Assessing the sociology of sport: On sports mega-events and capitalist modernity

On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, one of the leading international scholars on sport and consumer culture, John Horne, considers the trajectory and challenges of research on sports mega-events and their place in capitalist modernity. In anchoring work on this topic in Roche’s definition of mega-events, Horne notes that sports mega-events are important symbolic, economic, and political elements in the orientation of nations to stake their place in global society. Fundamental issues about the concept of ‘mega-event’ pose challenges for scholars as questions remain over what qualifies as a sports mega-event and how ‘lived experience’ with such events transacts with media spectacularization and characterization. The essay closes by posing broader questions for further investigation about the economic, political, and social risks and benefits of sports mega-events and how these events may portend and relate to changing relations of economic and political power on a global scale

Sports industry research North America: USA & Canada

The Sports Industry is a potential business that not only involves the game at the field. It includes different aspects like food & beverage, apparel, sponsorship, licensing, events, tourism, and infrastructure (ATKearney, 2011). In North America this industry is one of the most important in terms of creating a positive impact to the economy, increasing surprisingly fast the GDP of the United States and Canada. The United States and Canada are the world’s biggest sports nations that provide a wide range of sport facilities and infrastructure and hosts yearly enigmatic events in key cities like Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto. For this reason, we identified that these countries are a strategic move for any sports-related company to keep growing within the Sports Industry. The current report aims to provide a comprehensive research about the Sports Industry in North America, describing and analyzing possible investment opportunities in these countries for the upcoming years. The document is structured to explain an I) Overview of The Sports Industry in the United States and Canada, including the main sports leagues, secondary sports, sport facilities and new technology and trends. Then, we will discuss about the II) Main Leagues in North America considering its main teams, athletes, events, and highlight sport cases. Finally, we will describe the III) Sports Media Industry in North America, explaining about the Print, TV, Radio, Online channels and current media trends

Project and Sports Events Management

This paper tries to capture the importance it holds the project management in socio-cultural sector which stands out when we refer to the sport. So when we talk about project management in sport, to consider a much larger vision, a new project management perspective, they involve a responsibility for the implementation of an event with global impact on very long term. Sports projects, as history shows us, played a significant role in developing societies. Also, all major sports industry projects had at a somewhat modest cheer, developing exponentially along the history, often in spite of all chances. The scope of the industry is now so large that establishing new market data is a major task.project management, sports event, project, sports, spot, sports industry, sports education, sports management, sports activity management.

A semantic event detection approach for soccer video based on perception concepts and finite state machines

A significant application area for automated video analysis technology is the generation of personalized highlights of sports events. Sports games are always composed of a range of significant events. Automatically detecting these events in a sports video can enable users to interactively select their own highlights. In this paper we propose a semantic event detection approach based on Perception Concepts and Finite State Machines to automatically detect significant events within soccer video. Firstly we define a Perception Concept set for soccer videos based on identifiable feature elements within a soccer video. Secondly we design PC-FSM models to describe semantic events in soccer videos. A particular strength of this approach is that users are able to design their own semantic events and transfer event detection into graph matching. Experimental results based on recorded soccer broadcasts are used to illustrate the potential of this approach

Gamification of sports media coverage: an infotainment approach to Olympics and Football World Cups

Sports media coverage of mega-events is partly oriented to gamification, the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-gaming contexts. This infotainment approach to events has been developed by media outlets as an original and effective way to capture wider audience attention and to place events in context before a competition starts. This article examines 28 gamified sports pieces developed by media outlets from seven countries during the last two Olympics (2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang) and Football World Cups (2014 in Brazil and 2018 in Russia). This sample comprises two categories following Ferrer-Conill (2015): “gamified pieces” (game like elements that are part of a bigger interactive feature) and “newsgames” (more sophisticated pieces often included in complex graphics or multimedia content). The results show that, despite its entertaining formula, gamification serves mainly informational purposes and adds value to sports coverage. Especially in the Summer and Winter Olympics, gamified sports pieces tend to be explanatory and data-driven in order to inform the audience about nonmainstream sports

Łódź as an Arena of Grand Sports Events: Selected Examples

The paper presents Łódź as a city where major sports events are held. Several sports facilities are featured which make it possible to organize various kinds of events, including international ones. In recent years, based on the existing infrastructure, several such events, for instance European or world championships, have been held in Łódź. The city is also perceived as a leading centre for volleyball competitions (league matches, Champions League, World League, European Championship, World Championship)

Can New Orleans Play Its Way Past Katrina? The Role of Professional Sports in the Redevelopment of New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans in late August 2005, and debates are now underway across the country concerning strategies for reconstructing the City. A key to redevelopment involves encouraging former citizens and businesses to return. Both of New Orleans’s professional sports teams, the National Football League Saints and the National Basketball Association Hornets, have taken up residence in other cities, and the question of what the city should provide in the way of financial accommodation to encourage them to return should be considered in devising a reconstruction plan. Infrastructure to facilitate professional sports and mega-events constitutes a significant fraction of capital budgets for even the largest cities. New Orleans has hosted a disproportionate share of mega-sports events in the United States given its size and demographics. An important question concerns whether these events have contributed enough to the New Orleans economy to justify reinvestment in infrastructure to restore New Orleans’s place as a leading host of professional sports and mega-events in the United States. A careful review of the evidence suggests that the redevelopment efforts of New Orleans are better directed at first providing infrastructure that will encourage the return of its middle class citizenry and the restoration of its culture. Playing host to professional sports and mega-events does have symbolic significance, but it is arguable that the city cannot afford to invite guests until it has the means to accommodate them.sports, public finance, economic impact, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina

Public perceptions of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro: a post World Cup 2014 and pre 2016 Olympics Assessment

This research assesses public perception of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro following the awarding of the bids for both the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. In preparation of these mega sports events, Rio has been challenged to improve infrastructure, build Olympic venues and reduce crime in the favelas. The purpose of the research is to collect data on the perceptions of potential visitors to Brazil, specifically, Rio de Janeiro to determine if the preparation for and hosting of the mega sports events is changing the image of the favelas

The protection of sports events in the EU: Property, intellectual property, unfair competition and special forms of protection

This article analyses some of the legal tools available to organisers of sporting events under EU law and the law of EU Member States. The focus is on remedies based on property rights and contracts, as well as on intellectual property, unfair competition rules and so called “special” forms of protection. As it is well known, in fact, following the ECJ ruling in Premier League v. QC Leisure, sporting events as such do not qualify as works under EU copyright law. Nevertheless, the article shows that remedies based on both traditional and new forms of property, IP and cognate rights can still offer adequate protection to sports organisers. First, many sports events take place in dedicated venues on which sports organisers can claim exclusive use rights and thereupon develop conditional access agreements (i.e. “house right”). Second, the recording and broadcast of sporting events may give rise to a variety of intellectual property rights, especially in the field of copyright and related rights. Third, unfair competition rules, and in particular misappropriation doctrines, have been invoked to protect sporting activities from unauthorised copying. Fourth, special forms of protection have recently been devised at the national level in order to offer an additional layer of rights protecting sports organisers. The article argues that even in the absence of a dedicated EU harmonised right tailored to sports events, the current legal framework is well equipped to offer protection to the investments that the sport industry is making in this sector. The article also argues that national initiatives in the field have so far proven of little practical relevance and, as a matter of fact, have the potential to clash with the general EU legal framework. There is only one area that escapes this rule: a right to use sporting events data to organise betting activities, or in other words, a right to consent to bets. The article concludes that if such a right is to be recognised, it is not the field of intellectual property, nor even property in general, the most appropriate area of law at which to look

Risk taking in Extreme Sports: A phenomenological perspective

Participation in extreme sports is enjoying incredible growth while more traditional recreational activities such as golf are struggling to maintain numbers. Theoretical perspectives on extreme sports and extreme sport participants have assumed that participation is about risk-taking. However, these theory-driven methodologies may reflect judgments that do not necessarily relate to participants' lived experience. In this paper I review current risk-oriented perspectives on extreme sports and present research findings that question this assumed relationship between extreme sports and risk and thus reposition the experience in a hitherto unexplored manner. Risk taking is not the focus. Participants acknowledge that the potential outcome of a mismanaged mistake or accident could be death. However, accepting this potential outcome does not mean that they search for risk. Participants argue that many everyday life events (e.g., driving) are high-risk events. Participants undertake detailed preparation in order to minimise the possibility of negative outcomes because extreme sports trigger a range of positive experiential outcomes. The study is significant as it followed a hermeneutic phenomenological process which did not presuppose a risk-taking orientation. Hermeneutic phenomenology allows for a multitude of data sources including interviews (10 male and 5 female extreme sports participants, ages 30 to 72 years), auto-biographies, videos and other firsthand accounts. This process allowed this unexpected perspective to emerge more clearly