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Sport in Society: Issues

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Title: Sport in Society: Issues


1
Sport in SocietyIssues Controversies
  • Chapter 13
  • Sports and Politics
  • How Do Governments
  • Globalization Influence Sports?

2
Definitions
  • Power the ability to influence others and
    achieve goals even in the face of opposition from
    others
  • Authority a form of power that comes with a
    recognized and legitimate status or office in an
    organization or set of relationships

3
Reasons for Connections Between Government
Sports
  • Safeguard the public order
  • Maintain fitness physical abilities
  • Promote the prestige power of a community or
    nation
  • Reproduce dominant values
  • Increase support for political leaders and
    political structures
  • Promote economic development

4
Safeguarding Public Order
  • Governments make rules about
  • What sports are legal or illegal
  • How sports should be organized to protect rights
  • Who has a right to play sports
  • Where sports may be played
  • Who can use public facilities and when they can
    use them

5
Maintaining Fitness Physical Abilities
  • Government support traditionally was based on the
    notion that playing sports improves fitness,
    fitness improves health, and good health reduces
    medical costs
  • Recent government support is informed by research
    showing that
  • Illness is related to environmental factors more
    than worker fitness
  • Competitive sports have few benefits when it
    comes to productivity
  • Concerns about sport performance may increase
    demands for health care

6
Promoting Prestige Power
  • Government support traditionally has been based
    on the notion that success in sports provides
    recognition and status for the sponsoring
    governmental unit
  • National teams can bring international
    recognition
  • Local teams can bring needed publicity to
    communities

7
Promoting Identity, Belonging, Unity
  • Governments most often use sports to promote
    identity and unity when constituents are diverse
    or when change is rapid and widespread
  • Sports often constitute invented traditions to
    reaffirm social ties
  • Sport-based unity usually is temporary and
    superficial
  • Sports do not change the realities of everyday
    differences and inequalities

8
Emphasizing Values Consistent With Dominant
Ideology
  • Sports may be used to promote the idea that
    success is based on discipline, loyalty,
    determination, and fortitude
  • Sports in nations with market economies also are
    associated with competition and individualism
  • Using sports to promote dominant values does not
    work when governments lack legitimacy

9
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10
Increasing Support For Political Leaders
  • Political leaders may use sports to boost their
    legitimacy in the eyes of citizens
  • Most citizens see through this strategy when
    leaders lack legitimacy already
  • Some men who were former athletes have used their
    celebrity status from sports to gain popular
    support
  • Jesse Ventura (Minnesota Governor)
  • Bill Bradley (Senator Democratic Presidential
    hopeful in 2000 primaries)

11
Promoting Economic Development
  • Cities may use public resources to bid on major
    sport events
  • The stated goal is to bring new revenues into the
    city as a whole
  • Special interests in cities may be the primary
    economic benefactors of major events, although
    sponsorship is promoted in terms of the common
    economic good

12
Critical Issues Questions
  • Government involvement in sports often fosters
    the interests of some people more than others
  • When government support occurs, priority often
    goes to elite sports
  • Those who represent elite sports are more likely
    to be organized and to have resources that can be
    dedicated to political lobbying

13
Ideals Underlying International Sports
  • There has been longstanding hope that
    international sports could
  • Open communication lines between people and
    leaders from many nations
  • Highlight shared interests among people in
    different cultures and nations
  • Demonstrate that international friendships are
    possible
  • (continued)

14
Ideals Underlying International Sports
(continued)
  • Foster cultural understanding and eliminate
    national stereotypes
  • Create a model for international relationships
  • Establish working relationships that might close
    gaps between wealthy and poor nations

15
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16
Realities of International Sports
  • Sports have no influence when it comes to serious
    diplomacy
  • Sports do not affect matters of vital national
    interest
  • Leaders do not use sports in discussions of vital
    national interest
  • Sports may be useful at the level of public
    diplomacy
  • Sports provide opportunities to meet and
    talk (continued)

17
Realities of International Sports (continued)
  • Nation states often use international sports to
    foster self-interests over international peace
    and understanding
  • Ethnocentrism and nationalism often have been
    promoted in international sports
  • Self-interests have influenced bid processes,
    media coverage, and boycotts

18
Nation-states, Sports, and Cultural Ideology
  • The conditions events in international sports
    clearly favor the interests of powerful nations
  • Sports can then become tools of cultural
    imperialism
  • The participation of poorer nations usually
    depends on assistance from wealthy nations
  • Sports can then become vehicles for gaining
    control over important forms of popular culture
    around the world

19
Political Realities in an Era of Transnational
Corporations
  • Nation-states have been joined by transnational
    corporations in global power relations
  • Nationalism still exists in international sports,
    but consumerism may replace patriotism when it
    comes to identifying with athletes and teams
  • Corporations tend to use sports to fuse their
    interests with national and local symbols with
    which people identify
  • (continued)

20
Realities of International Sports (continued)
  • The Olympics and other international sport events
    have become showcases for transnational
    corporations, their products, and the ideology of
    consumerism
  • Corporations pay billions to sponsor global
    sports so they might become global cultural
    commissars
  • Corporate images tied to sports do not dictate
    what people think, but they influence what people
    think about

21
Sports and Global Political Issues
  • Athletes as global migrant workers
  • Raises issues of personal adjustment, labor
    rights, national impact of talent migration, and
    national identity
  • The production of sport equipment and apparel
  • Raises issues of international labor exploitation
    and the need for international labor rights
    efforts such as the Nike transnational advocacy
    network

22
Making Sense of New Political Realities
  • As the meaning , organization, and purpose of
    sports have changed around the world, there is a
    need to ask many new questions about sports as
    social phenomena
  • The most helpful research on the realities of
    global trends has presented data from both global
    and local levels
  • This helps us understand local expressions of and
    responses to global processes

23
Politics in Sports
  • Political processes revolve around
    issues such as
  • What qualifies as a sport?
  • What are the rules of sport?
  • Who makes enforces the rules?
  • Who organizes and controls events?
  • Where will events take place?
  • Who is eligible to participate in sport?
  • How are rewards distributed?

24
The Olympic Games How to Control Nationalism
Commercialism
  • Suggestions include the following
  • Do away with national uniforms for athletes
  • Revise the opening ceremonies so athletes enter
    the arena by event
  • Eliminate national anthems and flags during
    awards ceremonies
  • Eliminate or revise team sports

25
The Olympic Games How to Control Nationalism
Commercialism
  • (continued)
  • Add more traditional demonstration sports to
    the games
  • Use multiple sites for each Olympics
  • Emphasize global responsibility in media coverage
    and commercials
  • The goal is to make the Olympics something
    more than a global marketing opportunity for
    transnational corporations and a political stage
    for wealthy nations to promote ideologies
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