The power of popular publicity: new social media and the affective dynamics of the sport racism scandal

Sociologists have tended to take insufficient account of the importance of emotions to the social power of the institution of media, particularly as altered by the emergence of social media in the current media ecology. This paper compensates for this neglect by means of a brief illustrative case study of the effect of social media on the public reception of the 2011 Sepp Blatter racism scandal and of other ‘race-related’ scandals in the UK. In proposing media scandals’ wider sociological significance regarding the dynamic, multi-accented relationships between emotions and power, it analyses how England’s prevailing climate of ‘postcolonial guilt’ was reinforced and conveyed through social media networks

Commercial determinants of health: advertising of alcohol and unhealthy foods during sporting events

Tobacco, alcohol and foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar generate much of the global burden of noncommunicable diseases. We therefore need a better understanding of how these products are promoted. The promotion of tobacco products through sporting events has largely disappeared over the last two decades, but advertising and sponsorship continues by companies selling alcohol, unhealthy food and sugar-sweetened beverage. The sponsorship of sporting events such as the Olympic Games, the men’s FIFA World Cup and the men’s European Football Championships in 2016, has received some attention in recent years in the public health literature. Meanwhile, British football and the English Premier League have become global events with which transnational companies are keen to be associated, to promote their brands to international markets. Despite its reach, the English Premier League marketing and sponsorship portfolio has received very little scrutiny from public health advocates. We call for policy-makers and the public health community to formulate an approach to the sponsorship of sporting events, one that accounts for public health concerns

Football Fans, Lesbians Memes and Liminality: Exploring the Media’s Mobilisation of Ritual at the 2019 Women’s World Cup

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup was marketed as a transformative event for women’s sport and women’s empowerment more generally. Without the ability to attend the event itself in France, most people used traditional media and digital networks to watch and participate in the event. In a mediascape where digital networks allow anyone with a smartphone or internet access to challenge mainstream discourse, I ask how does traditional media mobilise liminal ritual events like the World Cup to reinforce their symbolic power, and how do people use digital networks to challenge it. This thesis uses two different ritual perspectives to understand the 2019 Women’s World Cup: as a liminal ritual event, that through media coverage also contributes to the mythical place of the media in society. I use encoding/decoding theory to understand negotiated co-authorship of the liminal ritual event by users of social media as both a challenge to dominant media discourse, that however also reinforces media power. The media pilgrimages of Australian fans to France exemplifies their investment in both the women’s empowerment and nationalism narratives that construct the liminal ritual event, but also demonstrates the inescapable nature of the media’s symbolic power

The Role of Culture in Sports Sponsorship: an Update

Nowadays Sponsorship is an important part of sports events. Sports sponsorship offers more benefits, more variety and also it’s a more powerful form of marketing. In general, sponsorship holds a unique position in the marketing mix because it is effective in building brand awareness, provides different marketing platforms and valuable networking and hospitality opportunities. Sponsorship marketing efforts can be influenced by culture. Especially when global sponsorship in sports which refers to sports events in different countries with different cultures, is under consideration. In such situations, sponsorship aspects can be affected by cultural obligations which are discussed in this article

Commercial determinants of health in sport. The example of the English Premier League

Introduction: Transnational alcohol, food, beverage and gambling industries market their unhealthy brands to sport’s global audiences. However, there has been little research on the commercial determinants of health in sport and the world’s most popular sport and competition - football’s English Premier League (EPL). Methods: I conducted four inter-linked studies to assess the commercial determinants of health in a case study of the EPL: 1) An internet scoping study of the sponsorship deals of EPL clubs in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 football seasons. 2) A content analysis of visual references to unhealthy brands during five EPL matches broadcast on subscription television in 2019. 3) The marketing strategies used by four EPL sponsors drawn from the gambling, food, beverage and alcohol industries. 4) A qualitative study capturing the stakeholders’ views about unhealthy brand sponsorship in football. Findings: The EPL and its member clubs have multiple partners drawn from the unhealthy commodity industries. Gambling brands are most prominent both in club sponsorships and during ‘live’ football programmes. The brands appear both on players’ shirts and in pitch perimeter advertising. Sophisticated marketing strategies then activate traditional and digital methods to engage fans as consumers. Stakeholders’ views on sponsorship reflect their level of economic and cultural capital. Discussion and Conclusions: This study has described the marketing practices of unhealthy commodity industries in the EPL. Given that it has been demonstrated by others that this marketing is likely to damage the health of football’s global audience of fanconsumers, a more ethical approach to sport sponsorship deserves consideration

Mia San Mia: Professional Club Soccer, Religion, and Social Ethics

For thousands of soccer fans around the world, soccer is their religion. This dissertation marks the first extended examination of what religious soccer is, what it looks like in practice, and how it impacts the lives of fans in the context of professional club soccer. It provides a framework for non-fans to understand how religious supporters view the game and addresses major moments in the development of soccer throughout the world, paying special attention to the difference between the United States and the rest of the world. Religious soccer is then explored in depth, drawing on ethnographic research with over five hundred fans spread across the world. The role of soccer in the everyday life of religious supporters, their rituals, and the ways in which they make meaning are explored, presented alongside the XI Commandments, as set of unique arguments that further illuminate religious soccer to non-practitioners. Religious supporters are most commonly found in supporters groups, officially recognized fan organizations, and thus the interaction between clubs and their supporters groups matters greatly. For clubs, soccer is a business and their focus on finances often puts them at odds with their supporters. Using a case study about the relationship between the Dallas Beer Guardians and FC Dallas from 2014-2016, it that demonstrates how fraught these relationships can become and how long it can take to restore a working relationship between the two groups. In order to improve these relationships, this dissertation offers a unique constructive social ethic that individuals and groups can utilize in their shared work. Unlike other ethics, this ethic is essentially a toolbox, wherein a number of different situations can be addressed using the same ethical system; it recognizes that situations vary and thus the same tools do not work universally. The tools contained within the ethic are designed to promote healthy, intentional relationships. Though presented in a soccer context, the ethic itself is not exclusive to this soccer context. It is designed to be contextualized by whomever is using it, providing a flexible and adaptable ethic that allows for creative responsiveness to small issues before they become bigger problems

Global Media Sport

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. How has globalization impacted on sports media? What are the economic ramifications? And what is the future of sports media? In order to answer these questions, this book investigates the constituents, dimensions and implications of the flows of media sport from the Global West to the Global East, and in the reverse direction. At an historical moment when the relative stability of the Western media sport order is under challenge, it analyses a range of key structures, practices and issues whose ramifications extend far beyond the fields of play and national contexts in which sport events take place. The book will appraise and analyse the state of sports television, rise of new sports media, emergence of hybrid sport cultural forms, eruption of sport-related political controversies, scandals and power struggles, mutations of forms of global sport fandom, and projections of the future of global media sport. In bringing together the latest research from across a number of disciplines, this book offers an exciting contribution to the emerging field of global sports media