Trumping the Uber-Sport Assemblage

Notes on the uses of sport in Trump’s white nationalist assemblage

“…As each of the above examples show, Trump and those in the Trump white nationalist assemblage have repeatedly circulated their ideologies and affects in and through refer-Przegląd Narodowościowy / Review of Nationalities nr 9/2019 ences to sport, sporting language, or in sporting spaces whether on the campaign trail, at Trump rallies, via Twitter, on cable television, or in the on-line spaces of the alt-right. Despite this consistent representational pattern, the role of sport in the production and dissemination of these white supremacist qua white nationalist ideas has been largely overlooked, dismissed, or minimized by many academics and pundits, with only a few exceptions (Andrews, 2019;Falcous, Hawzen, Newman, 2018). In this essay, I have provided ample empirical evidence of the varied ways Trump used sport to model and venerate a performance of white male omnipotence, vital to popularizing their projects of white nationalism.…”

“…While this emergent sporting nationalist idiom is not in any sim-Przegląd Narodowościowy / Review of Nationalities nr 9/2019 ple way uniformly linked to any particular ideological, political, or racial meanings, at the very least it primed American publics for the use of nationalist languages by a politician like Trump. In his analysis of the links between sport and what some have called 'Trumpism, ' David Andrews argues that today's American 'uber-sport' formation -of which the language of sporting 'nations' is a key part -tends to reinforce more socially conservative ideas about nation through consumer-friendly norms, values, and practices (Andrews, 2019). So while it is tempting to cast Trump and his campaign as the origin of a decisive shift in white hegemony in 2016, today's American white nationalist assemblage was enabled by social and discursive conditions already in place in the post-9/11 era just waiting for a strongman political candidate to emerge who was more than willing to exploit growing sentiments of white anger and wounded masculinity just as Trump did.…”

“Willpower knows no obstacles”: Examining Neoliberal Postfeminist Messaging in Nike’s Transnational Advertisements for Women

“…Though the company has constructed a brand identity based on supporting women athletes, their advertisements advance a particularly commodified, neoliberal, Western-centered message of feminist empowerment that ultimately obscures the complex and multidimensional identities of women around the world and opposes the more radical project of envisaging transnational, anti-capitalist feminist solidarities. The corporation’s neoliberal postfeminist messaging is reflective of the commercial, corporatized, marketized dictates of uber-sport , the dominant neoliberal model of sport that dominates the global sporting industry (Andrews, 2019). Thus, challenging this recapitulation of neoliberal logic, as evidenced in Nike’s transnational marketing strategies, requires challenging the dominance of neoliberal uber-sport and, indeed, neoliberalism itself.…”

Lógica de mercado, lógica espetacular, cultura do consumo e Champions League

“…As características principais dessa lógica de estruturação do futebol podem ser sintetizadas da seguinte maneira: o protagonismo de grandes corporações no âmbito futebolístico ou em setores adjacentes, guiados por altos perfis gerenciais e caracterizados pela lógica de capital e pela orientação ao lucro na organização e nas decisões mais importantes relativas à competição e à sua forma; a promoção de marcas futebolísticas e de empresas adjacentes; a espetacularização dos eventos, concebidos para atrair público e consumidores de produtos e serviços; a utilização de celebridades para criar e consolidar conexões identitárias e parassociais com os torcedores e explorá-las para fins lucrativos (ANDREWS, 2019).…”