Les effets locaux de la marchandisation du spectacle sportif. l’exemple de l’escalade libre en France

The Beautiful and the Damned

“…This abundance of media content revealed by a short visit to this website while I am redirected by Facebook has become a commonplace in a sport that first went online in the early 2000s. As Aubel (2005) notes, until then, most of the information available in the climbing media is conveyed via printed magazines. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the notorious video clip La vie au Bout des Doigts (1982) showing French climber Patrick Edlinger free soloing routes in the south of France.…”

“…In the following, I focus on sport climbing, that is, traditional climbing and bouldering, and exclude mountaineering, which is, as Olivier Hoibian (1995) puts it, too often mixed up with climbing. With a few exceptions, such as the recent ascension of the “Dawn Wall” in the Yosemite valley by U.S. climbers Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell, which, in 2015, gained exposure in mainstream media worldwide, the visibility of the sport remains confined to the periphery of mainstream media (see also Aubel, 2005).…”

“…As it has been extensively documented, both traditional (magazines and DVDs) and new media (social network sites and websites) are essential tenets in the development of sports such as surfing, snowboarding, and skateboarding (e.g., Booth, 1996; Edwards & Corte, 2010; Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2013; Thorpe, 2008; Wheaton & Beal, 2003; Woermann, 2012). In climbing, Olivier Aubel (2005) shows that, when it comes to demonstrate their achievements, media provide climbers with the much-needed visual proofs. In addition, it could be said that media and new media are places where climbers present and diffuse their climbs and, overall, develop and sustain relationships of different kinds with followers by elaborating a certain mise en scène of their experiences (Dumont, 2015b).…”

Multi-layered labor: Entrepreneurship and professional versatility in rock climbing

“…To put it briefly, in rock climbing, the physical abilities of the climbers are translated and evaluated into grades given to their climbs (e.g. Aubel, 2005; De Léséleuc, 2004). In the absence of traditional institutions holding the monopoly of legitimatizing and validating individual performances, as in many sports where federations and competitions play this role (see Faure et al., 2010), grades reflect the difficulty of a climb and, thus, provide an indication of the level reached by a climber.…”

“…The development of new media has contributed to significant transformations in the production, diffusion and consumption of professional sports, notably in the relationships between athletes, companies, fans and organizations (Dart, 2014). As in other emergent sport activities like skateboarding (see Dupont, 2014; Snyder, 2011), freestyle skiing and snowboarding (Ojala, 2014; Woermann, 2012), there is a need to produce and disseminate new media to gain exposure, demonstrate personal achievements (Aubel, 2005) and attract sponsors. Indeed, without constantly communicating about their ascent, Jorgeson and Caldwell would have substantially restricted the reach of their feats to a circle of close friends.…”