Global sport: Where Wembley Way meets Bollywood Boulevard

Abstract

As sport has circulated around the globe, its practice and expression have both replicated its established (and substantially Western-dominated) power formation, and to varying degrees challenged and modified it. The growing popularity of these sportsentertainment cultures reflects emergent media and leisure economies combining global aspirational cosmopolitanism with local cultural identities and histories. These multiple modes of cultural adaptation are evident in various Asian contexts in relation to the English Premier League (EPL) (and association football (soccer) in general), and hybridized local forms of global sport such as the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket and the J-League (Japanese professional soccer). This article examines, in reference to these cases, the ways in which global sport culture is constrained by its historical inheritance yet also making new, multi-faceted cultural histories. It argues that the trajectory of sport's global cultural development is not subject to a simple logic of adoption and imitation, but is created out of multiple, intersecting correspondencesand non-correspondences -between histories, sites and social formations. The cultural complexion of sport -not least in the vibrantly performative sphere of fandom -is undergoing profound, culturally adaptive change, and analytical frameworks foregrounding sporting cultural importation and pale imitation require a concomitant re-consideration and adaptation.

Discordant fandom and global football brands: ‘Let the people sing’

“…And yet, despite its prominence in the Global Culture Industry (Lash and Lury, 2007), it is surprising how little consumer culture research takes sport seriously. This is at odds with the global business and economics of sport consumption, the media interests involved and fans preferences for conversations around sport (Conn, 1997; Dixon, 2013; Kennedy, 2013b; Rowe and Gilmour, 2009; Smart, 2007), all of which demonstrate the increasing commercialisation and embracing of branding practices which are entangled in the hyper-event that is sport (Crawford, 2004). In terms of brand value, football clubs (FCs) rank among the most financially affluent brands in the world (Rein et al., 2006), with Brand Finance (2012) reporting that Manchester United, Real Madrid and FC Bayern Munich all have values in excess of US$600 million.…”

A retrospective survey on injuries in Croatian football/soccer referees

“…With more than 240.000.000 registered players (17% female), soccer (i.e., European “football”) is the most popular sport in the world today [1-4]. Although the players and their mastery of the sport are the primary reasons for soccer’s popularity [5,6], the soccer referees are an inseparable factor of this sport [7-10].…”

Media and Sport: The Cultural Dynamics of Global Games

“…In the case of the EPL, furthermore, the influx of international players substantially caused by its unprecedented affluence arising from the global sale of television rights has problematised what can be said to characterise English football. Similarly, the Indian Premier League, in assembling city-based teams consisting of local and international players purchased through a process of 'live' player auction by capital mainly from the media and entertainment industries, has created circumstances whereby player and spectator 'loyalties' are subject to rapid re-alignment (Rowe and Gilmour 2009).…”

“…Indeed, as the Western media sport market has become saturated and has sought new territories to exploit through the ‘export’ of major European and American leagues in sports such as association football and basketball to the growing Asia‐Pacific region, its marketing emphasis has been largely dehistoricised, style‐focused and explicitly consumption‐oriented (Horne 2006; Rowe and Gilmour 2008). Even major media sport initiatives dominated by the Asia‐Pacific, such as the Indian Premier League, remain deeply influenced by cultural practices (such as the use of cheerleaders – though ‘customised’ in presentational terms for local audiences) originating in the West, and are marked by a commodity ‘branded’ international cosmopolitanism (Rowe and Gilmour 2009) that privileges corporate interests over what might be described as ‘deep sport fandom’.…”