Examines the key processes and structures that have underpinned the globalization of sport, from the emergence of a global sport power elite and the erosion of folk body cultures to the emphasis on the athlete as machine.

This book shows how the dynamic interplay of a powerful "golden triangle" of sports, media, and business interests with social, cultural, economic, and political forces shapes sport in a changing world. This edition is a condensed and updated version of the first edition, with an emphasis on current social issues in sport. It also has more global content. The golden triangle concept is more developed and applied more extensively. Other key themes of the first edition—power, status, and inequality—are also more developed. New "Stop and Think Questions" have been added to challenge students to think about the meaning of what they have read. The book is now divided into five sections. The new sections highlight sociology and the sociology of sport; inequality and diversity; globalization and social deviance; major social contexts of sport, including the high school, college, and professional levels; and power, political economy, and global sports.

This book provides the first detailed history of one of the most powerful international sport organisations, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), since 2019 known as World Athletics. The book critically assesses the internal power relations within the IAAF by focusing on the IAAF leadership. Based on extensive archival research, Power and Politics in World Athletics offers a nuanced analysis of the institutionalised strategies that developed as a reflection of the IAAF’s interests and aims to create a broader understanding of the global sport system. With only six presidents in over a century of existence, the IAAF’s leaders had profound impacts on other international institutions, national stakeholders and sporting participants. Through four sections, the book identifies various key turning points in the history of the governing body of athletics, and explores the IAAF’s foundation, the policies of past IAAF presidents, and controversial issues such as doping, corruption and manipulation through a socio-historical lens. The book shows that while anyone could take part in athletics, policies enacted by each president served to ostracize those groups who did not fit into the IAAF’s vision of an equal playing field. This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in sport history, sport sociology, the politics of sport, sport management, sport governance, or international organisations.

Sport presents one of the most advanced cases of 'globalisation,' arguably because there are fewer cultural and political obstacles to the development of trade and international power in sport than there are in other fields. Thus there has been a change in the nature of the politics of sport since the end of the Cold War; the subject must be rewritten to acknowledge a twenty-first century world in which international sporting organisations and transnational corporations have become far more important than states. The Global Politics of Sport presents a range of essays examining the emerging global political issues in twenty-first century sport including: · The role, and power of organisations such as FIFA and the IOC · The influence of US exceptionalism · The construction of global sports heroes · Tensions developing within traditionally 'alternative' sports in a global commercial culture The Global Politics of Sport presents new and fresh exploration of different conceptions of sport as a purely commercial activity and as an activity as embodying 'higher' social and ethical values.

This handbook illustrates the utility of global sport as a lens through which to disentangle the interconnected political, economic, cultural, and social patterns that shape our lives. Drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives, it is organized into three parts. The first part outlines theoretical and conceptual insights from global sport scholarship: from the conceptualization and development of globalization theories, transnationalism and transnational capital, through to mediasport, roving coloniality, and neoliberal doctrine. The second part illustrates the varied flows within global sport and the ways in which these flows are contested, across physical cultures/sport forms, identities, ideologies, media, and economic capital. Diverse topics and cases are covered, such as sport business and the global sport industry, financial fair play, and global mediasport. Finally, the third part explores various aspects of global sport development and governance, incorporating insights from work in the Global South. Across all of these contributions, varied approaches are taken to examine the ‘power of sport’ trope, generating a thought-provoking dialogue for the reader. Featuring an accomplished roster of contributors and wide-ranging coverage of key issues and debates, this handbook will serve as an indispensable resource for scholars and students of contemporary sports studies.

"Sport has the power to change the world," South African president Nelson Mandela told the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in 2000. Today, we are inundated with similar claims—from politicians, diplomats, intellectuals, journalists, athletes, and fans—about the many ways that international sports competitions make the world a better place. Promoters of the Olympic Games and similar global sports events have spent more than a century telling us that these festivals offer a multitude of "goods": that they foster friendship and mutual understanding among peoples and nations, promote peace, combat racism, and spread democracy. In recent years boosters have suggested that sports mega-events can advance environmental protection in a world threatened by climate change, stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty in developing nations, and promote human rights in repressive countries. If the claims are to be believed, sport is the most powerful and effective form of idealistic internationalism on the planet. The Ideals of Global Sport investigates these grandiose claims, peeling away the hype to reveal the reality: that shockingly little evidence underpins these endlessly repeated assertions. The essays, written by scholars from many regions and disciplines and drawn from an exceptionally diverse array of sources, show that these bold claims were sometimes cleverly leveraged by activist groups to pressure sports bodies into supporting moral causes. But the essays methodically debunk sports organizations' inflated proclamations about the record of their contributions to peace, mutual understanding, antiracism, and democracy. Exposing enduring shortcomings in the newer realm of human rights protection, from the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games to Brazil's 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics, The Ideals of Global Sport suggests that sport's idealistic pretensions can have distinctly non-idealistic side effects, distracting from the staggering financial costs of hosting the events, serving corporate interests, and aiding the spread of neoliberal globalization. Contributors: Jules Boykoff, Susan Brownell, Roland Burke, Simon Creak, Dmitry Dubrovsky, Joon Seok Hong, Barbara J. Keys, Renate Nagamine, João Roriz, Robert Skinner.

brings together research in geography, sport studies and related disciplines includes cases from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in sport and politics, sport and society, or human geography