected with governments, the state, and global political processes. Chapter content focuses on four major questions:

1. Why do governments often sponsor and control sports?

2. How are sports connected with global politics that involve nation-states, transnational corpo- rations, and nongovernmental organizations?

3. What is the role of the Olympic Games and other sport mega-events in global politics and processes?

4. How are political processes involved in sports and sport organizations?

When reading this chapter, remember that power and authority are the key concepts used when studying politics and political processes. Power refers to an ability to influence people and achieve goals, even in the face of opposition from others (Weber, 1922a). And authority is a form of power that comes with a recognized and legitimate status or office in a gov- ernment, an organization, or an established set of relationships. For example, a large corporation, such as Nike or McDonald’s, has power if it can influ- ence how people think about and play sports and if it can use sports to achieve its goals. Sport organiza- tions such as the IOC, FIFA, the NCAA, and a local parks and recreation department have the authority to administer particular sports as long as the people associated with those sports accept the organizations as legitimate governing bodies. This highlights the fact that politics refers to the power to make decisions that affect sports and sport participation.

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 409

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 409 06/14/16 06:20 PM

THE SPORTS–GOVERNMENT CONNECTION

As sports grow in popularity, government involve- ment usually increases. Many sports require spon- sorship, organization, and facilities—all of which depend on resources that few individuals possess on their own. Sport facilities may be so expensive that regional and national governments are the only enti- ties with the power and resources to build and main- tain them. Government involvement also occurs when there is a need for a third party to regulate and control sports and sport organizations in ways that promote the public good in a community or society.

The nature and extent of government involve- ment in sports varies by society, but it generally serves one or more of the following purposes (Houlihan, 2000):

1. Safeguard the public order 2. Ensure fairness and protect human rights 3. Maintain health and fitness among citizens 4. Promote the prestige and power of a group,

community, or nation 5. Promote a sense of identity, belonging, and

unity among citizens 6. Reproduce dominant values and ideologies in a

community or society 7. Increase support for political leaders and

government 8. Facilitate economic and social development in

a community or society

Safeguard the Public Order

Governments are responsible for maintaining order in public areas, including parks, sidewalks, and streets, among other places. Here are two sections from the Los Angeles Municipal Code, enforced by the city in an effort to safeguard citizens and the public order:

SEC. 56.15. BICYCLE RIDING— SIDEWALKS. No person shall ride, operate or use a bicycle, uni- cycle, skateboard, cart, wagon, wheelchair, roller skates, or any other device moved exclusively by

human power, on a sidewalk, bikeway or boardwalk in a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property. (Los Angeles Municipal Code, 2013a)

SEC. 56.16. STREETS—SIDEWALKS— PLAYING BALL OR GAMES OF SPORT. No person shall play ball or any game of sport with a ball or football or throw, cast, shoot or discharge any stone, pellet, bullet, arrow or any other missile, in, over, across, along or upon any street or sidewalk or in any public park, except on those portions of said park set apart for such purposes. (Los Angeles Municipal Code, 2013b)

Laws similar to these, full of bureaucratic lan- guage, exist in nearly all cities and towns. They set boundaries for where, when, and under what cir- cumstances sports may be played.

Ideally, these laws promote safety and reduce conflict between multiple users of public spaces. For example, state and local governments in many coun- tries ban bare-fisted boxing, bungee jumping off pub- lic bridges, and basketball playing on public streets. In the case of commercial sports, governments may also regulate the rights and responsibilities of team owners, sponsors, promoters, and athletes.

Local governments may regulate sport partici- pation by requiring people to obtain permits to use public facilities and playing fields. Likewise, local officials may close streets or parks to the general public so that sport events can be held under con- trolled and safe conditions. Annual marathons in New York City, London, and other cities worldwide require the involvement of the government and gov- ernment agencies such as the city and state police.

Safeguarding the public order also involves policing sport events where safety may be threat- ened by crowds or unruly individuals. During the Olympics, for example, the host city and nation provide thousands of military and law enforcement officials to safeguard the public order. In the face of possible protests and terrorist actions, it is estimated that the Chinese government spent up to $6.5 billion to police and monitor the Beijing area in connec- tion with the 2008 Olympic Games. The Chinese

Final PDF to printer

410 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 410 06/14/16 06:20 PM

they may provide funding and facilities for sport pro- grams. However, these programs are seldom effec- tive unless they are tied to other efforts to reduce the deprivation, racism, poverty, dislocation, unemploy- ment, community disintegration, and political pow- erlessness that often create “at-risk youth” and social problems in communities and societies (Coakley, 2002, 2011).

A study by Doug Hartmann and Brooks Depro (2006) suggests that these programs are most likely to be effective in reducing crime rates when they are sponsored in connection with other pub- lic efforts that make people in a particular neigh- borhood aware that the city government and law enforcement is taking them seriously and can be trusted to maintain public order. However, Wheelock and Hartmann (2007) also found that when members of the U.S. Congress debated anti- crime program funding in the 1990s, references to

government also employed over 43,000 soldiers, 47 helicopters, 74 airplanes, 33 naval ships, 6000 security guards on 18,000 buses, 30,000 guards at bus stops and terminals, and the personnel to moni- tor tens of thousands of surveillance cameras in and around Beijing.

Governments also sponsor sports that are used in military and police training. Military academies in the United States sponsor sports for cadets, and the World Police and Fire Games are held every two years because people believe that sport participa- tion keeps prepared soldiers, law enforcement offi- cials, and firefighters to safeguard the public order.

Finally, some governments sponsor sport events and programs for people defined as potential threats to the public order. When public officials believe that sports will keep young people— especially those labeled “at risk”—off the streets and thereby reduce crime rates, vandalism, loneliness, and alienation,

Local governments often regulate where and when certain sports can occur. This is true in Philadelphia’s “Love Park,” although “street skaters” do break the rules on weekends, holidays, and late at night. (Source: © Jay Coakley)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 411

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 411 06/14/16 06:20 PM

forced the University of Michigan to increase its accessible seats for football fans from 88 (in 2007) to 329 in 2010 (out of 107,501 total seats) and to make restrooms accessible even though they were built in previous years not covered by existing ADA law (Lapointe, 2008; Pear, 2008).

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights clarified the existing legal obligations of schools “to provide students with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate alongside their peers in after-school athletics and clubs.” It also noted that “schools may not exclude students who have an intellectual, developmental, physical, or any other disability from trying out and playing on a team, if they are otherwise qualified” (Duncan, 2013).

In other examples of government actions to guarantee fairness and human rights, the U.S. Con- gress passed the Amateur Sports Act in 1978 and created the USOC, now the official NGO respon- sible for coordinating amateur sports in the United States. A major reason for doing this was to protect athletes from being exploited by multiple, uncon- nected, and self-interested sport-governing bodies that controlled amateur sports through much of the twentieth century. In 1998, the act was revised to require the USOC to support and fund Paralympic athletes because people with a disability were systematically denied opportunities to play elite amateur sports. However, people have differing opinions on how the act should be interpreted and this has led athletes with disabilities to file lawsuits to receive the support and funding that they and many others consider to be fair.

Disputes about fairness and human rights in sports are not always settled by legislative or judi- cial actions, but as the stakes associated with sports and sport participation increase, government offi- cials are more likely to pass laws and accept sport- related legal cases for judicial rulings. The 2005 and 2012 congressional hearings on steroid use in Major League Baseball were examples of this, even though the hearings accomplished nothing of substance.

these programs increased their fears of crime by “at-risk” populations (especially black men) and shifted their focus to funding social control pro- grams that emphasized policing and incarceration.

This emphasis on social control raises a critical question about the political interpretation of “safe- guarding the public order.” For example, it can be used as an excuse to limit the physical and sport activities of people defined by political officials as “undesirable” (Silk and Andrews, 2010). Addi- tionally, when cities host sport mega-events, the goal of “safeguarding public order” is now used to justify the relocation of poor people and the instal- lation of expensive video surveillance systems that effectively eliminate privacy in public areas ( Sugden, 2012).

Overall, when safeguarding the public order is the reason for government involvement in sports, the focus of that involvement can influence sports in many ways—sometimes restricting certain forms of sport participation at the same time that other forms are supported.

Ensure Fairness and Protect Human Rights

Governments may intervene in sports by passing laws, establishing policies, or ruling in court cases that protect the rights of citizens to participate in public sport programs. A classic example of this is Title IX in the United States and similar laws that other coun- tries have passed to promote gender equity in sports (Mitchell and Ennis, 2007; Sabo and Snyder, 2013).

Today, many national governments are consider- ing or have already enacted laws mandating the pro- vision of sport participation opportunities for people with a disability. For example, the United States Supreme Court made a ruling in 2001 that ensured fair treatment for Casey Martin, Tiger Woods’s for- mer roommate and golf teammate at Stanford Univer- sity. Martin sued the Professional Golf Association for the right to use a golf cart during competitions because a chronic leg problem impeded his walking.

A federal court in 2008 ruled in favor of the Michigan Paralyzed Veterans of America and

Final PDF to printer

412 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 412 06/14/16 06:20 PM

specialized medical care to treat and rehabili- tate any injury or physical condition prevent- ing them from meeting their performance expectations.

In light of these factors, some government officials are now cautious and selective when they sponsor sports for health purposes, and they are more likely to support noncompetitive physical activities with clear aerobic benefits than sports with high injury rates.

Promote the Prestige and Power of a Community or Nation

Government involvement in sports frequently is motivated by a quest for recognition and prestige (Hubbert, 2013; Kang et al., 2013; Park et al., 2012; Silk, 2011; Tan and Houlihan, 2012; Yu and Bairner, 2010). This is especially the case for cities and countries that host major sport events such as FIFA World Cups in soccer and the Olympic and Para- lympic Games (Booth, 2011; Dorsey, 2013a, 2013b; Schausteck de Almeida et al., 2013; Smale, 2011).

This quest for recognition and prestige also underlies government subsidies for national teams across a wide range of sports, usually those desig- nated as Olympic sports. Government officials use international sports to establish their nation’s legit- imacy in the international sphere, and they often believe that winning medals enhances their image around the world. This is why many governments provide cash rewards to their athletes who win medals. At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, many governments paid gold medal winners cash bonuses (V. Black, 2012; Caruso-Cabrera, 2012; C.  Smith, 2012). In Kazakhstan it was $250,000; in Italy, $182,000; France, $65,000; South Africa, $55,000; Mexico, $37,000. Canada, at $20,000, is among the lowest of international payouts. Russian medal winners received $135,000 for gold, $82,000 for silver, and $54,000 for bronze from the national government but reportedly up to $1 mil- lion from local governments in the regions where they resided.

Maintain Health and Fitness

Governments often become involved in sports to pro- mote health and fitness among citizens. In nations with state-funded, universal health care programs, governments often sponsor sports and physical activ- ity programs to improve health and reduce expen- ditures for medical care. Nations without universal health care may also sponsor or promote sports for health reasons, but they have a lower stake in preven- tive approaches and less incentive to fund them. For example, public schools in the United States have cut physical education programs and communities have defunded recreational sport programs because they are seen as too expensive to maintain.

Although people generally believe that sport participation improves health and reduces medical costs, there’s a growing awareness that the relation- ship between sports participation and health must be qualified because of the following research findings (Bhanoo, 2012; Bloodworth et al., 2012; Gregory, 2012; Leek et al., 2011; Waddington, 2000a, 2007):

∙ Many illnesses that increase health care costs are caused by environmental factors and living conditions that cannot be changed through sport or fitness programs.

∙ Some forms of sport participation, including ultra- endurance and heavy- contact sports, do not pro- duce overall health benefits because of the damage they do to the bodies of many participants.

∙ The culture in certain competitive sports often contributes to injuries and increased health care costs; for example, there are an estimated 300,000 sport-related concussions each year, and more than 62,000 of those are sustained by high school athletes in contact sports alone (Graham et al., 2013). Other injuries, including bone fractures, ligament tears, and tendon dam- age have increased significantly among high school and college athletes since 2000, and they are costly to treat and rehabilitate ( Fawcett, 2012; Healy, 2013; Leet, 2012).

∙ The demand for health care often increases among competitive athletes because they seek

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 413

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 413 06/14/16 06:20 PM

budgets or newer facilities (Coakley, 2011c; Hall, 2006; Topič and Coakley, 2010). This continu- ously pushes up the funds and other resources that must be allocated to sports, and it decreases resources for programs having more direct and concrete positive impact on citizens. Government officials often find that using this strategy to boost prestige for a city or nation is costly relative to the public benefits created, especially when most of the direct and tangible benefits go to a relatively small and predominantly wealthy segment of their constituency (Coakley and Souza, 2013).

Promote Identity and Unity

When people identify strongly with a sport, govern- ment officials often use public money to support ath- letes and teams as a representation of a city or nation. The emotional unity created by a sport or team is widely believed to establish or reaffirm an identity that further connects people with the city or nation (Sorek, 2007). For example, when the Brazilian men’s soccer team plays in the World Cup, the people of Brazil experience a form of emotional unity and a related sense of attachment to the nation. This attach- ment means different things to different people, but the expectation is that it will reaffirm national loyalty and highlight everything from the nation’s history and traditions to its geography and its place in the global economic or political order.

Research on national identity indicates that it is a much more dynamic social construct than many people have imagined.1 Its intensity, meaning,

1Beginning in the mid-1990s, the topic of national identity has received much attention in the sociology of sport. The research done over the last decade has been extensive. The following references are a good starting point for people interested in this topic: Bairner and Hwang, 2011; Bartoluci and Perasović, 2008; Brownell, 2008; Chiang and Chen, 2015; Coakley and Souza, 2013; Darby, 2011; Denham, 2010; Dóczi, 2012; Elling et al., 2014; Gibbons, 2014; Griggs & Gibbons, 2014; Juncà, 2008; Kang, Kim & Wang, 2015; Leng et al., 2014; Licen and Billings, 2013; J. Maguire, 2005; Mehus and Kolstad, 2011; Schausteck de Almeida et al., 2013; Sorek, 2011; Thomas and Anthony, 2015; Topič and Coakley, 2010; Van Hilvoorde et al., 2010; von Scheve et al., 2014.

Chinese gold medal winners were paid a reported $55,000, and provincial governments gave houses, luxury cars, or other significant gifts to gold medal winners. Host country Great Britain gave no cash awards to medal winners, although their pictures will go on Royal Mail stamps and they will receive royalties, sometimes reaching five figures, when the stamps are purchased.

U.S. athletes received no money from the gov- ernment, but the USOC paid medal winners $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. But each of the 529 U.S. athletes also received five duffle bags full of items provided by corporations, including a $600 ring (custom sized at registra- tion), an Omega watch worth several thousand dol- lars, and about 100 other items from Oakley, Nike, Ralph Lauren, and other companies that custom-fit clothes Olympians (Olmsted, 2012). Paralympic athletes also received the rings and additional items.

Attempts to gain recognition and prestige also underlie local governments’ involvement in sports. Cities fund sport clubs and teams and then use them to promote themselves as good places to live, work, locate a business, or vacation. Many people in North America feel that if their city does not have one or more major professional sport team franchises, it cannot claim world-class status (Del- aney and Eckstein, 2008; deMause, 2011; deMause and Cagan, 2008; Silk and Andrews, 2008).

Even small towns use road signs to announce the success of local high school teams to everyone driv- ing into the town: “You are now entering the home of the state champions” in this or that sport. State govern- ments in the United States subsidize sport programs at colleges and universities for similar reasons: Competi- tive success is believed to bring prestige to the entire state as well as the school represented by winning athletes and teams; prestige, it is believed, attracts out of state and international students that pay high tuition rates that help support educational programs.

When governments fund sports and sport facili- ties to boost the profile of a city or nation, they often become caught in a cycle where increased funding is regularly required to compete with other cities and nations doing the same thing with bigger

Final PDF to printer

414 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 414 06/14/16 06:20 PM

and surrounding area used the team and its matches as opportunities to express deep personal feelings of nationhood shaped by war, economic hardship, recent peace, and hope for future prosperity.

The expressions of national identity in Zadar can be viewed as a sign of resilience and unity with the rest of Croatia, but their intensity, and the ways that they reaffirm a strong sense of separation from peo- ple in neighboring Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovena, cause some people to worry (Bartoluci and Perasović , 2009). They fear that sport-related expressions of national unity, pride, and identity are dangerous under conditions that can turn them into chauvinism and militaristic forms of nationalism (Mehus and Kolstad, 2011; Porat, 2012; Sorek, 2011; Vaczi, 2013).

When government involvement in sport is intended to promote identity and unity, it usually benefits some people more than others. Although emotional unity seldom lasts long, it often serves

and the forms through which it is expressed vary widely between and even within nations. Addition- ally, it changes over time with shifts in national experiences such as those that occur in times of peace or times of war, in the face of positive or negative economic conditions, or when immigra- tion patterns alter a nation’s demographic profile.

Consider a recent Olympic qualifying tournament for men’s team handball held in Zadar, Croatia. A city of 71,000 people on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, Zadar was repeatedly attacked during the early and mid-1990s by Yugoslav and Serbian forces as Croa- tia fought a war to break away from Soviet-aligned- Yugoslavia and become an independent nation. Croatia succeeded in gaining its independence, but the people in the Zadar region have only recently felt that the war and its aftermath are behind them. There- fore, when they hosted the handball tournament, the tickets sold out immediately and people from the city

Quantifying and measuring the long-term social impact of sports is difficult. People often assume that sport mega-events such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup create social integration and national identity. However, this was not the case for the 2014 Men’s World Cup or the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. One year before the Rio Games these protesters carried a sign asking, “Olympics for whom?” They knew that the 2016 Olympic Games would serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful rather than the general population. (Source: © Tasso Marcelo/Getty Images)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 415

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 415 06/14/16 06:20 PM

The recent growth of global labor migration has intensified interest in the relationship between sport and national identity. As globalization has blurred national boundaries and made them less relevant for many people, government officials have used sports

and national teams to rekindle the idea of nationhood at the same time that they have used sports and multinational teams to inspire identification with newly created political and economic entities (Tamir, 2014; Topič and Coakley, 2010). For example, as European nations sponsor national sports to reinvigorate old feelings of national identity at a time when immigrant workers bring diverse identities to various nations, representatives of the twenty-eight-nation European Union use golf’s Ryder Cup pitting Team Europe against Team USA

to promote the formation of a European identity. Satellite and cable companies that serve most Euro- pean nations have fostered both forms of identifica- tion with their sports programming, depending on which one will increase ratings the most.

These developments complicate national iden- tity and make it more difficult to study and under- stand its connection with sports. Governments continue to use sports to promote identity and unity, but the long-term effectiveness of this strat- egy is difficult to assess. Many government offi- cials believe that sports create more than temporary good feelings of national “we-ness,” but nearly all these officials are men, and the sports they support usually have long histories of privileging men.

Research suggests that in well-established nations, the impact of successful national teams on feelings of national pride and identity is minimal (Elling et al., 2012; Van Hilvoorde et al., 2010), and most likely to be boosted among athletes, men, and non-immigrants in the country. Those who are aware of their nation’s history and current global status across economic, political, educational, and cultural spheres of life may see sports as important but as

the interests of people with power and influence because they have the resources to connect it with the images, traditions, and memories that constitute their ideas of nationhood and the importance of loyalty to the status quo. For example, when men’s sports are sponsored and women’s sports are ignored, the sense of national identity and unity among men may be strong, but women may feel alienated (Adams, 2006). When sports involve participants from only one ethnic group or a particular social class, there are similar divisions in the “imagined community” and the “invented tra- ditions” constructed around sports (Joseph, 2014; Mehus and Kols- tad, 2011; Porat, 2012; Shor and Yonay, 2011; Vaczi, 2013, 2015; Wise, 2015).

National and local identities are political in that they can be constructed around many different ideas about who or what the nation or com- munity is. Of course, these ideas can vary widely between particular categories of people. Furthermore, neither the identity nor the emotional unity created by sports changes the social, political, and economic realities of life.

When games end, people go their separate ways. Old social distinctions become relevant again, and the people who were disadvantaged prior to the game or tournament remain disadvantaged after it (Coakley and Souza, 2013; Majumdar and Mehta, 2010). But this raises interesting questions: Do privileged people feel more justified in their privi- lege, and do people who are systematically disad- vantaged in a city or nation feel less justified in making their disadvantage a political issue because everyone, even the rich and powerful, is part of the big “we” that is reaffirmed at sport events? The identity and unity created by sports clearly feels good to many people, and it can inspire a sense of possibility and hope, but it may obscure the need for social transformations that would make social worlds more fair and just.

The football pitch has become an important tool for integration and a measure of the success of European integration policies. As such, it constitutes a barometer that local, regional, and national policy makers in Europe cannot afford to ignore. —James Dorsey, journalist (2013b)

Final PDF to printer

416 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 416 06/14/16 06:20 PM

and the like—are ineffective, unnatural, and even immoral.

The Cold War era following World War II was a time when nations, especially the United States, the former Soviet Union (USSR—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), and East Germany (GDR— the German Democratic Republic), used the Olym- pics and other international sport competitions to make claims about the superiority of their political and economic systems and ideologies.

Now that the Cold War is over, powerful global corporations use sports to promote free-market ideol- ogy, but governments have not stopped using sports to promote values consistent with ideologies that support their interests. In fact, since the late 1950s the U.S. military has provided “color guard” units to present the American flag at sporting events and has sponsored demonstration “fly-overs” by fighter jet teams to connect the status and place of the military with certain sports, especially NFL football, in the minds of Americans.

Increase Support for Political Leaders and Government

Government authority rests ultimately in legiti- macy. If people do not perceive political leaders and the government as legitimate, it is difficult to maintain social order. In the quest to maintain their legitimacy, political officials may use athletes, teams, and particular sports to boost their accep- tance in the minds of citizens. They assume, as Ital- ian political theorist Antonio Gramsci predicted, that if they support what people value and enjoy, they can maintain their legitimacy as leaders. This is why so many political leaders present themselves as friends of sport, even as faithful fans. They attend highly publicized sport events and associate them- selves with high-profile athletes and teams that win major competitions. U.S. presidents traditionally have associated themselves with successful athletes and teams and have invited champions to the White House for photo opportunities.

Some male former athletes and coaches in the United States have used their celebrity status from

only one aspect of national identity. Additionally, people with access to global media may develop attachments to athletes and teams from other coun- tries and pay less attention to the sport profile and accomplishments associated with their own country, except in the case of the Olympics or world champi- onships in certain sports (Topič and Coakley, 2010).

Another identity issue is whether a nation’s success in sports makes people in other countries more aware of the nation’s existence, attractions, accomplishments, and potential. This has not been studied in detail, but unless a nation receives exten- sive media coverage in connection with multiple sport events, it isn’t likely that winning medals or an occasional championship will lead to more than superficial knowledge about its history and heri- tage. But research is needed on this issue.

Reproduce Values Consistent with Dominant Political Ideology

Governments also become involved in sports to promote specific political values and ideas among their citizens. This is especially true when there is a need to reaffirm the idea that success is based on discipline, loyalty, determination, and hard work, even in the face of hardship and bad times. Sports are useful platforms to promote these values and foster a particular ideology that contains taken-for- granted assumptions about the way social life is organized and how it does and should operate.

It’s difficult to determine the extent to which people are influenced by sports that are represented in specific ideological terms, but we do know that in capitalist societies, such as the United States, sports provide people with a vocabulary and real- life examples that are consistent with dominant political and cultural ideologies.

The images, narratives, and the often-repeated stories that accompany sports in market economies emphasize that competition is clearly the best and most natural way to achieve personal success and allocate rewards to people, whereas alternative approaches to success and allocating rewards— democratic socialism, socialism, communism,

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 417

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 417 06/14/16 06:20 PM

to facilitate a particular form of urban economic development (Boykoff, 2014a; Curi et al., 2011; deMause, 2011; Hall, 2006, 2012; Lenskyj, 2008; Schausteck de Almeida et al., 2013; Schimmel, 2013; Silk and Andrews, 2008). National and city governments now spend mil- lions of tax dollars on bids to host the Olympic Games, World Cup tournaments, world or national championships, Super Bowls, College Bowl games, All-Star Games, high-profile auto races, golf tournaments, and track-and- field meets. In many cases, these

sports to gain popular support for their political candidacy. In fact, former athletes and coaches have been elected to state legislatures and to the U.S. Congress and Senate by using their status from sports and their sport per- sonas to increase their legitimacy as “tough,” “hard-working,” and “loyal” candidates who are “decisive under pressure” and “dedicated to being winners.”

Facilitate Economic and Social Development

Since the early 1980s, governments have supported or intervened in sports

The President and First Lady Michelle Obama welcome 2012 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams to the White House lawn, where Navy Lieutenant Brad Snyder, blinded by an IED in Afghanistan, presented the president with a piece of the American flag that was carried during the opening Olympic ceremonies. President Obama has taken many opportunities to be publicly associated with U.S. athletes and sports, because it connects him with what many people see as symbols of U.S. national identity. (Source: © Christy Bowe/Corbis)

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations . . . Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples . . . that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles. —George Orwell, The Sporting Spirit (1945)

Final PDF to printer

418 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 418 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Taken together, these studies indicate that sports may be associated with social development under certain conditions and that the social effects of this association may not be immediately observ- able in people’s lives. This doesn’t confirm the beliefs of public officials who use sports to promote social development as much as it provides informa- tion about how and when government can effec- tively facilitate social development and what can be expected in terms of social effects.

Additional Examples of Government Involvement in Sports

The previous eight sections did not identify all types of government involvement in sports. Other cases of involvement in the United states include the following:

∙ Making laws that ban animal sports such as bullfighting or dog and cock fighting and pro- tect the well-being of animals in horse and dog racing, fox hunting, and rodeo

∙ Making laws that ban, restrict, or regulate gam- bling on sports, thereby protecting the credibil- ity of competitive sport outcomes and reining in athletes who might be coerced to shave points or fix competitions

∙ Adjusting the tax code so that the cost of tickets and luxury suites at sport events are partially tax-deductible business expenses

∙ Interpreting tax law so that highly commercial- ized college sports are legally defined as non- profit educational programs

∙ Interpreting anti-trust and labor law to benefit pro- fessional sport team owners, and allowing major sport organizations to claim nonprofit status despite paying executives millions in salaries and bonuses

∙ Making public funding decisions that influence where public sport facilities are located and what sports they benefit

Even though many people say that politics have no place in sports, governments play a key role in

expenditures of public money are connected with private entrepreneurial projects designed to increase personal and corporate capital and “renew” blighted or declining areas. By using a sport team, a new stadium, or a major sport event to justify spending public money, business-oriented public officials can partner with developers to gentrify declining or dete- riorated urban neighborhoods by bringing in upscale businesses, shoppers, and residents, and moving out low-income and homeless people.

Using sports is an effective way to create public support for this type of development project, but many of the projects are risky and controversial as public investments. Most fail to meet the optimistic economic impact projections provided by develop- ers, and benefits are enjoyed by relatively few peo- ple (Coakley and Souza, 2013; Cornelissen, 2009, 2010; Darnell, 2010a; Hall, 2012; Kuper, 2010; Majumdar and Mehta, 2010).

Government involvement in sports may also be based on the presumed social effects of sports in a community or society. Many public officials believe the great sport myth and think that sports, in almost any form, bring people together and cre- ate social bonds that carry into other spheres of life and increase the social vitality of a city or society. Research generally contradicts this belief, often finding that relationships formed in connection with sports seldom carry over to other spheres, and that some relationships between individuals and groups are characterized by conflicts that can inter- fere with social development.

Two recent studies have raised additional ques- tions about this issue. Researchers doing an explor- atory (or “pilot”) study in Canada found that people who worked as volunteers with non-profit sport orga- nizations for longer than one year expanded their network of relationships and were put in touch with valuable resources in the realm of sports. At the same time, however, their involvement in other spheres was limited and nonsport social networks declined in scope (Harvey et al., 2007). Another study done in Canada found that people who had played youth sports were more likely to be involved in community activities through adulthood (Perks, 2007).

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 419

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 419 06/14/16 06:20 PM

SPORTS AND GLOBAL POLITICAL PROCESSES

Most people have lofty expectations about the impact of sports on global relations. It has long been hoped that sports would serve diplomatic functions by contributing to cultural understanding and world peace. Unfortunately, the realities of sports seldom match ideals. Nation-states and transnational corpo- rations (TNCs) regularly use sports to promote their interests and ideologies, and sports have become much more global today as athletes, teams, events, equipment, and capital investments cross national borders on a daily basis. Issues related to these global processes are often linked with politics, so it is useful to understand them when studying sports in society.

International Sports: Ideals Versus Realities

Achieving peace and friendship among nations was emphasized by Baron Pierre de Coubertin when he founded the modern Olympic Games in 1896. For over a century, his goals have been embraced by many people who assumed or hoped that sports would do the following things:

∙ Create open communication lines between people and leaders from different nations.

∙ Highlight shared interests among people from different cultures and nations.

∙ Demonstrate that friendly international relation- ships are possible.

∙ Foster cultural understanding and eliminate the use of national stereotypes.

∙ Create a global model for cooperative cultural, economic, and political relationships.

∙ Establish processes that develop effective lead- ers in emerging nations and close the resource gap between wealthy and poor nations.

Recent history shows that sports can be useful in the realm of public diplomacy, which consists of public expressions of togetherness in the form of cultural exchanges and general communication among officials from various nations. However,

sponsoring and regulating sports. People gener- ally take issue with government involvement only when it does not bring the results they want; other- wise, they seldom notice it.

Critical Issues and Government Involvement in Sports

Advocates of government involvement in sports justify it as serving the “public good.” It would be ideal if governments promoted equally the interests of all citizens, but differences between individuals and groups make this impossible. Therefore, pub- lic investments in sports often benefit some peo- ple more than others. Those who benefit most are the persons or groups who are capable of directly influencing policy makers. This doesn’t mean that government policies reflect only the interests of wealthy and powerful people, but it does mean that policy making is often contentious and creates power struggles among various segments of the population in a city or society.

Governments worldwide make decisions about allocating funds between elite sports and sports for all. Elite sports are highly organized, have strong backing from other organized groups, and base their requests for support on visible accomplishments achieved in the name of the entire country or city. Recreational sports serving large numbers of peo- ple are less organized, less likely to have powerful supporters, and less able to give precise statements of their goals and the political significance of their programs. This does not mean that government decision makers ignore mass participation, but it does mean that “sport for all” usually has lower pri- ority for funding and support (Conn, 2012; Green, 2006; Green and Houlihan, 2004; Schausteck de Almeida et al., 2012).

Those who believe the myth that there is no con- nection between sports and government are most likely to be ignored by public officials, whereas those who are aware of government involvement are most likely to benefit when it does occur. Sports are con- nected with power relations in society as a whole; therefore, sports and politics cannot be separated.

Final PDF to printer

420 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 420 06/14/16 06:20 PM

a major focus of world powers, and many nations that seek to extend their political and economic power have used sports to gain international recog- nition and legitimacy.

For smaller nations, the Olympics, World Cups, and international championships have been stages for showing that their athletes and teams can stand up to and sometimes defeat athletes and teams from wealthy and powerful nations. For example, when the cricket teams from the West Indies or India play teams from England, the athletes and fans from India and the West Indies view the matches as opportuni- ties to show the world that they are now equal to the nation that once colonized their land and controlled their people. When their teams win, it is cause for political affirmation and great celebration.

National and city leaders know that hosting the Olympics is a special opportunity to generate inter- national recognition, display national power and resources to a global audience, and invite invest-

ments into their economies. This is why the bid committees from prospective host cities and nations have regularly used gifts, bribes, and financial incentives to encour- age IOC members to vote for them in the host city selection process. Illegal and illicit strategies were common during the bidding for the 2002 Winter Olympics, when offi- cials from Salt Lake City offered to IOC members and their families money, jobs, scholarships, lavish gifts, vacations, and the sexual ser- vices of “escorts” as they success- fully secured the votes needed to host the games (Jennings, 1996a, 1996b; Jennings and Sambrook,

2000). Efforts to influence votes and personally profit from decisions involving billions of dollars still occur, but they are usually done much more carefully and discretely (Booth, 2011; Jennings, 2013a, 2013b).

The link between sports and politics has been clearly exposed by protests and boycotts directed

sports have no impact in the realm of serious diplomacy, which consists of discussions and decisions about political issues of vital national interest. In other words, international sports pro- vide opportunities for political leaders to meet and talk, but they don’t influence the content of their discussions or their policy decisions.

Likewise, sports bring together athletes who may learn from and about one another, but athletes have seldom tried to make or influence political decisions, and their relationships with one another have no serious political significance.

Recent history shows that most nations use sports and sport events, especially the Olympic Games, to pursue their own interests rather than international understanding, friendship, and peace (Jennings, 2006). Nationalist themes going beyond respectful expressions of patriotism have been clearly evident in many events, and most nations regularly use sport events to promote their own military, eco- nomic, political, and cultural agen- das. This was particularly apparent during the Cold War era following World War II and extending into the early 1990s. During these years, the Olympics were extensions of “superpower politics” between the United States and its allies and the former Soviet Union and its allies.

The inherent links between international sports and politics were so clear in the early 1980s that Peter Ueberroth, president of the committee that organized the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, said that “we now have to face the reality that the Olympics consti- tute not only an athletic event but a political event” (U.S. News & World Report, 1983). Ueberroth was not being prophetic; he was simply summarizing his observations of events leading up to the 1984 games. He saw that nations were more interested in benefit ing themselves than pursuing global friendship and peace. The demonstration of national superiority through sports has long been

There is simply no sporting event on earth more entangled in politics than [the Men’s World Cup]. Anytime you have half the earth tuned in—as colonies play their former colonizers and dictatorships challenge democracies—politics follow like rainbows after rain. —Dave Zirin, independent sport journalist (2010b)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 421

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 421 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Networks claim that Americans won’t watch an Olympics unless the global power and cultural val- ues of the United States are woven into the cover- age. Of course, the U.S. media aren’t the only ones to do this, but their impact far surpasses the impact of nationalist and ethnocentric coverage in other nations, because the military and economic power and policies of the United States affect the world much more than do the power and policies of other nation-states.

Nationalistic themes in media coverage of international sports are now accompanied and sometimes obscured by images and narratives pro- moting capitalist expansion and the products and services of transnational corporations. These issues are discussed in the Reflect on Sports box “Olymp- ism and the Olympic Games.”

Nation-States, Sports, and Ideological Hegemony

Global politics often revolve around issues of ideological hegemony—that is, whose ideas and beliefs are most widely accepted worldwide and used to guide everything from world trade to who starts wars with whom. In this process, sports usually serve the interests of wealthy and power- ful nations. For example, when nations with few resources want to participate in major interna- tional sports, they must look to wealthy nations for assistance in the form of coaching, equipment, and training support. As this occurs, people in poorer nations often de-emphasize their traditional folk games and focus on the global sports devel- oped around the values and experiences of nations powerful enough to export their games around the globe and make them the centerpieces of interna- tional competitions. If they want to play, those are the sports in which they must excel. To the extent that this makes poorer nations dependent, sports become vehicles for economically power- ful nations to extend their control over important forms of popular culture worldwide—and to claim that it is part of the “foreign aid” that they give to poor people and struggling nations (Coakley and

at the Olympics and other international sport events. For example, when Mexican college stu- dents used the 1968 Olympic Games hosted by Mexico City as an occasion for protesting police violence and the actions of an oppressive politi- cal regime, the police and military massacred hundreds of students and others in a public plaza in the Tlatelolco neighborhood of Mexico City (Poniatowska, 1975). Representatives of govern- ments and National Olympic Committees said little or nothing about the murders because they wanted a “secure” Olympic Games.

In 1980, the United States and sixty-two of its political allies boycotted the Olympic Games in Mos- cow, the capital of the Soviet Union (USSR), to pro- test the decision of the Soviets to invade Afghanistan and eliminate Islamic rebels, because the rebels opposed Soviet control of the region. The United States supported the autonomy of Afghanistan, armed the rebels, including Osama bin Laden, and helped to create the terrorist infrastructure that later became Al-Qaeda. In retaliation, the Soviet Union and at least fourteen of its allies boycotted the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles to protest the commercial- ization of the games and avoid terrorist actions they expected from Americans who had made threats against their teams and athletes.

Each of these Olympic Games was held despite the boycotts, and each host nation unashamedly displayed its power and resources to the world and touted the fact that they topped the medal count for the respective games. Neither boycotting nor hosting the games had any major effects on U.S. or Soviet political policies, although they did inten- sify Cold War feelings and fears.

Global media coverage of sport mega-events has added new dimensions to the link between sports and politics. Television companies, espe- cially the American networks, have used politi- cal controversies to hype the games and increase audience ratings, and they edit programming to highlight the American flag and melodramatic sto- ries about athletes who overcame disadvantage to achieve success and participate in the American Dream (Greider, 2006).

Final PDF to printer

422 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 422 06/14/16 06:20 PM

reflect on S P O R T S

According to the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Games are based on a special philosophy described in these words:

Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will, and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example, and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

This means that the Olympics should provide opportunities for people worldwide to learn about and connect with one another in ways that lead to respect and peace—a commendable goal given that our future and the future of the earth itself depends on global cooperation.

If the Olympic and Paralympic Games facilitate such an outcome, they are indeed special. But nation- alism and commercialism exert so much influence on the coverage of the Games that the goals of global understanding and peace receive only token attention (Lenskyj, 2008).

One factor undermining the philosophy of Olymp- ism is the current method of selling media broadcasting rights for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Andrews, 2007). Television companies buy media rights so they can re-present selected video images from the Olympics and Paralympics and combine them with their own nar- ratives to attract audiences in their countries. Therefore, instead of bringing the world together around a single unifying experience, the coverage consists of many heavily nationalized and commercialized versions of the Games. Of course, media consumers give their own meanings to this coverage, but they consume images and narratives from only their nation as starting points for making sense of and talking about the Olympics (Buffington, 2012; Licen and Billings, 2013).

Media consumers who want to use the Olympics to visualize a global community constructed around cul- tural differences and mutual understanding can do so, but current media coverage provides little assistance in this quest. Most coverage highlights the association between human achievement, selected cultural values, and corporate sponsors. In the process, many people

come to believe that corporations really do make inter- national sports possible. As they watch television coverage in the United States, about 25 percent of the programming consists of commercial messages from corporations, many of which claim to “bring you the Olympics.”

People don’t accept media images and narratives in literal terms, but corporate sponsors now bet billions of dollars on the possibility that associating their products and logos with the Olympics and Paralympics will dis- courage criticism of their products and policies, encour- age people to consume those products, and normalize a lifestyle organized around consumption.

The overt commercialism that now pervades the Olympics has led some people to question the meaning of the games themselves (Stockdale, 2012). Bruce Kidd (1996), a former Olympian and a physical and health educator at the University of Toronto, argues that if the Olympic Games are to be special, they must use sports to make people aware of global injustice and promote social responsibility worldwide.

Kidd says that in the spirit of Olympism, athletes should be selected for participation in the games on the basis of their actions as global citizens as well as their athletic accomplishments. There also should be a cur- riculum enabling athletes to learn about fellow competi- tors and their cultures. The games should involve formal, televised opportunities for intercultural exchanges, and athletes should be ready to discuss their ideas about world peace and social responsibility during media interviews.

The IOC should sponsor projects enabling citizen– athletes to build on their Olympic and Paralympic experiences through service to others around the world. A proportion of the windfall profits coming from rap- idly escalating TV rights fees should fund such proj- ects, thereby giving IOC members opportunities to talk about real examples of social responsibility that they support. The “up close and personal” stories pre- sented in the media could then highlight the socially responsible actions of athletes. Media consumers are increasingly aware that they don’t live in isolation from the rest of the world and may find such coverage

The Olympic and Paralympic Games Are They Special?

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 423

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 423 06/14/16 06:20 PM

as entertaining as the current soap opera–like stories of personal tragedies and triumphs.

Additionally, the IOC could control nationalism and commercialism more carefully as it organizes the games and sells broadcasting rights. There is no single best way to do this, but here are six recommendations that would emphasize the spirit of Olympism:

1. Add to each games “demonstration sports” native to the cultural regions where the games are held. The IOC should specify that all media companies purchasing broadcasting rights and receiving press credentials must devote 5  percent of their coverage to these native games. Because the media influence the ways that people imagine, create, and play sports, this would provide expanded images of physical activities and facilitate creative approaches to sport participation worldwide. At present, many Olympic sports are simply a legacy of former colonial pow- ers that exported their games as they conquered peoples around the world. But there are thousands of folk games that could inspire new forms of physi- cal activities and sports today, if people knew about them and saw them being played.

2. Use multiple sites for each Olympic Games. The cost of hosting the summer Olympic Games was $14.6 billion for Athens in 2004; well over $40 billion for Beijing in 2008; and about $15 billion for London in 2012. Such costs privilege wealthy nations and prevent less wealthy nations from hosting the games and highlighting their cultures. If Olympic events were split into three “event packages,” many more nations could host one of the packages and enjoy the benefits of staging the events without accumulating debts that burden local citizens for decades after the event and leave them with a legacy of underused facilities.

3. Emphasize global responsibility in media coverage. Television contracts should mandate an emphasis on global social responsibility in the media cover- age of the games. Athlete committees, working with scholars from the Olympic Academy, could identify individuals, organizations, and corporations that

have engaged in noteworthy forms of social respon- sibility and assist media companies in producing coverage of these cases. Additionally, a mandated amount of media time should be dedicated to public service announcements from nonprofit human rights groups that work with athletes and sport organiza- tions to promote social justice and sustainable forms of development. This would guarantee that media consumers receive information that is not created or censored by corporations and market forces.

4. Integrate the Olympics and Paralympics. Just as the Olympic Movement supports gender equality and opposes racial apartheid in sports, it should include Paralympic athletes in the Olympic Games.

McDonald’s and Coke bought the rights to a food and drink monopoly at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Using marketing logic based on widespread acceptance of the great sport myth, the McDonald’s Corporation and the Coca-Cola Company have spent billions of dollars in recent decades to link their logos with the Olympic rings. The hope is that beliefs in the purity and goodness of sports will be associated with their products that are difficult to market as pure and good. (Source: © Barbara Schausteck de Almeida)

Continued

Final PDF to printer

424 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 424 06/14/16 06:20 PM

reflect on S P O R T S

This would involve common opening and closing ceremonies, awarding the same Olympic medals to athletes in both events, and referring to both as “Olympics.” This would send a powerful message to the world saying that the full inclusion of people with a disability is an achievable goal in all spheres of life.

5. Promote a fair method of calculating medal counts. National medal counts are contrary to the spirit and official principles of Olympism. They foster chau- vinism and hostility, present the achievements of athletes in divisive rather than unifying ways, and privilege large, wealthy nations with resources to train medal-winning athletes. To make medal counts fair, members of the Olympic Academy (scholars who study Olympism) should publish daily during each Olympic Games an “official medal count” in which the size of participating nations is statistically controlled.

Table  13.1 provides an example of how rank- ings would change if national population size were controlled. The list on the left side of the table ranks nations by the total number of medals won in all the Olympic Games from 1896 through 2013. The list on the right side of the table ranks nations in terms of the number of people in the overall population for each medal won by its athletes: the lower the population number per medal, the more efficient the country is in producing medal-winning athletes.

In this ranking system, Finland is most efficient, because it has had one medal-winning athlete for every 17,904 people in its current population. Great Britain, ranked 21st, has had one medal-winning ath- lete for every 79,720 people in its population. The United States is 37th with one medal-winning athlete for every 130,521 people in its current population. This could be taken to mean that Finland’s system of sport participation and elite athlete training is seven times more efficient than the U.S. system in produc- ing athletes that win Olympic medals, and this does not take into account that the United States has a

much higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per cap- ita than Finland has.*

6. Replace the Olympic motto Citius–Altius–Fortius (Faster–Higher–Stronger) with Health–Unity– Peace. The current motto creates problems for the Olympic Movement because athletes are reach- ing the limits of human performance in many sports. Therefore, the only way to go Faster–Higher–Stron- ger is to use performance-enhancing technologies that are often expensive and not accessible to man athletes worldwide. To ban some of these technolo- gies and spend millions of dollars testing for them seems hypocritical when the current Olympic motto inspires athletes to use them. Therefore, it would be more in keeping with the philosophy of Olympism to adopt a new motto of Health–Unity–Peace.

Of course, people will dismiss these suggestions as idealistic, but the Olympic Movement was founded on idealism and intended to inspire visions of what our world could and should be. Additionally, Olympism, it emphasizes that progress comes only through effort and participation. If the Olympic and Paralympic Games of today are little more than marketing opportunities for transnational corporations and stages for power displays by wealthy nations with medal-winning athletes, now is a good time for those who value Olympic ideals to take action and turn them into reality (Garcia, 2012).

*See http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=67 for informa- tion on GDP per capita for all countries. GDP per capita is a measure based on purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars that have the same purchasing power in a particular country as the U.S. dollar has in the United States. This makes it a good statistic to use when comparing the standard of living from one country to another. For our example here, the PPP in the United States is $52,800 and in Finland it is $35,900 (presented in terms of the value of the U.S. dollar in 2014).

Olympism and the Olympic Games (continued)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 425

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 425 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Table 13.1 Olympic medal count by total medals (left side) and population per medal (right side), 1896–2013

Rank Country Medals

1 United States 2401 2 Soviet Union 1,010 3 Great Britain 781 4 France 670 5 Germany 573 6 Italy 550 7 Sweden 483 8 Hungary 475 9 China 473 10 Australia 467 11 East Germany 409 12 Russia 407 13 Japan 398 14 Finland 302 15 Romania 301 16 Canada 278 17 Poland 271 18 Netherlands 266 19 South Korea 243 20 Bulgaria 214 21 Cuba 208 22 West Germany 204 23 Switzerland 184 24 Denmark 179 25 Norway 149

(Source: Adapted from http://www.medalspercapita.com/#medals:all-time; and http://www.medalspercapita.com/ medals-per-capita:all-time.)

Rank Country Medals Population per Medal

1 Finland 302 17,904 2 Sweden 483 19,649 3 Hungary 475 20,972 4 Denmark 179 31,176 5 Bahamas 11 32,150 6 Norway 149 33,595 7 Bulgaria 214 34,413 8 East Germany 409 39,391 9 Estonia 33 39,939 10 Jamaica 67 40,385 11 Switzerland 184 42,772 12 New Zealand 99 44,773 13 Australia 467 48,994 14 Cuba 208 54,044 15 Netherlands 266 62,901 16 Romania 301 63,265 17 Bermuda 1 64,237 18 Czechoslovakia 143 72,153 19 Trinidad & Tobago 18 73,206 20 Belgium 142 77,121 21 Great Britain 781 79,720 22 Iceland 4 79,893 23 France 670 97,537 24 Greece 110 98,069 25 Austria 86 98,288

Final PDF to printer

426 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 426 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Souza, 2013; Cole, 2012; Darnell, 2012; Forde, 2013).

If people in traditional cultures want to preserve their native games, they must resist dependency status, but this is difficult in international sports when the rules and other structural characteristics of the sports reflect and privilege power- ful nations (Topič and Coakley, 2010). For example, when an American sport such as football is introduced to another country, it comes with an emphasis on ideas about individual achievement, competition, winning, hierarchical authority structures, physical power and domination, the body, violence, and the use of technology to shape bodies into efficient perfor- mance machines. These ideas may not be accepted by everyone who plays or watches football, but they reaffirm orientations that privilege U.S. interests and obscure the cooperative values that are necessary for the collective survival of most traditional cultures. As an editor at Newsweek noted some years ago, “Sports may be America’s most successful export to the world. . . . Our most visible symbol has evolved from the Stars and Stripes to Coke and the Nike Swoosh” (Starr, 1999, p. 44).

Ideally, sports facilitate cultural exchanges through which people from different nations share information and develop mutual cultural under- standing. But true 50–50 sharing and mutual under- standing are rare when nations have unequal power and resources. Therefore, sports often become cultural exports from wealthy nations incorpo- rated into the everyday lives of people worldwide. Local people are free to reject, revise, or redefine these sports, but when “cultural trade routes” are opened through sports, nations that import sports often become increasingly open to importing and consuming additional goods, services, and ideas from the nations that brought them sports (Jackson and Andrews, 2004). To avoid this outcome, the less powerful nations must increase their political power and economic resources; if the imbalance is not corrected it becomes more difficult to resist

the political and economic dominance of wealthy and powerful nations.

Political Realities in an Era of Transnational Corporations

Global politics have changed dramatically since the 1970s. Massive corporations are now among the largest economies in the world today, and they share the global political stage with nation-states. This change occurred as nation-states

embraced a policy of deregulation, lifted trade restrictions, lowered tariffs, and made it easier for capital, labor, and goods to flow freely around the globe. Although nation-states remain central in global relations, the differences between national and corporate interests have nearly disappeared in connection with sports. This was implied by Phil Knight, CEO of U.S.-based Nike, when he dis- cussed shifts in fan loyalties in the Men’s World Cup in soccer:

We see a natural evolution . . . dividing the world into their athletes and ours. And we glory ours. When the U.S. played Brazil in the World Cup, I rooted for Brazil because it was a Nike team. America was Adidas (in Lipsyte, 1996, p. 9).

For Knight, teams and athletes represented cor- porations as much or more than nations; and corpo- rate logos were more important than national flags at international events. When Nike paid to sponsor Brazil’s national team and used its players to mar- ket Nike products, Knight was pushing consump- tion and brand loyalty over patriotism and public service as global values. For him, sports were out- posts in the heads of sport fans and could be used as receptors and transmitters for the messages com- ing from Nike and other corporate sponsors seek- ing global capitalist expansion. Like executives from other transnational corporations (TNCs), he believes that sports contribute to the growth of

Politics runs rampant throughout the sports world, a broad arena in which struggles for racial justice, gender equality, and economic fairness are played out. —The Editors, The Nation (2011)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 427

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 427 06/14/16 06:20 PM

don’t represent an ideology of competition and win- ning, corporations don’t become sponsors and com- mercial media have no reason to cover them.

The global power of transnational corporations is neither unlimited nor uncontested. Individuals and local populations have used their own cultural perspectives to make sense of the images and nar- ratives that come with global sports and give them meanings that fit with their lives (Foer, 2004; J. Maguire, 1999, 2005). However, research that combines cultural theory and a critical approach shows that global media sports and the commercial messages that accompany them often cleverly fuse the global and the local through thoughtfully and carefully edited images that combine local tradi- tions, sport action, and consumer products in seam- less and technically brilliant media representations (John and Jackson, 2011; Scherer and Jackson, 2010). The researchers doing this work argue that such fused images “detraditionalize” local cultures by representing local symbols and lifestyles in connection with consumer products that, by them- selves, have nothing to do with those cultures.

On a similarly subversive level, Coca-Cola claims that it sponsors the Olympics because it wants the whole world “to move to the beat,” to “live Olympic,” and experience “unity on the Coke side of life.” McDonald’s uses a similar approach as the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games from 1996 through 2016. When asked about the message being sent by having Coca-Cola and McDonald’s as sponsors, a spokesperson for the London Orga- nizing Committee explained, “Without our partners such as McDonald’s, the games simply wouldn’t happen” (Cheng, 2012). A Coca-Cola representa- tive added, “Without the support of sponsors such as Coca-Cola as many as 170 of the 200 National Olympic Committees would be unable to send ath- letes to compete” (Campbell and Boffey, 2012). A McDonald’s spokesperson avoided questions about nutrition and health and stated, “Ultimately it’s up to individuals to make the right food, drink, and activity choices for themselves” (O’Reilly, 2012).

The goal of these corporations is to con- vince people that without them the pleasure and

global well-being when they are used to promote a lifestyle of consumption and the values that sup- port it.

Corporate sponsors now exert significant influence over sport events, at least to the point of directing sport images and narratives toward spectator-consumers rather than spectator- citizens (Brown, 2012). Sports that can’t be covered this way—such as those that aren’t organized to attract spectators with high purchasing power, or those that don’t emphasize competitive outcomes and setting performance/production records—are not spon- sored. When spectators and potential media audi- ences are not valued consumers, and when sports

Efforts by the NFL to export football to other nations have failed, largely because it requires expensive equipment and facilities and is tied to meanings and ideologies unique to U.S. history and culture. This advertising poster shows how the NFL was represented by Japanese people as they hosted an NFL preseason game in Tokyo in 1992. The caricature shows a “superanimal” with bionic joints, protective equipment, and a cape.  (Source: © Susumu Matsushita)

Final PDF to printer

428 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 428 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Political Realities in an Era of Globalization

Money, athletic skills, and sports media have all gone global. Even though we pretend that national political boundaries matter for the sake of patri- ots who track medal counts by country during the Olympics or cheer for their national team in other events, those boundaries have become very porous for many sports. Today, sports are global busi- nesses that transcend and blur political boundaries.

This is not to say that nation-states are unimport- ant (Rowe, 2013). Most national governments fund sport teams and training centers and present their ath- letes as representatives of the nation. Additionally, major sport leagues are generally nation-based, and national teams and athletes compete in the Olym- pic Games, World Cup tournaments, and World Championships. These structures sustain the impor- tance of nations, but as sports become increasingly

excitement of the Olympic Games would no longer exist. This is not true, although there would be less money for IOC expense accounts and the Games might be less glitzy and spectacular, but they could exist without fast-food and soft-drink sponsors. Of course, commercial images and messages do not dictate what people think, but they certainly influ- ence what people think about, and they become a part of the overall discourse that occurs in cultures around the globe.

This description of new global political reali- ties does not mean that sports have fallen victim to a worldwide conspiracy hatched by transnational corporations. It means only that transnational cor- porations have joined nation-states in the global political context in which sports are defined, orga- nized, promoted, played, presented, and given meaning around the world (Brown, 2012; John and Jackson, 2010; Scherer and Jackson, 2010).

“NBC Sports has eliminated nationalism in our Olympic coverage and replaced it with global consumer capitalism. Now our commentary will emphasize individualism, competi- tion, and conquest. Enjoy the games—and the commercials that bring the games to you!”

Global politics today involve the interaction of nation-states and transnational corporations. As a result the media coverage of global mega-events is organized around images and messages that link transnational corporations with flags, anthems, and athletes representing nation-states. Patriotic feelings and consumer desires are seamlessly woven together.

(Source: © Frederic A. Eyer)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 429

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 429 06/14/16 06:20 PM

citizen of that country. Teams represented cit- ies or well-defined regions, and local owners even hesitated to hire players who were “outsid- ers.” But global media coverage of certain sports has given teams—especially those in the English Premier League, with soccer matches televised in more than 150 nations each week—the visibility needed to become global brands. At the same time the concentration of global wealth has created an international class of multibillionaire investors who see sport teams as investments that will pro- vide good returns if they are marketed worldwide.

As a result, the English Premier League, the highest-profile sport league in the world, has become an investment magnet. During 2003–2013 more than half of the teams were purchased by owners outside the United Kingdom; five of those teams were bought by investors from the United States. Therefore, when the Glazer family, which owns Manchester United, pays a $50  million trans- fer fee to acquire a player owned by Real Madrid in Spain, NFL fans in Tampa Bay worry. This is because Glazer family also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and its fans want the Glazers to spend $50 million for a quarterback who would take the team to the Super Bowl. The two teams have separate balance sheets, but the fans of each team wonder if investment decisions for the other team impact decisions for their team.

Professional teams in the United States have also attracted international investors. The Brooklyn (formerly New Jersey) Nets NBA team is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, and the Miami Heat NBA team is owned by Micky Arison, an Israeli-born U.S. businessman who co-founded the Carnival [Cruise Line] Corporation. The MLB Seat- tle Mariners team is owned by Nintendo of America after being purchased by Nintendo’s founder, Hiroshi Yamauchi of Japan. The NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars team is owned by Pakistani-born U.S. businessman Shalid Khan, who also owns the Fulham Football Club in the English Premier League.

Major League Soccer has attracted investors from outside the United States, including Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz, owner of Red Bull New York

commercialized, super-rich investors buy sport teams in multiple countries; athletes, coaches, and technical personnel are recruited and seek opportunities and contracts worldwide; spectators follow sports, teams, and athletes outside their own countries; and sports are even transported around the globe as tourists and laborers visit or take up residence in new countries and maintain their connections with the sports of their birth nations. These patterns are not new, but they are more pervasive and growing faster than ever before. As a result, they raise political issues in and out of sports.

Globalization is a process through which finan- cial capital, products, knowledge, worldviews, and cultural practices flow through political borders and influence people’s lives. Globalization often involves exchanges of resources and elements of culture—but those exchanges are seldom equal, because some nations have more power to export and infuse their money and ways of life into other societies. The pace and pervasiveness of globaliza- tion increases as transportation and communica- tions infrastructures expand. Globalization is not new, because connections between continents and nations began to grow and encompass nearly all regions of the world in the nineteenth century. But today, the Internet and digital communication have increased the pace of globalization, and this has impacted sports.

Team Ownership and Event Sponsorship Sport team ownership has gone global. Billionaires world- wide see ownership of professional sport teams as investments that bring them worldwide recogni- tion. Oil-rich billionaires from Qatar now own Eng- lish soccer teams. Russians with billions of windfall dollars made by taking over companies previously owned by the state now own professional teams in top leagues around the world. Asian and North American entrepreneurs and global capitalists now see sport teams anywhere in the world as potential investments that come with publicity perks.

Prior to this century it was unthinkable that a major professional sport team in any coun- try would be owned by someone who was not a

Final PDF to printer

430 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 430 06/14/16 06:20 PM

soccer; France, Spain, or the United States for wom- en’s soccer; France or Croatia for men’s team hand- ball; Denmark for women’s team handball; England, India, or the West Indies for cricket; England, Austra- lia, or New Zealand for netball; and Argentina, Brazil, or the United Kingdom for Formula 1 racing.

In basketball alone, as of late 2013, more than 6700 men and women from the United States had played professionally in other countries during the previous five years (see http://www.usbasket.com/ Americans-Overseas.asp). About 850 of those ath- letes played or are currently playing for teams in Germany; and that’s about the same number of U.S. men that played in the NBA over the same period. Additionally, about 230 men and a few women from the United States coach professional or national bas- ketball teams in other countries. These numbers are growing as professional leagues prosper and new leagues are established in China, Russia, Japan, and countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America. For example, former NBA player Stephon Marbury has become one of the most popular athletes in China; he has played on three different Chinese profes- sional teams and in 2015 led the Beijing Ducks to their third Chinese Basketball Association champi- onship in the four years he has played with them.

Athlete migration to U.S.-based professional leagues and the athletic departments of major uni- versities is significant. Athletes born outside the United States make up 80 percent of the players in the NHL, 40 percent of the players in the MLS, 28 percent of players on MLB teams, and 20 percent of NBA players. This has made “translator” a new job category in certain sports. It also creates new chal- lenges for leagues and coaches that have taken on athletes who speak very little English. The English Premier League has players from 100 countries; 62 percent of the players were born outside the United Kingdom, and two of the teams have more than 90 percent of their players from outside the United Kingdom.

Data from the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing indicated that universities from the Pac-12 Confer- ence had athletes from forty-eight different coun- tries competing in Beijing. Twenty-two universities

(and NASCAR’s Team Red Bull in addition to soc- cer and Formula 1 teams in Europe). Chivas USA, an MLS team in Los Angeles, is owned by Jorge Vergara, also the owner of Chivas de Guadalajara, a high-profile team in the Mexican soccer league.

The impact of globalization at the level of team ownership is evident worldwide in soccer, basket- ball, cricket, and rugby. It is also evident in event sponsorship for auto racing, tennis, golf, rodeo, boxing, mixed martial arts, various extreme sports, and professional wrestling. These sports have tours taking athletes to dozens of different countries each year, which makes them ideally suited for global corporations who want to sponsor sports with global appeal among identifiable demographic segments of populations across all countries. The PGA, LPGA, ATP, and WTA now spread their officially sanc- tioned events in men’s and women’s golf and tennis in a number of different countries each year to attract spectators, sponsors, and future players worldwide. In fact, the LPGA has so many golfers from Asian countries that it has established a traveling language school to teach English and help native-English speakers learn the basics in other languages so they can communicate with other golfers.

Athletes Athletes have also gone global. Managers and scouts at soccer and baseball academies see ath- letes as global commodities that can be trained and then sold around the world to the highest-bidding teams. Professional and U.S. college teams scout for athletic talent worldwide in the hope of finding regions or even towns where genetically gifted and “coachable” (that is, “controllable”) athletes can be recruited to come away with them.

Skilled athletes in many sports now also see their job market in global terms and are willing or even des- perate to travel to any place in the world where they might be offered a desirable contract (Elliott, 2013).

Most team sports have a hierarchy of “best places to work”—Sweden, Canada, or Russia for men’s hockey; the United States or Japan for baseball; the United States or Germany for men’s basketball; Ger- many, the United States, or Australia for women’s basketball; England, Germany, or Spain for men’s

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 431

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 431 06/14/16 06:20 PM

to the Olympics? When long-time professional basketball player Becky Hammon was given notice that the U.S. national team had no room for her in 2008, she became a Russian citizen and played for the Russian national basketball team during the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. She was widely criticized for doing this, even though she lived part-time in Russia while playing for a profes- sional team there. However, this strategy is used by hundreds of athletes whose mixed ancestry allows them to make choices about which nation to repre- sent (Clarey, 2012). Fortunately for the U.S. team, Missy Franklin, who has dual U.S.-Canadian citi- zenship because her parents were born in Canada, chose to represent the United States. At least forty other members of U.S. Olympic squads were born in other countries but represented the United States because they had dual citizenship.

for which data were available had 481 members of their college teams go to the 2008 Olympics, and 258 of those athletes (54  percent) competed for countries other than the United States ( Bachman, 2012). When Olympic-level athletes want to attend school and remain amateurs while they train with top coaches and state-of-the-art technology, they seek scholarships in the United States. They know that every Division I university with a full athletic program has training facilities, coaches, and support staff that surpass what is available at the national training centers in most other countries.

Global migration also leads to mixed nationali- ties and more people with dual or multiple pass- ports. For athletes, this makes country swapping possible. The athlete wants to know: What country shall I represent, or in what country do I have the best chance of making the national team and going

After learning that the U.S. team had no place for her, Becky Hammon (second from left) became a Russian citizen so she could play on the Russian national team in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. When the Russian team played the U.S. team in London, she displayed her feelings for her home country as the U.S. national anthem was played before the game. Hammon is one of many athletes who change their citizenship or take advantage of dual citizenship to play in international events. (Source: © AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel)

Final PDF to printer

432 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 432 06/14/16 06:20 PM

return home during the off-season. Some encounter prejudice against foreigners or racial and ethnic big- otry, whereas others are socially accepted and form close friendships. Some cling to their national iden- tities and socialize with fellow athletes from their homelands, whereas others develop global identities unrelated to any one national or cultural background. Some teams and clubs expect foreign athletes to adjust on their own; others provide support for those who must learn a new language or become familiar with new cultural norms.

Worker rights vary by nation, and athletes may find that they have more or less protection than they antici- pated when it comes to working conditions and how they are treated by management. Much of this depends on their contracts, but state regulations may also apply beyond the contract (Engh and Agergaard, 2015).

The nations from which athletes are recruited usually have less power and resources than the recruiting countries. Over time, there may be such a depletion of talent in a country that the infrastructure for a particular sport is destroyed and local people are forced to follow the sport as it is played in the country that has taken all their best talent (Elliott and Weedon, 2011). This form of “sport talent drain” has a significant impact on countries in Africa and Latin America, where athletes seek contracts in Europe and North America.

At this point little is known about the impact of athlete migration on the identities of the ath-

letes themselves and the feelings of national identity among people in the countries from which they emigrate. Do athletes become citi- zens of the country to which they are recruited? Does the move to a new country intensify or decrease their sense of national identity? Do people in the country from which athletes are recruited feel resentment about losing their best athletes, or do they see this recruitment as an affir- mation of their ability to produce tal- ent in sports? Research is needed to answer these questions.

Just as some athletes choose to represent one country over another, some countries poach ath- letes from other countries by promising the athletes rewards and putting them on a very fast track for citi- zenship (Shachar, 2012). Citizenship can be acquired in less than a day if the country wants the athlete and the athlete agrees to its terms. This form of govern- ment involvement in sports is relatively common, and nearly all countries have a “back door” through which athletes can obtain work visas if a professional team wants them to sign to a contract.

It might be difficult for skilled scientists and tech- nology entrepreneurs to obtain U.S. work visas, but the U.S. government waives rules for professional athletes who are granted a special O-1 or P-1 visa, which makes them guest workers with no questions asked and allows them to change teams as many times as they wish. No other workers are given such treatment (Cullen, 2013).

This special exemption from U.S. immigration rules allows the NHL, NBA, and other sport leagues to operate outside normal citizenship and employment restrictions, even if U.S. athletes could be hired instead of athletes from other countries. Members of Con- gress, even those who are anti-immigration, allowed this to occur because they see sports as special.

When athletes move from one country to another, regardless of their reasons, it raises issues related to (1) personal adjustments by migrating athletes; (2) the rights of athletes as workers; (3) the impact of talent migration on the nations from and to which athletes migrate; and (4) the national identities of athletes and fans (Bradbury, 2011; Carter, 2011; Elliott and Maguire, 2008; Evans and Stead, 2012; Maguire and Falcous, 2010; Roderick, 2012).

The personal experiences of migrating athletes vary from major culture shock and chronic loneli- ness to minor homesickness and life- style adjustments. Some athletes are exploited by teams or clubs, whereas others make much money and receive a hero’s welcome when they

Basketball is booming, globally. Almost one in five players last season was not American, and when the U.S. team played China in the 2008 Olympics, 1 billion people watched. Selling 1 percent of them an item of team apparel would mean serious money. —George Will, editorial, Washington Post (2011b)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 433

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 433 06/14/16 06:20 PM

Finding answers to these questions requires research at local and global levels. Existing stud- ies suggest that sports favored by wealthy nations are not simply imposed on people worldwide. Even when people play sports that come from power- ful nations, they give them meanings grounded in local cultures. Global trends are important, but so are the local expressions of and responses to those trends (Chen, 2012; Cho, 2009; Cho et al., 2012; Dóczi, 2012; Gilmour and Rowe, 2012; Jijon, 2013; John and Jackson, 2011; J. Joseph, 2012a, 2012b; Kobayashi, 2012; Lee and Maguire, 2009; Merkel, 2012; Newman and Beissel, 2009; Poli, 2010; Scherer and Jackson, 2010; Shor and Galily, 2012; Silk and Manley, 2012; Tan and Houlihan, 2012). Power is a process, and it is always exercised through relationships and current forms of social organization. Therefore, research on sports world- wide must examine the processes through which powerful nations exert control over sports in other nations as well as the processes through which peo- ple in those nations integrate sports and sport experi- ences into their lives on their own terms.

POLITICS IN SPORTS

The term politics usually is associated with formal government entities in the public sphere. However, politics include all processes of governing people and administering policies at all levels of organi- zation, both public and private. Therefore, politics are an integral part of sports, and local, national, and international sport organizations are generally referred to as “governing bodies.”

Most sport organizations provide and regulate sport participation opportunities, establish and enforce policies, control and standardize competitions, and acknowledge the accomplishments of athletes. This sounds like a straightforward set of tasks, but they seldom are accomplished without opposition, debate, and compromise (Green and Hartmann, 2012). Mem- bers of sport organizations agree on many things, but conflicts often arise as decisions are made in connec- tion with the following seven questions:

Fans Fans have also gone global. Manchester United in England and the Barcelona Football Club in Spain have fans in nearly every country in the world. Now that many people can receive streamed or televised coverage of games, matches, and events, they often choose to give their sport allegiance to teams and athletes outside their own countries. For example, young soccer fans in Slovenia may pay little attention to club teams in their country because all the top Slovenian soccer players play on professional teams in other coun- tries across Europe. Many Latin American and African fans do the same thing. But in the process they may develop an attachment to one or more teams outside their countries and follow them for much of their lives, even when players from their country are no longer on the rosters.

For this reason the NBA has created a subsid- iary, NBA China, with offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai (and Taipei, Taiwan). The opening of these offices was timed to precede the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and gave the NBA time to stock stores in China with official NBA products before the opening ceremonies. With 1.4 billion potential sport fans and consumers in China, most sport leagues now cultivate interest there. The NBA was pleased when over 150 million Chinese people watched the national Chinese team play the U.S. team made up of NBA players, or as NBA China would describe them, “shooting and dunking endorsements for NBA media rights and merchan- dise sales.”

Making Sense of Political Realities

It’s not easy to explain the relationships between sports and global political processes. Are sports today merely tools of capitalist expansion and new forms of cultural imperialism? Are they being used by wealthy nations to make poor, developing nations depen- dent on them, or do they enable emerging nations to achieve cultural and economic independence? As globalization occurs, are traditional sports and folk games being replaced by the organized, competitive sports favored by wealthy and powerful nations?

Final PDF to printer

434 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 434 06/14/16 06:20 PM

7. How are rewards distributed to athletes and others associated with sports? When rewards are associated with participating in or staging an event, the question of “Who gets what?” is crucial to everyone involved. Rewards may

1. What qualifies as a sport? There is no univer- sal definition of sport, so each nation, com- munity, and international event, such as the Olympic Games, must develop a definition that makes sense within its circumstances. As a result, official as well as unofficial definitions of “sport” vary widely.

2. What are the rules of a sport? The rules in all sports are arbitrary and changeable. The gov- erning bodies of sports often change them to fit their interests or the circumstances in which the sports are played.

3. Who makes and enforces the rules in sports? The official rules of every sport are determined by the sport’s governing body, but confusion occurs when various organizations representing the interests of different people all claim to be the primary governing body of a sport.

4. Who organizes and controls sport events? Until recently, members of the governing body of a sport organized and controlled competitions, but events today may be organized and partially con- trolled by third parties such as sponsors, media companies, or management groups that special- ize in event organization.

5. Where do sport events take place? When ath- letes decide where to play a sport, they choose a place that is convenient for them. When events are staged for commercial purposes, they take place wherever they can generate the most revenue. In the case of international events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games, various cities make bids to be the host and the members of the organization that owns the event (e.g., the IOC) select the bidding city that provides the most attractive proposal.

6. Who is eligible to participate in a sport? Eligi- bility decisions take into account factors that are defined as relevant by members of a governing body or people managing an event. Age, skill level, academic performance, gender, race/ ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, place of resi- dence, and other factors have been used to limit eligibility depending on the concerns and beliefs of the people making eligibility decisions.

Outside Southeast Asia, Sepak Takraw might be called kick volleyball with no hands or arms allowed; only feet, head, knees, and chest may contact the ball. Based on cuju, an ancient Chinese game, Sepak Takraw has been played in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar for five centuries. If these nations had conquered and colonized parts of the world and used this game to socialize colonial subjects into their cultures, as did Europeans with their sports, it would exist in enough countries to qualify as an Olympic sport. This is how politics has influenced even the definition of sports. (Source: © Chen Yehua/Xinhua Press/Corbis)

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 435

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 435 06/14/16 06:20 PM

unity among citizens; (6) reproduce values consis- tent with dominant ideology; (7) increase support for political leaders and government; and (8) facili- tate economic development.

The rules, policies, and funding priorities set by government officials and agencies reflect politi- cal differences and struggles among groups within a society. This doesn’t mean that the same people always benefit when government involvement occurs, but involvement seldom results in equal ben- efits for everyone. For example, funding priorities could favor mass participation instead of elite sports, but this is subject to debate and negotiation. This political process is an inevitable part of organized sports.

History shows government intervention in sports usually favors groups with the most resources and organization, and with goals that support the inter- ests of public officials. The groups least likely to be favored are those that fail to understand the connec- tion between sports and politics or lack resources to effectively influence political decisions. When people believe that sports and politics are unre- lated, they’re likely to be ignored when officials develop policies and allocate funds.

The connection between sports and global political processes is complex. Ideally, sports bring nations together in contexts supportive of peace and friendship. Although this can and does occur, most nations use sports to satisfy their own inter- ests. Displays of nationalism continue to be com- mon at international events. For example, people who work with, promote, or follow the Olympics often focus on national medal counts and use them to support their claims for national status.

If mega-events such as the Olympics are indeed special events with positive potential, efforts should be made to maximize that potential. Lim- iting nationalism and commercialism and empha- sizing the interdependence of nations would be helpful and could be done many ways.

Powerful transnational corporations have joined nation-states as major participants in global politi- cal processes. As a result, sports are used increas- ingly for economic as well as political purposes.

include affirmations of status, such as a Most Valuable Player award, or monetary compensa- tion as in the case of revenue- producing sports. The distribution of money often creates friction between the players and the people who orga- nize and manage the team or event.

These questions are inherently political because answers are determined in contexts where there are differences of interest that must be resolved through negotiation (Green and Hartmann, 2012). Most people understand this, but they complain about politics in sports when the outcomes of negotiations are not the ones they favor.

Eliminating politics in sports is not possible. However, it is possible to shape political processes so that the voices of all parties impacted by deci- sions are heard and taken into account. Many sport organizations are notorious for their lack of transpar- ency and accountability, and this often makes their decisions contentious because people don’t know how or why they were made. There will always be differences of interest, but people are more apt to accept political decisions when they have partici- pated in the process of making them and when they can hold accountable those who make them.

summary

HOW DO GOVERNMENTS AND GLOBAL POLITICAL PROCESSES INFLUENCE SPORTS?

Sports and politics are inseparable. Government involvement in sports is generally related to the need for sponsorship, organization, and facilities. The fact that sports are important in people’s lives and can be sites for social conflict often leads to govern- ment involvement. The forms of involvement vary by society, but their purposes are generally to (1) safeguard the public order; (2) ensure fairness and protect human rights; (3) maintain health and fitness among citizens; (4) promote the prestige and power of a community or nation; (5) promote identity and

Final PDF to printer

436 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 436 06/14/16 06:20 PM

of rewards. These political issues are central to sports, and they illustrate why the organizations that make decisions about sports are often described as governing bodies. Overall, sports are inseparable from politics and political processes.

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

Reading 1. Politics in organized sports Reading 2. Protests and boycotts: Politics and the

Olympic Games Reading 3. There’s nothing so over as the World

Cup Reading 4. Global politics and the production of

sports equipment and apparel Reading 5. Qatar and Slovenia: Two approaches

to using sports as a developmental strategy

Reading 6. The soccer stadium as a political protest site: Looking back at the Arab spring

SPORT MANAGEMENT ISSUES

∙ You are working for a new office of Sport and Community Development in a midwestern city of 1 million people. As the new director begins to outline a five-year plan, she asks you to list all of the ways that the federal, state, county, and local governments are involved in sports in the city, especially in terms of funding. Identify all the possibilities that you will check out as you begin the project.

∙ You’ve been appointed by the International Olympic Committee to a special commission charged with prioritizing possible reforms of the Summer Olympic Games. At the first meeting, each member of the committee must present and justify three suggestions for reform. What are your suggestions, and how do you justify them?

∙ You work in the personnel office of the Major Soccer League (MSL) in the United States. You must make recommendations about the

Nationalism and the promotion of national interests remain part of global sports, but consumerism and the promotion of capitalist expansion have become more important since 1991 and the end of the Cold War.

Within the context of global relations, athletes and teams now are associated with corporate logos as well as nation-states. Global sport events have political and economic implications. They are sites for presenting numerous images and narratives asso- ciated with the interests of nation-states and corpo- rate sponsors. The dominant discourses associated with sports in the United States are clearly consistent with the interests of corporate sponsors, and they promote an ideology infused with the capitalist val- ues of individualism, competition, achievement, and consumption.

Global political processes also are associated with other aspects of sports, such as the migration patterns of elite athletes and the recruitment patterns of sport organizations. Political issues are raised when ath- letes cross national borders to play their sports and when leagues and teams bring players from multiple national backgrounds into their countries. The glo- balization of sports affects the ownership of teams, the movement of athletes around the globe, and the allegiance patterns of sport fans worldwide.

These and other issues associated with global political processes are best understood when stud- ied on both global and local levels. Data in these studies help determine when sports involve recip- rocal cultural exchanges leading to mutual under- standing among people and when they involve processes through which powerful nations and cor- porations exercise subtle influence over social life and political events in less powerful nations.

Politics also are part of the structure and orga- nization of sports. Political processes exist because people in sport organizations must answer questions about what qualifies as a sport, the rules of a sport, procedures for enforcing rules, the organization and control of sport events, locations of sport events, eligibility criteria for participants, and distribution

Final PDF to printer

CHAPTER 13: Sports and Politics 437

coa23542_ch13_406-437.indd 437 06/14/16 06:20 PM

should the league and its teams provide sup- port for the athletes who come from other countries? Explain your responses and discuss them in the general context of the glob al iza tion of sports.

league’s policies related to players who are not U.S. citizens. You must deal with two major questions: (1) Should there be a limit, for each team or the league as a whole on the number of players who are not U.S. citizens? (2) How

Final PDF to printer