Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society [2 ed.] 0134682904, 9780134682907

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This book is dedicated to Heather, Emma, Christopher, Desirée, and Bailey.

Contents Preface   ix Acknowledgments  xiii Contributors   xiv

1 Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society   1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   1 Introduction   2 Sociology as a Social Science   5 Origins of the Sociology of Sport   8 Defining Sport: Power at Play   10 Defining Physical Culture   12 The Sociological Imagination   13 Key Sociological Concepts   17 Social Structure and Agency   17 Power   17 Hegemony and Ideology   19 Conclusion   20 Key Terms   21 Critical Thinking Questions   22 Suggested Readings   22 Endnote 22 References   23

2 Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory   25 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   25 Introduction   26 Understanding Sociological Theory: General Themes and Historical Contexts   26 Theory versus “Common Sense”   26 Historical Context   28 Putting Theories in Context   30 Social Facts: Émile Durkheim and Structural Functionalism   30 Émile Durkheim   30 The Functions of Sport   31 Criticisms of Functionalism   33 Class and Goal-Rational Action: Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Conflict Theory   33 Karl Marx   33 Max Weber   35 Conflict Theory and Sport   36

Understanding Everyday Experiences: George Herbert Mead and Symbolic Interactionism   38 George Herbert Mead   38 Microsociology and Sport   40 Critical Social Theories   41 Critical Theories   41 Gender Relations and Sexuality   43 Critical Race Studies   45 Conclusion   46 Key Terms   47 Critical Thinking Questions   48 Suggested Readings   48 References   49

3 Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective   51 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   51 Introduction   52 The Sociological Imagination and its Historical Sensitivity   54 Applying a Historical Sensitivity   54 The Humboldt Tragedy, Canadian Hockey, and the History of Organized Sport in Canada   56 The Development of Organized Sport in Canada   56 Hockey and Canadian Nationalism   58 The Fight for Inclusion   66 Indigenous Peoples, Racism, and Hockey   68 Conclusion   69 Key Terms   70 Critical Thinking Questions   70 Suggested Readings   71 References   71

4 Sport and Social Stratification   73 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   73 Introduction   74 Sport and Social Stratification: Some Preliminary Terms   74 Social Inequality: The Canadian Profile   76 Factors Contributing to Economic Inequality   79 v

Early Theories of Class   82 Karl Marx   82 Max Weber   83 Bourdieu’s Contemporary Theory   84 Unequal Class Relations and the Financial Burden of Sport Participation   87 Conclusion   90 Key Terms   91 Critical Thinking Questions   91 Suggested Readings   92 References   92

5 Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada   95 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   95 Introduction   96 Terminology   97 The Ethnic and Racial Structuring of Canada   97 Race and Ethnic Relations   98 Non-Whitestream Race- and Ethnic-Structured Sport Systems   101 Using Theory to Make Sense of Ethnicity and Race in Sport and Physical Culture   104 Francophones and Sport in Canada   105 Race and Sport   106 Racial Patterns in Canadian Sport: The Persistence of Whitestream Sport   108 Indigenous Peoples and Sport   111 Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action: Challenging Whitestream Sport   113 Conclusion   115 Key Terms   115 Critical Thinking Questions   116 Suggested Readings   116 References   117

6 Sex, Gender, and Sexuality   121 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   121 Introduction   122 Clarifying Our Terms   122 Social Construction: A Framework for Thinking about Gender Norms   124 Is Sport Really a Male Thing?   125 Female Athletes in Sport Media   128 Sex and Gender Differences in Sport   129 Separate Events for Men and Women   130 Sex Testing in Sport   132

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Transgender Athletes in Sex-Segregated Sport   133 Lesbian and Gay Issues   135 Feminism and Women’s Sport   136 The Transformation of Women’s Sport   137 Conclusion   139 Key Terms   140 Critical Thinking Questions   140 Suggested Readings   141 References   141

7 Youth Sport and Physical Culture   145 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   145 Introduction   146 Prolympism and Defining “The Child”   146 Youth Sport and Socialization   148 Youth Sport Participation: How Many, Who, and in What Ways?   150 Policies, Recommendations, and Guidelines about Young People   152 Physical Literacy and Digital Health Technologies   155 Dropout and Withdrawal in Youth Sport   156 “Alternative” Youth Sport   158 Parents, Coaches, Ethics, and Fair Play   159 Conclusion   161 Key Terms   162 Critical Thinking Questions   162 Suggested Readings   163 References   163

8 Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture   167 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   167 Introduction   168 Conceptualizing Deviance   169 Deviance and Otherness   170 Deviantized Bodies and Embodiments   171 Social Control   174 Deviance on the “Field of Play”   175 Drugs in Sport   175 Which Drugs?   176 Policing Performance-Enhancing Drugs   178 Deviance off the Field of Play   179 Deviantized Sports and Sporting Identities   181 Conclusion   183 Key Terms   183

Critical Thinking Questions   184 Suggested Readings   184 References   184

9 Violence and Sport   187 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   187 Introduction   188 Describing and Classifying Forms of Violence   189 Theories of Violence   191 Violence, Masculinity, and the Sociological Imagination: Historical Sensitivity   193 Contemporary Sporting Violence   195 Thinking Sociologically about Fighting in Hockey and “The Code”   195 The Costs and Consequences of Violence   196 A Critical Framework for Understanding Violence in Sport   198 Three Forms of Male Athlete Violence   198 Injury, Violence, and Sport Culture   200 Sports-Related Violence: A Wider View   202 Hazing in Sport   204 Conclusion   205 Key Terms   206 Critical Thinking Questions   207 Suggested Readings   207 References   207

10 Sport and Health   210 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   210 Introduction   211 The Health Implications of Conceptualizing the Body as Machine   211 Sport as Panacea?   215 Healthism and the Neoliberal Era   217 The Darkest Side of the Culture of Risk   219 Conclusion   224 Key Terms   225 Critical Thinking Questions   225 Suggested Readings   226 Endnote 226 References   226

11 Sport, Media, and Ideology   231 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   231 Introduction   232 The Sports–Media Complex   235

Continuity and Change in the Canadian Sports–Media Complex   236 The CTV Era   237 A New Sport Broadcasting Order?   238 The End of “Viewing Rights” for Canadians?   240 The Ideological Role of the Media   241 (Re)presenting Sport   241 Gender and Sexuality   243 Militarism and Nationalism   245 Race and Ethnicity   247 Sports Journalism: Critical Thinking?   249 Conclusion   251 Key Terms   253 Critical Thinking Questions   253 Suggested Readings   253 Endnotes 254 References   254

12 Sport, Politics, and Policy   257 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   257 Introduction   258 Defining and Understanding Politics and Policy   258 Where and How Do Sport and Politics Intersect?   262 Sport and International/Global Politics   263 Sport and National/State-Level Politics   265 Sport and “Deep Politics”   266 The Politics of Sports Mega-Events in Canada   267 Vancouver 2010   272 The Changing Politics of High Performance Sport and Athlete Assistance   275 Conclusion   277 Key Terms   278 Critical Thinking Questions   278 Suggested Readings   278 Endnotes 279 References   279

13 The Business of Sport   283 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   283 Introduction   284 Overview of Professional Sports   284 Canadian Football League   285 Major League Baseball   286 Major League Soccer   286 National Basketball Association   286 National Football League   287 National Hockey League   287

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League Structure and Policy   288 Cartels and Sports Leagues   289 The Reserve Clause, Free Agency, and Monopsony Power   290 Work Stoppages and Collective Bargaining   291 Other League Policies   292 Team Outcomes   295 Ownership Forms   295 Revenue Streams   296 Public Policy on Sports Leagues   299 Facility Construction Subsidies   299 International Issues: The Olympic Games and World Cup   301 Mega-Event Bidding and Costs   302 Mega-Event Legacy Effects   303 Conclusion   305 Key Terms   305 Critical Thinking Questions   306 Suggested Readings   306 Endnote 307 References   307

14 Globalization, Sport, and International Development   309 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   309 Introduction   310 Connecting Globalization to Sport   311 Theories of Globalization, Development, and Inequality   312 Globalization and Indigenous Peoples   313 Globalization and Capitalism   314 Approaching and Studying Globalization   315 Globalization and International Development   317 International Development and Postcolonialism   319 Sport in Globalization and International Development   320 The Emergence of SDP   321 Sport and the Sustainable Development Goals   322 Research in SDP   323 Conclusion   325 Key Terms   326 Critical Thinking Questions   326 Suggested Readings   326 References   327

15 Sport and the Environment   330

Sport and Environmental Issues: What’s the Problem?   332 How Environmental Changes Impact Sport   333 How Sport Impacts the (Natural) Environment   336 Sociology, the Environment, and Sport   339 Sustainability and Sport   340 Ecological Modernization and Sport: A More Nuanced Version of Sustainability   341 Reflections on Environmental Politics: Maintaining and Resisting the Status Quo   347 Conclusion   349 Key Terms   350 Critical Thinking Questions   351 Suggested Readings   351 References   351

16 Sport and the Future   355 LEARNING OBJECTIVES   355 Introduction   356 Governance   357 Prediction #1  358 Prediction #2  359 Prediction #3  360 Prediction #4  362 Globalization   363 Prediction #5  364 Prediction #6  366 Technology and Media   366 Prediction #7  366 Prediction #8  367 Prediction #9  369 Environment   369 Prediction #10  371 An Invitation to Consider Other Questions about the Future of Sport and Physical Culture   371 How Sociologists and Others Can Drive Social Change   373 Strategies for Change   373 Conclusion   374 Critical Thinking Questions   374 Suggested Readings   375 References   375

LEARNING OBJECTIVES   330

References   377

Introduction   331

Index   403

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Preface Students who study the social dimensions of sport and physical culture inevitably bring their own perceptions and taken-for-granted understandings of what these popular practices are all about. It makes sense that these perceptions are often grounded in their own personal and individualized experiences in sport and physical culture. These perspectives are, of course, valuable, but they can also be limiting, as people often do not consider how their own immediate experiences emerged from and are related to our societies’ histories, and to the broader structural influences that exert enormous influence on our lives. For example, the ways people are governed, the media people use and are exposed to, and the ways that inequities in society have been and are currently dealt with, are all in some way relevant to experiences with, understandings of, and access to sports and physical culture. This text is based on the idea that historical, comparative, and critical reflection is needed if we are to better understand, and indeed work towards improving, relationships between and in sport, physical culture, and society. Indeed, in many instances, after completing one or two sociology and history courses, the perceptions of students often change quite dramatically as they cultivate and refine their own sociological imaginations. Students learn, for example, that the opportunities to participate in various sports in Canada are by no means equitable, and that significant and enduring issues and problems remain in contemporary sport and physical culture. More importantly, they learn that the personal troubles that individuals experience along these lines are intimately connected to public issues of social structure and historical relations. Although this text has a deliberately distinct Canadian focus and emphasizes our unique social history, we live in a world that has never been more interconnected. Indeed, what happens in the world of sport (and beyond sport) outside of our borders influences sport in our country. Canadians have, of course, historically embraced a wide range of local sport and athletic heroes, in addition to following the most popular continental major league sports through the mass media. Today, we also follow teams and sports from around the world, including the most popular European soccer leagues and other international competitions on a host of digital and, increasingly, interactive platforms. For generations, moreover, waves of immigrants have been bringing their own sports and physical cultures to Canada, thus expanding the sporting horizons of Canadians and the structure of the country itself. While Canada has similarities with other countries, we are unique, and, over time, we have shaped our own cultural ideologies and institutions, including our ways of interpreting and playing sport, sometimes in competing and contradictory ways.

THE CONTENT OF THE TEXT Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society contains 16 chapters. Because the chapter sequence has been purposely coordinated, we recommend that the chapters be read consecutively. However, since the content of each chapter is distinctive, it is certainly possible to read the chapters in an altered order, or as standalone contributions. Each chapter concludes with relevant Critical Thinking Questions, Suggested Readings, and References. ix

In a revised first chapter, Drs. Jay Scherer, Brian Wilson, and Jane Crossman set the stage for the book, and provide readers with a foundation for thinking sociologically about sport and physical culture in Canada. In doing so, they underline the social significance of sport and physical culture in Canada and introduce a host of key sociological concepts, such as social structure, agency, power, ideology, hegemony, and the sociological imagination, among others. In Chapter 2, Dr. Ian Ritchie presents a wonderfully rich historical overview of the main sociological theories that have been used by sociologists of sport to understand sport and physical culture. Since it is impossible to provide a complete inventory of the myriad of sociological theories, he focuses on four theories that have influenced the development of the field: structural functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, and critical social theories. In an entirely new historical chapter, Dr. Carly Adams invites students to refine their sociological imaginations by bringing a historical sensitivity to the analysis of contemporary issues in sport and physical culture. In so doing, Adams provides an important historical treatment of the development of modern sport in Canada. She pays particular attention to the groups that have exerted ideological and moral leadership in institutionalizing various sports and “preferred ways of playing” that have set powerful limits and pressures on the sporting opportunities of Canadians, especially along the lines of social class, gender, and race and ethnicity. Dr. Rob Beamish, the author of a revised fourth chapter, provides students with an insightful overview of sport and social stratification in Canada, with a particular focus on class relations and economic inequality. He outlines the main sociological theories that have focussed on social class, as well as the contemporary studies that have explored the relationship between sport participation and income, with a particular focus on the expansion of economic inequality in Canada over the course of the past three decades. In a revised Chapter 5, a new lineup of scholars—Drs. Victoria Paraschak, Matias Golob, Janice Forsyth, and Audrey Giles—critically explore a host of issues associated with race and ethnicity in sport and physical culture in Canada against the backdrop of unequal power relations. They demonstrate how sport has historically been structured to privilege certain racial and ethnic groups over others, and that many of these issues endure in contemporary Canadian society. In a crucial addition to the chapter, the authors have included a new section, Indigenous Peoples and Sport, with specific reference to the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015) and, in particular, its sport-related Calls to Action. In a revised sixth chapter, Drs. Mary Louise Adams and Sarah Barnes critically examine a range of contemporary issues and debates relevant to gender, sexuality, and sport. Adams and Barnes do not shy away from controversial topics such as separate sporting events for men and women, sex testing in sport, and sport typing (e.g., why certain sports are “male only”). They have also included, in this edition, an expanded discussion of the impact of the #MeToo movement in sport, and an analysis of the questions that surround the inclusion of transgender athletes in various sports and physical cultures against the backdrop of a changing sex/gender system. Chapter 7 is an exciting new addition to the textbook. In underlining some of the most recent and troubling issues in youth sport and physical culture, Jesse Couture and Dr. Jason Laurendeau hold up the concept of “prolympism”—as a dominant structure and ideology—for critical reflection, especially in light of high dropout rates across various sports. So, too, do they address the ongoing concerns about sexual harassment and abuse in youth sport. They also explore the emergence of x

Preface

alternative youth sport opportunities, including those driven by young people ­themselves—trends that will continue to alter and challenge the dominant sports culture in the years to come. The authors of the revised eighth chapter, Drs. Jason Laurendeau and Danielle Peers, explore how deviance—and by extension, normalcy—is conceptualized and understood, and how the power relations within which these distinctions are embedded. Along these lines, the authors also introduce an expanded discussion about the institutionalization of the Paralympic Games and the debates over who can participate in this sporting event. They also critically examine a wide range of topics and issues in sport and physical culture, including the debates over the use of performanceenhancing drugs in sport in relation to key concepts such as “positive deviance.” Dr. Stacy Lorenz, the author of a revised Chapter 9, invites students to explore competing theories of violence to help understand violence in sport and physical culture. In focusing on a host of historical issues associated with the development of sport and masculinity, Lorenz offers an insightful examination of debates over the role of fighting in men’s hockey. In light of several recent high-profile lawsuits, Lorenz also provides a critical discussion about the prevalence of head injuries and concussions in sport. The chapter concludes with a broader exploration of other instances of sports-related violence, including still frequent instances of hazing in youth sport. In Chapter 10, another new addition to the text, Dr. Parissa Safai builds on the preceding chapter by considering a number of issues pertaining to the relationships between sport and health. She focuses on the implications of popular taken-forgranted notions that equate bodies to machines while also discussing the culture(s) of risk and the normalization of pain and injury tolerance in sport. The chapter concludes with a thoughtful discussion about how the sociological imagination can help us make sense of contemporary issues related to mental health in sport, and how dominant values that underlie sport and society are linked to a range of sport-related health issues. Chapter 11, Sport, Media, and Ideology, revised by Drs. Jay Scherer and Mark Norman, explores the power of the media in setting decisive limits and pressures on how Canadians consume sport, including a host of new digital opportunities for today’s “prosumers.” They begin by providing a historical overview of the sports– media complex in Canada, and the struggles between various networks to secure the rights to air popular sports content. They then present a critical analysis of the dominant ideological themes associated with televised sport, including consumerism, nationalism, and militarism, as well as other gender and racial/ethnic ideologies. They also, however, note the emergence of alternative, and, indeed, critical forms of media that are challenging the dominant power structures of the sports– media complex. Chapter 12 is another new chapter, which explores the often taken-for-granted links between sport, physical culture, and politics. In so doing, Dr. David Black and Maya Hibbeln hold up important policy decisions—like the decisions to invest hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds to host sport mega-events, or the investment of public resources in high profile elite athlete assistance programs like Own the Podium—for critical reflection. They underline the power of various interest groups to unevenly shape these types of far-reaching decisions, even in the face of opposition. In a revised Chapter 13, Drs. Brad Humphreys and Brian Soebbing provide a critical overview of the unique economic structure of major league sport. Included here is a focus on labour relations, as well as a discussion of ownership patterns of Preface

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major league sports franchises in relation to social class, gender, and race and ethnicity. Building on the previous chapter, they also explore—and, at times, debunk—the economic arguments that are often summoned by proponents to justify the use of public funds to build new arenas and stadium developments, or to host sporting events like the Olympic Games. In Chapter 14, another new addition to the text, Drs. Simon Darnell and Lyndsay Hayhurst introduce the concepts of globalization and uneven development, before inviting students to consider the myriad ways in which sport and physical culture have been powerfully structured against the backdrop of these processes in recent years. Included in this new chapter is a critical discussion on the history and institutionalization of Sport for Development and Peace initiatives, and the opportunities and, inevitably, the challenges that arise through these wellintentioned ­programs. In a new penultimate chapter, Drs. Brian Wilson and Brad Millington consider links between sport, physical culture, and environmental issues. They outline, on one hand, how environmental issues impact (and may impact, in the future) sport and physical culture, and on the other hand, how sport and physical cultural activities impact (and may impact) the environment. Their chapter focuses especially on how sport organizations have responded to concerns about sport-related environmental problems, and the range of inequities that are associated with environmental issues more generally. The chapter includes definitions and critical reflections on key concepts like “sustainability” and “ecological modernization”—concepts that are commonly used to guide and understand ways that sport organizations and others respond to environmental issues. Finally, Drs. Brian Wilson and Jay Scherer frame the revised final chapter on the future of sport and physical culture around four overarching categories that have been associated with major social changes: governance, globalization, technology and media, and the environment. The chapter offers a set of predictions that are intended to inspire thinking about current trends in sport, physical culture, and society, and what sport, physical culture, and society might look like in the future. The chapter closes with an outline of strategies through which students of the sociology of sport and physical culture might contribute to and advocate for social change in and around sport and physical culture. New to this edition, an instructor’s manual will be made available from our catalogue. On behalf of all the contributors, we hope that you enjoy reading this book, and that it provides you with a solid sociological foundation from which to further understand and think critically about all of the rich dimensions of sport and physical culture in Canadian society. Jay Scherer and Brian Wilson

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Acknowledgments This book has been more than three years in the making. As editors, we would like to thank those colleagues, friends, and family, as well as others, without whom this book would simply never have come to fruition. First, the completion of this text would not have been possible had it not been for the willingness of the contributors to share their expertise and teaching experiences. To each of them we extend our sincere gratitude for their enthusiasm for the project, for their willingness to make revisions when necessary, and for their patience with us throughout the editorial process. We trust that readers will appreciate their knowledge, insights, and wisdom. The editors and contributors benefited tremendously from the advice and guidance of our colleagues in their reviews of various chapters in the text. We would like to thank the following reviewers: David Erickson, Western University Larena Hoebner, University of Regina Hernan Humana, York University Sherry Huybers, Dalhousie University Nicole Neverson, Ryerson University Robert J. Lake, Douglas College Cathy Mills, Douglas College Kate Milne, Douglas College Ashwin Patel, Humber College Greg Rickwood, Nipissing University Braden Te Hiwi, Lakehead University Wade Wilson, University of Waterloo We would also like to thank Pearson for the opportunity to publish a second edition of this text. In pursuit of this endeavour, we are grateful for the support of Portfolio Manager Keriann McGoogan; Content Manager Madhu Ranadive; and Content Developer Katherine Goodes. Perhaps our biggest debt of gratitude, though, is owed to Jane Crossman, who was instrumental in preparing the foundation for this edition of the text. Jane, as many readers will know, edited two earlier textbooks (Canadian Sport Sociology), before asking Jay to become a co-editor for the first edition of this text, which was published by Pearson in 2015. Jane, now retired after a remarkable 34-year career at Lakehead University, generously “passed on the torch” to the current editors for this edition. On behalf of the contributors and all of the students who have benefited from your teaching over the years, thank you, Jane. Finally, we would like to thank our families (Heather, Emma, and Christopher, for Jay; and Desirée and Bailey, for Brian) for their unwavering support and encouragement. This book is dedicated to them. Jay Scherer and Brian Wilson

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Contributors EDITORS Dr. Jay Scherer is a professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta, where he has taught a variety of sociology of sport courses over the past 15 years. His research interests include the political debates over the construction of publicly financed major league sports facilities and entertainment districts, and the uneven impacts of these developments on pre-existing community members. His most recent book (with David Mills and Linda Sloan McCulloch) is entitled, Power Play: Professional Hockey and the Politics of Urban Development (2019). Jay is an avid fiction reader and music listener, and enjoys being active on bikes and skis in Edmonton’s river valley with family and friends. Dr. Brian Wilson is a sociologist and professor in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and director of UBC’s Centre for Sport and Sustainability. He is author of The Greening of Golf: Sport, Globalization and the Environment (2016, with Brad Millington), Sport & Peace: A Sociological Perspective (2012), and Fight, Flight or Chill: Subcultures, Youth and Rave into the Twenty-First Century (2006), as well as articles on sport, social inequality, environmental issues, media, social movements, and youth culture. His most recent work focuses on the role of sport in peace-promotion, responses to golf-related environmental concerns, and media coverage of sport-related conflicts and environmental issues. Brian is currently principal investigator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada–funded Insight Grant entitled “Real Utopian Experiments in Environmentalist Sport: A Focus on Golf.”

CONTRIBUTORS Dr. Carly Adams is a Board of Governors Research Chair (Tier II) and an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta. As a social historian and an advocate for oral history, her research explores community, identity, and gender with a focus on sport, recreation, and leisure experiences. She is the author of Queens of the Ice (Lorimer, 2011). Her work has appeared in, among others, Journal of Sport History, Journal of Canadian Studies, and International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Dr. Adams is the editor of Sport History Review. Dr. Mary Louise Adams is a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies and the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University, where she teaches courses on sport and culture, the sociology of fitness and the body, and contemporary issues in sexuality. She is the author of Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity and the Limits of Sport (2011) and The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality (1997). She has written on issues related to the history of sexuality, queer and feminist social movements, and on gender and sexuality in sport and physical activity. She is currently studying the legacies of feminism in contemporary women’s sport and trying to think philosophically about embodiment, walking, and digital fitness tracking.

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Dr. Sarah Barnes is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She teaches courses related to sport, technology, science, and culture. She recently defended her dissertation, a project that examined changing ideas about the role of sleep in athletic training. Her research interests include issues related to the history and politics of athlete health and welfare, as well as debates about science and technology in sport. Her future work will investigate how a variety of sleep enhancing products and technologies are taken up in high performance sport settings. Dr. Rob Beamish has taught at Queen’s University for 35 years, serving as an associate dean (1995−2002) and head of sociology (2004−09, 2011−17). His research centres on high performance sport and specific themes in social theory. His published work includes Marx, Method and the Division of Labor; Fastest, Highest, Strongest: The Critique of High-Performance Sport (with Ian Ritchie); The Promise of Sociology: The Classical Tradition and Contemporary Sociological Thinking and Steroids: A New Look at Performance-Enhancing Drugs. Dr. David Black is Lester B. Pearson Professor of International Development Studies, and professor and chair of political science at Dalhousie University. His research has focused primarily on Canada’s involvement in sub-Saharan Africa, human rights and identity in South African foreign policy, and sport in world politics and development—notably, the politics of sport mega-events and sport for development. His publications concerning sport include two co-edited special issues of Third World Quarterly, on “Mainstreaming sport into international development studies” (with Simon Darnell, 2011), and “Going global: the promises and pitfalls of hosting global games” (with Janis van der Westhuizen, 2004), as well as articles in Third World Thematics, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, Sport in Society, International Journal of the History of Sport, and Politikon. Other recent publications include: Canada and Africa in the New Millennium: The Politics of Consistent Inconsistency (2015); Rethinking Canadian Aid, 2nd edition (2016, co-edited with Stephen Brown and Molly den Heyer); and South African Foreign Policy: Identities, Intentions, and Directions (2017, co-edited with David Hornsby). Jesse Couture is a SSHRC-funded doctoral candidate in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia. He completed a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and earned a master’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Lethbridge. Both his undergraduate thesis and master’s thesis work are published in the Sociology of Sport Journal. Jesse is a graduate student representative for the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) and the research and information coordinator for the Centre for Sport and Sustainability at UBC. His research interests include digital health technologies, urban running cultures, social and discursive constructions of risk, and child and youth sport. An avid runner, swimmer, and cyclist, Jesse enjoys spending time playing outdoors with his partner and their two dogs. Dr. Jane Crossman is a professor emerita at Lakehead University where she held several administrative positions throughout her career including chair and graduate coordinator of the School of Kinesiology. She taught graduate and undergraduate courses in sport sociology, research methods, and mental training. Jane’s research, which pertains to the newspaper coverage of sporting events and the psychosocial dimensions of sports injuries, has been published in a number of scholarly journals. She has edited three books: Coping with Sports Injuries: Psychological Strategies for Rehabilitation (2001) and Canadian Sport Sociology (2003; 2007). Contributors

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Dr. Simon C. Darnell is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. He conducts research across the field of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP), including the role of international volunteers and NGOs in SDP; SDP and south-south development cooperation; the political economy of SDP; the history of SDP; the connections between SDP and sports mega-events; and most recently, SDP in relation to environmental sustainability and climate change. He is the author of several books on SDP, including Sport for Development and Peace: A Critical Sociology (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) and The History and Politics of Sport for Development: Activists, Ideologues and Reformers (Palgrave MacMillan, in press, with Russell Field and Bruce Kidd). He is also the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook on Sport for Development and Peace (2019), and has edited special issues of Third World Quarterly and Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health on the topic of sport for development. He is currently the principle investigator on a SSHRC Insight Grant examining the policy challenges of addressing climate change through SDP. Previously, he was a co-investigator on an ESRC (UK) grant that comparatively analyzed SDP practices across five countries (Jamaica, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Zambia). He has conducted fieldwork across Latin America, the Caribbean, and southern Africa, and made policy recommendations to various SDP organizations and stakeholders, including the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation. His experience and expertise in history, politics, social theory, and ethnographic research methods facilitate analyses of SDP that are critically informed and theoretically grounded. Dr. Janice Forsyth (Fisher River Cree Nation) is an associate professor in sociology in the Faculty of Social Science at Western University, where she is also the director of First Nations studies. Working at the intersection of history and sociology, her research seeks to better understand the ideological and structural constraints that limit Indigenous involvement in sports, as well as how Indigenous people use sports to revitalize their cultures and foster community wellbeing. Dr. Audrey R. Giles is a professor in the School of Human Kinetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa. She conducts research with Indigenous communities in northern Canada that examines the nexus of culture/gender/place and how it relates to injury prevention (particularly drowning) and sport for development. Dr. Matias Golob is a social entrepreneur dedicated to addressing the health and wellness needs of ethnic minorities and immigrant populations. His published works explore, among other things, the links between immigrant entrepreneurship, multiculturalism, and physical culture in Canadian society. A passionate outdoor adventurer, Matias enjoys hiking, biking, climbing, and paddling through the most remote areas of the world. Dr. Lyndsay Hayhurst is an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University. Her research interests include Sport for Develop­ ment and Peace (SDP), gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health in/ through SDP, cultural studies of girlhood, postcolonial feminist theory, global governance, international relations, and corporate social responsibility. She is a co-editor (with Tess Kay and Megan Chawansky) of Beyond Sport for Development and Peace: Transnational Perspectives on Theory, Policy and Practice, and her publications have appeared in Women’s Studies International Forum; Gender, Place & Culture; Third World Quarterly; and Sociology of Sport Journal. Her current research focuses on: (1)  the use of non-human objects and technologies in sport for development and

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peace—in particular, the bicycle—as possible catalysts for development; and (2)  Indigenous-focused sport for development in Canada and Australia. She has ­previously worked for the United Nations and Right to Play. Maya Hibbeln earned an honours BA in political science at Dalhousie University, where she specialized in the politics of sport at both national and international levels. She is now continuing her studies in sport and policy as an MA candidate at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Brad R. Humphreys is professor of economics in the Department of Economics, John T. Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. He received his PhD in economics from Johns Hopkins University. He previously held faculty positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Alberta. His research on the economics and financing of professional sports and the economics of gambling has been published in academic journals in economics and policy analysis, including the Journal of Urban Economics, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the Journal of Regional Science, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. He has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals in economics and public policy. He is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Economic Policy, a general interest economics journal, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Sports Economics, the International Journal of Sport Finance, the International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, and International Gambling Studies. He is the 2017−2018 Benedum Distinguished Scholar in Behavioral and Social Sciences at West Virginia University. Dr. Jason Laurendeau is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge. His research explores intersections of gender, risk, embodiment, and childhood, and his published work has appeared in such venues as Sociological Perspectives, the Sociology of Sport Journal, the Journal of Sport & Social Issues, and Emotion, Space & Society. Jason enjoys a number of sport and leisure pursuits, including cross-country skiing, hiking, backcountry camping, cycling, and swimming. He is also active in his local community. Dr. Stacy L. Lorenz is a professor of physical education and history at the University of Alberta, Augustana Campus. He teaches in the areas of sport history, sociocultural aspects of sport and physical activity, sport and social issues, and sport and popular culture. Stacy’s research interests include newspaper coverage of sport, media experiences of sport, sport and local and national identities, violence and masculinity, and hockey and Canadian culture. He is the author of Media, Culture, and the Meanings of Hockey: Constructing a Canadian Hockey World, 1896−1907 (2017). He has written several book chapters and published articles in such journals as the Canadian Journal of History of Sport, Journal of Sport History, Sport History Review, Journal of Canadian Studies, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, The International Journal of the History of Sport, and Journal of Historical Sociology. He is also a frequent media commentator on issues related to sport, society, and culture. Dr. Brad Millington is an associate professor (senior lecturer) at the University of Bath in the Department for Health. His research focuses predominantly on the relationship between sport and the environment and on health and fitness technologies. He is the author of two books: The Greening of Golf: Sport, Globalization and the Environment (2016, with Brian Wilson, Manchester University Press); and Fitness, Technology and Society: Amusing Ourselves to Life (2018, Routledge).

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Dr. Mark Norman is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster University. He completed his PhD in the Department of Exercise Sciences at University of Toronto in 2015. His research on digital media and the production and consumption of sport has been published in venues such as Sociology of Sport Journal, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, and the edited collection Digital Leisure Cultures: Critical Perspectives. His other research interests include sport in prisons and Sport for Development and Peace. In addition to his research, Dr. Norman has taught undergraduate courses at University of Toronto (Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education), Ryerson University (Department of Sociology), and McMaster University (Department of Sociology and Department of Health, Aging and Society). Dr. Victoria Paraschak is a Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Windsor, where she teaches sociology of sport, social construction of leisure, and outdoor recreation. She received a bachelor’s degree from McMaster University in 1977, a master’s from the University of Windsor in 1978, and a PhD from the University of Alberta in 1983. The primary focus of her research is Indigenous peoples in sport and in physical cultural practices more broadly. Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report in 2015, she has focused her research and teaching efforts on addressing Call to Action #87, which focuses on enhancing “public education that tells the national story of Aboriginal athletes in history.” These efforts have included working with others to enhance Wikipedia entries on elite Indigenous athletes, now numbering over 180, which are organized into three easily accessible categories: First Nations, Métis, and Canadian Inuit sportspeople, as well as creating the indigenoussporthistory.ca website. Her work focuses on power relations, social construction, and the creation, reproduction, or reshaping of cultural practices through the duality of structure. She is currently drawing on a strengths and hope perspective, which builds on a strengths rather than a deficit perspective, and incorporates a social understanding of hope that enables individuals to work together to achieve broader collective goals. Dr. Danielle Peers is a queer, disabled white settler artist, activist, and academic who is interested in how movement cultures of all kinds—including dance, recreation, and parasport—can deepen or challenge social inequalities. Danielle’s work revolves around social structures that disable, and how these structures interact with other forms of structural oppression. Danielle works as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport and Recreation at the University of Alberta. Dr. Ian Ritchie is associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. Ian received his PhD in sociology from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, where he studied classical and contemporary sociological theory. He teaches courses in sport sociology, social theory, and sociology of the modern Olympic Games. Ian’s research interests include performanceenhancing drug use in sport, the history of anti-doping rules and policies, Canadian anti-doping policy, gender and sex determination policies, the history of the Olympic Games, and social theory as it applies to sport and physical culture. His publications have been included in several journals, including the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Sport History Review, The International Journal of the History of Sport, the International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, in addition to numerous chapters in edited volumes; he is also co-author of the book Fastest, Highest, Strongest: A Critique of High-Performance Sport (Routledge, 2006, with Rob Beamish). Ian is currently writing a manuscript on the history of anti-doping policies in the modern Olympic Games. Ian lives in Fenwick, Ontario, with his wife and three children. xviii

Contributors

Dr. Parissa Safai is an associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science in the Faculty of Health at York University. Her research interests focus on the critical study of sport at the intersection of risk, health, and healthcare. This includes research on sports’ “culture of risk,” the development and social organization of sport and exercise medicine, as well as the social determinants of athletes’ health. Her research and teaching interests also centre on sport and social inequality with focused attention paid to the impact of gender, socioeconomic, and ethnocultural inequities on accessible physical activity for all. Dr. Brian Soebbing is an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta. His primary research interest focuses on the strategic behaviour of sports organizations and their constituents. Brian has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in the research areas of sport management, economics, gambling studies, and urban studies. He currently serves on eight editorial boards and is the associate editor for Sport & Entertainment Review and the International Journal of Sport Finance.

Contributors

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Chapter 1

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society Jay Scherer, Brian Wilson, and Jane Crossman

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Explain the social significance of sport and physical culture in Canada. 2 Discuss the differences between sociology and other disciplines in the social sciences.

The Canadian team wins at the Women’s Football Bronze Medal match between Brazil and Canada, 2016. Robert Cianflone - FIFA/FIFA/Getty Images

3 Explain and define key sociological concepts. 4 Discuss the importance of having a “sociological imagination.”

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Blue Jay’s Justin Smoak hits a grand slam against the Miami Marlins on August 31, 2018. Mark Brown/Stringer/Getty Images

INTRODUCTION For thousands of students enrolled in kinesiology, human kinetics, and sport-related programs across the country, the practices of sport and physical activity are so pervasive that they are widely taken for granted as a part of the rhythm of their own lives and as indelible elements of the fabric of Canadian society. By society, we mean “the structured social relations and institutions among a large community of people which cannot be reduced to a simple collection or aggregation of individuals” (Giddens & Sutton, 2017, p. 20). For many of us, our earliest childhood memories include our first athletic experiences in organized sport settings or informal experiences at the playground or in school. Moreover, sport is a popular and pleasurable everyday topic of conversation among ordinary Canadians of all ages and is widely regarded as a common sense social lubricant. We habitually discuss the chances of our favourite National Hockey League (NHL) team making the playoffs, the performance of our Fantasy Football team, the latest scandal rocking the sports world, how the high school soccer team is performing, or the latest tweet by a sports personality. Sport is intimately connected to the most significant social institutions of Canadian society, including the media, the education system, the economy, and various levels of government, as well as a broader web of social relations. Canadians are inundated with images and stories of sports and athletes that now air on an unprecedented number of specialty sport channels (such as TSN and Sportsnet) that are part of the BCE and Rogers telecommunications empires. Students will be well aware that the Internet has a never-ending reservoir of sports-specific sites offering live feeds, recent and past game results and statistics, and continual insider information about teams and players. Online fantasy leagues, meanwhile, allow millions of sports fans to control the destiny of “their” teams and chosen players at their convenience. Most city newspapers still devote an entire section to sports (in print and online), knowing that a significant percentage of readers purchase or subscribe to newspapers for the sports coverage alone— a fact not lost on advertisers in search of sizable and predictable audiences. Following Sidney Crosby’s overtime gold-medal–winning goal for the Canadian men’s hockey team at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver—a game watched by 26.5 million Canadians—Bell Canada wireless and wired networks carried the most calls and 2

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text messages in its history. In sum, sport is an extremely popular social phenomenon that has exploded in visibility and popularity in the last 30 years. Of course, we aren’t merely a nation that follows sports. Many parents devote huge amounts of time, energy, and money so that their children can participate in organized sport. Provinces, mindful of the declining fitness levels and reported obesity rates of children and youth, are taking a hard look at extending the number of hours per week devoted to physical education curricula. Canadian colleges and universities offer a wide range of intramural and interschool sports for both women and men. Some baby boomers now reaching retirement age are spending significant amounts of their leisure time actively involved in their favourite sport or physical activity. In fact, there are approximately 3,300 arenas, 1,300 curling rinks, and more than 2,300 golf courses in Canada. The 2017 Toronto Waterfront Marathon saw roughly 25,000 people cross the finish line. Many of these activities are more than sports played for the fun of friendly competition—they’re also popular social and cultural events. In many respects, we can say that as sporting activities and leisure pursuits available to Canadians have increased over the past 50 years, sport and leisure is democratizing in important and meaningful ways. Having said this, the term democratization suggests much more than an increased number of sport facilities, or even having more people involved in sport than in the past. As Donnelly and Harvey (2007) note, democratization refers to the “process of change towards greater social equality”— with a “fully democratized sport environment” including “both the right to participate, regardless of one’s particular set of social characteristics, and the right to be involved in determination of the forms, circumstances and meanings of participation” (p. 108). With this in mind, it is important to, on one hand, highlight that many groups that have historically been left out of the sport equation are now finding more opportunities to participate. The 2017 North American Indigenous Games held in Toronto, Ontario, had 5,000 competitors. Paris, France, home of the 2018 Gay Games, welcomed more than 15,000 athletes from more than 65 countries. Unprecedented numbers of girls and women now participate in a host of sporting activities they were once excluded from—especially sports that traditionally emphasized aspects of physicality for boys and men, like wrestling. On the other hand, though, and acknowledging ways that opportunities for Canadians to participate in sport and in physical culture have expanded in recent years, there remain significant and enduring issues of inequality between men and women, rich and poor, and along racial and ethnic lines, that continue to structure sporting experiences for Canadians in different ways. For example, according to the latest research paper released by Canadian Heritage (2013), there are clear patterns associated with sports participation that point to much broader structural issues that set decisive limits and pressures on who participates in sport and physical activity across the country: 1. Sport participation rates across the country continue to decline. 2. The gender gap in sport participation has increased, and men are more likely to participate in sport than women. 3. Sport participation rates decrease as Canadians get older, yet the participation rates of young Canadians are declining faster than that of older Canadians. 4. Higher income earners are more likely to participate in sport than less affluent Canadians, and household income decisively influences children’s participation in sport. 5. Sport participation of non-Anglophones is declining, and established immigrants participate in sport less than recent immigrants do. Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society

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There are other obvious disparities as well. For example, female athletes are still regularly marginalized and under-represented in the media and society at large. Furthermore, in 2018 women comprised only 29 of 100 active members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and in a 2012–2013 report, women were shown to hold only 17% of head coaching positions in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), down from 19% in 2010–2011 (Donnelly, Norman, & Kidd, 2013). Yet, while all of these observations are important and point to the fact that interest and participation in sport and physical activity are related to a number of standard sociological variables (gender, race, social class, age, geographic location, education levels, etc.), they do little to address the wider sociological significance of these seemingly obvious facts. Instead, it is more fruitful to ask, as Hall, Slack, Smith, and Whitson (1991) did almost three decades ago: Are patterns of male and female participation in sport the result of social structures and unequal power relations that favour and empower men? What is it about the class structure of Canadian society that perpetuates unequal class relations and unequal access to sport participation? Why do older Canadians continue to struggle to gain access to various sports facilities? These questions and many others  . . . connect the study of sport to the study of change and resistance in relations between dominant and subordinate groups in society. When these questions are asked, and when research uncovers interesting lines of analysis and further investigation, we show that to study sport sociology is not just of interest to a few fans but something that is important to the understanding of Canadian society. (Hall et al., 1991, p. 20)

While sport continues to offer a host of opportunities and pleasurable experiences, including fun, relaxation, and potential health-related benefits for millions of Canadians, we would be naive to believe that the world of sport is devoid of the problems, social and environmental issues, and unequal power relations present in our society. Moreover, sport regularly makes the headlines for all the wrong reasons: Discriminatory practices, exploitation of athletes, labour disputes, drug use, sexual abuse and assault, gambling, environmental damage, and the habitual glorification of violence, the byproducts of an industry focused on promoting a hypermasculine spectacle for profit. Indeed, sociologists of sport often study these sorts of problems, and how they have accompanied sport’s evolution into a more competitive, organized, and bureaucratic (i.e., more “rationalized”) enterprise. The sociological analysis of sport and physical activity provides students with the opportunity to ask thought-provoking questions using “concepts and theories that emphasize social as opposed to individual causes and that point toward structural solutions to problems identified in sport” (Hall et al., 1991, pp. 11–12). For example: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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Why has participation in sport historically been stratified by age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status? Why is a power and performance model of sport privileged over alternative ways of playing sport? Will leagues with high rates of concussions and other injuries, like the Canadian and National Football Leagues, still exist in two decades? Why do so many cities invest significant amounts of public funds in “worldclass” sports arenas and stadiums?

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■■ ■■

Why do countries spend billions of dollars to host the Olympic Games—and what are the social, economic, and environmental implications of such events? Why do gay men hesitate to come out in professional sports environments? Crucially, in thinking about these types of questions and political issues, the sociology of sport is going beyond a concern with phenomena within sport. It is seeking to demonstrate the significance of sport to some of the central problems of sociology: the explanation of structures of class, gender, and racial inequality, as well as the processes through which social change is achieved and circumscribed. (Hall et al., 1991, p. 12)

Thus, the chapters in this text will emphasize that sport is not simply a reflection or mirror of society, but “a world in its own right, with its own life and its own contradictions” (Harvey, 2000, p. 19). It is also important to recognize, though, that just as sport is shaped by the social world around us, it also actively shapes the social world. As we shall see throughout this textbook, while sport is a social practice that is influenced by broader power relations that benefit some individuals and groups more than others, it also enables individuals and groups—who may resist or subvert the status quo within or around sport. To help us think through and recognize some of the processes, complexities, and issues that are related to sport, this book offers opportunities and tools for reflecting on our preconceived ideas about sport, and how it works. For example, because of the predominance of black athletes in certain sports, we may believe that racism no longer exists in sport, or that black athletes are simply “naturally gifted.” Or, thanks to our regular exposure to hockey, we may have come to accept that fighting is simply “part of the game.” By honing our analytic skills, using some of the sociological tools offered in this book, we will be in a better position to assess the assumptions that underlie such beliefs, and consider other explanations for particular social phenomena. We will also be in a better position to consider the implications of holding particular unquestioned assumptions—and how our taken-for-granted beliefs might inadvertently contribute to systems of unequal power relations. In other words, even our most accepted beliefs and normalized values need to be held up for critical reflection and analysis, while all of the sports that we play and enjoy—and the institutions and social relations that they are connected to—need to be recognized as social and historical products that have been made and remade by Canadians over the course of many decades, against the backdrop of a range of cultural struggles. It is important, therefore, to look critically at sport to better describe and explain sport—and as a way of supporting attempts to change and improve sport. At its very root, then, the sociology of sport is creative, passionate, and exhilarating, and can reveal new insights and lines of analysis that can make crucial contributions to broader attempts to understand contemporary Canadian society.

SOCIOLOGY AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE Sociology is not a practice, but an attempt to understand. (Berger, 1963, p. 4)

Sociology is one of the social sciences, along with economics, anthropology, political science, and psychology. It is “the disciplined study of human social behaviour, especially the investigation of the origins, classifications, institutions, and development of

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human society on a global level” (Henslin, Glenday, Pupo, & Duffy, 2014, p. 5). Sociologists are interested in social interactions that take place between humans, groups, and societies. They examine the ways in which social structures, power relations, and institutions enable and constrain individuals and groups; they are concerned with the social rules and ideologies that not only bind people together, but also separate them. Yet as the English sociologist Anthony Giddens (1987) noted, it must also be emphasized that “sociology cannot be a neutral intellectual endeavour” (p. viii). Rather, it is a critical examination of the contemporary social situation with the underlying goal not only to understand social phenomena, but to improve society. Because sociology is concerned with our behaviour as social beings, subdisciplines have emerged that are broad in scope and diverse in nature. One of those subdisciplines, which forms the foundation for this book, is called the sociology of sport. The sociology of sport refers to a field of research concerned with relationships between sport and society, and especially the role of sport in social and cultural life. Sociologists of sport study humans/agents involved in sport (athletes, coaches, fans, team owners), the institutions and social structures that affect their sport experiences (education, media, economics, politics), and the processes that occur in conjunction with sport (social stratification and mobility, deviance, violence, inequality). Some of the aims of the sociology of sport include: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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to examine critically the role, function, and meaning of sport in the lives of people and the societies they form; to describe and explain the emergence and diffusion of sport over time and across different societies; to identify the processes of socialization into, through, and out of modern sport; to investigate the values and norms of dominant, emergent, and residual cultures and subcultures in sport; to explore how the exercise of power and the stratified nature of societies place limits and possibilities on people’s involvement and success in sport as performers, officials, spectators, workers, or consumers; to examine the way in which sport responds to social changes in the larger society; and to contribute both to the knowledge base of sociology more generally and also to the formation of policy that seeks to ensure that global sport processes are less wasteful of lives and resources. (ISSA, 2005)

Sociologists of sport are also concerned with how the structure of organized sport and the dominant cultural ideologies that are also associated with sport, including the oft-promoted links between hockey and “being Canadian,” are relevant to differently positioned people—with respect to, for example, class, race, age, and sexuality. Indeed, one of the main roles of sociologists is to “disentangle the complex relationships between individuals and their social world” (Naiman, 2012, p. 2). When we attend to long-held myths and taken-for-granted assumptions about the world of sport, we are in a better position to begin the work of “disentangling” these relationships. With this background, we list below some of the activities that sociologists of sport actually do: 1. Serve as experts to government agencies, public enquiries, and commissions in areas such as drugs, violence, and health education, thus contributing to their reports. 6

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2. Act as advocates for athletes’ rights and responsibilities by providing research for groups who seek to challenge inequalities of gender, class, ethnicity, age, and disability, particularly with respect to access, resources, and status. 3. Promote human development as opposed to performance efficiency models within physical education and sport science. 4. Encourage better use of human and environmental resources, thus ensuring that there is a sporting future for generations to come. (ISSA, 2005) It’s important to emphasize, then, that sociologists of sport look at a range of structural and historical explanations to help them make sense of social behaviour and social issues, on the one hand. On the other hand, psychologists examine intrinsic explanations to explain individual behaviour. However, is it enough to consider intrinsic factors and personal choices by athletes to explain the systemic use of, for example, performance-enhancing drugs in many professional sports? Or do we need to examine a host of structural issues and, indeed, the increasing rationalization of highperformance and professional sport in relation to values of competition and the significant financial rewards (sponsorship and salaries) on offer to contemporary athletes as decisive ­factors that contribute to these patterns? Alternatively, why should we consider b ­ anning performance-enhancing drugs at these levels if their use is endemic: is it cheating if everyone is doing it? Finally, why are the debates associated with drug use in sport so heavily moralized at this particular historical moment? On the contrary, why has the use of various performance-enhancing drugs been entirely normalized in other occupations and industries and actively encouraged and promoted in relation to other aspects our personal lives? Students will be well aware, for example, that other performance enhancers like Viagra and Cialis are habitually promoted during popular sports broadcasts to reach male audiences. Because we seek to both understand and denaturalize longstanding assumptions and beliefs, in addition to engaging in political dialogue and debate on how to improve contemporary sporting practices and cultures in Canadian society, the sociology of sport is a complex, controversial, and often challenging pursuit. Moreover, sociologists of sport pose difficult questions about social problems and issues that are not always answered. It is, however, a fascinating endeavour—so much so that it can foster stimulating discussion on a wide range of topics and ideas. In so doing, the chapters in this text will regularly invite you to reflect on your own sporting experiences and, indeed, hold up your own practical consciousness for critical reflection. By practical consciousness we mean your accepted beliefs—all of the things about sport and Canadian society that you may be tacitly aware of without, at times, being able to directly express or explain. Your practical consciousness is shaped by your experiences of “doing,” “consuming,” and “interacting” with various social structures, institutions, and ideologies; these are the experiences that frame the possibilities you can imagine in sport and beyond. However, your practical consciousness is far from simply reflective of dominant interests and beliefs—it is also subject to ongoing refinement (hence, practical), especially as you encounter new experiences, ideas, and information. As such, practical consciousness is never static. Actions and experiences supporting practical consciousness strengthen it, while new actions and experiences can challenge our assumptions and make us question various “truths” about what we once took for granted. For example, an adult-controlled and increasingly professionalized “power and performance” model based on competition, domination of opponents, rationalized rules, and scorekeeping is widely understood as a common sense and normal way for Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society

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children and youth to play sport in the eyes of many administrators, coaches, and parents, who themselves often grew up playing similarly structured sports. Indeed, your own practical consciousness may have been reinforced over years of engaging in these types of sporting experiences that have now simply come to seem natural (and, of course, regularly pleasurable, thrilling, and fun). Still, is this the only way that youth sport can be structured? Or, are there alternative ways of organizing sport, according to different values and principles? How did the “power and performance” model of sport come to be institutionalized as the preferred way of playing over the years? Before revisiting these ideas, though, let’s first briefly consider the origin of the sociology of sport and some of the issues associated with defining sport.

ORIGINS OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT The sociology of sport field of study is relatively new, and scientific research in the field only emerged in the 1960s.1 The 1960s and 1970s constituted an important time for the development of the study of the sociology of sport. During that time there was much unrest in North America, particularly with regard to the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War and the American civil rights movement. For example, during the medal presentation for the men’s 200 metres at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, John Carlos and Tommie Smith made a gloved Black Power salute—thereby using the global visibility provided by the Olympic Games as a vehicle to broadcast their anger with the plight of African Americans and unequal race relations in the United States. This gesture of resistance was symbolic of the imbalance of societal power that prevailed not only for African Americans, but also for other minority groups who were increasingly challenging social norms and various institutions. Sport was no exception. Sociologists understood that it was no longer enough to simply describe and celebrate sport and various athletic accomplishments; instead, they needed to examine and explain how various social institutions transform sport and, likewise, how sport can be used to transform broader social structures against the backdrop of a range of cultural struggles, pressing political debates, and social movements. The sociology of sport, then, is a subdiscipline of sociology that examines the relationships between sport and society, and studies sport as a central part of Canadian social and cultural life. While there is a range of national and international organizations associated with the sociology of sport, there is immense value in understanding sport within the context of Canadian society specifically—while also making connections to continental and, indeed, global patterns and forms of social organization. The organization of Canadian society has many similarities with the United States; however, there are also significant differences between the countries. Canadian history is, of course, substantially different from that of the United States, and there are unique social relations (between Anglophones and Francophones, Indigenous and Euro-Canadians, etc.) that point to these enduring distinctions. Canadians also have competing visions of the roles and structures of government, vastly different commitments to the provision of social services (including universal healthcare), a longstanding history of public broadcasting by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada, and, at times, radically different visions for foreign policy than Americans. It should be no surprise, then, that significant aspects of the organization and structure of Canadian sport are different compared to sport in the United States and, indeed, other parts of the world. Of course, as Jay Scherer and Mark Norman note

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Winning American track and field athletes protest with the Black Power salute at the Summer Olympic games, Mexico City, Mexico, October 19, 1968. John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

in Chapter 11, Canadians have always followed the North American major leagues in significant numbers (in addition to NCAA football and basketball). We are also now more interconnected with the rest of the world than ever before. In 2018, for example, we watched France win the FIFA World Cup in Russia with 32 nations qualifying; Brooks Koepka (United States) and Ariya Jutanugarn (Thailand) win the US Open Golf Championships; and Novak Djokovic (Serbia) and Angelique Kerber (Germany) win the singles events at Wimbledon. So, to claim that Canadian sport is a unique entity, thriving on its own without any external influences, would be naive and inaccurate. There are, however, undeniably unique elements in Canadian life and culture, and sport continues to play a significant role in providing a range of symbolic meanings and values that are important to Canadians and are part of the ongoing story that we tell ourselves about who we are and what it means to be Canadian. For example, winter sports are often thought of as distinctly Canadian cultural forms, especially sports like hockey, curling and, perhaps to a lesser extent, cross-country and alpine skiing and snowboarding. In many neighbourhoods across the country, when the weather gets cold enough, the boards go up for outdoor ice rinks, and surfaces and backyards are flooded to make rinks for thousands of Canadians to play shinny on. Sport has, moreover, the capacity to represent our communities and indeed our nation on the world stage. In the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, Canada won 29 medals to place third in the overall medal standings, and 28 medals in the Paralympic Games, to also place third overall. Both were record performances for Canadian teams. Over the course of these events, Canadians

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enjoyed a host of remarkable displays of athleticism from numerous athletes. Many of these performances—like Sidney Crosby’s gold medal goal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games; the gold medal by the Canadian women’s ice hockey team at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games; and the 1972 Summit Series between Team Canada and the Soviet Union—have been “mythologized” in Canadian culture as part of the story of who we are and what we value as a country. The sheer popularity and visibility of these sporting events and physical activities that bring together more groups of Canadians than other aspects of culture suggest that they are important features of everyday life in Canada and contribute to a distinctive Canadian cultural identity. Still, even our most cherished identities and normalized sporting practices, such as the national sport of hockey, are far from simply natural extensions of the Canadian environment. Even the definition of sport has been widely debated and contested.

DEFINING SPORT: POWER AT PLAY The meaning of the word sport has evolved over time, and until recently sport has simply been understood as an activity that requires physical exertion. For the purposes of this textbook, sport is defined as any formally organized, competitive activity that involves vigorous physical exertion or the execution of complex physical skills with rules enforced by a regulatory body. An examination of the components of this definition is worthwhile. First, in order for the activity to be competitive, the organizational and technical aspects must become important, including equipment and systematic training protocols. Second, the rules of the activity must become standardized and formalized by a regulatory body that oversees rule enforcement. “What we are talking about, in short, is the institutionalization of sport and the rationalization of both sports training and the sports organizations that sponsor training, and under whose auspices competition occurs” (Hall et al., 1991, p. 14). The notion of institutionalization is especially notable here, as it represents how particular forms of sport come to be taken for granted, and often unchallenged. Gruneau and Whitson (1993), in their classic book Hockey Night in Canada, offer a cogent definition of this term as it relates to sport, and describe how it takes place: [Institutionalization refers to] the process by which one dominant set of patterns, rules, and ways of playing has emerged to define and regulate our contemporary sense of what sport is and how it should be played. More precisely, a way of playing has come to be seen as the way of playing. This has involved certain necessary conditions, such as written rules and the creation of formal organizations capable of establishing and regulating preferred conditions and standards of play for the modern era. (p. 35)

This definition reveals how particular versions of sport become dominant; it also invites us to consider a broader range of possibilities of how sport can and should be played, and the range of ways in which sport could be understood or re-defined in the future. For example, are chess boxing (an 11-round match consisting of alternate rounds of boxing and “blitz” chess sessions) or competitive rock-paper-scissors contests sporting events? The World Chess Boxing Organization and the World Rock Paper Scissors Society may think so; others may not. What about the billion dollar industry of eSports? Also consider the made-for-TV coverage of the 10

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World Series of Poker. In his article “Sport or Not a Sport? Pot Is Split on Poker,” Mike Dodd (2006) considers this question. ESPN (the E standing for Entertainment) never called poker a sport. Certainly, a mental component is required to play poker, but is there a physical component? On the one hand, some poker players, such as Doyle Brunson, age 72, argue that there is because of the length of tournaments: “The last tournament I won, I played 18 hours one day, 16 hours the next day and 16 hours the last day. That’s pretty tough” (Dodd, 2006, p. 13C). On the other hand, some athletes might object to the use of the words poker and sport in the same sentence. Bryan Clay, the 2004 Olympic silver medallist in the decathlon, feels that “the word athlete and the word sport are getting so watered down” (Dodd, 2006, p. 13C). Even though the IOC hasn’t recognized poker, it does recognize another card game: contract bridge. Instead of focusing on the endless (but often enjoyable!) debates and discussions over the definition of sport, it is more productive to consider some of the ideas associated with how organized sport and informal ways of playing have emerged over the course of many years. In so doing, we will focus not only on formal practices associated with sport, but also on the less formalized aspects of physical activity that are important for millions of Canadians. By informal sport, we mean physical activities that are self-initiated with no fixed start or stop times. Informal sport has no tangible outcomes such as prizes or ribbons, and victory and reward are not dominant features in this form of activity: for example, children getting together after dinner to play a game of pickup baseball, playing a game of tennis with a roommate, going for a round of golf with three friends, rock climbing, or windsurfing. Here we are interested in the social significance not only of prominent forms of sport in Canadian culture, but also of games of pickup basketball, shinny, the beer leagues of old-timer hockey, softball, and all of the other informal activities that are important and popular parts of Canadian culture and everyday life. Sport (formal and informal) is socially constructed, as are all of the shared meanings about social life that shape the world in which we live. That is, sport has been invented and reinvented by generations of men and women for a wide range of purposes through historical social processes and social interactions. The idea of social construction, thus, invites us to raise questions about what is seemingly understood as simply “natural” and “normal,” and, in turn, underscores that society and all of its institutions—including sport—are always in process and “under construction,” and that the task of sociologists is to investigate this process. In other words, sport shapes and is shaped by the social world around us and through our social interactions, and because sport is a social construct it can be changed and given different forms and meanings over time, and from place to place: it can be socially reconstructed. Indeed, it scarcely needs saying that a certain activity that is considered to be a sport in one culture or subculture may simply not be considered a sport in another culture or in another era. The debates about defining sport, then, “are less important than studying the social relations and distributions of political and economic resources that have meant that some games and physical pursuits have become institutionalized features of Canadian life while others have not” (Hall et al., 1991, p. 15). Together, all of these ideas point toward the importance of embracing a critical sociological outlook that emphasizes the role of social construction in all of our lives; human beings live in historical webs of meaning that they themselves continue to make and remake. Indeed, even our most naturalized social relations and institutions (money, democracy, the legal system, etc.), as well as our taken-for-granted identities, need to be understood as historical and cultural constructs that are constantly Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society

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c­hanging as we interact with each other and within various social and historical ­structures. In this respect, we will focus on making historical and comparative connections to illuminate how various sports and their related meanings change, while also illustrating the significance of sport and human agency in processes of broader sociohistorical reproduction and transformation.

DEFINING PHYSICAL CULTURE As you may have noticed, we’ve been using the terms “physical” and “culture,” among other terms, to help us describe what sport is, and the topics that are of interest to many sociologists of sport. We doubt this is surprising for you, considering the centrality of the physical body to many discussions about sport and social issues, and the significance of culture to any kind of sociological analysis of human group life. As a way of highlighting and recognizing the ever-present interrelationships between the physical body and culture—and their relevance to a sociological understanding of sport—we have decided to include the term physical culture alongside sport in the title of this book. Social historian Patricia Vertinsky described the study of physical culture as the study of “the way [the body] moves, is represented, has meanings assigned to it, and is imbued with power” (quoted in Smishek, 2004). Hargreaves and Vertinsky’s (2007) ground-breaking collection Physical Culture, Power and the Body includes several examples of how topics like racism, gender, media representation, performance enhancement, violence, technology, surveillance, colonization, deviance, and violence—all topics covered in parts of this book—are relevant to our understandings of what bodies can do and “should” do, our bodily experiences, and relationships between power and the body. Underlying Hargreaves and Vertinsky’s understanding of the physical body is an argument that pervades this chapter, which is: to understand the body (and sport), it is crucial to attend to the social and cultural contexts that the body exists within. They state:   .  .  .  the body has undeniable biological and physiological characteristics that appear as “natural” and indisputable in commonsense thinking, but . . . these very personal and personalized beliefs are only experienced and understood within a social context. In other words, there is a clear relationship between the anatomy of the body and social roles, so that our bodies are at the same time part of nature and part of culture. (Hargreaves & Vertinsky, 2007, p. 3)

Sociologists of sport who focus especially on corporeality emphasize, like Hargreaves and Vertinsky, that the physical body is not only a biological entity, but also a social and cultural one. Seeing the body in this way means also attending to the role of bodies in relations of power and forms of domination (for example, forms of abuse in and around sport; see Chapter 9)—and how bodies can also be tools for resistance (think of subcultural activities, like parkour, that symbolically challenge the logic that underlies the design of urban spaces, and most forms of competitive sport—see Chapter 7). Alongside these understandings of the physical body, we recognize also the importance of the term culture. Although the term has been used in somewhat different ways over time, and across a range of disciplines—in this book we will work with a two-pronged definition. On one hand, culture refers here to a “way of life”— to the activities, norms, customs, values, symbols, and shared meanings and materials that we might refer to when describing how a group or society operates day-to-day.

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On the other hand, but relatedly, culture also implies the terrain of symbols and practices that not only bring people together, but are also used to disrupt and contest. As McRobbie (1991) put it, “the cultural is always a site of struggle and conflict” (p. 36). As you can see, the terms “physical” and “culture” work well together here in the sense that their meanings are conjoined and interdependent—which is to say, physical bodies are shaped by culture at the same time that culture itself includes and is shaped by physical bodies. This view of physical culture in relation to struggle and conflict aligns well with the view of sport as “contested terrain,” which is also featured throughout this book. Moreover, and since sport is itself a form of culture— and one that commonly features active bodies—it is not difficult to see how these concepts are integrally linked too. In the next sections, we discuss some of the reference points and tools that sociologists commonly use to help them understand how taken-for-granted sport and physical cultural practices are related to and emerged from broader structures, and through a range of historical developments. Importantly, by using these tools to see sport and physical culture in historical context, it will also be easier to envision how social problems and inequalities that were socially constructed can also, therefore, be socially deconstructed and changed—hopefully, for the better. Central to these ideas is the concept of the sociological imagination.

The Sociological Imagination In 1959, the US sociologist C. Wright Mills coined the phrase the sociological imagination. The term refers to a way of thinking about the world—a way for ordinary people, using a set of reflective, sociological tools, to more broadly understand “what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves” (p. 5). Mills recognized that most people, understandably, see and interpret the world from their own personal and individualized perspectives—perspectives that are grounded in the private orbits of their families, neighbourhoods, jobs, and friendships. Nearly everyone, for example, attributes their successes and their failures to their own personal initiatives and abilities, and to their immediate life circumstances. “The well-being they enjoy,” Mills (1959, p. 3) wrote, is often not attributed “to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live.” Likewise, Mills (1959, p. 1) also recognized that individualized perspectives also place limits on how we understand and interpret the obstacles and difficulties that we inevitably encounter over the course of our lives: “Nowadays men [and women] often feel that their private lives are a series of traps. They sense that within their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling, they are quite correct.” In thinking about these issues, Mills invited readers to embrace a sociological way of thinking as a way of helping them make sense of how their lives—their opportunities and their challenges—are pressured, shaped, and directed by broader social and historical forces, and to move beyond individualized and personalized ways of seeing and understanding the world. This quality of the mind—the ability to “grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (Mills, 1959, p. 6)—is the sociological imagination. Indeed, as Mills (1959, p. 6) explained: “No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history, and of their intersections within society has completed its intellectual journey.” In further explaining the interrelationships between personal biography, history, and social structure, Mills explores the troubles and problems that individuals experience from two approaches: “personal troubles of milieu” and “public issues of

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social structure.” Upon first glance, those perspectives appear to be distinct and separate entities. However, as a sociological way of thinking reveals, they are in fact intimately connected. We all have our own personal troubles in various aspects of our lives and in our immediate relations with others. For Mills, personal troubles can be addressed and resolved by an individual within the scope of a specific social setting, and often within the scope of their own character. Families, for example, face numerous personal challenges to ensure that their children are able to participate in organized minor hockey: adjusting hectic schedules to accommodate practices, games, and tournaments; negotiating increased sets of pressures and expectations as a child moves up the hockey ranks; dealing with difficult parents or coaches, etc. Individuals and families are often able to resolve these types of troubles in a specific milieu with their own resources and ingenuity. Not all troubles that families face in participating in hockey are, however, simply personal. For Mills, public issues of social structure transcend personal troubles and are related to the organization and to the larger structures of social and historical life. These are, moreover, much broader issues that cannot be resolved by simply making changes to one’s life or immediate circumstances, or by reference to an individual’s character. For example, if the entire structure of opportunity to participate in the sport of hockey has collapsed for thousands of working and middle-class families because of an economic downturn or simply because of the increased costs associated with highly professionalized minor hockey leagues, we are dealing with a public issue that will require much broader political and economic solutions. These will include solutions that address income inequality and sport participation; the structure of minor hockey itself; and, at a larger level, the structure of unequal class relations in Canadian society. In other words, the challenges that families face in participating in minor hockey are, on the one hand, a set of personal troubles of milieu, and, on the other hand, a public issue of social structure that involves many institutionalized arrangements including the economy in general and the minor hockey system in particular. As Mills explained: What we experience in various and specific milieu, I have noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes of many personal milieu we are required to look beyond them. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it sensibly is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieu. To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination (1959, pp. 10–11).

In pursuit of this intellectual journey, we want to emphasize three kinds of sensitivities associated with the sociological imagination: historical, comparative, and critical. Historical sensitivity is an awareness that brings even the smallest details of personal experience into the larger frame of history and of the historical and changing dynamics of social relations. It is also an awareness that to truly understand the sporting present, we must also understand the past. As Mills wrote: “Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? . . . . [W]hat are its essential features? How does it differ from other periods?” (1959, p. 7). With the de-emphasis of history in our educational system, the importance of a historical perspective has been marginalized across Canada over the course of the 14

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past two decades. Clearly, a lack of appreciation of Canadian history leaves us vulnerable to simply repeating the mistakes of the past. However, by neglecting our history and an analysis that stresses the reality of sociohistorical change, we also risk accepting present “realities” and social relations as natural and unchangeable, as opposed to social and historical constructs that have been continually made and remade by generations of men and women against the backdrop of a range of cultural and ideological struggles. The importance of having historical sensitivity is, of course, one of the main reasons why this text includes a comprehensive chapter about sport history (Chapter 3). In her account of the Edmonton Grads—the women’s basketball team that, between 1915 and 1940, played over 400 games and lost only 20—Ann Hall (2007) outlines the historical development of women’s basketball in Canada against the backdrop of debates over gender-based rules and broader changes to gender relations in Canadian society. The Grads played games around the world (often to remarkable crowds) and became, in many ways, unlikely ambassadors for the city of Edmonton. Still, many Canadians may be unaware of the importance of the team, and when most people think of the “City of Champions,” Edmonton’s nickname, the teams that they likely think of are the city’s professional sports franchises—the Edmonton Oilers and the Edmonton Eskimos. Indeed, for many Canadians it is simply impossible to imagine a contemporary female professional team (or league) like the Edmonton Grads that would have levels of visibility and financial remuneration on par with the world of male professional sports. In other words, we may simply take for granted that the current structure of professional sport is distinctly gendered. Comparative sensitivity is learning about how both society and sport have been socially constructed according to different meanings and forms in various cultures. Not only do we learn about other cultures, but as a result of comparative sensitivity, we come to appreciate and respect diversity and the range of ways that sport and physical activity have been institutionalized and socially constructed around the world. Indeed, one of the many values of attending university is that students live and study with people from other cultures and, hopefully, develop an appreciation of cultures other than their own. Sometimes North Americans take a myopic view of the world, particularly those who haven’t had the opportunity to travel and experience different cultures. We can often adopt the attitude that “our way is the best way” or that “our sports are the only ones that matter.” Worthy of note, in this respect, is that in North American major league baseball, the championship competition is called the “World Series,” even though teams from only two countries vie for the title. Or we may simply understand the North American versions of gridiron football as the only way of playing a sport that has numerous codes (associations of football/soccer, rugby unions, rugby leagues, etc.) and has been institutionalized in dramatically different forms in various cultures around the world. A comparative awareness, like historical sensitivity, simply grants us the perspective to be open to new ideas and possibilities and encourages us to recognize, once again, that there is nothing natural about the structure of sport or of broader social relations in Canadian society. Finally, critical sensitivity is a willingness to think and act critically about relationships of power and social change, and to try to develop wide-reaching solutions to broader public issues of social structure. Certainly, there is much to celebrate about sport: cross-country skiing on perfect snow; achieving a personal best time; the team you support winning the championship. However, our job as sociologists is to Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society

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e­ xamine sport from a critical and analytical perspective, and to make connections between personal biography, history, and public issues of social structure. One contemporary example that can help to illuminate the importance of the sociological imagination—and each of these sensitivities—is the issue of concussions in sport.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 1.1

The Concussion Crisis: Thinking Sociologically

One of the most insightful examples of the sociological imagination can be found in Ken Dryden’s (2017) book: Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador and the Future of Hockey. Having won five Stanley Cups as a goaltender with the Montreal Canadiens, Dryden is no stranger to the issues facing the game of hockey or to the NHL for that matter. Indeed, after his celebrated playing career ended, Dryden began another stage in his life: first as a celebrated author; then as an executive for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs); and later as a federal MP. In Game Change, Dryden traces the life of Steve Montador, who played over 500 NHL hockey games, but died at the age of 35 after a number of debilitating concussions and other injuries. However, instead of focusing on this personal tragedy as simply individual trouble, Dryden offers an analysis of the concussion crisis as a public issue of social structure. In so doing, he paints a much broader picture of the social, historical, and economic forces that have transformed the game of hockey and have impacted the lives of many players who have either subsequently died as a result of, or continue to live with, the devastating but often unseen injuries associated with the work world of professional hockey. In particular, Dryden examines how the sport of hockey and its rules have been both institutionalized and changed over the course of its history to become a faster and more entertaining commercial product—a development that has increased the number and the force of collisions between players and, hence, the severity of brain injuries for innumerable players, including men like Steve Montador. Since the game was invented over 140 years ago in Montreal, for example, the quality of the ice has radically improved; equipment and skates are better; professional athletes are fitter, faster, and more specialized than ever before; and, shifts are far shorter than they used to be. Indeed, as Dryden reminds us, the original version of the game of hockey was considerably slower: the game was played in two 30-minute halves, and player substitutions were not allowed to re-enter the game. Players were required, in other words, to remain

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on the ice for the duration of the contest. The game was slower for another reason: like the sport of rugby, no forward passes were permitted. In thinking of solutions that could address the concussion crisis in hockey, however, Dryden cautions against the promotion of implausible and unrealistic options, including simply returning to the original version of the game. Likewise, he also recognizes that the concussion crisis will not be solved through individual solutions, by changes to individual behaviour, or in reference to the character of individual hockey players. Instead, he offers two concrete recommendations and rule changes that could immediately make the game safer for all of today’s players and for future athletes: no finishing checks and no hits to the head whatsoever, including an end to fighting. In anticipation of ideological opposition to his proposed changes, especially by traditionalists who would decry any change that made the game less masculine, Dryden reminds readers that the game has been changing since its inception; that it is played differently in other contexts, cultures, and settings; and, finally, that the safety of players—including young ­ ­ children—must always trump invented traditions. In so doing, Dryden also invites readers to consider the social pressures around gender and masculinity, as well as broader power relations in the work world of hockey that discourage players from reporting concussions; despite having “agency.” For example, many athletes decide to simply play through pain—and often self-medicate—for a variety of reasons: to retain a spot on the team; to keep earning a paycheque; to be a good teammate; and to not show weakness. In summing up, Dryden underlines the need to think critically about how power and resources operate in these types of debates. Indeed, for Dryden, the main individual with the power and resources to address the concussion crisis and to change the rules of how hockey is played is the NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman: “Those who have power understand power. The rest of the hockey world understands that on any issue, if they disagree with the NHL, it is at their peril. They are all beholden to Bettman. They know it, and Bettman knows it” (p. 331).

Students are invited to develop their own sociological imagination to understand how their lives are inextricably linked to broader public issues that arise largely from power imbalances in our social structure. The sociological imagination provides students with the opportunity to think critically about sport and about how change occurs in Canadian society, especially in relation to the concepts of structure, agency, power, ideology, and hegemony.

KEY SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS Social Structure and Agency Sociologists have long been concerned with understanding the relative balance between a society’s influence on individuals (its structure) and the ability of individuals to act and shape society (agency). Or, as Karl Marx once explained, it is indeed people who make history (agency), but not under circumstances that they have freely chosen (structure). Every society has a social structure: the patterned relationships that connect different parts of society to one another (from individuals to the entire society of economic structures, political structures, structures of gender and race/ethnicity, and structures of sexual relations). Agency, meanwhile, is the ability of individuals and groups to act independently in a goal-directed manner and to pursue their own free choices to both act and shape society. Social structures set powerful limits and boundaries within which we live our lives that often appear to be quite “natural”—they become limits and boundaries when individuals and groups give meaning to them and interact with them. Structures, in this sense, can facilitate or restrict the capacity of individuals or groups (either consciously or unconsciously) to act. The term “structure” is itself a somewhat misleading concept simply because it implies a sense of permanence—like the foundation or frame of a building. However, while structures need to be understood as enduring entities that work to constitute a society, they are neither permanent nor unalterable. Importantly, structures are also transformed when we interact with them; our actions are enabled and constrained by structures and those actions can, in turn, reproduce and maintain those structures or transform and produce new structures via social change. Structures, thus, imply agency. As noted above, sociology “involves an attempt to understand the degree to which human agents, whether individual or collective, are constrained to think and act in the ways they do” (Gruneau, 1999, p. 1) by social structures that are external to themselves and beyond their control. Finally, social structures are often categorized as rules and resources. By rules we mean both the internal assumptions and ideologies embraced by men and women as common sense—your practical consciousness—and the external laws, regulations, and policies that set limits and possibilities with respect to how we can act in our social lives. Resources, meanwhile, are the capacities that enable individuals or groups to engage in various practices and are divided into three main components: financial (money), material (equipment, property, etc.), and human (other agents, status). Rules and resources enable social practices, relations, and institutions to be reproduced by groups and individuals over time, albeit unequally.

Power Power is “the capacity of a person or group of persons to employ resources of different types in order to secure outcomes” (Gruneau, 1988, p. 22). In this sense, Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society

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power can be understood as a level of control or prestige of one group over another as an exercise of agency, or “the ability of an individual or group to carry out its will even when opposed by others” (Naiman, 2012, p. 6). Power, of course, implies the existence of power relations and inevitably resistance. Groups and individuals differ in terms of power with respect to access to resources (financial, material, and human) and to benefits derived from rules (internal and external). In Canada and indeed around the world, the Occupy Movement drew our attention to unequal power relations along the lines of social class and the growing gap between the wealthiest 1% of Canadians, and the influence they wield at political and economic levels, and the other 99% in our country. The Idle No More movement, meanwhile, cast a critical spotlight on the continuation of unequal power relations between Euro-Canadians and Indigenous peoples and the historical significance of colonization in Canada. Despite significant gains by the women’s movement, feminists continue to draw our attention to the unequal power relations between men and women, including the underrepresentation of women in positions of economic, political, religious, and military power, and in the world of sport. We want to follow Rick Gruneau (1988, p. 22) by suggesting that there are at least “three notable measures of the ‘power’ of different social groups” that need to be fully considered in the sociological analysis of sport. They are the capacity to: 1. structure sport in preferred ways and to institutionalize these preferences in sports rules and organizations; 2. establish selective sports traditions; and 3. define the range of “legitimate” practices and meanings associated with dominant sports practices. It’s important to emphasize, again, that sport is a social practice shaped by broader power relations and that it benefits some individuals and groups more than others. Indeed, to have power and achieve a result or social change, one needs access to a range of resources and favourable rules. For example, consider the debate over the exclusion of women’s ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver in relation to the sociological concepts of structure, agency, and power. In 2006, the IOC rejected an application by the International Ski Federation to include women’s ski jumping at the 2010 Olympic Games. The IOC ruled that women’s ski jumping was not yet fully established as a legitimate sport and, hence, did not deserve to be an Olympic event. In response to this ruling, a group of 15 female ski jumpers secured a range of human, financial, and material resources and took legal action against the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) on the grounds that a publicly funded sporting competition that included male ski jumpers but excluded female jumpers was in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The women argued that ski jumping was not a new event and that VANOC’s decision was simply representative of a long pattern of discrimination against female athletes in women’s ski jumping and in sport in general. While admitting that the decision was discriminatory, the judge ruled that the IOC (and not VANOC) had exclusive control over the decision, and thus VANOC could not be held accountable. Moreover, the decision acknowledged that because the IOC exists as an

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international nongovernmental organization, it was not subject to the constitutional laws of Canada. As a result, the women lost their case (and further appeals) and were prohibited from participating in Vancouver. Still, despite this outcome, the agency of these women set the stage for the eventual inclusion of women’s ski jumping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, albeit with certain caveats that are explored in Chapter 3—a salutary example of social change that underlines the sociological significance of rules, resources, and power relations.

Hegemony and Ideology Finally, an overriding theme throughout this textbook is hegemony, which comes from the Greek word hegemonia, meaning leadership. The Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci developed the theory of hegemony (which will be outlined in more detail in the next chapter) to draw attention to some of the effects of dominant ideologies and ideas in the maintenance (or challenging) of various power relations in society. By ideology, we mean common sense “ideas and widespread beliefs in a society that serve, often indirectly, the interests of dominant groups and legitimize their position” (Giddens & Sutton, 2017, p. 141). In particular, Gramsci was interested in understanding how various societies with obvious unequal power relations and inequalities (class, race, gender, etc.) were consensually held together, and how those uneven social relations were normalized and made to appear as natural and unchangeable. For Gramsci, the ability of dominant individuals and groups (with more power and resources) to establish and rationalize ideological systems of meanings and values as “common sense”—thus smoothing over uncomfortable contradictions and unequal power relations—was a vital step in the maintenance of their positions of moral and intellectual leadership in democratic societies. Gramsci’s ideas about hegemony, for example, force us to consider all of the ways in which our daily experiences in sport and beyond become a part of our everyday practical consciousness, “a common sense that offers us ‘normal’ aspirations and ways of feeling, as well as orthodox ideas” (Hall et al., 1991, p. 45). Historically, the longstanding belief that sport was by its very nature a masculine endeavour restricted the opportunities of girls and women (and, by extension, boys and men) to participate in various physical activities—including the recent ski jumping example. Indeed, to this day, a particular vision of masculinity based on aggression, violence, and emotional stoicism, what the Australian sociologist R.A. Connell (1990, 2005) has called hegemonic masculinity, is culturally exalted in competitive sport and in broader Canadian society in a way that reinforces unequal power relations between men and women. It is a dominant vision of masculinity that many boys and men consent to as something that is entirely “natural” and “self-evident,” even while hegemonic masculinity is being perpetually challenged, reinforced, and reconstructed in relation to other forms of masculinity and femininity. Thus, the value in Gramsci’s approach is that it politicizes our analysis about culture and sport in Canadian society—and thus forces us to recognize that what we understand as our practical consciousness “cannot really be understood without reference to social structures within which particular cultural practices are privileged, and particular vocabularies or motives are presented not just as right but as natural” (Hall et al., 1991, p. 45).

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CONCLUSION Sociology is more like a passion. (Berger, 1963, p. 24)

Over 50 years ago, in his classic text Beyond a Boundary (1963), the renowned AfroTrinidadian historian and social theorist C. L. R. James posed a powerful question about the sport of cricket in the West Indies: “What do they know of cricket if all they know is cricket?” James was interested in examining West Indian national culture and society (education, family, class, race, and colonialism) through cricket, the sport’s history, and his own life as a cricketer and commentator on the sport. Reflecting on his own experiences in the sport, and using his own sociological imagination, James (1963, p. 71) simply recognized in hindsight that “cricket had plunged me into politics long before I was aware of it.” Indeed, for James, the sport of cricket—its salience, discipline, representational power, and contested meanings— played a decisive role in the broader anti-colonial struggle of an emergent West Indian society on the brink of independence. In a similar way, the practices of sport and physical activity have plunged Canadians from across the country into a wide range of historical and contemporary political struggles, perhaps long before being fully conscious of those power relations and social structures. And, like James, sociology of sport students in Canada can pose a similar question, albeit in a radically different context, that speaks precisely to the importance of the sociological imagination as a way of thinking and as a method of sociological analysis: What do we know of hockey if all we know is hockey? Certainly, given the expansion of sporting opportunities across Canada in recent years, as well as the gradual erosion of the once taken-forgranted centrality of hockey in national popular culture, this precise question could now be asked about a multitude of sports. Interestingly, according to Canadian Heritage (2013), the most frequently played sport for Canadians age 15 and over was not hockey, but golf! And for Canadian boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 14, soccer was by far the most practised sport, followed by swimming and then hockey. Many sociologists paint a rather gloomy picture of sport in Canadian society, especially in light of enduring inequalities and a wide range of social issues, and certainly it would be naive and irresponsible to ignore the range of issues that need to be addressed and mended in various sports across Canada. Still, it’s important to recognize that sport provides millions of Canadians with pleasurable, exhilarating, and enjoyable ways of spending time and a powerful sense of community. Equally important, even though involvement in sport and physical activity has many imbalances and injustices, Canadians from across the country are involved daily in a complex dance of reproducing and resisting a host of social structures and power relations and, in doing so, are subsequently transforming not only sport and physical activity, but Canadian society itself. The final point to leave you with at this chapter’s end, though, is simply an invitation to enjoy the freedom that sociological thinking provides, not just in your courses and in your academic pursuits, but over the course of your life: “the freedom to explore, discover, and learn; the freedom to disagree, dispute, and reject” (Beamish, 2016, p. xii). This is, after all, one of the most enduring promises of sociology—one that we invite you to fully embrace as you read the chapters in book.

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Key Terms Agency: The ability of individuals and groups to act independently in a goal-directed manner to shape society. Culture: The activities, norms, customs, values, symbols, and shared meanings and materials that are part of the day-to-day lives of those in groups and societies—as well as the symbols and practices that not only bring people together, but also used to disrupt and contest. Democratization: The process of social change toward greater levels of social equality. Hegemony: The process through which dominant individuals and groups are able to exert moral and intellectual leadership to establish ideological systems of meanings and values as ­“common sense” in democratic societies. Ideology: Common sense ideas and beliefs that serve the interests of dominant groups and that work to legitimize and sustain their positions of power and influence. Institutionalization: The process of established dominant sets of patterns, rules, social norms, and relations in society. Physical culture: How the physical body (i.e., how it moves, is represented, is treated, and understood) is embedded in and shaped by the activities, norms, customs, values, symbols, materials, shared meanings, and power relations that are part of day-to-day life in groups and societies. Power: The ability of an individual or a group of individuals to employ resources to secure outcomes even when opposed by others. Practical consciousness: Tacitly accepted and taken-for-granted beliefs that are shaped by experiences of and interactions with various social structures, institutions, and ideologies, and are subject to ongoing refinement. Resources: The various capacities that enable and constrain individuals or groups to engage in practices and social relations. Rules: The internal assumptions and ideologies embraced by men and women as common sense and the external laws, regulations, and policies that set limits and possibilities with respect to how we can act in our social lives. Social construction: The historical process through which people collectively invent and reinvent their shared understandings of the social world and its institutions. Social structure: The patterned relationships that connect different parts of society to one another and that simultaneously enable and constrain social action. Society: The structured social relations and institutions among a large community of people which cannot be reduced to a simple collection or aggregation of individuals. Sociology: The disciplined study of human social behaviour, including the analysis of the origins, classifications, institutions, and development of human society. Sociological imagination: The ability to go beyond personal issues and to make connections to social structures, history, and broader power relations. Sociology of sport: A sub-discipline of sociology that examines the relationships between sport and society, and studies sport as a central part of social and cultural life. Sport: Any formally organized, competitive activity that involves vigorous physical exertion or the execution of complex physical skills with rules enforced by a regulatory body. Informal physical activities, on the other hand, are often self-initiated, may or may not have fixed start or stop times, and generally have some agreed upon rule system.

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Critical Thinking Questions 1. Discuss the reasons why a course in the sociology of sport and physical activity should be part of an undergraduate curriculum in a kinesiology/human kinetics/physical education/ sport science program. 2. How does the sociology of sport differ from sport psychology? 3. Provide examples of the three notable measures of the “power” of different social groups that need to be fully considered in the sociological analysis of sport. 4. Discuss what is meant by the phrase “sport (formal and informal) is socially constructed.” 5. Discuss what it means to say that the physical body is biological, social, and cultural. Outline some examples of how bodies in sport are shaped by social and cultural factors. 6. a. Using your sociological imagination, explain how the exclusion of women’s ski jumping was intimately connected to a host of public issues of social structure in Canadian society and beyond. b. How did those structures facilitate and restrict the agency of the women ski jumpers? Use each of the three measures of power in your answer. c. What resources did the women need to challenge both VANOC’s and the IOC’s rules? d. What rules worked in their favour? Which ones did not? e. What role did gender ideology play in this debate?

Suggested Readings Beamish, R. (2016). The promise of sociology: Classical approaches to contemporary society (2nd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Giddens, A., & Sutton, P.W. (2013). Sociology. London, UK: Polity Press. Gruneau, R. (1999). Class, sports, and social development. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada: Sports, identities, and cultural politics. Toronto, ON: Garamond Press. Mills, C.W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Used with Permission. Naiman, J. (2012). How societies work (5th ed.). Halifax, NS: Fernwood.

Endnote 1. From 1965 to 1969, Kenyon and McPherson (1973) of the University of Wisconsin published a series of articles devoted to the sociology of sport, positioning it “firmly within the positivistic perspective of science” (Sage, 1997, p. 326). In the late 1960s, the annual meetings of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation included a session devoted to the sociology of sport (“Dance” was added to this organization’s title in 1979). In 1976, this same association founded the Sociology of Sport Academy with the purpose of coordinating and promoting the study of the sociology of sport (Sage, 1997). Within this context, an organized society for the sociology of sport (which later became the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport [NASSS]) emerged after a Big Ten Symposium in 1978. The mission statement of the NASSS is “to promote, stimulate, and encourage the sociological study of play, games, sport and contemporary physical culture.” In 1980, the first NASSS conference took place in Denver, and subsequently several Canadian cities have hosted this annual gathering. NASSS publishes a peer-reviewed

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journal entitled the Sociology of Sport Journal. An international umbrella group called the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA) was founded in 1965. The ISSA holds annual conferences and publishes a peer-reviewed journal entitled the International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Other international journals in which sociologists of sport commonly publish include the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Communication & Sport, International Journal of Sport Communication, Sport and Society, Leisure Studies, and Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. Some sociology and sport management journals also publish articles with a sociology of sport theme.

References Beamish, R. (2016). The promise of sociology: Classical approaches to contemporary society (2nd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Berger, P. (1963). Invitation to sociology. New York: Anchor Books. Canadian Heritage. (2013). Sport participation 2010: Research paper. Retrieved from http:// publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/pc-ch/CH24-1-2014-eng.pdf. Connell, R. W. (1990). An iron man: The body and some contradictions of hegemonic masculinity. In M.A. Messner & D.F. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men, and the gender order: Critical feminist perspectives (pp. 83–114). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Dodd, M. (2006, April 30). Sport or not a sport? Pot is split on poker. USA Today, p. 13C. Donnelly, P., & Harvey, J. (2007). Class and gender: Intersections in sport and physical activity. In P. White & K. Young (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Donnelly, P., Norman, M., & Kidd, B. (2013). Gender Equity in Canadian Interuniversity Sport: A Biennial Report (No. 2). Toronto: Centre for Sport Policy Studies (Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto). Dryden, K. (2017). Game change: The life and death of Steve Montador, and the future of hockey. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Giddens, A. (1987). Social theory and modern sociology. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Giddens, A., & Sutton, P. (2017). Essential concepts in sociology (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Gruneau, R. (1988). Modernization and hegemony: Two views on sport and social development. In J. Harvey & H. Cantelon (Eds.), Not just a game: Essays in Canadian sport sociology (pp. 9–32). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Gruneau, R. (1999). Class, sports, and social development. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada: Sport, identities and cultural politics. Toronto: Garamond Press. Hall, A. (2007). Cultural struggle and resistance: Gender, history, and Canadian sport. In K. Young & P. White (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada, (pp. 56–74). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Hall, A., Slack, T., Smith, G., & Whitson, D. (1991). Sport in Canadian society. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart. Hargreaves, J. E., & Vertinsky, P. E. (2007). Introduction. J. Hargreaves & P. Vertinsky (Eds.), Physical culture, power, and the body (pp. 1–24). London, UK: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Harvey, J. (2000). What’s in a game? In P. Donnelly (Ed.), Taking sport seriously. Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing. Henslin, J. M., Glenday, D., Pupo, N., & Duffy, A. (2014). Sociology: A down to earth approach (6th Canadian ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada.

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ISSA (International Sociology of Sport Association). (2005). About ISSA. Retrieved from http//issa.otago.ac.nz/about.html. Reprinted with the permission. James, C. L. R. (1963). Beyond a Boundary. London: Stanley Paul & Co. Kenyon, G., & McPherson, B. (1973). Becoming involved in physical activity and sport: A process of socialization. In G. L. Rarick (Ed.), Physical activity: Human growth and development. New York, NY: Academic Press. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Used with Permission. McRobbie, A. (1991). Feminism and youth culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Naiman, J. (2012). How societies work: Class, power, and change. Halifax, NS: Fernwood. North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. (2019). Our Mission. Retrieved from https://nasss.org/our-mission-and-history/. Sage, G.H. (1997). Physical education, sociology, and sociology of sport: Points of intersection. Sociology of Sport Journal, 14: 317–339. Smishek, E., 2004. Physical culture muscles its way into academia. UBC Reports. Retrieved from http://news.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2004/04oct07/body.html [Accessed 1 March 2018].

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Chapter 2

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory Ian Ritchie

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Recognize the historical and social foundations of the discipline of sociology. 2 Identify the major theoretical paradigms in sociology and their most important theorists. 3 Identify how the major theories in sociology are applied to sport and physical culture. 4 Recognize the important relationship between individual lives and social structure. 5 Recognize how the relationship between individual life and social structure impacts the experience of sport and physical culture.

A young girl working in a cotton mill in the early 20th century in the United States. Child labour was one of many hardships the first sociologists attempted to understand during the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA [LC-DIG-nclc-01336]

“If we take the simple democratic view that what men [and women] are interested in is all that concerns us, then we are accepting the values that have been inculcated, often accidentally and often deliberately by vested interests.” (Mills, 1959, p. 194) 25

INTRODUCTION Sociological theory is the foundation of the discipline of sociology in general and of its understanding of sport and physical culture. This chapter introduces four major theoretical perspectives: structural functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, and critical social theories. The theories offer competing perspectives but at the same time occasionally complement one another in their attempts to answer questions about the nature of social life and our experiences of sport. Examples from the study of sport and physical activity demonstrate that the perspectives often raise serious challenges to many common assumptions about sport.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: GENERAL THEMES AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS Theory versus “Common Sense” Lying at the foundation of sociology is theory. Theory is the central tool that ­sociologists use to understand the human social world, and for sociologists of sport, the role that sport and physical culture play within that world. In simple terms, sociological theory is a proposition or set of propositions about the nature of the social world and people’s active engagement in that world. However, theory is in many ways not so different from the fact that people “theorize” about the world around them all the time, in that they ponder various aspects of social and cultural life, or perhaps just think about the conduct of other people around them in their everyday lives. However, what sets serious, sociological theory apart from everyday ideas about the world is the fact that sociological theories must ultimately be accountable— they must prove themselves through a process of verification with the facts of the social world. In other words, they must withstand the test of systematic verification, whether in the form of facts and statistics or simply careful and systematic observations about certain aspects of social life. Good sociological theory withstands the test of time through constant refinement and rigorous debate, and it must be provable through careful observation and systematic verification. One important aspect of sociological theory is that the results are at times ­contrary to common perceptions or “common sense.” When people use the term  common sense in everyday life, they typically mean that someone is (or is not) using sound and practical judgment. However, here the term is meant in the more literal meaning: that is, that there are often ideas that people—perhaps many people—have in common. Albert Einstein, though, once said that “common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18,” which points to the problem with this kind of sense—it is quite often wrong. We accumulate ideas through various sources as we grow, Einstein suggests, but that does not mean those accumulated sets of ideas are accurate or a true reflection of the world around us. The quote by the important American sociologist Charles Wright Mills at the start of this chapter highlights this point about sociology sometimes

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running contrary to common ideas about the world. Mills’s point is that we often explain to ourselves the way the world works around us by attributing actions and outcomes to individual factors—our personal “interests.” But such individual explanations of events that occur in our lives ignore greater social forces. Two examples help highlight this. First, Canadian sport sociologist Peter Donnelly once pointed out that “Social class, both on its own and in combination with gender, race/ethnicity, and other major social characteristics, is the most important determinant of participation in sport and physical activity” (2011, p. 185). Donnelly is referring here to all people, but primarily to children. Statistics from Canada, and many other countries as well, consistently demonstrate that whether kids participate in sport is greatly determined by the social class into which they were born. But when people think back to their childhood experiences in sport, they invariably think to themselves “I liked soccer because  .  .  .” or “I liked hockey because  .  .  .”; those thoughts are typically filled with individual explanations and personal motivations. Less often do people consider that class inequality impacted their participation or their experience of that sport. To do so is to think much more broadly, but this is exactly what Mills is encouraging us to do: individual motivations and social variables such as class must be combined to complete the entire picture of our past, and present—that is using the “sociological imagination” (discussed in Chapter 1). The second example is more general and historical, and extremely important as a starting point to grasp how sport is understood sociologically. One myth that has been perpetuated over time is that sport is as “old as the hills.” In other words, people have always practised “sport” in the same way over time; people “naturally” competed against one another in the past, as they continue to do today, for example. An important corollary to this is that the Olympic Games— likely the most important and influential example of organized sport in modern times—was based on the model of ancient Greece when it was revived by the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin in the 19th century. However, historical evidence, informed by theory, has shown that sport in ancient Greece had far more differences than it did similarities to sport today. The ancient Greeks adopted a “winner takes all” approach that far outweighs our own today. In ancient Greece, extremely violent acts in wrestling were commonplace, and victorious athletes—despite, and often in fact because of their violence—were held up as almost the equivalent to gods themselves. Canadian sport historian Bruce Kidd (1984) points out that “the modern handshake would have seemed an act of cowardice” because of the dramatically different approach the ancients took to their sport (p. 76). When students think about their own experiences it is worth keeping these examples in mind. Individually based explanations are not wrong, but they don’t complete the entire social and historical picture. For example, some students may consider themselves very competitive and may have in fact used phrases like “I was always just naturally competitive” to refer to themselves. However, notions of “competitiveness” vary wildly over time and across cultures, and so understanding the historical and cultural environment is at least as important as the individual one in explaining experiences such as being “competitive” in sport.

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 2.1

Using Social Theory

While this chapter provides historical and social context to the development of sociological theory, it is important to recognize that sociologists of sport apply their research in multiple contexts and often engage publicly by contributing to public policy or commenting in media reports pertaining to various public issues. For example, in late 2018 and early 2019, a major story broke through several media outlets, documenting a range of hazing incidents at St. Michael’s College School a private boys’ school in Toronto. Following an incident where it was alleged that members of the boys’ football team sexually assaulted another student, subsequent reports revealed that practice to be all too common in the school. Disturbingly, one incident was recorded and shared on social media. Eventually, seven charges were laid by police. These incidents, unfortunately, have a long history in sport and speak to their enduring significance as a public issue. One of the experts sought out in the media reports was University of Toronto sociology of sport professor Michael Atkinson. His insights into the St. Michael’s case were derived from his expertise in studying hazing and from his theoretical knowledge of the sociology of deviance and the social construction of masculinity in sport. Atkinson stated in one CBC report that such incidents are psychologically “meant to intimidate, degrade people

in some way, shame them, embarrass them in front of others.” But sociologically, he continued, “it clearly establishes power in hierarchies in a group, and it establishes a place for people within the group.” But why, the report continued, wouldn’t victims resist such attacks and report them more often, especially given the greater social visibility of sexual assault? First, Atkinson responded, “It fits in with the idea of power. . . . If I say no, I’m done. They’ll ostracize me. . . . I will be a pariah on the team.” But, Atkinson added one more crucial factor in the explanation, reflecting a major point from the sociology of sport: “The mentality is, especially in sport, that it’s only sport.  .  .  .  That’s how it’s reproduced over the course of time.” Throughout this text, authors will repeat in many ways the idea that sport reflects the social and cultural environment. But one of the enduring myths of sport is that it is as “old as the hills” – unchanged over time and unaffected by “political interference.” In the case of the St. Michael’s College incidents, and the almost countless other such hazing rituals that have occurred in schools and other institutions for decades, that myth, as Atkinson recognized, has been detrimental to truly understanding the causes and consequences of such incidents, in addition to being one of the main reasons they have been so underreported (Ubelacker, 2018).

Historical Context The previous example highlights the fact that sociological theory encourages us to think about and evaluate social conditions both as they currently are and by putting those conditions into historical context. History is very important to the discipline of sociology, and you will notice that each chapter in this text discusses its topic in terms of both current social conditions and historical context (see Chapter 3 especially). The discipline of sociology itself should be thought of in this historical context. While the events that lay the foundation of sociology are many and complex, two stand out. The first event was a series of democratic revolutions that led to the emergence of democratic institutions and forms of government; the revolutions in France and the United States in the late 18th century are the most important examples. In France, before democratic institutions emerged, people were for centuries relegated to one of the three “estates of the realm” (or “three estates”)—upper class nobility, the powerful clergy, or the peasantry. These three social ranks were virtually predestined, with almost no freedom for people to move up in social rank. Importantly, a majority—about 95%—found themselves in the lowest-ranking “third estate.” Democratic changes starting in the late 1700s challenged the estate system and

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brought about ideas that governments are responsible to people and that people as citizens can actively play a role in the affairs of the state. Sociology emerged in part to consider these changes and to contemplate the newly envisioned role of democratic institutions and people’s relationship to those institutions. The second, more important, event was the Industrial Revolution. So important was the development of industrial society to the emergence of sociology that the discipline in its earliest days was more or less defined as the study of the causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution, which dramatically changed the way in which goods were produced and people laboured. But it also brought new social problems: mass exoduses of people from rural settings to urban centres; miserable and often dangerous working and living conditions; new forms of crime; vast inequalities between the rich and the poor and a restructuring of systems of inequality; and a general sense of alienation or disaffection caused by the dramatic changes in people’s lives. Out of these two historical contexts, sociology emerged to consider two main questions or issues. The first was the issue of social problems. In light of the hardships wrought by the Industrial Revolution and the growth of capitalism, the earliest sociologists were concerned with how to create a social order that could resolve some of the fundamental problems: food production and distribution in growing cities; lack of clean water; poor hygienic living conditions; the physical hardships from long hours of strenuous work in factories; child labour; vast inequalities between the rich and poor; and so forth. These issues continue to plague us today to varying degrees. The second issue pertains to community, authority, and tradition. As peasants were lifted from their land to work in cities as labourers, as small manufacturers were replaced by big companies, and as urban living quickly replaced rural life, questions arose as to how to maintain and develop authority structures in the new social order, how to provide people with a sense of community in light of rapid changes, and how to answer questions regarding the loss of rural and religious traditions as society became more secularized. How should the new social order be organized and established? What was the role of individual citizens in relation to newly emerging staterun institutions and forms of government? What social bonds would unite people in newly emerging urban communities? These were some of the important questions the first sociologists attempted to answer. Again, these questions continue to be asked and sociologists continue to try to answer them, even if some of the issues of community, authority, and tradition have changed, especially in the context of globalization (see Chapter 14). For students, these examples may seem quite historically distant but in fact we face similar issues today. Social issues and problems such as poverty (including, importantly, child poverty) and inequality; concerns with the environment and global warming; racial and gender divisions and inequalities; tensions around immigration and the plight of refugees around the world; and almost countless other problems and issues continue today and impact students’ lives in different ways. While in many ways today’s society is far more advanced than what people experienced in the period during which industrialism and democracies were emerging, we need look no further than Walkerton, Ontario, to remind ourselves that some of the basic problems people were facing in recent centuries are still with us. In the year 2000, that small community of about 5,000 people saw almost half its population fall ill and seven people die because of E. coli contamination in the town’s water supply.

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Putting Theories in Context The theories we are about to consider should not be thought of as static, but instead in a constant dynamic state in which debate and refinement have led and will continue to lead to their change and evolution. Sociologists of sport also recognize that social theories change and adapt simply because sport itself is dynamic and constantly changing. Importantly, sociological theories all have in common a political motivation to understand the nature of the social world around us to make it better for everyone. This motivation dates to the historical foundations of the discipline itself and the first questions and issues it addressed. One of the understandable consequences of this political motivation is that the theories often point to the many problems that exist in the social world; however, this should in no way overshadow sociology’s recognition of the many ways in which sport and physical culture play positive roles in human life. Identifying problems, however, is a necessary step in making the positive aspects of physical activity and sport available for as many people as possible. Finally, the theories discussed do not by any means represent a complete inventory. The discipline offers a dizzying array of perspectives, and they continue to grow. However, what follows provides a concise summary of major perspectives that have guided thinking in sociology’s past and that continue to guide thinking currently, that have laid the foundation of sociological inquiries in sport and physical culture, and that will put into context the various topics in the chapters that follow. All sections will quite naturally include a discussion of the application of theories to sport using both general examples and ones specific to Canada.

SOCIAL FACTS: ÉMILE DURKHEIM AND STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM Émile Durkheim The foundations of structural-functionalism—often referred to synonymously as functionalism—are very old and can be traced to elements of ancient Greek thought and, more recently, British social philosophy. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution had an important influence on the theory, and the earliest functionalist theorists equated social processes with biological or organic ones, claiming that society operates according to principles like that of animal life and the manner in which that life develops and evolves. The most important and influential figure to develop and more fully express these basic functionalist tenets was Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). Durkheim’s most noted accomplishments were realized in his active reforms of French education, and he is generally recognized as the “father” of French sociology. During his lifetime, the new discipline of sociology was not generally respected in higher academics, and Durkheim should be credited with working to gain its respect. The essential elements of Durkheim’s theories on social life can be seen in what many consider to be his most important work, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, published in 1897. Suicide, a classic of social science research, gives us not only Durkheim’s sociological view of the act of suicide, but ultimately an indication of his more general account of sociology, as the subtitle of the book suggests. Durkheim makes what appears to be the counterintuitive claim that the act of suicide is much more than just a personal act by an individual. Suicide is, instead, he claims, a social act that operates according to social laws. Durkheim referred to any 30

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human activities of this sort as social facts, by which he meant any phenomena that operated according to social rules or laws independent of any one individual. As he clearly states, “[s]ociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual” (Durkheim, 1951, pp. 37–38). Durkheim here was challenging two dominant ways of thinking about the act of suicide in the late 19th century: individual psychological views about the motivations of the suicide victim, and Christian religious thinking that thought the act was a sin against God. Durkheim then went about collecting a remarkable inventory of statistics on suicide rates across Europe. After collecting his data, he observed that suicide rates followed identifiable social patterns. For example, men committed suicide at significantly higher rates than women, Protestants more than Catholics, unmarried people more than married people, and wealthy people, interestingly, more than poorer people. Durkheim recognized a common theme: Levels of social integration across categories of people significantly impact the chances of an individual committing suicide or not. By social integration, Durkheim meant common ties or bonds that hold people together and give them a feeling of solidarity. As he stated: “suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of the social groups of which the individual forms a part” (Durkheim, 1951, p. 209). For example, while men and those who are wealthy might achieve greater autonomy and independence, such personal gains may come at a cost of reduced integration and social bonds, and thus a greater chance of suicide. Durkheim and other functionalist theorists who followed him in the 20th century expanded upon this essential notion of the role of social integration to develop a much more general and complex theory of society. In general, structural functionalism views society as a complex system in which all of the different elements of its structure work to promote stability and solidarity within that system. The essential elements of the theory’s view of society can be seen in the two terms in the name of the theory. First, society has a structure, which means it has a stable and persistent pattern of elements, including institutions, patterns of interpersonal behaviour, and values and norms. In terms of function, all elements function or contribute to the overall stability of the structure of society.

The Functions of Sport For understanding sport, functionalism has been important in terms of considering several vital functions sport serves to wider society. Also, the theory was dominant in the discipline of sociology when the subdiscipline of the sociology of sport was first developing in the 1960s and 1970s. According to the structural functionalist analysis, sport functions to develop group bonds, to encourage a sense of community, and to integrate people into society’s dominant values. Sport also acts as a significant agent of socialization and helps children develop solid social skills. In addition, sport functions as positive entertainment and as an “escape valve” from some of the more laborious aspects of everyday life. Finally, it is often argued that sport functions to deter youth and others from deviant and antisocial behaviours. Following Durkheim, Alan Ingham (2004) refers to public sporting events as serialized civic rituals—in other words, sport acts as quasi-religious events in which ideals of communities become represented and reaffirmed. “Regardless of whether our team is winning or losing,” Ingham says, “the faithful seem compelled by an abstract force, larger than themselves, to go and worship at the shrine” (p. 27). Sport, in other words, acts symbolically to represent what is important for communities and ties the people in them together. We don’t have to look further than the ritualistic way fans of the Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory

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Soccer and Suicide

The social experience of one crucially important global sport—soccer (or, internationally, football) gives us insight into how functionalism and Durkheim’s theories can be used to understand events in the world today. The World Cup in soccer clearly brings people within competing countries together. For Croatians, for example, the excitement of reaching the final game in 2018 was palpable, and newspapers like the important Novi List were plastered with photographs of celebrating fans. In one of the more intriguing applications of functionalism to sport, authors Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski claim in their book Soccernomics (2009) that the integrative power of soccer helps curb suicide rates. Building directly on Durkheim’s Suicide, the authors cite statistics from several countries to demonstrate that during periods of intense international competitions, national suicide rates drop. The authors surmise that intense

feelings of “belongingness,” often with attendant strong nationalistic associations, enhance social cohesion and the strong common bonds necessary for social life. Kuper and Szymanski also point out that winning is not a necessary outcome for suicide rates to improve; win or lose, it’s the way the intense feelings generated in rooting for the team “pulls people together” that matters (2009, pp. 253–266). In a similar vein, sociologists of sport James Curtis, John Loy, and Wally Karnilowicz (1986) found that there was a “suicide-dip” effect—reduced suicide rates—in the US just before and during two important sport ceremonial events: the Super Bowl and the last games of the World Series. In short, while Durkheim’s Suicide was published well over a century ago, his “ghost” lives on in continued evidence as to the integrative power sport has on reducing suicide rates.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens worship at their respective “shrines” to understand Ingham’s point. In Canada, we can think of the many ways in which sport plays a crucial role in the construction of a common sense of nationhood and in which sport helps to socially construct and reinforce public identifications with urban and rural communities alike as “representational collectives.” Students only have to observe the national fervor that emerges during each Olympic Games as headlines abound with successful Canadian athletes touted as “doing Canada proud” to understand this point. Many Canadians can vividly recall the outpouring of nationalism following Sidney Crosby’s final goal to give Canada the gold medal in men’s hockey at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. But athletes supported under the Canadian government’s sport system function as international ambassadors in more formal ways. Following Ben Johnson’s world-record medal performance at the World Track and Field Championships in Rome in 1987, Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport Otto Jelinek said (ironically, in retrospect, given that Johnson would test positive for steroid use one year later) that “Ben Johnson, doing what he’s doing for Canadians in Rome, is probably worth more than a dozen delegations of high-powered diplomats” (Beamish & Borowy, 1988, p. 11). Today, Canadian athletes are consistently touted not only for their victories but also for their ability to help integrate Canada and represent the country on the international political stage. In a Twitter message just before the start of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote that “When Team Canada marches into the PyeongChang Olympic Stadium, young Canadians can look at our team and see themselves. Our Olympians hail from across the country and from all kinds of different backgrounds. Together, they represent the diversity that Canada so proudly stands for” (Trudeau, 2018). And, when Justin’s father Pierre first came into power in the late 1960s, he realized that it was exactly 32

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this integrative power of sport that could help build a strong sense of nationalism and ease political tensions both domestically and internationally, and he built up Canada’s sport system as a result (see Chapter 12).

Criticisms of Functionalism While it dominated sociology by the mid-20th century and influenced the first research on sport in the 1960s and 1970s, structural functionalism then declined in influence because of several flaws. The theory was criticized for what was seen as its inherent conservatism. Structural functionalism suggests that all elements of society are viewed as necessary and good for the simple fact that they exist to reinforce the overall structure of the system as a whole. But surely not all elements of social systems are justified—it is questionable how poverty, violence, crime, institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia, and many other social problems can be thought of as positive elements in a social system. Today, functionalism is used in many academic areas, as are revised versions of it in the parent discipline of sociology, but sociologists of sport sought out alternate theories that could account for the existence of social problems and inequalities in much more realistic ways.

CLASS AND GOAL-RATIONAL ACTION: KARL MARX, MAX WEBER, AND CONFLICT THEORY Karl Marx Like structural functionalism, some of the central tenets of modern conflict sociology are very old and can be traced back to ancient times. However, the theory’s more modern form owes itself primarily to the work of Karl Marx (1818–1883). A divisive figure in modern history no doubt, because of his radical theories and politics, Marx has nevertheless had as great or a greater impact on social thought—and on social and political movements—than any other human being. Marx was born in Trier in the Rhineland (in what is now Germany), and in his earliest years as a student he became interested in the study of law and philosophy before turning his attention later to journalism, political activism, and writing social and political critiques. His radical politics and involvement in workers’ organizations were partly the cause for his migration—sometimes forced—from Germany to France and eventually England (Beamish, 2002). Marx sought to develop a social theory that understood the emerging capitalist world around him and, at the same time, would actively help create social conditions that would be more egalitarian and democratic. It is important to first recognize that capitalism as an economic and social system was still relatively new in Marx’s time, having emerged gradually out of changes in European trade and production that started during medieval times, but really had not reached anything resembling what we today refer to as a “capitalist” system until the century before Marx lived and was continuing to develop during the 1800s as well (Beamish, 2017). Marx recognized this fact. Marx’s political commitment was due to a large degree to the harsh conditions of life experienced by people during the Industrial Revolution, discussed earlier. His famous words “[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” (Marx, 1972, p. 109) remain a clear and decisive reflection of his political commitment. Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory

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The unique characteristics of Marx’s analysis of society and what lay at the foundation of his ideas were threefold: first, his recognition that economic conditions formed the foundation of social life more generally; second, his ability to synthesize and expand his observations regarding the basic economic conditions of social life into a more general theory regarding the nature of social, cultural, and individual life; and third, his observations regarding the important role social conflict played in social and cultural life and the history of societies. The idea that economic conditions lay the foundation for social life is at the core of Marx’s theory. Marx observed that throughout history different economic forms shaped social systems and, in turn, people’s lives within those systems. He referred to these forms as the modes of production. Within each mode of production—and Marx studied many in human history, including ancient society, feudalism, and capitalism—Marx also observed that classes emerged based on their ability to gain control over economic resources and the means of producing goods. This, Marx observed, had led to a state of conflict between the respective groups in each case. The opening lines of The Communist Manifesto, one of the most important political documents in modern history, states this clearly: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. (Marx & Engels, 1948, p. 9)

As mentioned earlier, the capitalist mode of production drew the lion’s share of Marx’s attention and work. In his most important work, Capital, published in 1867, Marx attempted to explain in scientific terms the way the capitalist mode of production worked (Marx, 1977). His central insight is that capitalism, in its unyielding drive to create profit, produces two separate classes: capitalists who realize the profits and surpluses from the system, and workers who do not. However, the strength of the capitalist mode of production—one unlike other modes of production—is that workers appear to be acting freely and of their own choice. But Marx claimed that workers do not in fact realize their full potential because their labour is alienated labour; that is, labour that ultimately benefits those who profit from it. As Marx states clearly: “work is external to the worker . . . consequently, he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself. . . . His work is not voluntary but imposed, forced labour. It is not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means for satisfying other needs” (Marx, 1963, pp. 124–125). Alienation in basic terms is the feeling of isolation or detachment, usually from a social group of some sort that is important to a person, making him or her feel withdrawn and isolated. But here we see that Marx is using the term in a much more specific way. Labour for Marx was a fundamental aspect of human existence, and under capitalism people do not realize the fruits of their labour and are therefore alienated—they do not realize their full human existence. Marx’s dual insights regarding the production of the class system within the capitalist mode of production and the alienation of the worker would many years later be central to both Marxist and conflict-based analyses of sport. 34

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Max Weber A second major influence in conflict theory comes from the third “great figure” (besides Durkheim and Marx) in the foundation of sociology—Max Weber (1864–1920). Weber is today associated with the discipline of sociology; however, his knowledge base was derived from several other disciplines, including philosophy and history. As sociologists Hart Cantelon and Alan Ingham (2002)—both of whom were deeply influenced by Weber’s work—put simply, “Weber was a superior thinker” (p. 64). Just like we can get a glimpse of their respective theoretical positions by understanding Durkheim’s Suicide or Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and Capital, so too through what is arguably his most important work, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, we can start to understand Weber’s insights. Well-versed on the varied ways in which religion had impacted different societies at different periods in time, Weber made the specific claim in The Protestant Ethic that a value system that emerged in the 17th century in Protestant sects in the United States led to a dominant, and ultimately successful, form of capitalism. While Protestantism and the capitalist economy had been emerging in other locations around the globe, Weber claimed that the Puritans in the American northeast developed a specific value system out of the original teachings of 16th-century Protestant reformer John Calvin, who had preached, among other things, of God’s all-knowing ways. Being all-knowing, Calvin claimed, God predestined certain dutiful followers to be chosen to go to heaven. However, followers could not ever be certain of their ultimate acceptance into God’s grace, so the best they could do was search for signs. The belief in predestination was the foundation of the Puritan sects’ value system, one that was conducive to the development of capitalism, Weber argued. The Puritans’ particular interpretation of predestination, one that manifested itself in terms of their everyday activities and beliefs, was that followers must prove their loyalty to God by leading an ascetic lifestyle; in other words, loyal followers demonstrated their acceptance into God’s grace by leading lives of duty, hard work, and abstaining from worldly pleasures such as alcohol consumption, gambling, “pleasures of the flesh” and, interestingly, material goods. The connection between the belief in the necessity to lead an ascetic life and the economy came in the form of the calling (Beamish, 2010, pp. 191–194). The calling was the development of personal fulfillment through the commitment of one’s life to work and, importantly, the reuse of material rewards, including direct financial ones, back toward the work in a rational and disciplined way. Wealth accumulated based on one’s hard work could not be used toward worldly possessions for their own sake, because of course that would have contradicted the essential belief in the importance of leading an ascetic life. It could, however, be put back into the calling and the disciplined hard work of the believer. As Weber explains in an important section of The Protestant Ethic: The religious valuation of restless, continuous work in a worldly calling, as the highest means to asceticism, and at the same time the surest and most evident proof of rebirth and genuine faith, must have been the most powerful conceivable lever for the expansion of that attitude toward life which we have here called the spirit of capitalism. (Weber, 1958, p. 172)

Over time, the emphasis on hard, rationalized work became common even if, as Weber points out, the original religious source of that value system disappeared.

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Two things are important about Weber’s theory regarding the development of modern capitalism. First, it is important to note the difference between Weber and Marx in terms of their respective interpretations of the development of capitalism. Unlike Marx, who emphasized the structure of the economy, Weber put an emphasis on the important role that ideas (religious ones in this case) play in human affairs and in human history. Second, and more importantly with respect to the understanding of modern sport, Weber believed that ascetic Puritanism and the economic value system that emerged out of the 17th century ultimately led to a greater emphasis on what he termed goal-rational action or human action involving the most calculated and rationalized means toward achieving a particular end (goal). We see this sort of action every day in our lives, as people make calculated decisions toward satisfying personal and professional objectives. At one level it is an approach that we might simply pass off as “making sense”; in other words, we might ask ourselves why anyone would conduct themselves differently. But for Weber, goal-rational action can entrap people into a limited way of thinking and leading their lives. We need look no further than the realm of sport to find examples of goal-rational action. High-performance athletes—the ones the public tends to look up to as the epitome of athleticism and what sport is supposed to “be about”—undertake daily, weekly, monthly, and year-by-year training regimens in which virtually every movement and workout is carefully calculated in relation to other ones to achieve ultimate, long-term goals, such as winning Olympic gold. But in placing such great emphasis on goal-rational action, other possibilities for sport, such as emphasizing the play element in physical movement and the sheer joy and liberation that “uninhibited” movement can provide—movement we often see in children’s spontaneous play—get pushed to the side.

Conflict Theory and Sport Both Marx’s insights into the role of class conflict and Weber’s into the role that religious ideas played in the development of capitalism formed the base of conflict theory more generally. The theory broadened its scope to recognize that conflict was much more ubiquitous in society, certainly beyond the conflicts between the capitalists and working classes as Marx saw them. Examples include conflicts between workers and middle managers in industrial and business settings; between authority figures and subordinates in many different bureaucratic organizational contexts; and between political elites and citizens or citizen groups in various political regimes. Throughout the remainder of this text there are many examples of research motivated by the conflict tradition in sociology. For now, a few major strands are highlighted. A first major strand is: How does sport contribute to or reinforce class and other power structures in society? Labour conflicts between team owners and players serve as one among many examples. Major professional sport organizations, like the “big four” in North America (Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League) have a long history of labour conflicts, caused in part by the original economic foundation of the major leagues. All the leagues created versions of economic cartels—team franchises were independent but organized centrally in order to monopolize the market, maximize profits for owners, and, importantly, to control player wages. The cartel structure and the control owners sought over players’ labour resulted in a long history of players fighting back against powerful owner groups. 36

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The German Democratic Republic enters the stadium of its rival Federal Republic of Germany during the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. Nothing accelerated the emphasis on what Weber referred to as “goal-rational action” as much as the Cold War. Today, many of the features of Canada’s high-performance sport system are essentially the same as (former) East Germany’s. AP Images

The National Hockey League, for example, had its cartel structure intact by the mid-20th century and owners were making “windfall profits,” although the players themselves saw little of those revenues (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 104). Only through long struggles—labour conflict—including the fight to form player unions, did players realize their share of the “pie” (see Chapter 13). Fans today will be aware of the lucrative contracts some players sign with their teams, but through much of professional sport’s history that was not the case; the very fact that players today negotiate at all has come from long and often bitter struggles between players, their unions, and the team owners. Also, today some critics draw parallels between the history of labour struggle in professional sports and university or college athletes, especially in the United States, where many big-time college sports have greater similarities to professional leagues than they do to the “amateur” model that pays academic scholarships, but does not treat athletes as employees (Hruby, 2012). A second strand is the way conflict and change occur within and between sporting organizations and practices. Canada’s own government-run sport system serves as an example. When the federal government first passed bills to formally involve itself in sport, in the 1960s, the government’s policies had two objectives: to create an environment in which Canadians could become more physically active and to build a highperformance sport system to make Canadian athletes more competitive internationally. However, because the visibility of a successful high-performance sport system met certain political objectives for the government, combined with the fact that an emerging cadre of sport professionals felt high-performance sport could better meet their own interests, the federal government’s sport system has—and continues to—greatly privilege high-performance sport over mass participation or grassroots levels of sport.

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As Canadian sport sociologist Peter Donnelly (2013) has demonstrated, the effect over time has been an increasingly successful high-performance sport system—Canada has fared well in international competition and the country’s medal count in the Olympic Games has increased dramatically—but participation rates and activity levels of Canadians across virtually every social category have shrunk (see Chapter 12). The third strand stems both from Marx’s idea about the alienation of the worker in the capitalist mode of production and Weber’s analysis of goal-rational action. Throughout the 20th century, there was an unyielding drive toward winning medals and pushing the boundaries of human performance in international sport. The result has been spectacular performances by athletes, to the thrill of admiring fans around the world. But the drive to push the boundaries of human performance has come with some serious, unintended consequences. From the mid-20th century on, more and more countries developed increasingly sophisticated sport systems that included, for the first time in human history, young children and youth as full-time athletes. Indeed, it was a Canadian sport sociologist, Hart Cantelon (1981), who coined the phrase “child athletic workers” in the early 1980s, to refer to this new category of athletes. From the 1990s to the present, more and more serious problems have been identified in the various clubs in which children train, often full time and in some cases (especially in the sport of gymnastics) from extremely young ages: authoritarian and sometimes abusive coaches, high injury rates, psychological damage, and severe cases of burnout (Ryan, 1995). Indeed, a recent series of sexual assault cases in women’s gymnastics clubs in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere have only further highlighted the seriousness of these problems. Sociologists inspired by the conflict tradition identify problems in sport such as these trace out the historical roots of those problems to help identify the causes, and often propose solutions to overcome those problems.

UNDERSTANDING EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES: GEORGE HERBERT MEAD AND SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM George Herbert Mead Symbolic interactionism is part of a much bigger tradition in sociology called microsociology, which in general studies and attempts to understand the real-life behaviours of people in society. Microsociological approaches are generally critical of macrosociology or “grand theories”—such as structural functionalism and conflict theories—because of their overemphasis on sweeping structural processes at the expense of understanding how people understand the world around them and interact. The most important individual in terms of the development of symbolic interactionism was George Herbert Mead (1863–1931). Mead’s Mind, Self, and Society was first published in 1934, a few years after his death, based on a collection of notes taken by students who took and were enthralled by his courses. The book is considered a classic in sociology. Mead claimed that macrosociological theories grossly underestimated the role of human thought and volitional action. They did not account for the symbolic nature of human thought and the ability of humans to interpret and give meaning to the world around them through language. They also did no justice to the social context or the role of social interaction in determining human behaviour. These two fundamental 38

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insights are the foundation of Mead’s thinking and, combined, the source of the perspective that would eventually become known as symbolic interactionism, coined by one of Mead’s students, Herbert Blumer. At the heart of Mead’s theory is the way humans develop a sense of self. When the term is used in everyday language it is usually meant in a purely individual sense, as in “myself.” However, Mead pointed out that the self is a dynamic, not a static thing. In other words, we do not simply have a self; rather, we continually develop a sense of self over time—it is an ongoing process. Mead spent much time explaining the development of the self in children as they grew, pointing out that children grow through a series of stages, each of which gives them a greater sense of themselves as individuals and at the same time a greater sense of others’ perspectives and how they think others view them (Mead, 1962). The latter point regarding the image others have of a person gets to the core of a second important point Mead made about the self. Mead described two components of the self, which he called the I and the Me. While the terms are very simple, the ideas they represent are much more profound. The I for Mead is the internal component of our self—the part of the self that is subjectively experienced and initiates a person’s actions in the world. This is the part of the self we associate with our internal feelings, motivations, and general purpose in life. The Me, however, is the image we have of ourselves that comes from outside of ourselves—how others view us and how we believe or think others view us. While the I is the subjective experience of the self, the Me is the objective experience. In Mead’s own words: The “I” is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the “me” is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes. The attitudes of the others constitute the organized “me,” and then one reacts toward that as an “I.” (Mead, 1962, p. 175)

For Mead, the two parts can be separated at the conceptual level, but not at the real-life level as they are experienced; we constantly live through and with both the I and the Me. But what is important in making the conceptual break for Mead lies at the heart of his theory and its impact on sociology: The Me component of the self is created from the wider social world, meaning our very sense of ourselves is at one and the same time part of a social identity. Intuitively, we can think of what Mead is trying to suggest by thinking about our own day-to-day experiences. For example, we have all seen people who are self-­ conscious about the way they are dressed, to the extent that they frequently look at themselves to make sure whatever pieces of clothing they are wearing on a given day are appropriate. They may also fix their hair, or perhaps carry their bodies to appear a certain way. The feeling that people have when they go through this process represents perfectly Mead’s notions of the self as it is composed of the I and the Me. The person’s identity and sense of him or herself is “wrapped up,” so to speak, in the presentation of self through physical appearance. But who is doing the “looking” here? Certainly, it’s an internal process, in the sense that the person asks “How do I look?” But of course, the second part of the process—perhaps the more important one—is external. The imaginary mirror that the person is holding up, which generates the external image the person has of him or herself, is the social world itself. The social world is looking in and has become a part of the person’s personality or sense of self as he or she learns how to dress and look a certain way, and how to carry or “comport” him or herself in a certain way. Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory

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The important part of Mead’s analysis is that the self, human identity, and even the very act of being conscious of oneself is social. Mead’s original insights and the development of symbolic interactionist perspectives have led to a collection of methods for understanding the meaning that people bring to their own lives and actions, the lives and actions of others around them, and the complex interaction between people’s everyday lives and the wider social structure (Beal, 2002).

Microsociology and Sport For sport studies, two major themes have emerged. The first is the study of socialization and the processes through which people are socialized both into and through sport. Socialization into sport means the active process of learning sport’s rules, codes, values, and norms. Socialization through sport, on the other hand, refers to the lessons that are learned from sport that have some application to wider society. While much of the research in socialization has concentrated, not surprisingly, on children’s sport (see Chapter 7), socialization is a life-long process. One example of this is the development of mid-life sports identities, such as is gained through any one of the many adult Masters sport organizations and competitions. Also, sociologists are only just beginning to understand the experience of sport and physical movement for older adults. The second theme is sport subcultures. Here, research has attempted to understand the process through which subcultural groups form their own unique language, belief system, normative structure, and general inner-group identity. Some so-called alternative sports, such as surfing, rock climbing, extreme sports, skateboarding, ultimate Frisbee, and others provide interesting and accessible contexts to understand the process through which members develop subcultural identities. However, members of longstanding traditional sports also develop their own unique language, belief system, and identity as well. Microsociological perspectives have a bright future because researchers have only just scratched the surface in terms of understanding people’s experiences in sport and in the development of sporting identities.

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Subcultural Studies

In his book Men at Play: A Working Understanding of Professional Hockey, Michael Robidoux demonstrates how hockey reproduces dominant notions of “manliness” or of what it means to be “properly” masculine through everyday interactions with other players and coaches, alongside the rough and sometimes violent aspects of the game. Far from what many consider to be the common sense idea that masculinity emerges from within players, that it is just “how they are,” Robidoux points out that social factors such as day-today rituals play important roles in producing masculinity: “initiation rituals are not only symbolic representations

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of the player’s transformation on entering professional hockey, they are also a means of divesting the young player of undesirable (that is, unmanly) qualities so as to ensure his new status within the group” (Robidoux, 2001, p. 189). Robidoux’s work is relevant to one of the most public issues related to the health of athletes today: concussions. It is well known that for years the impact of concussions was hidden because injury in men’s sport in general was hidden—it was considered “unmanly” to reveal one’s injury or pain; it was considered a sign of weakness.

CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORIES Critical Theories Critical social theories are a number of theories that have more recently been developed in the sociology of sport. As such, they should be thought of as “works in progress.” If any generalization about these theories can be made, it is that they are a combination, reflection, and development of two of the theories mentioned to this point: conflict theory and symbolic interactionism. Power and inequality tend to be continuing concerns, but generally critical theories differ from conflict theory in two major respects. First, it is not assumed that people are simply subservient, passive “dupes.” As discussed briefly in the previous section, people and groups have agency, meaning they can control, at least to some degree, the conditions of the world around them, even in the face of power relations that might try to limit them. Humans actively and often imaginatively interpret and give meaning to the world and in doing so challenge dominant ways of seeing things. People can challenge power relations to evoke change and to make sense of their lives while they are doing so. Second, these theories tend to expand notions of power and authority beyond that of conflict theory, to an understanding of gender and sexual relations on the one hand and race relations on the other. One important inspiration for the development of critical social theories was Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), an Italian social and political theorist and activist who was arrested in 1926 because of his involvement in the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci was particularly interested in the ways power and control are maintained in capitalist economies under liberal–democratic forms of government, both of which were still in relatively early phases of construction in Gramsci’s day. Gramsci used the term hegemony to describe how this process happens. Instead of direct physical control, Gramsci believed that the power of dominant classes is maintained through a process of developing consent among the populace. This can occur in a structural sense, in that groups at different levels of social organization make compromises with ruling classes, such as is the case when labour organizations concede to wage or salary increases, or when volunteer organizations compensate for social inequalities by fundraising. But consent also occurs through a second manner, when the ideas that benefit the ruling classes are accepted and become common sense in the minds of people (recall the discussion about common sense at the start of the chapter). For Gramsci, the process is an ongoing one in which consensus of the people always must be won over. While people rarely think of sport as playing a “hegemonic” role in reinforcing social power relations, there is no question that it has done so in Canada’s history. Interestingly, this was more fully recognized years ago when social and political organizations used sport much more directly for ideological purposes than they typically do today. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Workers’ Sports Association of Canada fully realized that amateur organizers would happily use sport to appease the working classes (Kidd, 1996). Amateur sport leader Henry Roxborough commented in Maclean’s magazine in 1926 that “A nation that loves sport cannot revolt.” However,

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his position could not have been more politically opposite to one from a workers’ rights paper the following year: The whole capitalist class profits by a system that keeps workers excitedly interested in trivial matters remote from true concerns . . . The brain-numbing narcotic of the sporting page is perhaps more deadly to the average worker than the more active poison of the editorial page. (cited in Kidd, 1996, pp. 50, 167)

In these words, we see the dual parts of power at play, as critical theorists see it, with sport being used both as a means of social control but at the same time the workers’ rights paper demonstrating that a certain degree of agency, or in this case resistance, is possible. Importantly, the workers’ rights paper here is recognizing the particularly powerful role that sport can play in controlling—and bringing agency to—the life of workers, precisely because sport is thought to be separate from “real” politics. Workers in fact formed their own Workers’ Olympic Games movement that at its peak in the early 1930s was in many ways more successful than the “regular” Olympics, attracting thousands of spectators and participants while simultaneously expanding opportunities to more women, children, and those “past their prime” (Kidd, 1996, p. 155). While the impact of the workers’ sport movement waned after World War II, there still exists an international workers’ sport body today, the International Workers and Amateurs in Sports Confederation (CSIT, 2018).

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Resisting the Olympics

Today, resistance movements to major global sporting events like the Olympic Games serve as an example of critical theorists’ work at play. More and more protest groups have become involved in resisting the hegemony of the Olympic movement, and academics have played direct roles. Critical analyses of global mega-events have come from the likes of economist Andrew Zimbalist or political scientist Jules Boykoff, both of whom have been very public in their critiques. Zimbalist, author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, has demonstrated that historically very few Olympic Games have led to long-term financial benefits, making hosting the Games, as his title suggests, a gamble, usually at taxpayers’ expense (Zimbalist, 2015). Boykoff, author of several books including Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics, points out that political resistance to the Olympics has in fact been part-and-parcel of the Olympic movement throughout its entire history. Boykoff recounts the Workers’ Olympic movement (discussed earlier), the Women’s Olympic movement (discussed in the next section), and the famous black power salute protest by John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Mexico Summer Olympic Games as important historical examples. To take a more

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recent example, during the Sochi Winter Games in Russia, there were several protests by athletes themselves and groups such as All Out and Athlete Ally against repressive anti-gay legislation signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin leading up to the games (Boykoff, 2016). Indeed, we can see today that the hegemony of the Olympic movement, combined with political resistance to the Games and the increasing realization that the economic benefits of the Games are limited, has put the Olympics in a state of tension. Fewer and fewer cities are willing to bid to host the Games. In late 2018, the city of Calgary held a plebiscite on whether to bid for the 2026 Winter Games, and the ‘NO’ side won. And, in 2017 the International Olympic Committee announced that Paris would host the 2024 Summer Games and Los Angeles the 2028 Games, in the first-ever dual confirmation of Olympic sites. The reason was simple: no other cities in the world wanted to bid for the Games. While it is the case that the International Olympic Committee during the last 30 to 40 years has generated extremely lucrative revenues for the Olympic movement, overcoming its current political and economic tensions will be vital to the future success of the Games.

Gender Relations and Sexuality A second strand within critical social theories is gender relations and sexuality, and central to this strand is feminist studies. Shona Thompson (2002) has expressed feminism’s main social and political objectives in clear terms: Fundamentally, feminism champions the belief that women have rights to all the benefits and privileges of social life equally with men. For the purposes of those concerned with sport, this means that girls and women have the right to choose to participate in sport and physical activity without constraint, prejudice or coercion, to expect their participation to be respected and taken seriously, and to be as equally valued and rewarded as sportsmen. (p. 106)

Feminist-inspired histories of sport in Canada have identified the important role that gender relations and ideas about both women and men have played in the country’s sporting traditions. A landmark book is Helen Lenskyj’s Out of Bounds: Women, Sport & Sexuality, published in 1986. The year is important because Lenskyj’s book was published at a time when there were very few published works on the history of or social issues related to women’s sport, a reflection on the fact that the disciplines of sociology and history were dominated by men who, as a rule, pushed women’s issues to the side. A more recent example is Ann Hall’s The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada (2016), likely the most complete historical account of women’s sport in Canada ever written. Interestingly, Hall’s opening line of the book, “The history of modern sport is a history of cultural struggle” (p. xv) replicates, but with significant differences, the opening sentence of The Communist Manifesto: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle” (Marx & Engels, 1948, p. 9). Hall’s opening line reflects, first, the central difference between feminism and conflict theories—the recognition by the former that power operates at levels that conflict theory, in its classical theoretical form, had not envisioned; second, the “struggle” in Hall’s sentence reflects a position common in critical social theories in general—that resistance is possible and power is never complete. While male power and privilege certainly played an important role in women’s sport historically, Hall recounts in her text the various ways in which women—and sometimes men—resisted that power and privilege to create opportunities. An important example from history verifies Hall’s point. During the 1920s a Frenchwoman named Alice Milliat was fighting for greater recognition of women in sport. Realizing that the Olympic Games, the biggest sporting event at the time, was exclusively run by men and almost exclusively for male participants, Milliat decided to take matters into her own hands and organized the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale in 1921 and subsequently the first Women’s Olympic Games in Paris in 1922. While only a one-day event, it was considered a success, so Milliat continued the women’s Olympic movement. The second Games in 1926 included participants from 10 countries, and some started to make comparisons with the “other” Olympic Games. With the prestige of the women’s movement increasing, the IOC threatened Milliat over the use of the term “Olympic,” claiming it legally as its own. Recognizing that the IOC ran the most visible sporting event in the world, Milliat negotiated a settlement whereby she would change her event name to Women’s World Games in exchange for the inclusion of 10 track and field events for women

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in the IOC’s Games. The IOC agreed but then reneged on their promise and included only five events in the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam. However, while Milliat’s bargain was in some ways unsuccessful, it did give women the opportunity to showcase their skills and athletic prowess on the international stage for the first time. Milliat’s story, in other words, is a perfect example of resistance (Milliat) alongside containment (IOC) that reflects so much of women’s sport ­history (Hall, 2007). Feminist theory continues to inspire studies of the various ways in which sex, gender, and sexuality influence sporting experiences; these are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. Box 2.5 below discusses the important example of sex determination in high-level sport to underscore why it’s so important to draw upon feminist scholarship to understand one important sport policy.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 2.5

Challenging Sex Testing

In the summer of 2018, South African runner Caster Semenya held a press conference with her lawyer, stating that she would be taking the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to court. “I am Mokgadi Caster Semenya. I am a woman and I am fast” she stated to the press (cited in Longman, 2018). What was Semenya talking about and why was she taking the IAAF to court? In a word, hyperandrogenism. Hyperandrogenism refers to women who have higher than “normal” quantities of naturally producing testosterone. In 2011 and 2012, the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) created policies regulating women who had levels of testosterone above 10 nanomoles per litre of blood serum. The policies were created because of a scandal involving Semenya at the 2009 World Athletic Championships. After she won the 800-metres race, certain competitors, coaches, and a few journalists accused Semenya of not being properly “feminine.” The IAAF forced Semenya to undergo a series of tests to “prove” her femininity in the ensuing months, and she received—extremely intrusively—­ widespread attention in international media. She had her “female status” reinstated, but the IAAF (and IOC) created their hyperandrogenism polices because of her case. Then, after also being accused of being hyperandrogenic, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand took her case to court and won, in a landmark 2015 decision by sport’s highest legal authority, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). CAS determined that the IAAF had two years to prove that hyperandrogenism confers an advantage in track or field events, or else the policy would be annulled. In early 2018 the IAAF announced that, based on studies conducted the previous year, hyperandrogenism

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would be applied once again, but in certain events only, including the 800- and 1500-metres; significantly, both are events in which Semenya competes. This was the reason for her and her legal team’s challenge in the summer of 2018. In May 2019, the CAS—the ruling body that Semenya and her team appealed to—upheld the IAAF’s decision. Again, this means that Semenya will be required to artificially suppress testosterone in her body if she wants to compete in these events. While Semenya’s and Chand’s cases are important, they reflect something much more widespread in modern sport: Female athletes at high levels of competition have had to undergo some form of “sex test” or “gender verification” procedure, literally since the start of modern sport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In fact, for the last half of the 20th century, almost all female athletes in major competitions, including the Olympic Games, had to undergo a physical chromosome inspection to “prove” they were women. The reason for this goes to the core of modern sport: the dominant forms of sport and the organization of major competitions were created by men, for men. As women entered the arena of competition, they were treated with distrust, and, now in the second decade of the 21st century, hyperandrogenism policy is the latest iteration of this distrust. For understanding feminist scholarship, this example is revealing: feminists recognize that many assumptions we have today about sex and gender in sport have been historically constructed. Based on that knowledge, feminists have been at the forefront of both educating the public and challenging sex testing policies at the highest levels of sport’s administration, including CAS (Pieper, 2016).

Myrtle Cook of Canada wins her heat in the 100-metre dash at the 1928 Summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam. If it were not for the fact that Frenchwoman Alice Milliat fought the male-controlled International Olympic Committee to have more women’s events in the Olympic Games, Cook and other Canadian female athletes would never have competed. George Rinhart/Corbis/Getty Images

Critical Race Studies A final strand within critical social theories is critical race studies. This strand of critical social theories examines the important role that race relations and racism have played in shaping sporting traditions in Canadian history and how they continue to shape it today. Generally, critical theorists of race and ethnic relations are interested in three things: first, the manner in which sport and physical movement play important roles in the development of ethnic cultural beliefs and heritage; second, the manner in which certain ethnic traditions in Canada have been privileged at the expense of others; and finally, the manner in which ideas about “race” have been naturalized or reinforced through sport. These themes are discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. One of the important themes taken up in this strand of critical social theories is the way ideas about what “Canada” is and what constitutes a “true Canadian” are themselves imbued with assumptions about race. Sociologist Himani Bannerji (2000) has challenged the notion of “Canadianness” by suggesting that it contains within it assumptions about race. The country’s colonial history has led to a certain dominant image of “Canadianness,” but these dominant notions have been based on specific historical conditions and cultural traditions in which certain groups have been privileged in the development of the image while others have been erased from the picture. In Bannerji’s words, Official multiculturalism, mainstream political thought and the news media in Canada all rely comfortably on the notion of a nation and its state both called Canada, with legitimate subjects called Canadians.  .  .  . There is an assumption that this Canada is a singular entity, a moral, cultural and political essence. . . .

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And yet, when we scrutinize this Canada, what do we see? The answer to this question depends on which side of the nation we inhabit. For those who see it as a homogenous cultural/political entity . . . Canada is unproblematic. For others . . . who have been dispossessed in one sense or another, the answer is quite different. (2000, pp. 104–105)

An example in Canada’s history is the “two solitudes” account of the English and French in Canada which, while certainly an important and real part of Canada’s history and one that continues to influence the country’s social and political life, is also an account of Canada’s history that erases Indigenous peoples from the historical picture. Interestingly, in justifying funding for a new federal sport system in a campaign speech he made in 1968, Pierre Trudeau claimed that sport could be used effectively to promote nationalism and ease tensions between the French and the English (MacIntosh, Bedecki, & Franks, 1987). However, the sport “system” that was developed effectively ignored the many and varied sporting traditions of people who were dispossessed, including Indigenous sport. Some important Indigenous sporting events today represent resistance against the traditional way “sports and physical activity have been used as assimilative tools” (Morrow & Wamsley, 2013, p. 247). The North American Indigenous Games, first held in Edmonton in 1990, is a regularly held multisport event that attracts ­thousands of participants and spectators. The objective of the Games is competition, but more importantly, to add to the self-determination process of Indigenous communities in terms of sporting culture, make sport and physical culture resources equally accessible, and acknowledge the distinct nature of Indigenous social and cultural life (North American Indigenous Games, 2018). These events and the general role of sport and physical culture in Indigenous life will be given heightened attention in the future. One of the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015) was that greater recognition be given to the role sport and physical activity plays in the lives of Indigenous peoples, and to enhance opportunities for participation (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, p. 10). This will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5.

CONCLUSION Sociological theory is an ongoing and developing process. Part of the purpose of this chapter has been to demonstrate that sociological theories themselves have long heritages and, in many cases, intersect in terms of perspectives on the social and cultural world. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind as you read the chapters that follow and as you consider the myriad perspectives on the themes presented is the ultimate political goals of sociological theory and, in turn, the developing discipline of sociology of sport: to make the world the best one possible, one in which sport and physical activity can play important and significant roles in the enrichment of people’s lives. Reflecting on the quote from Mills at the start of this chapter, using sociological theory encourages us not to take for granted many common assumptions about the way we think sport just “is”; we need to constantly be critical and reflective of both the positive and at-times detrimental aspects of sport and to think about our p ­ ersonal 46

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experiences in terms of greater social, cultural, economic, and political forces. Sociological theory is the central tool that allows us to more clearly “see” social and cultural phenomena that impact sport, to ask important questions in research, and in general to understand the impact of sport and physical culture on our lives.

Key Terms Alienation: In general, alienation is a feeling of isolation or detachment from the social world. However, the concept for Karl Marx was specific to workers’ detachment from the fruits of their labour under the capitalist profit system—workers do not realize the full potential of their labour and are therefore alienated. Conflict theory: General theory developed in sociology from the mid-20th century on, based primarily on the work of Karl Marx and Max Weber, that recognized the ubiquitous roll conflict plays in social life. Democratic revolutions: Social and political changes starting in the 1700s that led to democratic forms of government, greater participation of citizens in the affairs of the state and in society in general, and the idea that elected representatives are responsible to their citizens. Feminist studies: General perspectives in sociology that attempt to understand and change gender inequality, the social construction of gender, sexuality, and other issues. Goal-rational action: The concept developed by Max Weber to describe human action involving the most calculated means toward achieving a particular end or goal. Weber believed goalrational action or “rationality” would come to be an all-encompassing force in modern social life. Hegemony: Concept developed primarily in the work of Antonio Gramsci to describe how power in society is maintained by developing consent among the general populace through “common sense” ideas or common assumptions, which benefit and maintain the power of dominant classes. I and Me: Concepts developed by George Herbert Mead to describe, first, the part of people’s self that subjectively experiences and initiates people’s action in the world (I), and second, the image people have of themselves based on how we believe others view us (Me). The I and Me combine to form the self. Industrial Revolution: Widespread economic and social changes from the late-1700s and 1800s onwards, brought about by the mass production of goods in the centrally organized factory system and the replacement of goods made by hand tools to those made through machine production. Capitalism as an economic system also grew alongside the spread of industrial production. Macrosociology: General theoretical perspectives in sociology that emphasize sweeping structural processes as a way of understanding society and people’s roles in society. Structuralfunctionlism and conflict are the main examples of macrosociological theories in sociology. Microsociology: Perspectives in sociology that tend to emphasize the everyday experiences of people, their behaviour, and interactions. Modes of production: Karl Marx’s concept to describe different economic forms in various societies historically, upon which social systems emerge. While Marx studied many modes of production throughout history, his primary interest was in understanding the capitalist mode of production. Predestination: The notion, studied by Max Weber, of 17th century Puritans, that God predetermines whether followers are chosen to go to heaven or not. Followers sought signs of God’s grace by leading lives of duty, hard work, and abstaining from worldly pleasures.

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Self: Concept developed by George Herbert Mead to describe the character and personality of people that emerges out of a combination of individual psychological forces, and social structure and processes. Social facts: French sociologist Émile Durkheim defined social facts as any phenomena that operated according to social rules or laws independent of any one individual. His most famous example was the act of suicide. Social integration: Common ties or bonds that hold people together and give them a feeling of solidarity. Émile Durkheim highlighted the impact that levels of integration had on the chances of people committing suicide, and the concept would become critical to the development of structural-functionalist theory in sociology in the 20th century. Sociological theory: A proposition or set of propositions about the nature of the social world and people’s active engagement in that world. Structural-functionalism (or Functionalism): Theory emerging out of the early work of French sociologist Émile Durkheim, which came to dominate sociology by the mid-20th century. The theory emphasizes the function of different elements, institutions, and values and norms of a social system in terms of their ability to contribute to the stability of the structure of society. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective in sociology that studies the everyday actions of people, recognizing the importance of language as a symbolic system for understanding the world, and patterns of interaction as a fundamental component of social life and the development of the self.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. This chapter demonstrated that sociology views history itself as a dynamic process, and that learning from history allows us to understand the present. Consider two specific issues or controversies in sport and explain how a knowledge of the history of sport in Canada would aid in your understanding of those issues or controversies. 2. The discipline of sociology emerged out of the problems and issues generated by the emergence of democratic institutions and the Industrial Revolution. What problems or issues still exist today that are similar to the ones the first sociologists were concerned with? 3. Put yourself in the shoes of a Marxist thinker. How would you consider the following topics: the Canadian federal government’s funding of elite athletes, Nike Corporation’s labour practices in developing countries or Nike’s use of Colin Kaepernick’s image for its 30th anniversary of the “Just Do It” campaign, and public access to facilities and resources for sport and recreation? 4. What examples can you think of in which the “Me” part of the individual character (as defined by George Herbert Mead) is reinforced in sport? In other words, think of examples in which the external social environment leads to individuals taking on a certain sports character or identity. 5. In what ways do gender and sexuality play important roles in Canadian sport today in terms of both empowering but also limiting experiences in sport?

Suggested Readings Beamish, R. (2016). The promise of sociology: Classical approaches to contemporary society, 2nd ed. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Coakley, J., & Dunning, E. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of sports studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. (See especially Chapters 1–5.)

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Giulianotti, R. (Ed.). (2004). Sport and modern social theorists. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Giulianotti, R. (2016). Sport: A critical sociology (2nd ed.). Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press. Maguire, J., & Young, K. (Eds.). (2002). Theory, sport & society. Amsterdam: JAI.

References Bannerji, H. (2000). The dark side of the nation: Essays on multiculturalism, nationalism and gender. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press. Beal, B. (2002). Symbolic interactionism and cultural studies: Doing critical ethnography. In J. Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Theory, sport & society (pp. 353–373). Amsterdam: JAI. Beamish, R. (2002). Karl Marx’s enduring legacy for the sociology of sport. In J. Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Theory, sport & society (pp. 25–39). Amsterdam: JAI. Beamish, R. (2010). The promise of sociology: The classical tradition and contemporary sociological thinking. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Beamish, R. (2017). Social structure and human agency. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Education. Beamish, R., & Borowy, J. (1988). Q. What do you do for a living? A. I’m an athlete. Kingston, ON: The Sport Research Group. Boykoff, J. (2016). Power games: A political history of the Olympics. London and New York: Verso. Cantelon, H. (1981). High performance sport and the child athlete: Learning to labour. In A.G. Ingham & E.F. Broom (Eds.), Career patterns and career contingencies in sport (pp. 258−286). Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia. Cantelon, H., & Ingham, A.G. (2002). Max Weber and the sociology of sport. In J. Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Theory, sport & society (pp. 63–81). Amsterdam: JAI. CSIT (2018). Official website of the Confédération Sportive Internationale Travailliste et Amateur (CSIT; International Workers and Amateurs in Sports Confederation). Retrieved from https://www.csit.tv/en. Curtis, J., Loy, J., & Karnilowicz, W. (1986). A comparison of suicide-dip effects of major sport events and civil holidays. Sociology of Sport Journal, 3, 1−14. Donnelly, P. (Ed.) (2011). Taking sport seriously: Social issues in Canadian sport, 3rd ed. Toronto: Thompson Educational. Donnelly, P. (2013). Sport participation. In L. Thibault & J. Harvey (Eds.), Sport policy in Canada (pp. 177−213). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology. New York, NY: The Free Press. Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada: Sport, identities and cultural ­politics. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Hall, A. (2007). Cultural struggle and resistance: Gender, history, and Canadian sport. In K. Young & P. White (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (pp. 56–74). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Hall, A. (2016). The girl and the game: A history of women’s sport in Canada, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hruby, P. (2012). The Olympics show why college sports should give up on amateurism. The Atlantic, July 25. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/ the-olympics-show-why-college-sports-should-give-up-on-amateurism/260275/. Ingham, A.G. (2004). The sportification process: A biographical analysis framed by the work of Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Freud. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Sport and modern social theorists (pp. 11–32). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Kidd, B. (1984). The myth of the ancient Games. In A. Tomlinson & G. Whannel (Eds.), Five ring circus: Money, power and politics at the Olympic Games (pp. 71–83). London and Sydney: Pluto Press. Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Kuper, S., & Szymanski, S. (2009). Soccernomics: Why England loses, why Germany and Brazil win, and why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey—and even Iraq—are destined to become the kings of the world’s most popular sport. New York, NY: Nation Books. Lenskyj, H. (1986). Out of bounds: Women, sport and sexuality. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press. Longman, J. (2018, June 18). Caster Semenya will challenge testosterone rule in court. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/sports/castersemenya-iaaf-lawsuit.html. MacIntosh, D., Bedecki, T., & Franks, C.E.S. (1987). Sport and politics in Canada: Federal ­government involvement since 1961. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Marx, K. (1963). Economic and philosophical manuscripts. In T.B. Bottomore (Ed.), Karl Marx: Early writings. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Marx, K. (1972). Thesis on Feuerbach. In R.C. Tucker (Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader (pp. 107–9). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. Marx, K. (1977). Capital: Vol. I. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1948). The communist manifesto. New York, NY: International Publishers. Mead, G. H. (1962). Mind, self, & society from the standpoint of a behaviorist. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Mills, C.W. (1959). The sociological imagination. London: Oxford University Press. Morrow, D., & Wamsley, K.B. (2013). Sport in Canada: A history, 3rd ed. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. North American Indigenous Games. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.naigcouncil.com/ index.php. Pieper, L.P. (2016). Sex testing: Gender policing in women’s sports. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press. Robidoux, M.A. (2001). Men at play: A working understanding of professional hockey. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Ryan, J. (1995). Little girls in pretty boxes: The making and breaking of elite gymnasts and figure skaters. New York: Doubleday. Thompson, S. T. (2002). Sport, gender, feminism. In J. Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Theory, sport & society (pp. 105–127). Amsterdam: JAI. Trudeau, J. (2018). Statement by the Prime Minister on the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Posted on Prime Minster Justin Trudeau’s Twitter feed, February 9. Used with permission. Retrieved from https://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2018/02/09/statement-primeminister-opening-2018-winter-olympics. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Ubelacker, S. (2018). Why hazing continues despite physical and mental health consequences. The Canadian Press, posted on the CBC News website, December 8. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/hazing-physical-mental-health-consequences-1.4936003. Used with permission. Weber, M. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Zimbalist, A. (2015). Circus maximus: The economic gamble behind hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute Press.

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Chapter 3 

Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective Carly Adams

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Identify the social structures and ideologies that have shaped the institutionalization and growth of modern sport in Canada. 2 Discuss the importance of having a historical sensitivity for the sociological analysis of modern sport. 3 Examine and historically situate taken-for-granted assumptions in Canadian sport and the uneven power relations that have shaped sport.

Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame introduces the Class of 2018: Jeff Adams, Damon Allen, Mary Baker, Chandra Crawford, Alexandre Despatie, Dave Keon, Sandra Kirby, and Wilton Littlechild at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Carly Adams

4 Explain how some groups have exercised hegemony, while others have been excluded at different moments in time from fully participating in Canadian sport. 5 Define and trace key organizing concepts such as amateurism, professionalism, nationalism, and industrialization.

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“No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history, and of their intersections within society has completed its intellectual journey . . . . Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? . . . . [W]hat are [society’s] essential features? How does it differ from other periods?” (Mills, 1959, p. 6–7)

INTRODUCTION On October 18, 2018, the Canada Sports Hall of Fame (CSHoF) inducted a number of extraordinary athletes—Chandra Crawford, Jeff Adams, Damon Allen, Dave Keon, and Mary Baker—along with Dr. Sandra Kirby and Wilton Little Child as builders. The CSHoF as the top level of national recognition in Canadian sport bestows a level of status on athletes and builders in Canada’s sports community while also playing an important role in how we remember our sporting histories and their associated cultural and political struggles (Kidd, 1996; Adams & Wamsley, 2005). When asked during an interview to think historically about how and why sport has been a catalyst for social change in Canada, Dr. Sandra Kirby replied, “Sport is a step above the rest of the world, it has its own different rules and the public gives sport more room that it would other arenas of life to do things. But we also give sport more room to try different things.” Kirby, who competed at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal with the Canadian rowing team, has dedicated her career to making sport more equitable and eradicating sexual harassment, abuse, homophobia, and violence against children from Canadian sport (see, for example, Kirby, Greaves, & Hankivsky, 2000). Jeff Adams developed a passion for playing wheelchair basketball and then wheelchair racing as a child; by age 18, he was competing in international competitions. Adams advocates for the importance of mentorship in Canada sport. When asked about one of the most memorable moments in his career as a wheelchair racer, he shared a story from the 2001 Edmonton World Championships. He recalled, “I was having a really rough day and someone cheered my name, it just turned into the sound of support for me that day . . . Every time I think about that race, I think about that we all have access to the sound of support in our lives and sometimes we need to let ourselves hear it to be able to dig just a little deeper on those days when we don’t think we have the courage to do it” (Kerr, 2018). In 2018, the CSHoF announced their “Girls in Sport” initiative to encourage girls to get involved or stay involved in sport. Chandra Crawford, a 2018 inductee, is a supporter and advocate of this initiative. Crawford began cross-country skiing racing at the age of 17, winning numerous national and international titles, including a gold medal in the women’s cross-country sprint at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. In 2005, while competing, she founded Fast and Female, an organization dedicated to empowering girls in sport, mentoring young athletes, and encouraging kids and especially young girls to lead active, healthy lifestyles. Chief Wilton Little Child, when speaking publicly, often shares stories about how hockey saved his life. As a child and young man, he turned to hockey as an escape from the emotional and sexual abuse he was subjected to during 14 years of residential schooling. Little Child, a member of the Ermineskin Cree Nation, an accomplished athlete, lawyer, a member of Parliament, and a residential school ­survivor, has dedicated his life to working nationally and internationally to advocate

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for and advance Indigenous rights and treaties. He was one of the founders of the North American Indigenous Games and the World Indigenous Games. There are many inspirational stories of Canadian athletes, like Kirby, Adams, Crawford, and Little Child, who have had incredible experiences of triumph, overcoming Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse team visited Battery Park, New York in 2010. Bryan Smith/ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo

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challenges or defeat, and empowerment, and are making a difference in local, grassroots, national and international sport and society more broadly. Indeed, there is much to celebrate and be proud of about Canada’s rich and fascinating sport stories. It would be easy to conclude that the stories that make up Canadian sport and get told over and over by athletes, coaches, fans, the media, and historians are stories of success and triumph—championship teams, legendary athletes, incredible athletic performances, etc. But the stories of these four athletes also remind us that Canadian sport is complicated; these stories speak to how and why sport has developed unevenly in Canada and how sport has been transformed over time. They point to the relationships between sport and broader social structures, institutions, and groups in Canadian society. In 2018, sports are played, discussed, and watched by millions of Canadians. All human behaviour, decisions, actions, incidents, as well as larger social institutions and structures have histories. They are rooted in socially constructed traditions, norms, customs, and cultural and personal values that are, in some cases, constantly changing against the backdrop of broader political and cultural struggles. To understand contemporary sport, we must situate them within an understanding of the past. How did we get to this moment? How have governing bodies organized sport in “preferred” ways? What groups have power and resources in both sport and society? Why are athletes (re)acting in certain ways? Why are particular sports and athletes culturally revered, while others are ignored, even denigrated? When/where does the history of sport in “Canada” begin? Why have certain sport ideologies persisted? Sport is a site, a contested terrain, in which important cultural struggles and political issues, connected to gender and sexuality (see Chapter 6), class (see Chapter 4), and race and ethnicity  (see Chapter 5), quite literally are contested and negotiated on the field, the pitch, the ice, or in the water.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION AND ITS HISTORICAL SENSITIVITY Before we go any further into this chapter, let’s stop and consider why a historical sensitivity matters to the development of your sociological imagination—and for the sociological analysis of sport, physical culture, and Canadian society. The most basic explanation is that to fully understand how sport functions, how it has been transformed, and how and why it exists as it does today, we need to understand how it has developed and where it has come from. We need to place sport at the intersections of biography, history, and social structure(s) to fully understand its complexities and how sport has been socially constructed. Sport has not developed in a vacuum—it has always been a reflection of or a response to social, political, and economic issues taking place in Canada and around the world. A historical sensitivity can help us see, in some instances, how transformation happens—how things that seem impossible to change have, in fact, been changed at different moments in time and over time, in a range of ways.

Applying a Historical Sensitivity When applying a historical sensitivity to sociological research, we rely on documents such as diaries, newspapers, census data, photographs, artwork, and correspondence to place moments within their historical contexts. In some cases, we are also able to 54

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speak to people who witnessed or were a part of events of the past and we can conduct interviews to better understand someone’s experience. When placing current moments in their social historical context, we need to ask critical questions: How did the press cover this event/moment? What documents exist that can tell us how and why these decisions were made? How can we bring together different perspectives of the past to understand the power relations and social structures shaping this moment? It is also important to consider a sociologist’s perspective and bias, as this shapes how we understand the social context. What motivates us? Why are we asking these questions? What theories are we using? All social histories have important ideological and political implications (White, 1973). In the case of the CSHoF, for example, they are curators of Canadian social history in that they decide who to honour as inductees and whose stories matter, and by default, whose stories are forgotten or ignored. The purpose of this chapter is not to trace the history of Canadian sport. Rather, the intent of this chapter is to encourage you to think about how we can apply a historical sensitivity to contemporary sport to gain an appreciation for how the past can help us understand the social world around us. To do this we’ll look at contemporary sporting moments, such as the Humboldt Broncos hockey tragedy, the women’s ski jumping controversy, and the incident at the Quebec City Coupe Challenge AAA hockey tournament when the First Nations Elite Bantam team was taunted with racist comments and slurs, and apply a historical sensitivity to consider past events, issues, social structures, and ideologies that have shaped these moments. As we do this, we’ll ask questions such as: How can we understand these stories? What led up to this moment? How did past events, behaviours, or actors shape these moments? What ideologies shaped these events? The purpose of constructing the chapter in this way is to encourage you to think about what you read on social media or events you see happening around you and to think about them with a historical sensitivity, to ask critical questions about why and how an event or an issue has unfolded. As Vertinsky, Jette, and Hofmann (2009) remind us, we need to examine “the ways in which taken-for-granted assumptions of the present have developed and been sustained over time” (p. 27). The ability to locate social issues, interactions and behaviours of contemporary Canadian sport in the broader narrative of history is essential to understand Canadian sport in all its complexities and broader social relations. All current events in Canadian sport have a history and that history is important for understanding the present and imagining the future. In Chapter 2, you learned about a variety of theoretical perspectives that sociologists use to understand sport. Critical social theories, for example, provide helpful lenses through which to explore the social change that has taken place in Canadian society and in particular the range of political struggles related to class, gender, ethnicity, and race for example, that have shaped sport and Canadian society, albeit unevenly. These perspectives recognize the agency of social groups and their ability to challenge dominant social structures and relations of power. As you read this chapter, I invite you to think about and apply the social theories you learned about in Chapter 2. Specifically, I encourage you to think about how sport has played a hegemonic role in shaping Canada’s history through the reinforcement of social power relations. As you read and think about this chapter and the issues presented in this book, and as you consume and participate in Canadian sport, read critically, ask questions about what you are reading, and challenge assumptions, claims, and perspectives. Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective

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THE HUMBOLDT TRAGEDY, CANADIAN HOCKEY, AND THE HISTORY OF ORGANIZED SPORT IN CANADA On April 7, 2018, many Canadians were devastated by the news of a bus crash that killed 10 hockey players, the team’s coach, assistant coach, athletic therapist, volunteer statistician, the bus driver, and an employee of the local FM radio station, and injured many others. The Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team from Saskatchewan was headed to a playoff game when their team bus collided with a transport truck. In the days following the accident, as family, friends, and Canadians from across the country tried to make sense of this tragedy, a GoFundMe account was set up for the team. This initiative raised over $15 million for the surviving players and family members of those who passed away. While the families of these players, the surviving members of the team, and the rural community of Humboldt will be forever scarred by the loss of these young men, this accident also struck a chord with Canadians across the country and around the world. Millions of Canadians took to social media to express their support and sympathy. There were vigils in countless communities, moments of silence, jersey days to honour the team, and hockey sticks left on front porches of homes across the country in a tribute to these players and what they represent—Canada’s seemingly natural connection to ice hockey. Why did this tragedy resonate so deeply, arguably more than other national events from recent years, with Canadians? Why do we unite around certain communities and not others in times of tragedy?

The Development of Organized Sport in Canada To understand the Humboldt tragedy, and why it resonated with so many Canadians, we need to consider how organized sports such as hockey developed in Canada and why hockey in particular is so firmly embedded in the national identity of so many Hockey sticks, flowers, helmets, and more, at the Saskatchewan stone left in memory of hockey players killed in a collision in Saskatchewan. Doug McLean/Shutterstock

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Canadians, and in the identity of our cities and communities. Sport has had many purposes in Canadian society over the last 150 years. It brought people together; it was a means of social advancement and healthy living; for some it was a job. But it was also used for political and strategic purposes to control, regulate, and exclude certain groups of people. The history of organized sport in Canada is a history of exclusion, regulation, and discrimination. Since the 1970s, sport historians and sociologists have been sensitive to the need for broader theoretical engagements at a critical level with sport and how changes in sport connect with what Richard Gruneau (1988, p. 10) calls a “general theory of industrial society.” “Modern” sport was a product of the mid-19th century Industrial Revolution and the many technological and social changes that came with it. Viewed as a progressive transformation, “modern” sport was organized, structured, and regulated in sharp contrast to the unorganized and localized sport in the pre-industrial era. As sport became more popular it became a distinct institution. Gruneau (1988, p. 13) explains that the institutionalization of modern sport can be “understood as a process whereby one particular set of patterns and rules of conduct has gradually emerged to define and regulate our contemporary sense of what sport is and how it should be legitimately played.” The modernization of Canadian sport is a history of capital accumulation, unequal class and power relations, commodification, and hegemony (Gruneau, 1988). Sport as a cultural form became characterized by competitive individualism and achievement, privileging some social groups over others. Thus, the history of modern sport is a history of cultural struggle, whereby some groups were privileged over others, and some sporting practices were marginalized “or incorporated into more ‘respectable’ and ‘useful’ ways of playing as the colonizers (primarily the British) imposed their particular sports on the colonized” (Hall, Slack, Smith & Whitson, 1991, p. 75). Class, gender, racial, and ethnic struggles are woven into the fabric of the history of sport in Canada. The period of industrialization that took place in the mid-1800s brought to Canada (as it did to many Western countries) mass changes in methods of transportation, communication, and technology. These changes greatly impacted the development of organized sport in Canada, as it meant greater visibility of sporting contests, easier access to events and games for players and spectators, and advances in equipment and facilities. Returning to the Humboldt tragedy, the history of “modern sport” and the various advances in transportation and communication that were taking shape as sport was becoming institutionalized are important to understand when thinking about why and how this team of young men from Saskatchewan came to be travelling down a rural road on the way to compete in a hockey match. Until the 19th century, getting to a sporting contest took a lot of time, as it meant travelling by foot, horse, or canoe to reach one’s destination. This meant that sport was often only the purview of elite members of society, as they were the ones who had the leisure time needed for the necessary travel and execution of the sport. It also meant that sport was mostly contested with others in close proximity and that news about sporting contests mostly travelled by word of mouth. The introduction of steamers and steamboats to the waterways, while a form of recreation themselves, allowed athletes, coaches, and spectators to travel further distances. Some companies also offered prizes for sport competitions and reduced rates for travel to events (Morrow & Wamsley, 2017). By 1900, 30,000 km of railway linked Canada from coast to coast. For affluent sport enthusiasts, the railway promised wealth and adventure. It meant access to the Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective

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breathtaking scenery of the Rocky Mountains and a way to travel to the coasts and oceans for those who could afford the cost of the ticket. Again, this meant a huge reduction in travel time to reach events and competition with teams from much further away. Thus, more people could compete in sport, as it took less time to travel and was more convenient. The emergence of the railway also meant that sport events could be regularly scheduled, leagues could be formed, and multi-club events such as curling bonspiels and hockey, baseball, and lacrosse tournaments, and international tours across North America in urban and rural areas could take place (Morrow & Wamsley, 2017). Leagues, like the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL), established in 1968, are now taken-for-granted components of Canadian sport—but historically the emergence of league play, due to new modes of transportation, was a key moment in the development of organized sport across Canada. The invention of the telegraph in the 1850s revolutionized communication. In 1866, when the Atlantic telegraph cable was completed, it meant that the results of international sporting events in Europe, such as the Rowing World Championships in 1867 when the Saint John, New Brunswick, crew (a team that became known as the Paris Crew) won first place, could be transmitted instantly to Canadians (Morrow & Wamsley, 2017). These changes in technology and communication meant increasing fan interest at the local, provincial, national, and international levels. Radio broadcasts and the emergence of dedicated sports pages in local, regional, and national newspapers promoted and marketed sports teams and brought people together through stories and play-by-play action. By the 1920s, many Canadian newspapers had full-time male and female sport reporters on their staff. This historical development helps us understand and reflect on the fact that one of the individuals killed in the bus crash was an employee with the local Humboldt FM radio station—sent with the team to cover the game and to provide live broadcasts so fans not in attendance could still experience the game. These developments in communication, the current prevalence of social media and easy access to online information, can perhaps also explain the quick and worldwide response to the Humboldt tragedy. In 2018, we can access and respond to events instantly.

Hockey and Canadian Nationalism Hockey is Canada’s national winter sport and it is understood by many as the “game of our lives,” or the “game we tell ourselves about what it means to be Canadian” (Gzowski, 1981; Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). Hockey is firmly embedded (for better or worse) in discourses of Canadian nationhood. When Canadians travel and they are asked about Canada as a country, many tell stories about hockey—our national winter sport. Although hockey was only formally recognized as our national winter sport in 1994 (see Box 3.1), hockey has been linked to stories of the Canadian nation since the 1870s, helping to develop a distinct national identity post-Confederation (Robidoux, 2002). The local hockey arena in towns and cities across the country often serve as “focal point[s] of community spirit” and through inter-urban competition and the development of league competition, sport helped shape community identities (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 154). As a community practice, commercial product, and source of entertainment, sport has emerged as a representational collective for urban and rural communities and works to create a sense of an imagined community among players and enthusiasts. 58

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.1

Two National Sports?

In 1994, the Canadian government passed the National Sports Act, formally recognizing lacrosse as our national summer sport and hockey as our national winter sport. Although hockey has long been connected to stories of Canadian nationalism and identity, the enduring heritage of lacrosse has received less sustained consideration, despite its long history (see Fisher, 2002; Morrow and Wamsley, 2017). The game of lacrosse has been a physical cultural practice in many Indigenous communities for centuries (Downey, 2018). Dakelh scholar Allan Downey (2018, p. 11), reminds us that “the Creator’s game” was not invented by Indigenous peoples but was established “here on Earth, as a way to settle disputes.” The word “lacrosse” first appeared in missionaries’ accounts in the mid-17th century, creating our first non-Indigenous accounts of the game. Non-Indigenous enthusiasts appropriated lacrosse by the mid-1850s with the first white elite lacrosse club, the Montreal Lacrosse Club, formed in 1856. Morrow and Wamsley (2017) suggest that the institutionalization and expansion of lacrosse as an elite white men’s sport can be attributed to one man: George Beers. In 1865, Beers wrote numerous articles in Montreal newspapers under the headline “The National Game,” in

which he promoted the merits of lacrosse, albeit only for certain groups. He also claimed that lacrosse was confirmed as Canada’s national sport by an Act of Parliament, a claim that was widely believed but unfounded (Morrow and Wamsley, 2017). By 1901, lacrosse was a popular team sport in Canada with leagues, playoffs, and a national championship. Intent on establishing a cultural hegemony through lacrosse, organizers such as Beers promoted the game as part of Canada’s national identity, limiting Indigenous players’ opportunities to participate and ignoring the Indigenous origins of the game. By 1880, Canadian organizations completely prohibited Indigenous athletes from competitions (Downey, 2018). It wasn’t until the 1980s, after decades of Indigenous activism and agency, that Indigenous teams reclaimed their rightful place in elite lacrosse. The Iroquois Nationals, a field lacrosse team founded in 1983, is the only Indigenous team allowed to play sport internationally. The International Lacrosse Federation accepted the Iroquois Confederacy as a member nation in 1987 and they participated in their first international competition in 1990. The Iroquois Nationals are currently ranked third in the world after winning bronze at the 2018 World Lacrosse Championships in Netanya, Israel.

However, this connection between Canadian hockey and Canadian nationalism, write Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, also works to create “a kind of cultural amnesia about the social struggles and vested interests—between men and women; social classes; regions; races; and ethnic groups—that have always been a part of hockey’s history” (1993, p. 132; see also, Adams, 2006; Adams, 2014; Robidoux, 2001). Historically, it was mostly men’s hockey that was celebrated and recognized in our national discourse, and arguably Canada’s hockey identity is still firmly tied to the men’s game. Canadian sport is indeed a history of masculine hegemony. This positioning of Canadian identity through men’s hockey reinforces that this is a “traditional,” embodied practice that transcends time, linking boys to their fathers and to (mostly white) Canadian men (Gzowski 1981; Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). Further, given the nature of the sport, where fighting, aggression, injuries, and violence are commonplace and celebrated, a particular form of physical, powerful masculinity is naturalized and celebrated on the ice, excluding certain bodies from becoming part of the Canadian myth (Adams, 2006). Popular Canadian hockey discourse is almost exclusively about white male bodies, connecting notions of whiteness and masculinity to what it means to be Canadian. When we think about other bodies, such as women, Indigenous, or Black athletes, who have also played hockey historically, locally, provincially, nationally, and internationally, this nationalist discourse becomes more complicated. While

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this has changed in recent decades, for example with growing numbers of girls and women competing in the sport, the dominance of the NHL—a monopoly that is made up of predominately white players, coaches, and organizers—suggests that to some degree this still holds true.

The National Hockey League  The National Hockey League (NHL) was established in 1917 at a meeting in Montreal by a group of men who were, in the words of sport historian Bruce Kidd, “unabashed sports capitalists” (1996, p. 184). The NHL was built on and cemented hockey as part of Canadian nationhood despite most of its franchises being largely US-owned and operated. While not the intent of the organizers who sought to create a league where team and player identities could be turned into consumer profits, the outcome was the same. NHL players such as Maurice Richard, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky, and more recently, Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid, have been “held up as exemplars of a particularly Canadian kind of masculinity,” role models that boys were encouraged to emulate (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 168). How did the NHL become the most recognized and desired professional league in Canada? How did it become a monopoly? How has it historically controlled the labour of players? How did players become household names and celebrities? Why have so many young boys and men aspired to play professional hockey?

❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.2

The Stanley Cup

Popular storytelling often ties the coveted Stanley Cup firmly to the history of the NHL. This myth, however, is just that, a Canadian hockey story that has been told over and over by hockey enthusiasts. Myths, according to Barthes, are a form of cultural discourse, “a fixed set of relations without a history” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 132). The myth of the Stanley Cup as the coveted trophy of the NHL championship has helped to “subtly [naturalize] the existence of the NHL’s dominance over the game” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 133). However, if we apply a historical sensitivity, we see that the Stanley Cup has a much more complex history, one that was not originally tied to the NHL. In 1893, Frederick Arthur Stanley, Governor General of Canada, donated a silver cup, the Stanley Cup, to be challenged for by the top men’s amateur hockey teams in Canada. Inspired by his sons, Arthur and Algernon, and his daughter, Isobel, who were hockey enthusiasts and players on Ottawa area teams, Lord Stanley agreed to donate the Cup. In doing so, he also set up a group of trustees who were entrusted with determining the conditions for the challenges and settling any disputes that arose. The Cup created the first national championship for men’s hockey in Canada and helped to generate

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unprecedented press coverage and fan support for the sport (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). In 1894, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association team was the first to win the coveted Cup. The Stanley Cup quickly became a highly sought after symbol of men’s hockey hegemony in Canada. Since 1926, the Cup has been solely awarded to NHL teams, making it the de facto trophy of the NHL. It was not until 1947 that the NHL reached an agreement with the Cup trustees granting the NHL control of the Cup, an agreement that formally recognized the organization’s monopoly. The Stanley Cup was not awarded for the 2004–2005 season due to the NHL lockout. During this labour dispute, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson challenged the stewardship of the Cup. Clarkson proposed that if the Cup was not going to be used that season, it should be awarded to the top women’s hockey teams (CBC sports, 2005). She suggested that given the original intent of the Cup as a challenge cup to determine the top amateur team in Canada, it should not be tied solely to the NHL and to men’s professional hockey. The history of the Stanley Cup reminds us that we must call into question our taken-for-granted assumptions about myths associated with Canadian sport.

The NHL Monopoly  Initially, the NHL was just one of many men’s professional leagues flooding the North American sports market—a sports market in which ­professionalism was still a “dirty” word and professional teams were viewed as shady and less than honourable. Despite the negative connotations associated with professional sport, business leaders sought to make money by staging professional contests in growing urban centres, where workers increasingly had more money and more leisure time. By 1910, professional leagues such as the Canadian Hockey Association (CHA) and the National Hockey Association (NHA) in the east, and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) in the west, popped up across the country vying to attract the best players. Gruneau and Whitson (1993, p. 88) write that on one day in December 1909, “Lester Patrick received offers of $1,200 from P.J. Doran’s NHA team, the Montreal Wanderers; $1,500 from the CHA’s Ottawa Senators; and $3,000 from M.J. O’Brien’s Renfrew Creamery Kings, also of the NHA.” These were unsustainable player salaries given that in 1917–18, team earnings were as little as $1,000 (Kidd, 1996). In 1918, the newly established NHL replaced the NHA and began with only two strong franchises: The Ottawa Senators and the Montreal Canadiens (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). The future of professional hockey improved dramatically following the First World War as a result of the more stable economic conditions in Canada by 1922. New audiences and larger markets were also found in the United States when the trustees of the Stanley Cup, the trophy for the “Championship of the Dominion” in professional men’s hockey allowed US teams to challenge for the Cup (see Box 3.2). In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans won the Cup, raising the profile of men’s professional hockey south of the border and attracting the attention of prominent US business leaders. In the 1920s, the demand for NHL teams in urban centres across Canada and the US exploded and the stage was set for the NHL to emerge as the only men’s major professional hockey league in North America (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). Historian Frank Cosentino (1975) suggests that this success was a result of industrialization and urbanization. However, the growth of sport as a commercial enterprise was slow and tenuous. Many professional leagues and teams across many sports folded, some after only one season. NHL entrepreneurs were savvy in negotiating these market conditions and succeeded where other leagues did not by expanding its market share. It did this, according to Kidd (1996), by “recruiting outside capital, building attractive new arenas, selling franchises to powerful US interests, and speeding up the game” (p. 224). In the 1920s and '30s, many athletes increasingly turned to professional sport as a way of making money (Metcalfe, 1995). Also significant is that by the late 1920s, the NHL controlled the Stanley Cup. Its players were rapidly becoming household names and the league was generating huge revenues. By the 1930s, the Montreal Canadians averaged $185,683 in profits, the lowest revenue in the league (Kidd, 1996). With the collapse of the American Hockey League in 1932, the NHL controlled professional hockey across North America, and was the dominant league that young men and boys desired to join. The success of the NHL, and the centrality of Canadian teams in its early years, is a story that is told over and over.

Minor Hockey for Boys  The 1930s also marked the beginning of minor hockey in Canada, with provincial organizations creating juvenile, midget, bantam, and peewee divisions for boys as young as nine (Adams & Laurendeau, 2018). The institutionalization of hockey for young boys took place amid ongoing debates about the values and merits of amateur and professional sport (see Box 3.3). Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.3

Amateurism and Professionalism

By the 1880s, amateurism had become the prevailing ideological code of Canadian sport. Athletes were expected to play the game for the joy, pleasure, and honour of competition, for the game’s sake—not to win, and certainly not for money. The first definition of an amateur, adopted in Canada in 1884, reflected the prevalent class and gender prejudices of Canadian society, as it was a class-based definition that sought to keep the working classes off the field and mark sport as a middle- and upper-class social space (Metcalfe, 1995). The definition explicitly explained who was excluded from sport and it was “defined as the absence of professionalism” (Hall et al., 1991, p. 58). By the turn-of-the-century, however, this class-based definition was replaced by one that spoke more directly to the tensions between amateur and professional ideologies, as well as to racial prejudices. The code stated: “An amateur is one who has never competed in any open competition or for public money, or for admission money, or with professionals for a prize, public money or admission money, nor has ever, at any period of his life taught or assisted in the pursuit of Athletic exercises as a means of livelihood or as a labourer or Indian” (Morrow, 1986, p. 174). Sport leaders during this time worked to preserve sport as a social and physical space for a small number of elite white men. They did not tolerate athletes who wanted to treat sport as work and who wanted to earn a living from their athletic skills. This definition of an amateur, one staunchly upheld by national governing bodies for decades, speaks to the types of “common sense” social structures of the era, and it is a powerful example of the racist, classist, and sexist discrimination that was a part of Canadian sport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. By the 1920s, the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU of C) became the self-proclaimed national enforcer of these dominant sports values (see Metcalfe, 1987; 1995; and Jones, 1975). By 1926, the code proclaimed that an amateur was one who had never: 1. Entered or competed in any athletic competition for a staked bet, moneys, private or public, or gate receipts. 2. Taught or assisted in the pursuit of any athletic exercise or sport as a means of livelihood.

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3. Received any bonus or payment in lieu of loss of time while playing as a member of any club, or any consideration whatever for any services as an athlete, except actual travelling or hotel expenses. 4. Sold or pledged his prizes. 5. Promoted an athletic competition for personal gain. (AAU of C, 1926 Handbook, p. 9–10). The code also prohibited athletes from competing as amateurs if they participated with or against a professional for a prize or if they competed in a setting where gate receipts were charged. A somewhat ambiguous description outlining the behaviours and actions that an amateur should not undertake, the code provided a benchmark to control sport—how sport should be played and who should play it—often resulting in the exclusion of certain groups of athletes due to its restrictive terms (Metcalfe, 1987). While based on men’s sport, the widespread, socially entrenched sporting ideal also permeated newly organized women’s sport organizations of the 20th century— organizations that often patterned their constitutions and structural format on the men’s model (such as the Women’s Amateur Athletic Federation). Consequently, by the 1920s, governing bodies were sanctioning and charging men and women athletes with professionalism as they attempted to strictly enforce the amateur code and the prevailing power relations. There were serious implications to these charges, as once an athlete turned professional or was deemed a professional by a governing body, there was no going back. They were banned from amateur competitions. All amateur athletes were required to carry an amateur card issued each year by the AAU of C or the WAAF of C. If they did not have this card, or if they had it revoked, they could not compete in amateur competitions. But, this debate between amateur and profession sport was not an easily defined dichotomy. Historian Alan Metcalfe suggests that the perceived difference between amateur and professional athletes, in some cases, existed only in theory. There are many examples of men and women receiving various degrees of compensation, including money, employment opportunities, education, and in the case of women athletes, jewellery and gifts, in

exchange for their skills on the field. For example, Dorothy Robins, a player for the Brucefield Bombers in a southwestern Ontario rural church softball league, recounts receiving 14 dollars in 1928 to play for the Seaforth team during an important championship series. The Bombers wanted to win the series, so they recruited exceptional players from other teams in the area. Fourteen dollars was a lot of money in 1928—that

same year Dorothy moved to London, Ontario to work as a live-in domestic, making only 13 dollars per month. These types of exchange relationships speak to how sport in Canada was beginning to reflect the capitalist, industrialist society by the early 20th century. As noted earlier, with the rise of commercialization and mass sport, the values of professionalism were eventually more accepted.

Amateur leaders feared that youth who dreamed of careers in the NHL would sell their skills for wages without understanding the implications of being a professional athlete. Well into the 1930s, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA), the umbrella association for organized hockey in Canada, was intent on protecting young players from the “evils” of professional sport (Adams & Laurendeau, 2018). However, in practice, the NHL was already actively recruiting players from youth hockey, identifying talented amateur players early and tying them to professional teams through sponsorships for the duration of their playing careers (Kidd & McFarlane, 1972). By the late 1940s, these power relations had been institutionalized, and minor hockey in Canada “functioned as a formal feeder system,” providing cheap labour for the NHL (Adams & Laurendeau, 2018, p. 117). In 1947, the NHL, CAHA, International Ice Hockey federation (IIHF), and the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States (AHAUS) drafted an agreement that further strengthened the NHL’s hegemony over elite amateur hockey. In Canada, this meant that when players signed registration cards with the CAHA, they were agreeing to be owned by the NHL team that sponsored their local junior league club. For example, players in Fredericton were “Blackhawk property,” and players in Winnipeg were “Boston Bruins property” (Kidd & McFarlane, 1972, p. 56). By 1967, the “27 professional teams in North America, all but five of which were located in the United States, owned 50 Canadian junior teams” (Kidd & MacFarlane, 1972, p. 55). This speaks to the growing reach of the NHL monopoly and the ways that the development of hockey for boys and young men was a function of the commercialization of the sport (Adams & Laurendeau, 2018). Since the establishment of the NHL, many young Canadian men, like those on the Humboldt Broncos team, have desired to pursue a career in the NHL. As amateur athletes, these young men were labouring under certain structural conditions. As so many young men have done for decades, many of the players on the Humboldt Broncos had moved away from home, leaving their families and support networks, in order to play and develop as amateur hockey players—without remuneration—in pursuit of the professional dream and a career in the NHL.

Hockey for Girls and Women  While women played hockey in Canada as early as the 1880s, and teams like the Preston Rivulettes (see Box 3.4) attracted thousands of spectators and attention during the first half of the 20th century, it was not until the late 1970s and 1980s that opportunities for girls to play organized minor hockey

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became more widely available across the country. In the 1920s and ’30s, local, provincial, and a national governing body for women’s hockey were established, but these organizations struggled to gain legitimacy and resources. By the 1920s, women’s hockey was a fast, aggressive, competitive sport that challenged the dominant Victorian ideology that cast women as weak, passive, and fragile (Adams, 2009). Yet, skilled athletes such as Hilda Ranscombe and Bobbie Rosenfeld, while well known in women’s hockey circles of the era, did not become household names as their male counterparts did, perhaps due to the absence of professional hockey opportunities for women and national media shows such as the illustrious “Hockey Night in Canada” on the CBC that broadcast and promoted men’s professional hockey as the “preferred” way of playing the sport. At a CAHA meeting in Port Arthur, Ontario in 1923, a vote was taken as to whether women and the organizations that were emerging to organize the women’s game should be officially recognized by the CAHA. In a majority vote, women were denied this right (Adams, 2009). Moments like this reinforced “ideological boundaries that dictated the nature and form of appropriate sport for women” (Adams, 2009, p. 139). The rationales put forward at the CAHA meeting included that hockey as a contact sport was too rough for women and that women should be content with participating in other competitive sports such as tennis, swimming, skating, and track and field events. Prevalent attitudes such as these, along with the late emergence of institutionalized minor hockey for girls, speak to gender and sexism in sport (see Chapter 6) and the ways that girls and women have been historically excluded and marginalized from Canada’s national sport. Aggression and roughness in men’s hockey were accepted as a necessary part of developing manly behaviour, yet in women’s hockey, the players often faced censure for playing the game the same way. Media narratives about women’s hockey suggest that when women cross the imaginary but palpable social line of what is acceptable behaviour for a woman athlete, they face potential criticism for these actions (Adams, 2014). In 1922, the Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA) was

The Preston Rivulettes in 1934. Courtesy of the City of Cambridge Archives Photographic Collection.

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admonished for the actions of some of their players. In 1922, reporter for the Toronto Daily Star, responding to acts of aggression on the ice, wrote: If the new Ladies’ Ontario Hockey League is to be a permanency the officials must start the teams away on the grind under competent referees specially instructed to curb anything which savours of rough or unladylike play, and to enforce the rules of the game to the letter. Well conducted the league will attract nice people and nice players and will result in a lot of excellent outdoor exercise for the young women of various towns. Any tendency to rough play will start trouble among both the players and the spectators. An outbreak between two players on the ice would almost spell “finis” to the game in any town on the circuit (“Random notes on current sports,” 1922, p. 24).

There was a moral panic when women played aggressive sports. When we hear or read statements about the fragility of women’s bodies invoked in contemporary discussions of women’s sport we must remember that women’s sport has a long history of aggression and physicality that has been repeatedly censured by social and moral critics. This censuring has worked to ensure that women’s sports, such as hockey and ski jumping, continue to be constructed as secondary to men’s sport time and again.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.4

 he Preston Rivulettes and the Gendering T of Canadian Sport

What is the most successful hockey team in Canadian history? On December 22, 2017, the Government of Canada recognized the national historical significance of the Preston Rivulettes women’s hockey team. From 1931 until 1940, the Rivulettes, a women’s hockey team from Preston, Ontario (now Cambridge) dominated women’s hockey in Canada, claiming 10 provincial and four national championships (Adams, 2008). They won over 95% of their games, a win/loss record in the history of Canadian sport that has only been matched by the Edmonton Graduates women’s basketball team that competed from 1915 to 1940. The Rivulettes were skillful, aggressive, and powerful athletes who embraced hockey and who were actively shaping their own sport experiences during a time when hockey was perceived as too physical and aggressive for women. They were active agents shaping their own sport experiences. In 1930, softball teammates and friends Hilda and Nellie Ranscombe and Marm and Helen Schmuck were searching for a winter sport to play. Hockey was the logical choice, given that they had grown up skating on the Grand River and playing pick-up games with their brothers and friends. Throughout the 1930s, the Rivulettes perfected their skills practising and playing dozens of league, exhibition,

and championship contests in Ontario and across the country. For the small town of Preston, with a population of just over 6,000 in the 1930s, the Rivulettes put the town on the map, with their games a “form of popular civic ritual” during the Depression era (Adams, 2008, p. 3). For many Canadians it is impossible to imagine a contemporary women’s sports team (like the Preston Rivulettes) that could have levels of visibility, recognition, and support on par with men’s professional teams. But if we bring a historical sensitivity to this topic, we can see that in the 1920s and ’30s, women’s sports teams received a lot of news coverage; they had their own sport organizations, and they attracted large audiences, often larger than men’s teams. Historian Bruce Kidd suggests that this changed by the late 1930s when manufacturers started to use men’s sport to sell their products to men, thus resulting in less media coverage of women’s sport (Kidd, 1996). Instead of taking for granted that the current structure of professional sport is distinctly gendered, we need to understand that it was not always this way. We also need to question why sport has developed like this over time—and how and why have the social, cultural, and political practices of sport welcomed and recognized certain bodies while excluding others?

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The Fight for Inclusion Histories of cultural resistance and agency are important to understand if we are really going to understand how sports (and society) have been transformed over the years, and if we are to fully understand current events, issues, and actions in contemporary sport. Let’s look at women’s ski jumping, for example. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, women’s ski jumping made international headlines as women jumpers continued their fight for equality within the sport. While women, like Canadian Taylor Henrrich from Calgary, Alberta, were finally allowed to compete at the Olympics for the first time in 2014 at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, they were only permitted to compete in one event, on the “normal” hill (85–109m), while the men competed in three events: the “normal” hill, the “large” hill (110m and longer), and a team event. In 1991, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that going forward, women and men must be allowed to compete in all future Olympic sports. The catch to this rule? All sports that existed prior to 1991, such as ski jumping, were exempt from this new requirement. So, let’s unpack this a bit further to examine the historical context of this controversy. Like ice hockey, ski jumping was a way to showcase one’s manliness and physical strength (Allen, 2006). In Canada, women and men have been ski jumping since the early 1900s. There is a rich history of women ski jumping in many countries such as Canada, the United States, Norway, and France. However, women’s involvement was not without criticism and derision. The ski clubs and organizations in Canada, like most early Canadian clubs, were organized by men, and typically women were encouraged to be spectators and the organizers of social gatherings but not participants (Vertinsky, Jette, & Hofmann, 2009). These unequal power relations, however, did not deter some women, and some found ways to compete in the events organized for boys and men. Isobel Coursier, for example, was the Canadian women’s amateur champion in the 1920s (Laurendeau & Adams, 2010). Coursier joined a growing group of female ski jumpers in Revelstoke, BC, known by the local community as the “glider girls.” By the age of 16, Coursier was a household name in Western Canada, winning ski jumping and skijoring contests and competing in tournaments throughout North America. Until her retirement in 1929, Coursier held the record for the longest women’s ski jump: 84 feet at the Revelstoke Ski Club. Comparatively, almost Isobel Coursier’s exhibition jumps created controversy over women’s ski jumping in 1925. Courtesy of the Revelstoke Museum and Archives, Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada, photo #822

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90 years later, Norwegian Maren Lundby won gold at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics with a jump of 360.9 feet. It is important to note that while young girls and women were not always encouraged or supported in ski jumping, early ski jumping competitions in North America and Europe were technically open to both men and women in the same events, jumping at the same distances, providing opportunities for athletes such as Isobel Coursier to compete in the sport. Yet, despite evidence that women in many countries were capable, enthusiastic participants, women’s ski jumping was not included on the Olympic program in 1924, the first year that men’s ski jumping was included at the Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. Also significant is that despite this long history of women’s ski jumping, the mostly male leadership of the International Ski Federation (FIS) did not sanction women’s events and organize an international competition until 2006—a classic example of power. Many sport governing bodies such as the IOC and FIS have long been admonished by sport scholars for their entrenchment of gender differences through exclusionary rules (see for example, Laurendeau & Adams, 2010; Smith & Wrynn, 2008; Lenskyj, 1986; Hargreaves, 1994). Despite long-time IOC member Richard Pound’s statement in 2008 that “gender equality has all but been achieved” in the Olympics, the story of women’s ski jumping tells a very different story. The IOC and FIS, like many national and international sport governing bodies, have operated within institutional structures that have historically excluded women, often based on unfounded medical beliefs about the fragility of women’s bodies and the risk of intense competition on women’s reproductive organs (Lenskyj, 1986; Vertinsky, 1990). Decisions that are made in contemporary sport—often by men in positions of power—continue to draw on and perpetuate long-standing views about women’s bodies. In 2005, International Ski Federation President Gian Franco Kasper was reported explaining that ski jumping “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view,” presumably referring to 19th century understandings of women’s bodies as fragile and in need of protection and the ongoing fear that jumping from these high distances may cause women’s reproductive organs to fall out (Suddath, 2010). In the spring of 2008, following the 2006 vote by the IOC to deny women the right to compete in ski jumping at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, 15 women ski jumpers, including Canadians Zoya Lynch, Marie-Pierre Morin, and Katie Willis, filed a lawsuit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Ski jumping was one of the last Olympic events to completely exclude women (Vertinsky, Jette, & Hofmann, 2009). The IOC justified their decision stating that it was based on technical merit and not gender discrimination. If we bring a historical sensitivity to this issue, however, we see a very different story unfolding. Coursier’s experience, as only one example, calls our attention to a much longer history of Canadian women’s involvement in the sport and challenges the IOC’s claim that women’s ski jumping was simply not “mature” enough to be included in the Olympic program in 2010 (Laurendeau & Adams, 2010). Using our sociological imaginations, it becomes clear that women have been ski jumping in many countries for over 100 years and that systemic gender discrimination that has controlled and restricted women’s participation in the sport has impacted the development of women’s ski jumping. By examining the past, we can see that the IOC’s decision was not just about technical merit but was a product of a historical legacy in women’s sport of discrimination and control that dates back to the 19th century. Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective

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But more than that, it also raises serious questions about the continued gender segregation of the sport, with women only allowed to compete in one event, on the smaller hill. Women’s bodies continue to be socially constructed as fundamentally different and inferior to men’s bodies, and their sport participation less important and less culturally valued. Thus, the socially constructed gender myths upon which sport was institutionalized continue to be perpetuated in our Canadian sport system, placing decisive limits and pressures on the lives of girls and women. Finally, this case highlights concerns about the role and power of the IOC—as an organization that operates independently of any country’s government, yet that has immense influence over policy decisions within countries that host the Games. This issue came to the fore around the ski jumping controversy, too, as the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that it did not have authority to force the IOC to be more inclusive in this case, despite acknowledged tensions between the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ position on discrimination and the IOC’s policy in this case. A more in-depth historical analysis of the IOC and related issues around politics, globalization, and sport appear in Chapters 12 and 14 in this text.

Indigenous Peoples, Racism, and Hockey From May 25 to 27, 2018, Quebec City hosted the Coupe Challenge AAA hockey tournament for boys aged 7 to 15. One of the teams was the First Nations Elite Bantam AAA team with players aged 13 and 14 from First Nations communities in Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. During and following the tournament, newspapers and social media erupted with accounts of racism and discrimination these young boys faced both on and off the ice—one video captured a spectator taunting the boys calling them a “gang of savages,” and news articles related stories of spectators calling out “war cries” as the players skated by (Bell, Longchap & Smith, 2018). This story and this incident have historical legacies—ones that have worked to discriminate against and alienate groups of boys/men and girls/women from hockey, Canada’s national game. Indigenous peoples in Canada have a long tradition of games and physical contests that were connected to the land, ways of life, and skills of survival. For centuries, physical activity practices have played a role in the shaping of Indigenous identity and unifying communities. Prior to European contact, Indigenous peoples played traditional games at celebrations and community events (Downey & Neylan, 2015). Many of these are still contested at events such as the Arctic Winter Games, where athletes compete in 15 different sports, including traditional Dene physical contests such as the one-foot high jump, kneel jump, arm pull, and knuckle hop. Yet, sport has also been a “powerful agent for change” when used by the settler society in attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples according to various racist ideologies (Downey & Neylan, 2015, p. 443; see also Forsyth, 2013). Indigenous cultural practices and traditions have long been subjected to regulation, control, and prohibition by the Canadian government. In 1876, the Government of Canada created and passed the Indian Act. Janice Forsyth (2013, p. 96) explains that “historically the Indian Act was established to protect Aboriginal lands from the encroachment of non-Aboriginal settlers and to establish Aboriginal autonomy, but it soon became interpreted by policy-makers as an instrument to control, regulate and restrict every aspect of Aboriginal life” including physical, cultural and spiritual practices. The Indian Act was imposed on Indigenous communities and positioned Indigenous peoples as wards of the state. Church and government officials attempted to replace traditional practices such as Potlatch (a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous 68

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peoples in the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada) and Sundance ceremonies (a ceremony that involved the community coming together to pray for healing) with EuroCanadian sports and games, activities that were considered more appropriate and more “Canadian” (Forsyth, 2007). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has described all of these actions as contributing to a cultural genocide. From 1880 to 1996, many Indigenous youth were forced to attend residential schools, at which “popular Euro-Canadian sports and games were used to help bring about fundamental changes in the values and behaviours of the students” (Forsyth, 2007, p. 101). Athletic competitions, such as hockey matches, were a prominent feature of residential schools in the second half of the 20th century. Richard Wagamese’s 2013 novel Indian Horse, and the 2018 film of the same name, set in the 1950s, captures the systemic racism entrenched in Canadian hockey culture and tells a story of the “heinous transgressions conducted in the name of Canadian nationhood” (McKegney & Phillips, 2018, p. 97). There were, however, some benefits to being on a sports team and being a good athlete—time away from school and sometimes better food and accommodations. Forsyth (2013) shares the story of Bill, a residential school survivor who played competitive hockey in northwestern Ontario and how, for Bill, telling stories about hockey evoked moments of pride and amusement—recollections that contrasted his memories of the abuse he lived through while at school. The 2018 incident in Quebec reminds us that racism, discrimination, and acts of cultural violence through our words and actions are still very much a part of our Canadian sport system and a part of broader Canadian society. When we hear about an incident such as this in the media, through friends, or as a witness we need to think about why these incidents continue to recur. How do past actions, policies, and events shape these moments? To understand the present we must have a historical sensitivity as we try to reimagine a way forward and engage in acts of genuine reconciliation. Placing this 2018 event in its historical context also makes it difficult to dismiss it as an isolated incident, as just one group of racist people targeting one team, and invites broader questions about institutionalized racism, unequal power relations, and the enduring historical legacy and trauma of colonialism.

CONCLUSION Many of the stories that make up Canadian sport are stories of success, triumph, and achievement. But many stories also speak to the darker side of sport, histories of abuse, discrimination, exclusion, racism, and misogyny. While there is much to ­celebrate when we look at the changes and growth in Canadian sport over the past 50 years, we also need to continue to follow the advice of Jaime Schultz (2014, p. 187) who reminds us that we should “cheer with reserve.” We must remember that the gains and successes we hear about through news stories about athletes and sports events often get storied and remembered in particular ways. Why? Because each of these stories has a past, a complicated history, and a legacy of fraught negotiations, power relations, and systemic exclusionary practices that have, at times, worked to keep some people out and others in. All of our contemporary sporting moments are haunted by particular histories, past events, issues, and interactions that sometimes remain masked in large part because of the way we take up and understand sport. Often, we too easily understand Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective

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current events through an underlying set of assumptions about linear notions of history. It is easy to think that we have progressed beyond the way things were in the past—that racism and sexism, for example, are a thing of the past. Recent incidents such as the Humboldt Broncos hockey tragedy, the women’s ski jumping controversy, and the incident at the Quebec City Coupe Challenge AAA hockey tournament speak to the way historical legacies are still perpetuated in our current Canadian sport system and the importance of applying a historical sensitivity to our sociological examinations of contemporary sport and Canadian society. Instead of accepting taken-for-granted assumptions about the current situation of Canadian sport, we need to remember that all contemporary moments have histories. As you move through this textbook and continue to develop your sociological imagination, I encourage you to apply a historical sensitivity to all of the topics and issues you encounter. For example, as you read the following chapter, I urge you to think about the amateurism and professionalism debates from the early 1900s by way of applying a historical sensitivity as you learn about social class and social stratification.

Key Terms Amateurism: A set of ideas about sport that reinforced the notion that athletes should not receive remuneration for competing in sport. Historical sensitivity: The ability to locate social issues, interactions, and behaviours in the broader narrative of history to understand the complexity of contemporary society in recognition that all moments have a history and that history is important for understanding the present and imagining the future. Industrial Revolution: An era (mid-18th to mid-19th centuries) when fundamental transformations occurred in manufacturing, agriculture, the textile industry, transportation, etc. Modernization: Refers to a process of transition from a “pre-modern” or traditional period of time to a “modern” or more “progressive” era. Professionalism: A set of ideas about sport that define the practice in which athletes receive remuneration for their performances. Residential schools: Canadian and American institutions established to assimilate, “educate,” and “civilize” Indigenous youth. Social change: Refers to significant changes over time in human interactions, norms, and cultural values, which have profound consequences on cultural and social institutions and society more broadly.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. Why is history important for understanding contemporary moments in Canadian sport and recreation? 2. Why is it important to examine taken-for-granted assumptions in Canadian sport? 3. Why did the Humboldt Broncos bus crash resonate with so many Canadians? From your perspective, why did some Canadians react in the way they did to this tragedy? 4. How have women been excluded at different moments in time from fully participating in Canadian sport? 5. How has the Canadian government historically controlled and regulated Indigenous physical activity? Why does this have serious implications for Indigenous sport practices today?

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Suggested Readings Downey, A. (2018). The creator’s game: Lacrosse, identity, and indigenous nationhood. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Hall, M. A (2016). The girl and the game: A history of women’s sport in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Morrow, D. & Wamsley, K. G (2017). Sport in Canada. A history. 4th ed. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Vertinsky, P. (1990). The eternally wounded woman: Women, doctors, and exercise in the late ­nineteenth century. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

References Adams, C. (2008). “Queens of the ice lanes”: The Preston Rivulettes and women’s hockey in Canada, 1931–1940. Sport History Review, 39, 1–29. Adams, C. (2009). Organizing hockey for women: The Ladies Ontario Hockey Association and the fight for legitimacy, 1922–1940. In J. Wong (Ed.), Coast to coast: Hockey in Canada to the Second World War (pp. 132–159). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Adams, C. (2014). Troubling bodies: “The Canadian girl,” the ice rink, and the Banff Winter Carnival. Journal of Canadian Studies, 48, 200–220. Adams, C., & Laurendeau, J. (2018). Here they come! Look them over!: Youth, citizenship, and the emergence of minor hockey in Canada. In J. Ellison and J. Anderson (Eds.), Hockey: Challenging Canada’s game (pp. 111–124). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Adams, C., & Wamsley, K.B. (2005). Moments of silence in shallow halls of greatness: The Hockey Hall of Fame and the politics of representation. In C. Howell (Ed.), Women’s hockey: On and off the ice (pp. 13–17). Halifax, NS: Centre for the Study of Sport and Health. Adams, M. L. (2006). The game of whose lives? Gender, race, and entitlement in Canada’s national game. In R. Gruneau & D. Whitson (Eds.), Artificial ice: Hockey, culture, and commerce (pp. 71–84). Peterborough, ON: Broadview. Allen, J. (2006). A short history of U.S. ski jumping. Skiing Heritage, 18, 34. Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (1926). 1926 Handbook. Bell, S., Longchap, B. & Smith, C. (2018, May 31). First Nations hockey team subjected to racist taunts, slurs at Quebec City tournament. Retrieved from www.cbc.ca CBC Sports (2005, February 22). Governor General wants women to compete for Cup. Retrieved from www.cbc.ca. Cosentino, F. (1975). A history of the concept of professionalism in Canada. Canadian Journal of History of Sport and Physical Education, 6, 75–81. Downey, A. (2018). The creator’s game: Lacrosse, identity, and indigenous nationhood. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Downey, A., & Neylan, S. (2015). Raven plays ball: Situating “Indian Sports Days” within Indigenous and colonial spaces in twentieth-century coastal British Columbia. Canadian Journal of History, 50, 442–468. Fisher, D. (2002). Lacrosse: A history of the game. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Forsyth, J. (2007). The Indian Act and the (re)shaping of Canadian Aboriginal sport practices. International Journal of Canadian Studies, 35, 95–111. Forsyth, J. (2013). Bodies of meaning: Sports and games at Canadian residential schools. In J. Forsyth & A. R. Giles (Eds.), Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada: Historical foundations and contemporary issues (pp. 21–25). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.

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Gruneau, R. (1988). Modernization or hegemony: Two views on sport and social development. In J. Harvey & H. Cantelon (Eds.), Not just a game: Essays in Canadian sport sociology (pp. 9–32). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada. Toronto, ON: Garamond Press. Gzowski, P. (1981). The game of our lives. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart. Hall, A., Slack, T., Smith, G., & Whitson, D. (1991). Sport in Canadian society. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart. Hargreaves, J. (1994). Sporting females: Critical issues in the history and sociology of women’s sport. London: Routledge. Jones, K. G. (1975). Developments in amateurism and professionalism in early 20th century Canadian sports. Journal of Sport History, 2, 29–40. Kerr, R. (June 14, 2018). Jeff Adams on being inducted into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame and career in wheelchair racing. [Radio program]. The Big Show. Calgary, AB: Sportsnet360. Used with permission. Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Kidd, B., & McFarlane, J. (1972). The death of hockey. Toronto, ON: New Press. Kirby, S., Greaves, L., & Hankivsky, O. (2000). The dome of silence: Sexual harassment and abuse in sport. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing. Lenskyj, H. (1986). Out of bounds: Women, sport, & sexuality. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press. Laurendeau, J., & Adams, C. (2010). “Jumping like a girl”: Discursive silences, exclusionary practices, and the controversy over women’s ski jumping. Sport in Society, 13, 431–447. McKegney, S., & Phillips, T. (2018). Decolonizing the hockey novel: Ambivalence and apotheosis in Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse. In J. Ellison & J. Anderson (Eds.), Hockey: Challenging Canada’s game (pp. 97–110). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Metcalfe, A. (1995). The meaning of amateurism: A case study of Canadian sport: 1884–1970. Canadian Journal of the History of Sport, 26, 33–48. Metcalfe, A. (1987). Canada learns to play. Toronto, ON: McLelland and Stewart. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Morrow, D. (1986). A case-study in amateur conflict: The athletic war in Canada, 1906–08. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 3, 173–190. Morrow, D., & Wamsley, K. G (2017). Sport in Canada. A history. 4th ed. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Random notes on current sports (1922, December 18). Toronto Daily Star, p. 24. Robidoux, M. A. (2001). Men at play: A working understanding of professional hockey. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Robidoux, M. A. (2002). Imagining a Canadian identity through sport: A historical interpretation of lacrosse and hockey. Journal of American Folklore, 115, 209–25. Schultz, J. (2014). Qualifying times: Points of change in US women’s sport. Chicago. IL: University of Illinois Press. Smith, M., & Wrynn, A. M. (2008). Women in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic and Paralympic games: An analysis of participation and leadership opportunities. East Meadow, NY: Women’s Sport Foundation. Suddath, C. (2010, February 11) Why Can’t Women Ski Jump? Time. Retrieved from www. content.time.com. Vertinsky, P. A. (1990). The eternally wounded woman. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois. Vertinsky, P., Jette, S. & Hofmann, A. (2009). ‘Skierinas’ in the Olympics: Gender justice, and gender politics at the local, national and international level over the challenge of women ski jumping. Olympika, XVIII, 25–56. White, H. (1973). Metahistory: The historical imagination in 19th century Europe. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

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Chapter 4

Sport and Social Stratification Rob Beamish

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Identify and explain the terms “meritocracy,” “equality of opportunity,” and “equality of condition.”

A forgotten and abandoned hockey net Brett Holmes/Shutterstock

2 Discuss some of the historical and current trends in the distribution of Canadian incomes. 3 Identify and explain at least three factors that contribute to economic ­inequality in Canada. 4 Explain the main features of Karl Marx’s, Max Weber’s, and Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of class. 5 Present an informed picture of how Canada’s social stratification system impacts upon sport participation in the contemporary period. “If you’re average, you are as close to the bottom as you are far away from the top.” (Popular locker room slogan) 73

INTRODUCTION Canada’s “Own the Podium” was designed as a technical program that would “help Canada become the number one nation in terms of medals won at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games” (Vancouver 2010, 2006). The central mandate of Own the Podium remains the same—helping Canada’s high-performance athletes be the best in the world (Own the Podium, 2018). On July 1, 2018, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed John Tavares to a seven-year, $77 million contract with the view that he, along with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Nazem Kadri, Morgan Rielly, and the rest of the team will capture one of professional sports’ most difficult trophies to win, the Stanley Cup (Compton, 2018). On September 20, 2018, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommended that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency be reinstated even though it had not yet met WADA’s strict requirements for the removal of its suspension. As an athlete representative on WADA’s Compliance Review Committee, facing the bullying tactics of other committee members so she would agree with the recommendation, Canadian Becky Scott resigned in protest (Pells, 2018). Rogers Communications Incorporated (RCI) has ownership interests in: telecommunications; radio, television, and satellite broadcasting; cable distribution; Internet; video on demand; publishing; and sport—Sportsnet, the Rogers Centre, the Toronto Blue Jays, and 37.5% of the shares in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. The Rogers family, through Rogers Enterprises, own 82.23% of RCI. Through their direct control of the Blue Jays budget, the Rogers family can determine the quality of the team the Jays field, influence perceptions of the Jays and Leafs through their telecommunications networks, try to shape consumer interest in their various sport products, and indirectly shape children’s, youths’, and fans’ perceptions of appropriate sport involvement in issues such as deciding what is/are the most important sports, what is gender appropriate, the “lessons” sport should teach us, etc. While Quebec City, which was described by Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs as “challenged  .  .  .  to put it nicely,” was ignored, the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Board of Governors announced on December 4, 2018, that Seattle, at a price tag of $650 million US, would become the 32nd NHL franchise. Investment banker David Bonderman, with an estimated worth of $3.3 billion US, is the principal owner and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, with an estimated worth of $900 million US, is the secondary owner (Gatehouse, 2018). These five examples, which could be easily multiplied, give some insight into how the sociological imagination, “grasp[ing] history and biography and the relations between the two within society,” can address a wide variety of issues related to the complex interrelationship of sport and social stratification (Mills, 1959, p. 6).

SPORT AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION: SOME PRELIMINARY TERMS The world of sport itself is one of social stratification where the greatest rewards go to those who are the victors. As a result, competitive sport is often viewed as a ­genuine meritocracy, where performance alone determines one’s ranking among the other competitors. Indeed, sport is often viewed as a true meritocracy because everyone follows the same rules and competes on a “level playing field.” Those who make 74

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the most of their ability—through personal dedication to long-term preparation, sacrifice, and concerted, concentrated effort during the competition—are the victors. The winners justifiably receive—they merit—the greatest rewards in a meritocratic system. Sport advocates maintain that sport is so important because it introduces children to the demands and rewards of the larger, stratified, meritocratic structure of society. However, before sport—or any stratification system—can be genuinely meritocratic, it must possess two fundamental equalities: equality of opportunity and equality of condition. Equality of opportunity is self-explanatory. To ensure that a sport system is truly meritocratic so that the best will rise to the top through their demonstrated merit, every potential participant must have the opportunity to take part—the chance to participate must be equally available to everyone. If any individual faces a barrier to participation—whether it is class, sex (except for sex-specific competitions), gender, race, physical or cognitive ability, or geographical location, for example—then the system will not be truly meritocratic. Denying an opportunity to any person means that the full talent pool has not taken part and there could be better competitors among those who were excluded. Most Canadians assume that everyone can compete in any and all sports. Upon reflection, most realize that this is simply not true. Numerous variables—such as the availability of teams, clubs, or leagues; the necessary facilities; access to equipment; and the ability to get to the locale where the sport is played—prevent many Canadians from having an equal opportunity to enjoy sport. One enduring reality that most Canadians prefer to overlook is the class nature of Canadian society. Class, as this chapter will document, is a complex concept, but fundamentally it indicates that one’s relationship to the production of economic goods and rewards determines an individual’s income and resources which, in turn, influence one’s life chances, opportunities, and experiences (see Green, Riddell, & St.-Hilaire, 2017). Class is a primary barrier to the equality of condition that would be essential to a truly meritocratic social structure. Equality of condition means that every person taking part in an activity does so under the same conditions. Laying the foundation for Canada’s high-performance sport system, John Munro (1970), then Minister of Health and Welfare, recognized the importance of equality of condition in the world of sport. We must face the fact that it’s only fair, just as a dash in a track and field meet is only fair, that everyone has the same starting line, and the same distance to run. Unfortunately, in terms of facilities, coaching, promotion and programming, the sports scene today resembles a track on which some people have twenty-five yards to run, some fifty, some one-hundred, and some as much as a mile or more. (pp. 4–5)

The unequal conditions Munro noted are among the easiest to eliminate even though, despite Sport Canada’s efforts over almost half a century, significant inequities in facilities, qualified coaches, promotion, and athlete development programs still plague the meritocratic ambitions of sports leaders in Canada (see Chapter 12). Sadly, far more entrenched inequalities of condition also endure which prevent Canada from developing a truly meritocratic sport system. To properly address the relationship between sport and stratification in Canada, one must examine organized competitive sport within the larger context of the prevailing conditions of Canadian social inequality and draw upon the major theoretical Sport and Social Stratification

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insights that sociologists have developed regarding social inequality, especially conflict theory and the ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber. Because Chapters 5 and 6 present detailed accounts of how race, ethnicity, sex and gender influence equality of ­opportunity and condition, this chapter will examine the impact of class and the economy on Canada’s stratification system, in general, and sport, in particular. In ­addition, beginning with a focus on the economy and class is appropriate from a chronological perspective because the earliest sociological studies of social inequality emphasized class and economic change far more than race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or education. Once the classical position on class is understood and the developments introduced by contemporary theory are incorporated into the discussion, one can then weave in factors other than class that influence an individual’s life chances in Canada. To begin, what is the current profile of economic stratification in Canada?

SOCIAL INEQUALITY: THE CANADIAN PROFILE With its vocal criticisms of “the top 1%,” the Occupy Movement of 2011–2012 turned the profile of social inequality in the United States and Canada into a primetime media issue. Over the past 30 years, the richest group of Canadians has increased its share of the total national income while middle income and the poorest groups have lost some of theirs (Block, 2017). This is true even though the incomes of the poorest Canadians have risen marginally. The most recent income data for Canadians show that the median total income for a household has risen from $63,457 in 2005 to $70,336 in 2015 (a 10.8% increase over 10 years) (Statistics Canada, 2017d). Nevertheless, 14% of Canadians currently live below the low-income cut-off line (often called the poverty line) (Statistics Canada, 2017d). In addition, 17% of Canadians below the age of 19 live below that threshold (Statistics Canada, 2017d). Informative as these data are, there are better and more precise measures of income inequality in Canada. Hundreds demonstrate in Toronto during the Occupy Movement of 2011–2012. Torontonian/Alamy Stock Photo

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0.50

Gini coefficient

0.45 0.40 0.35 0.30 0.25 0.20 1976

1981

1986

1991

1996

2001

2006

2011

Year Gini market income

Gini total income

Gini after-tax income

Figure 4.1 Income Inequality before and after Transfers and Taxes, 1976–2011 Source: Green, Riddell, & St-Hilaire, 2017

The standard measure of income inequality is the Gini index. The index ranges from 0 to 1: a Gini index of 0 means that every person has exactly the same income; an index of 1 means that one person has all of the income: the higher the index, the greater the level of inequality. Statistics Canada calculates Gini indexes for income based on three different conditions: household market income (the sum of earnings from employment and net self-employment, net investment income, private retirement income, and other income); total income (income from all sources including government transfers before the deduction of income tax); and after-tax income (total income less income tax) (Statistics Canada, 2018). In all three instances, the Gini index has shown what amounts to a dramatic increase between 1976 and 2016 (the most recent census year) (see Figure 4.1). There are four points to note regarding the Gini index and Canadian incomes. First, inequality in family market income has increased substantially over the 40-year period between 1976 and 2016. In that period, the Gini index rose from a low of 0.365 in 1979 through peaks of 0.446 and 0.445 in 1998 and 2010 respectively, to 0.437 in 2013 and 0.432 in 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2013; Green, Riddell, & St.-Hillaire, 2017; Statistics Canada, 2018). The shift from the low of 0.365 in 1979 to 0.432 in 2016 is almost 20%, which is a large change in a measure that is difficult to move. Second, the trend toward the growing inequality of market income is not steadily upward. Sharp increases in market income inequality occurred during the severe economic recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. This means that the recessions hurt lower- and middle-income earners far more than they did those at the top of the market income pyramid, and those lower- and middle-income groups have not been able to close the large income gaps that the recessions created. Third, although market income inequality declined during the recovery and boom of the 1980s (from 1983 to 1989), inequality continued to rise in a period of strong economic growth during the latter half of the 1990s (Green, Riddell, & ­St.-Hillaire, 2017). Sport and Social Stratification

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Fourth, the Gini index for market income is higher than it is for after-tax income, showing the redistributive impact of a progressive taxation system and various government social programs. The Gini index for after-tax income in 1976 was 0.300, falling as low as 0.281 in 1989, rising in the 1990s, then falling to 0.306 in 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2013; Statistics Canada, 2018). The reduced impact on after-tax income is largely the result of changes in government policies in the 1990s which reduced various redistributive social programs. The Occupy Movement popularized attention on the top 1% of income earners and their increasing wealth. There are several points to note about this group. The most recent Statistics Canada data show that in 2015 the richest 1% of Canadians included about 271,000 individuals with a minimum income of $234,700. The median (or middle most) income of that group was $313,100, while its mean (or average) income was $529,600. The difference between the median and mean incomes shows the impact of significantly larger salaries and investment income at the top of the ­centile compared with those at the middle and bottom. The income of the top 1% represented 11.2% of the total income among Canadian tax filers (Statistics Canada, 2017c). The increase in income was more rapid for earners in the top 0.1% and 0.01% of tax filers. Compared with 1982, the share earned by the top 1% in 2011 was 1.5 times greater but it was twice as large for the top 0.1% and 2.5 times larger for the top 0.01% (Heisz, 2017). “Put another way,” Lemieux and Riddell (2017) write, “the income of the top 0.1% (one tax filer out of a thousand) went from 20 times average income to 50 times average income over a period of about 20 years” (p. 109). Figure 4.2 graphically illustrates the income growth in Canada between 1982 and the present. The figure shows the average growth in income, growth for the bottom 90% of income earners, and the growth in the 90th to 95th percentile, 95 to 99, 99 to 99.5, 99.5 to 99.9, 99.9 to 99.99 and finally the top 0.01% of income earners (Lemieux & Riddell, 2017). Two features of the figure are particularly striking. First, the difference between the average growth in income overall and the tiny growth seen in 90% of income earners. The second is the dramatic growth as one moves along the x-axis.

180 160 140

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Figure 4.2 Total Market Income Growth by Fractile, 1982–2010 Source: Lemieux & Riddell, 2017, p. 111

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20% 18% 16% 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 1920

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Figure 4.3 Share of Total Income in Canada, Richest 1% Source: Based on Fortin, N., Green, D., Lemieux, T., Milligan, K., & Riddell, C. 2012. Canadian inequality: Recent developments and policy options. Canadian Public Policy, 38, 121–45. (fig. 4, p. 127).

Figure 4.3 shows the share of the total income in Canada that the top 1% of Canadian earners received. Among the graph’s most striking features is the growing share of total income that the top 1% has accrued beginning in 1980. In the late 1970s, the top 1% had incomes that were about eight times larger than all other Canadians; by 2010 the top 1%’s share was 14 times larger than all other Canadians. This type of income disparity has not existed since the Great Depression when the top 1% held 18% of total income (Fortin et al., 2012). The parallel between 1929 and the present, along with the economic crises of recent years, indicates why sociologists are so concerned with the growing income disparity in Canada. Finally, one can also look at income inequality by dividing all income earners into 10 groupings of equal size (or deciles) and examine the proportion of the nation’s income that falls to each decile. In the most recent Statistics Canada data, the average family in the bottom decile earned $3,677 per year compared to the top decile’s average income of $269,317. The overall, average family earnings are $96,968 (Block, 2017). Even when taxes and government programs are considered, the average income in the bottom decile is only $24,011 while the top decile’s average, aftertax, income is $226,841. When all sources of income are included, the average real income for the top decile is $302,166, while the bottom decile’s real income is $24,400 (Block, 2017).

Factors Contributing to Economic Inequality Most of the wage gap disparity in Canada occurred during the economic recessions in the 1980s and 1990s, but younger workers suffered more than established ones (Boudarbat, Lemieux, & Riddell, 2010). During the two recessions, entrants to the Sport and Social Stratification

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labour market could not find jobs or they secured positions at low, entrance-level salaries. In the intervening years, those young workers were unable to achieve the incomes they would have reached with higher starting salaries. These lower salaries explain some of the growing disparity in incomes and the future is not promising. As older workers retire from the workforce and younger workers’ salaries lag behind traditional income trajectories, the wage gap between the top 1% and the rest of Canada’s workforce will widen further. Technology also played a role in the gap’s growth. The increasing use of computers and specialized knowledge skills pushed up the wages for high-demand, welleducated workers, but it also allowed firms to outsource production to low wage countries. This may have benefited consumers through lower prices but it reduced the demand for low paid and unskilled Canadian workers, allowing their wages to fall (see Fortin et al., 2012). The increasing use of computers in all areas of the economy eliminated middleincome jobs as technology reduced them to routine tasks that do not require sophisticated skills. This scenario occurred to different degrees throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe (Fortin et al., 2012). In Canada, the impact has not been as extreme as in the United States because there is a higher participation rate in postsecondary education in Canada, creating a pool of highly skilled knowledge workers. Three other factors affecting economic inequality are the minimum wage, the declining unionization of the workforce, and the increasingly widespread use of temporary workers (Statistics Canada, 2017e). The minimum wage tends to set the floor for incomes in a country. As a result, European countries with higher minimum wages relative to the average wage do not show the same income disparities as Canada and the United States. Autor, Manning, and Smith (2010) show that there was a ­sizable decline in the real value of the minimum wage in the United States during the 1980s, which contributed significantly to the growing inequality identified by the Occupy Movement. In contrast, Fortin and colleagues (2012) indicate that increases in the minimum wage in Canada prevented the great wage disparity found in the United States. The impact of unions on wages is somewhat mixed. On the one hand, union wages are higher than those of non-unionized workers. This reinforces a growing inequality in the Canadian income structure. In June 2017, the average hourly wage for nonunionized workers in Canada was $24.25 while unionized workers made $29.61—a 20% “union premium” (Statistics Canada, 2017a). The impact for women is greater where unionized wages are, on average, 25% higher than women’s non-unionized wages (Canadian Labour Congress, 2015). When age, gender, education, industry, and occupation are held constant, unionized workers earn 7% to 14% more than their non-unionized counterparts. At the same time, unions tend to raise the wages of the lowest paid non-unionized workers, which reduces inequality among all wage earners. Card, Lemieux, and Riddell’s (2004) analysis of the relationship between unions and wage inequality in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s shows that unionization declined the most in the United Kingdom and the least in Canada. Wage inequality grew in all three countries, with the largest growth occurring in the United Kingdom and the smallest in Canada. Card, Lemieux, and Riddell (2004) attribute about 15% of the growth in Canadian inequality to declining unionization. More than 20% of the rising inequality in the United States and United Kingdom is attributable to the greater losses in union membership in those countries. 80

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The impact of technological change, outsourcing of production, declining unionization, and the growing use of temporary workers have all contributed to, and will continue to affect, the divide between rich and poor in Canada. Young workers with little education and few marketable skills are most affected, but those in middle or lower-middle occupational categories have also experienced a decline in income, which increases the polarization of rich and poor in Canada. On the basis of the above, it is important to recognize that any stratification system, including a pure meritocracy, significantly influences all areas of participation in any society. Further, income inequality stands as a critical barrier to both equality of opportunity and equality of condition in all aspects of social participation— including sport.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 4.1

Social Class and Elite Athletes

Surprisingly, the patterns of sport participation among Canadians have not been studied as extensively as one might think. Nevertheless, several studies have examined the relationship between athletes’ socioeconomic status (SES—a composite indicator of family income, education, and occupation in the paid labour force) and the types and level of sport participation. Each shows the same pattern of inequitable involvement despite government attempts to eliminate economic inequality as a major barrier to sport participation. Gruneau’s (1972) groundbreaking study of Canada Games athletes shows that the competitors were drawn heavily from families with parents in professional and well-paid, white-collar positions with supervisory responsibilities, while those from blue-collar and primary industrial occupations were significantly under-represented. Using Blishen scores, which are numerical indicators that combine education and income to group and rank individuals, as indicators of SES, Gruneau found that 37% of the athletes came from the top three Blishen categories, while only 17% of the Canadian labour force ranked there. Only 29% of the athletes came from the two lowest Blishen categories, although 63% of the Canadian labour force fell into those categories. Kenyon’s (1977) study of elite track and field athletes and McPherson’s (1977) study of hockey players found similar patterns. Kenyon’s data show that 63% of the track and field athletes came from families ranking in the top three Blishen categories and only 29% came from families in the bottom two. McPherson’s data on elite hockey players show a similar pattern. Beamish’s (1990) study of national team athletes in 1986 demonstrates that despite more than 15 years of

federal government support for high-performance sport and different programs to create greater equality of opportunity and condition, close to half of Canada’s national team athletes (44%) came from families in the top 20% of Canadian income earners; only 10% were from the bottom 20% of income earners. The data on Blishen scores show that Canada’s national teams had become more exclusive—68% of the ­athletes came from families in the top three Blishen ­categories. On behalf of Sport Canada, EKOS Research Associates (1992) performed a comprehensive study of Canada’s high-performance athletes. The results were the same as the earlier studies. Forty-one % of the athletes’ fathers and 30% of their mothers had universitylevel educations (compared to 14% in the Canadian population as a whole). Like Beamish, EKOS found that athletes came disproportionately from families with parents employed in professional, managerial, or administrative positions. Most importantly, EKOS concluded that the various funding and support programs in Canada’s high-performance sport system had not reduced or eliminated SES as a major factor in determining who would rise to the top of the Canadian highperformance sport pyramid. None of these results are particularly surprising. All of the empirical studies before, during, and after this early work have shown that location within Canada’s stratification system significantly influences sport involvement. Drawing from more than a dozen studies between 1973 and his own, Wilson (2002) concludes that research has “repeatedly shown that indicators of social class are positive predictors of sport involvement” (p. 5).

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EARLY THEORIES OF CLASS The studies that have focused on sport and social inequality based on data exploring the relationship between sport participation and income, or SES, were inspired by a rich scholarly tradition associated with conflict theory, where class is viewed as the most significant, structural factor determining people’s life chances. Although the study of class began with early scholars and Karl Marx ([1852] 1934) himself writes that he did not discover “the existence of classes in modern society nor yet the struggle between them” (p. 56), class and class analysis are most closely associated with his work. In addition, by starting with Marx, one can see the development of class analysis as it has progressed with changing social conditions.

Karl Marx Writing over 100 years ago, at the end of Capital’s third volume, Marx ([1894] 1909) begins to address questions of class: “What constitutes a class? What makes wage labourers, capitalists, and landlords constitute the three great social classes [of modern society, resting upon the capitalist mode of production]?” (p. 1031). ­ Unfortunately, the fragment breaks off before Marx develops the answer fully. However, Marx wrote enough about class in other pieces to make his position on the fundamental aspects of class clear and to give insight into why class has remained so influential in the study of social stratification. For Marx, there were three key aspects to class. The first is the “objective” aspect of class, which determines where individuals stand within the economic structure of society and, more importantly, within its power structure. Analyzing the dynamics of class conflict in France, Marx ([1852] 1935) notes that “millions of families live under economic conditions of existence” which separate and distinguish them from—often placing them in “hostile contrast” with—other classes (p. 109). The identification of a class based on the role that “a mass of individuals performs within the social division of labour” is referred to as a “class in itself” (ibid.). The second aspect of class concerns its “subjective” aspect—the role class consciousness plays in the constitution of a class. In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx ([1847] 1936) indicates that in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, economic circumstances had “transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers” (p. 145). “The domination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests,” he continues. “This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself.” It is only in the struggle against capital that “this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself.” Through the realization of their common circumstances, the presence of an opposing class, and by engaging in a struggle against that opposition, a class in itself becomes a class for itself—a class that recognizes and struggles for its own interests. These are the early roots of conflict theory. Once the separate individuals become part of a class for itself, then Marx and Engels ([1845] 1939) emphasize, “the class in its turn achieves an independent existence over against the individuals” so that the individuals now see their interests in class terms rather than in individualistic ones (p. 49). This represents the third aspect of class for Marx—the idea of class solidarity and class conflict. Marx maintained that the mass of individuals within a class that is in and for itself no longer think and act autonomously of one another—they act as members of their class (e.g., members of the working class). Classes, not autonomous individuals, are the major agents in the drama of history. 82

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There were sound reasons why Marx and others identified the three great classes (wage labourers, capitalists, and landlords) as the major factors in the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism. One’s objective class location visibly shaped individuals’ life chances, and the working and living conditions of the working class led to an identifiable class consciousness. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 20th century, as capitalist economies became more complex and diversified, it was apparent that Marx’s ideas needed further development.

Max Weber Max Weber is the sociologist who developed class analysis and conflict theory the most in the early 20th century as some of the fundamental aspects of capitalism changed. Weber ([1921] 2010) introduced five major conceptual developments to the study of class within modern capitalism: a) his particular use of the German terms Gemeinschaft (meaning groups held together by an emotional solidarity) and Gesellschaft (where relationships are utilitarian and emerge from market exchange); b) a more explicit account of class fragmentation; c) the impact of Stände (groupings based on social assessments of honour) and how they incompletely overlapped with class; d) an emphasis on the significance of governments, bureaucracy, and political parties; and e) the legitimate domination of goal-rational action. Each point merits elaboration. Like Marx, Weber’s ([1921] 2010) interest in class stemmed from questions of power: “Every legal order (state or non-state) directly affects the distribution of power, economic power, and all other powers, within its respective Gemeinschaft” (p. 137). Power is the ability of individuals or groups to achieve their goals, “through a communal action by the Gemeinschaft,” even when resisted by others (ibid.) For Weber, although power is “highly determined by the economic order,” the distribution of power “is done in what we call the ‘social order’” (p. 138). The key point is that power is exercised by a group of individuals who share a particular, communal sense of shared purpose or solidarity. For Weber, there were three fundamental bases of power within a community: class, Stände, and political affiliation. Power is exercised in an identifiable sphere of action—the community—and power is not related simply to class—it involves the interaction of class, status, and formal political processes. Classes, Weber ([1921] 2010) writes, “are not strictly equated with Gemeinschaft communities” and represent “only one possible and frequent basis for communal action by the Gemeinschaft” (p. 138). He argues that class exists when a number of people share the same life chances because they experience the same “class situation” (Klassenlage)—effectively as employers or employees. As a result, Weber, like Marx, began with a twofold conception of the objective conditions of class: “‘Property and assets’ and ‘lack of property or assets’ are, therefore, the basic categories of all class situations” (p. 139). Within the categories of employers and employees, Weber ([1921] 2010) argues that one’s class position also depends on the type of property the employer is using to advance his or her capital and the type of work employees undertake. Regarding employers, the ownership of “houses, factories, depots or stores, agriculturally usable land, all this in large or small holdings” mean there are “quantitative differences with possibly qualitative consequences” (p. 139). Similarly, the ownership of mines, cattle, “mobile tools of production, or acquired capital goods of any kind, especially money or goods, that easily and at any time can be exchanged for money” create distinctions that differentiate employers’ class situation (ibid.). Employees are Sport and Social Stratification

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also highly differentiated based on the skills and services they bring to the market. With his conception of greater diversity in the objective dimensions of class, Weber regards the development of a shared class consciousness with greater skepticism than Marx. For Weber ([1921] 2010), “class does not constitute a Gemeinschaft community and equating the two “is a warped form of reasoning” (p. 141). He goes on to maintain that the communal action that sometimes emerges “is based on actions between members not of the same class but different classes” (ibid.). Weber ([1921] 2010) indicates that one’s “class situation” is based on the “pure power of property” and matters most when economic circumstances obtain “almost sovereign importance” but the existence of Stände “hinders the consequent ­realization of the naked market principle” (p. 141). Thus, Weber’s third change is the impact of the historical legacy of systems of honour—that is, Stände, which ­represents a different system of stratification within class-based societies. A Stand—the singular for Stände—may be ethnically based, tied to lifestyle, ­political, or religious beliefs, etc. Even though there may be some overlap between class situations and Stände, it is never complete and some Stände can exercise e­ lements of power that are greater than their actual economic or class position would suggest. Weber was well aware of the growing power of governments and political parties in the 20th century. From positions of centralized, state power, political parties can consolidate a particular worldview as normal, natural, and inevitable and thus influence the subjective elements of classes. Finally, Weber ([1920] 2002) maintains that: “Today’s capitalist economic order is a monstrous cosmos, into which every individual is born and which in practice is for him . . . an immutable shell, in which he is obliged to live” (p. 13). The immutable shell of capitalism is more than “certain objective political and economic preconditions” (Weber [1910a] 2002 p. 317). It involves an overall “spirit” that dominates individuals’ subjective approach to the world (see Weber, [1910b] 2002 p. 265). “Above all,” Weber ([1910a] 2002) emphasizes, modern capitalism requires “the creation of the rationalist and anti-traditionalist ‘spirit’ and the whole new kind of human being” who has absorbed the fundamental ethos of modern capitalism (p. 317). As noted in Chapter 2, the spirit of modern capitalism and the worldview of modern social life is dominated by the rational calculation of the most effective means to specific ends. The dominance of goal-rational action in all areas of social life is, for Weber, a central feature of modern, class divided society. Weber’s multidimensional conception of social stratification under modern capitalism and his concerns about the domination of goal-rational action became major sources of inspiration and theoretical guidance for the early studies of sport and social inequality (Ingham, 1973). Nevertheless, contemporary sociologists have continued to refine the theory of class in response to the growing complexity of contemporary capitalism as well as their awareness of how important subjective factors are in structuring social life today.

Bourdieu’s Contemporary Theory Although several sociologists have developed contemporary theories of social inequality, one of the most significant stems from Pierre Bourdieu’s work. Writing many decades later, Bourdieu draws generously from Marx and Weber in his conception of social inequality, but he also frames his analysis within the context of the complexity of contemporary society.

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Like Marx and Weber, Bourdieu (1989) argues that social action stems from two completely interrelated points of origin: the subjective side, consisting of “schemes of perception, thought, and action,” which Bourdieu calls habitus, and objective circumstances, which are “ordinarily call[ed] classes,” but he introduces the term field to locate classes and class formations (p. 14). Bourdieu argues that action and interaction occur through the use of different “currencies” or capital. Field is a metaphor that sport studies students can understand instantly. Like Weber’s idea of community, a field is a stratified, delimited “space” where ­individuals with different abilities and skills compete for positions within the hierarchy. The network or configuration of positions defines the field and distributes ­different types of power (or capital), the potential rewards, and the demands players/ actors face in the field. One can think of a soccer field with players taking their positions and using their distinct skills, fulfilling specific assignments, to outperform their counterparts. Social fields, like the fields of sport, are delimited, structured spaces where players compete to gain personal distinction and augment their capital. Habitus refers to a seemingly innate, practical sense of how to conduct one’s actions—how one is “disposed” (inclined, predisposed, prompted) to act. But habitus is not innate. Like athletes, individuals, based on years of experience, ­ develop an automatic, unconscious knowledge of how to play the game (carry on in any given social situation). Habitus determines one’s response to the actions of ­others in the field and shapes one’s actions in all situations. Habitus changes and develops continually over time but becomes more fixed as individuals age. Individuals act by drawing upon their habitus and the different types of capital they possess. Capital is a “set of actually usable resources” that individuals or groups possess (Bourdieu, [1979] 1984, p. 114.). Bourdieu identifies four types of capital: economic (money and property), social (social and institutionalized networks, group memberships, etc.), cultural (various types of knowledge, cultural goods such as books, various formalized accreditations, etc.) and symbolic (the types of symbols individuals use to represent themselves or their cause as well as marks of distinction). Capital is both a medium of exchange—e.g., one can use economic capital to attend university and acquire cultural capital in the forms of knowledge and a ­certified degree—and a store of value—for example, one may have extensive social capital but not use those connections until necessary. Capital also represents power as both the ability to influence individuals or outcomes and, like electric power, as a source of energy (Bourdieu, 1989; 1993). Like Weber and Marx, a class structure exists for Bourdieu. It stems from the various hierarchical fields within which individuals’ habitus are formed and simultaneously operate even though individuals may not all feel that they are embedded in a class structure. It is the responsibility of sociologists to identify a class or class fractions when examining the impact of stratification on daily life. “One must ­construct the objective class, the set of agents who are placed in homogeneous conditions of existence imposing homogenous conditionings and producing homogeneous systems of dispositions capable of generating similar practices” Bourdieu ([1979] 1984, p. 101) writes. The analyst must also identify how those common properties are “embodied as class habitus” (ibid.). Social, cultural, and symbolic capital allow Bourdieu to use the notion of class habitus to draw together, in a manner that goes beyond Weber, the (inter)relationship of class and status groups. Social networks, knowledge, and tastes create “communities” in the Weberian sense of the term, and they also create and stem from class habitus that will overlap significantly, but not necessarily fully, with economic capital. Sport and Social Stratification

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 4.2

Bourdieu and Sports Fandom

Gemar’s (2018) study of Canadians’ patterns of professional sport consumption within the broader context of leisure lifestyles shows how Bourdieu’s theory can provide important insight into the relationships among class, cultural capital, lifestyle, and sport consumption. Asking “[w] hat are the wider cultural consumption profiles of those who follow professional sports in Canada,” Gemar (2018, p. 3) analyses data gathered in the Project Canada Survey of 2005. He focuses on the questions related to the frequency of involvement with cultural and leisure activities including questions directly related to how closely those surveyed followed the National Hockey League (NHL), the Canadian Football League (CFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Gemar finds that there is “a distinct omnivorous pattern of participation [of cultural consumption] in Canada,” which means that Canadians enjoy a wide range of cultural forms, including the fine arts, popular culture, and folk culture. Because cultural omnivores tend to have high levels of cultural capital, there is a positive relationship between a broad range of cultural consumption and elevated SES. With regard to sport consumption, Gemar (2018) finds that with the exception of MLB, “those who follow professional sports in Canada are most likely to be generally omnivorous” (p. 15). The intensity with which higher SES Canadians follow professional sport makes sense, Gemar argues, because one needs both the economic capital and the time to follow sports closely.

Gemar’s findings invite thinking about other ways that spectatorship can be understood in relation to Bourdieu’s work. Consider, for example, how Bourdieu’s ideas might help us explain where spectators from various classes are located in a stadium or arena (e.g., in luxury suites or in the “cheap seats”); how they get access to tickets; what they wear, eat, and drink at sport events; the kinds of relationships that are fostered as part of spectating; and how differently positioned spectators perceive each other. Most obviously, economic capital would be useful for explaining whether one can afford preferred seating at an event (assuming they can afford to go at all). More than this though, one’s access to luxury suites in particular venues would be relevant as well to the social connections one has through their personal and employment networks (i.e., examples of social capital). One’s cultural tastes—related to preferred attire at events, even preferred drinks and foods, and perhaps favourite players— are associated with both symbolic capital and cultural capital, as these reflect the ways that group members intentionally and unintentionally signal their cultural group membership, and perhaps reflect the kinds of cultural items they’ve been exposed to over their lives. Finally, as Bourdieu notes, the choices one makes will often seem (but not actually be) natural, as such choices are associated with one’s habitus, an embodied set of social and cultural dispositions that are developed, fostered, and become solidified over time and within ­ various fields.

The volume of capital possessed and the ability to transpose it from one form to another as needed in different situations creates identifiable class groupings in the contemporary world. It is these particular class groupings, as the next section will indicate, that determine the nature and extent to which particular individuals will engage in sport and physical activity as well as the types of sport and activities they will choose. Two main points are clear from the discussion of class. First, class sounds like and seems to be a simple concept, but it proves to be extremely complex, and to understand the impact of class on sport and recreational opportunities, the full complexity of the concept needs to be used. Second, whether one uses Marx’s, Weber’s, Bourdieu’s, or one’s own integrated conception drawing upon two or more of these theorists, there are three key elements that one must include: 1. Class involves an objective dimension—one that accounts for different ­groupings of individuals located within an increasingly complex socioeconomic structure. Those objective conditions play a significant role in determining individuals’ 86

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Families in low income brackets are less likely to be able to afford participation in sports. Steidi/Shutterstock

opportunities to participate in social life, the types of resources they can access, and the conditions under which they deploy those resources. 2. Class involves a subjective dimension which recognizes that individuals living under similar conditions within the social structure will share a particular, general understanding of who they are and what their life chances are like. Their worldview will not be identical, but it will be close enough that their actions will tend to be similar. 3. Finally, it is the integration of those objective and subjective dimensions of class that is crucial for understanding how individuals’ social location impacts their behaviour as members of a class. This is why sociologists today draw more directly from Bourdieu than Marx or Weber. Bourdieu has tried to fully integrate the different, objective dimensions of class in the complex, advanced societies of today with the formation of perceptions and power that those objective conditions facilitate. His framework recognizes the central role that class plays in shaping a stratification system that establishes individuals’ and communities’ possibilities for action within contemporary society.

UNEQUAL CLASS RELATIONS AND THE FINANCIAL BURDEN OF SPORT PARTICIPATION From 1992 onwards, there has been a consistent decline in sport participation among Canadians. Between 1992 and 2004, the percentage of Canadians 16 years and older actively involved in sport fell from 45% to 31% (Bloom, Grant, & Watt, 2005). A year later the rate was 28%, and by 2010 only 26% of Canadians aged 15 years and older were involved in sport (Ifedi, 2008; Canadian Heritage, 2013). The decline in the amount, intensity, and duration of physical activity also occurs with age. Although 70% of preschoolers meet the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines, as Sport and Social Stratification

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children progress through the school system, their activity level drops significantly (Tremblay et al., 2016; Statistics Canada, 2017b). Only 13% of boys and 6% of girls between the ages of 5 and 17 meet the Canadian guidelines. Furthermore, the decline is not uniform across the stratification system. Canadian Heritage (2013) reports that participation declines with income. In 2010, only 7% of individuals in families with household incomes below $20,000 per year participated in sport. In the $20,000–$29,999 range, only 15% participated. Almost one in five Canadians living in households with incomes of $30,000–$49,999 played sport, rising to one in four in families with incomes of $50,000–$79,999. One-third of individuals in households with incomes higher than $80,000 engaged ­regularly in sport. While young Canadians are becoming less involved in sport, those who are active feed a $5.7 billion youth sport market (Solutions Research Group, 2014). A recent Ipsos poll found that nearly 45% of the families surveyed planned to enroll their children in one sporting activity; a quarter for two, and a third planned on three or more activities (Alini, 2017). On average, families spend $1,120 per child in extracurricular, community, and sports activities, but almost 10% of Canadian families spend more than $2,000 per year (Alini, 2017). Although those expenditures seem modest, more than half of the families found that sport participation strained families’ budgets and about a third of the parents assumed some debt to cover fees and equipment (Alini, 2017; see also Solutions Research Group, 2014). Sport can be expensive, so it is little wonder that where people are situated within the stratification system influences their participation. Hockey, following equestrian sports, is the second most expensive sport for young Canadians (Solutions Research Group, 2014). It can also serve as a focal point for the issues raised in this chapter. The dream of signing a Tavares-like contract to play “the game they love” is so tantalizing. The prospect of dramatic, upward economic mobility is part of the ­reason that parents are willing to invest so much time and money in sport, but it is not the sole reason. Many middle- and upper-income Canadians believe that sport teaches valuable life lessons that instill the spirit and value system needed to succeed in contemporary society. The costs are an investment in the future. The cost of hockey begins with registration in a league, includes expensive equipment, transportation costs (even for house league), and extends into numerous ­add-ons. The fees for house leagues range from almost $500 to $1,200 per player, depending on the age group and geographical location; playing A or AA will cost between $1,500 and $2,000; and moving to AAA, the fees range from $2,500 to $4,000 per season. None of these fees includes transportation, snacks, meals, hotel accommodation for tournaments, or additional tournament costs. Parcels and Campbell (2013) note that parents can pay between $10,000 and $20,000 per year for a child at the AAA level. Over the course of a minor hockey career, that can amount to between $80,000 and $200,000 per player. As a result, it is not surprising that a 2012 Hockey Canada survey showed that hockey parents had an average income 15% above the national median, and work as professionals, owners, executives, or managers (Mirtle, 2018). Gillmor (2013) emphasizes that hockey is no longer a blue-collar sport: “Even the middle class has trouble keeping up with the costs. At the highest level, it has become a rich man’s game.” The best players, one Greater Toronto Hockey League AAA coach points out, are from high SES families. “They don’t necessarily have a lot of drive, they’re just incredibly skilled. And they’re afforded the opportunity to have the best instructors, and that is their advantage. Their advantage is that they have money” (cited in Gillmor, 2013). 88

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While some costs are inevitable, one of the main reasons for their escalation is changes in child rearing philosophies, educational practices, and the goal-rational use of “leisure time.” These changes began in the early 20th century, increased between the end of World War II and the 1970s and intensified from the 1980s onwards. The result, Friedman (2013) argues, is the increasing professionalization of children’s competitive activities whether it is chess, spelling, dance, or sport, as parents try to build what she terms children’s “competitive capital” (p. 46). Parents want the best possible teachers, coaches, and mentors for their children and those who can exchange their economic capital for those opportunities do so. The push for the best coaches has professionalized minor hockey, creating a demand for trained, specialized coaches who further professionalize the experience for their players (Bick, 2007; Friedman, 2013; Holt & Knight, 2014). Coaches compete within the minor hockey field to raise to higher levels; to prove themselves they demand more from their current players. Games and practices become more serious and performance expectations rise. A leisure time activity becomes more work-like for the players. Parents do not object because the professionalized approach may instill the skills and cultural capital that will enable their child to make the pros or gain a university scholarship. Even if that does not occur, their child is gaining the cultural capital of self-discipline, responsibility, long-term planning, competitive drive, and other deeply embedded dispositions in their habitus which will benefit them later in life. In the highly competitive field of minor hockey, professionalization has led to the year-round season (Bick, 2007; Friedman, 2013). It is here that one can see how the “immutable shell” of goal-rational action—the pursuit of the most effective means to a particular goal—that Weber ([1920] 2002) feared would encase the modern mindset, dominates minor hockey. One can also see how that spirit intersects with Bourdieu’s theory of stratification. Gary Roberts High Performance Training (2018) is an excellent, though not isolated, example that illustrates both points (see also, for example, Elite Performance Academy, 2018; Inside Edge Hockey Training, 2018). Gary Roberts High Performance Training offers year-round programs for athletes as young as eight. The website notes that: “In our modern youth sport culture more and more emphasis is being placed on young athletes competing year-round in their sport” (Gary Roberts High Performance Training, 2018). It then claims that continuous involvement in hockey leads to “athletes who lack proper movement patterns” leaving them vulnerable to injury. Described as a “frightening epidemic,” the website claims there is an “urgent need for youth strength training that was not present 10 years ago” and its programs can fill that need. “Strength training,” the site maintains, “has become a vital part of young athlete development and we are excited to help spread the word.” The business offers a variety of packages for athletes ranging from eight to adult and they are not inexpensive. The hierarchical field of minor hockey offers opportunities for young players to improve their cultural capital—the skills needed to move into and excel at the next level—in exchange for their parents’ economic capital. Parents with the resources want their children’s habitus to dispose them to automatically and flawlessly execute hockey skills so they can rise to the top of the field, play for regional, provincial, or national teams and extend their social capital in the process. While Gary Roberts High Performance Training offers the opportunity for any player to take part in yearround hockey to everyone—there is equality of opportunity—inequality of condition means that only those with the sufficient economic capital can take part fully. The social stratification system as a whole shapes and limits the stratification system of minor hockey all the way from the Initiation Program to junior hockey’s draft. Sport and Social Stratification

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CONCLUSION “The athlete enjoys his effort” Pierre de Coubertin (2000) enthuses in a speech ­delivered in 1919, as he espouses his philosophy for the Modern Olympic Games (p. 552). “He likes the constraint that he imposes on his muscles and nerves, through which he comes close to victory even if he does not manage to achieve it.” “Imagine” he continues, “if [that feeling] were to expand outward, becoming intertwined with the joy of nature and the flights of art.” It is such an inspiring image—the rigors of physically demanding athletic competition creating the joy of sport. Today, realizing that potential in sport becomes increasingly impossible for three fundamental reasons. First, as Mills (1959) emphasized in The Sociological Imagination, what may seem like a “personal trouble of milieu”—the barriers an individual faces that prevent her or him from taking part in sport—is, in fact, a ­“public issue of social structure,” which cannot be overcome simply through “the social setting that is directly open to [an individual’s] personal experience and [his or her] willful activity” (p. 8). Sport is shaped and constrained by the social structure in which it occurs. Contemporary Canadian society is highly stratified and the distance between the top and the bottom is increasing. Inequality of condition is continually eroding opportunities throughout the stratification system—particularly for those in the lower half. As a result, participation rates in sport have declined over the past decade or more and they fall as children age and sporting opportunities cost more. Economic capital is a major impediment for too many children who should be physically active. Second, as Bourdieu suggests, Canada’s stratification system is a hierarchical field in which players deploy various types of capital to gain distinction and rise within the field. The characteristics of the overall competitive field shape individuals’ habitus and that habitus inclines them to act, think, and value in particular ways. The habitus of families as one moves up the stratification system predisposes them to increasingly value the specific cultural capital that competitive sport can help instill in their children—e.g., a strong work ethic, long-term planning, strength in the face of adversity, delayed gratification, and a competitive drive to succeed. Finally, the dominant spirit of modern capitalist society—the goal-rational ­pursuit of particular ends—informs the decision-making process of all the players on the field. However, no matter how widely that subjective orientation is shared, it is those in the class positions that have the most economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital who can use their capital to give their children a head start in the race for the top of the athletic pyramid and the social stratification system more generally. Class, as Marx, Weber, Bourdieu, and others recognize, is a powerful influence in who plays sport, how it is played, and why it is pursued. Sport and social s­ tratification are inescapably and intimately connected. Mills emphasized that the sociological imagination involves an examination of the intersection of biography, history, and society. The sociological imagination allows one to identify the nature and causes of different public issues of social structure and through that insight focus on the changes that must be made to improve the life chances for every member of the society. Changing the impact of a stratified social structure on opportunities to fulfill one’s hopes and desires in the realm of sport is a challenging task but as Kidd (1996), Gruneau (1999), and others have documented, sport activists have enjoyed many successes in the struggle for greater inclusivity and charted the path that others may now follow to expand sporting opportunity for all Canadians.

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Key Terms Cultural capital: Cultural capital is one of Pierre Bourdieu’s key terms used to analyze social action. It is one set of usable resources that individuals draw upon in their social actions. Cultural capital involves various types of knowledge, cultural goods such as books and p ­ aintings, as well as various formalized accreditations such as a university degree or award of achievement. Economic capital: Economic capital is one of Pierre Bourdieu’s key terms used to analyze social action. It refers to usable, economic resources such as money and property. Economic capital gives one direct access to a wide variety of objects, services, and opportunities. Equality of condition: Equality of condition exists when all individuals taking part in a particular activity or endeavour do so under the same circumstances; no single individual has an ­advantage over others. Equality of opportunity: Equality of opportunity exists when all individuals have the same ­prospect or opportunity to take part in a particular activity or endeavour. Field: Field is one of Pierre Bourdieu’s key terms used to analyze social action. Field is a ­metaphor drawn from sport and serves as the structural element in Bourdieu’s theory of social practice. A field is a hierarchically arranged setting where individuals use different types of capital to compete with each other for their ranking within the field. Habitus: Habitus is one of Pierre Bourdieu’s key terms used to analyze social action. Habitus refers to a seemingly innate, practical sense of how an individual is disposed (inclined, ­predisposed, prompted) to act. Habitus is not innate; it develops in the course of one’s life and becomes an automatic, unconscious response to the actions of others in the field and shapes one’s actions in all situations. Habitus changes and develops continually over time but becomes more fixed as individuals age. Meritocracy: A meritocracy is a hierarchical ranking and reward system in which an individual’s demonstrated performance determines where the individual will end up in the hierarchy. A meritocracy confers greater merit and more rewards to those at the top than to those lower in the pyramid. Sport is often seen as a true meritocracy because it ranks and rewards those who make the most of their ability through their personal dedication to long-term preparation, ­sacrifice, and concerted, concentrated effort during competition. Social capital: Social capital is one of Pierre Bourdieu’s key terms used to analyze social action. It is a usable set of resources related to various social connections, institutionalized networks, and group memberships. The strength of social capital is tied to the positions within a ­hierarchically arranged field to which the social connections give access. Symbolic capital: Symbolic capital is one of Pierre Bourdieu’s key terms used to analyze social action. It relates to the resources that are available to an individual on the basis of honour, ­prestige or recognition, and represents the value an individual has within a group, institution, or society.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What is a meritocracy? Is the Canadian sport system a meritocracy? Explain. 2. What do the terms “equality of opportunity” and “equality of condition” mean? How do they affect the meritocratic structure of Canadian sport? 3. What are the main features of Canada’s current income structure? 4. How much money have you spent taking part in sporting activities in the past year? 5. What are the main features of Karl Marx’s theory of class?

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6. How did Max Weber’s theory of class build on Marx’s and what are the main differences between the two theories? 7. What are the main features of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of class? 8. What types of cultural, social, economic, and symbolic capital do you have to draw upon that influence your participation in sport?

Suggested Readings Bourdieu, P. (1978). Sport and social class. Social Science Information, 17, 819–40. Green, D., C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire (Eds.) (2017). Income inequality: The Canadian story. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Gruneau, R. (1999). Class, sports, and social development. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Weber, M. ([1921] 2010). The distribution of power with the community: Classes, Stände, parties. Journal of Classical Sociology 10, 137–52.

References Alini, E. (2017, September 3). The cheapest and most expensive kids activities in Canada: Ipsos poll. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3663732/the-cheapest-and-most-expensivekids-activities-in-canada-ipsos-poll. Autor, D., Manning, A., & Smith, C. (2010). The contribution of the minimum wage to U.S. wage inequality over three decades: A reassessment. Cambridge: NBER Working Paper No. 16533, National Bureau of Economic Research. Beamish, R. (1990). The persistence of inequality: An analysis of participation among Canada’s high performance athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25, 143–55. Bick, J. (2007). Looking for an edge? Private coaching, by the hour. New York Times, February 25. Block, S. (2017). Losing ground: Income inequality in Ontario 2000–2015. Toronto: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Bloom, M., Grant, M., & Watt, D. (2005). Strengthening Canada: The socio-economic benefits of sport participation in Canada. Conference Board of Canada. Retrieved from http://www. conferenceboard.ca/e-library/abstract.aspx?did=1340. Boudarbat, B., Lemieux, T., and Riddell, W. (2010). The evolution of the returns to human capital in Canada, 1980–2005. Canadian Public Policy, 36, 63–89. Bourdieu, P. ([1979] 1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7, 14–25. Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in Question. London: Sage Publications. Canadian Heritage. (2013). Sport participation 2010. Retrieved from publications.gc.ca/­ collections/collection_2013/pc-ch/CH24-1-2012-eng.pdf. Canadian Labour Congress. (2015). Closing the gender pay gap. Retrieved from http://­ canadianlabour.ca/issues-research/closing-gender-pay-gap. Card, D., Lemieux, T., & Riddell, C. (2004). Unionization and wage inequality: A comparative study of the U.S., UK and Canada. Journal of Labor Research, 25, 519–59. Compton, B. (2018, July 2). Tavares signs seven-year contract with Maple Leafs. Retrieved from https://www.nhl.com/news/john-tavares-signs-seven-year-deal-with-toronto-mapleleafs/c-299370932. Coubertin, P. (2000). Olympism: Selected writings. Lausanne: International Olympic Committee. EKOS Research Associates. (1992). The status of the high performance athlete in Canada: Final report. Submitted to Sport Canada Directorate, Fitness and Amateur Sport, September.

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Elite Performance Academy. (2018). Elite development programs. Retrieved from http://www. eliteperformanceacademy.ca/elite-development-programs. Fortin, N., Green, D., Lemieux, T., Milligan, K., & Riddell, C. (2012). Canadian inequality: Recent developments and policy options. Canadian Public Policy, 38, 121–45. (fig. 4, p. 127). Friedman, H. (2013). Playing to win: Raising children in a competitive culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gary Roberts High Performance Training. (2018). About us. Retrieved from https://www. garyrobertshockey.com/pages/about-us. Gatehouse, J. (2018). The NHL wins, Canada loses. Retrieved from https://links.lists.cbc.ca/v/ 443/6bfb647e3a526fec2683d91f1c8b600362a6cb7f09ad748323f1f694ea285081. Gemar, E. (2018). Sport in broader leisure lifestyles: An analysis of the professional sport consumer’s cultural engagement. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 19, 1–19. Gillmor, D. (2013). Is minor hockey worth it? Toronto Star. Retrieved from https://www.­ thestar.com/news/insight/2013/01/11/is_minor_hockey_worth_it.html. Green, D., Riddell, C., & St.-Hilaire, F. (2017). Income inequality in Canada: Driving forces, outcomes and policy. In D. Green, C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire (Eds.), Income inequality: The Canadian story, (pp. 1–73). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Gruneau, R. (1972). An analysis of Canada Games’ athletes, 1971. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary. Heisz, A. (2017). Trends in income inequality in Canada and elsewhere. In D. Green, C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire (Eds.), Income inequality: The Canadian story, (pp. 77–102). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Holt, N. & Knight, C. (2014). Parenting in youth sport: From research to practice. New York: Routledge. Ifedi, F. (2008). Sport participation in Canada, 2005. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, Culture, Tourism and the Centre for Educational Statistics. Ingham, A. (1973). Occupational subcultures in the work world of sport. In D. Ball & J. Loy (Eds.), Sport and the social order. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Inside Edge Hockey. (2018). We are inside edge hockey. Retrieved from https://www. insideedgehockey.com/About. Kenyon, G. (1977). Factors influencing the attainment of elite track status in track and field. Post Olympic conference proceedings. Ottawa: Coaching Association of Canada. Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Lemieux, T., & Riddell, C. (2017). Who are Canada’s top 1 percent? In D. Green, C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire (Eds.), Income inequality: The Canadian story, (pp. 103–55). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Marx, K. (1847] 1936). The Poverty of Philosophy. London: Martin Lawrence Limited. Marx, K. ([1852] 1934). Marx to Weydemeyer. In Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (Ed.), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels correspondence 1846–1895 (pp. 55–8). London: Martin Lawrence Ltd. Marx, K. ([1852] 1935). The eighteenth brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers. Marx, K. ([1894] 1909). Capital, vol. 3. Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Company Co-operative. Marx, K. & Engels, F. ([1845] 1939). The German ideology. New York: International Publishers. McPherson, B. (1977). Factors influencing the attainment of elite hockey status. Post Olympic conference proceedings. Ottawa: Coaching Association of Canada. Mills, C.W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Mirtle, J. (2018). The great offside: How Canadian hockey is becoming a game strictly for the rich. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/thegreat-offside-how-canadian-hockey-is-becoming-a-game-strictly-for-the-rich/article15349723/. Munro, J. (1970). Proposed sports policy for Canadians. A white paper tabled in the Canadian house of parliament, March 20.

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Own the Podium. (2018). Vision, mission, mandate, goals and values. Retrieved from http:// www.ownthepodium.org/About-OTP/Vision,-Mission,-Mandate-Goals. Parcels, J., & Campbell, K. (2013). Selling the dream: How hockey parents and their kids are paying the price for our national obsession. Toronto: Viking. Pells, E. (2018). Beckie Scott resigns from WADA committee that recommended reinstating Russian Anti-Doping Agency. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/­ trackandfield/beckie-scott-wada-russian-doping-agency-1.4825469. Solutions Research Group. (2014). Massive competition in pursuit of the $5.7 billion Canadian youth sports market. Retrieved from http://www.srgnet.com/2014/06/10/ massive-competition-in-pursuit-of-the-5-7-billion-canadian-youth-sports-market/. Statistics Canada. (2013). Gini coefficients of market, total and after-tax income of individuals, where each individual is represented by their adjusted household income, by economic family type. Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=e ng&id=2020709&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=-1&tabMode=dataTable&csid=#F4. Statistics Canada. (2017a). Average hourly wages of employees by selected characteristics and occupation, unadjusted data, by province. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tablestableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/labr69a-eng.htm. Statistics Canada (2017b). Directly measured physical activity of children and youth, 2012 and 2013. Retrieved from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-625-x/2015001/article/14136-eng.htm. Statistics Canada. (2017c). High income trends of tax filers in Canada, provinces, territories and census metropolitan areas (CMA), national thresholds. Retrieved from http://www5. statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&id=2040001. Statistics Canada. (2017d). Household income in Canada: Key results from the 2016 census. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170913/dq170913a-eng. htm?HPA=1. Statistics Canada. (2017e). Unionization rates falling. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2015005-eng.htm. Statistics Canada. (2018). Gini coefficients of adjusted market, total and after-tax income, Canada and provinces. Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/pick-choisir?lang =eng&p2=33&id=2060033. Tremblay, M.S., Carson, V., Chaput J.-P., Dinh, T., Duggan, M., Faulkner, G., . . . Zehr, L. (2016). Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines for children and youth: an integration of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 41, S311–27. Vancouver 2010. (2006). Own the podium—2010. Retrieved from http://www.vancouver2010. com/ en/WinterGames/OwnPodium. Weber, M. ([1910a] 2002). A final rebuttal of Rachfahl’s critique of the “spirit of capitalism.” In M. Weber, The Protestant ethic and the “spirit” of capitalism and other writings, (pp. 282–339). New York: Penguin Books. Weber, M. ([1910b] 2002). Rebuttal of the critique of the “spirit” of capitalism. In M. Weber, The Protestant ethic and the “spirit” of capitalism and other writings, (pp. 244–81). New York: Penguin Books. Weber, M. ([1920] 2002). The Protestant ethic and the “spirit” of capitalism and other writings. New York: Penguin Books. Weber, M. ([1921] 2010). The distribution of power with the community: Classes, Stände, parties. Journal of Classical Sociology 10, 137–52. Wilson, T. (2002). The paradox of social class and sports involvement. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 37, 5–16.

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Chapter 5

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada Victoria Paraschak, Matias Golob, Janice Forsyth, and Audrey R. Giles

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Distinguish between race and ethnicity and explain what it means to be a ­member of a minority group. 2 Apply concepts of racism, discrimination, multiculturalism, and assimilation in examining and explaining the sport participation patterns of Canadian minorities. 3 Identify and analyze opportunities for sport and leisure created by and for racial/ethnic groups outside mainstream society.

Jocelyne Larocque, of Métis heritage and a member of the Canadian Women’s Olympic gold medal team at the 2014 Sochi Olympics was the female recipient of the 2018 Tom Longboat Award. Julio Cortez/AP/Shutterstock

4 Discuss the foundations of whitestream sport, including colonialism, social structures, and institutions. 5 Critically assess contemporary issues in politics and the news surrounding Indigenous peoples and sport. Only when “you” and “me” become “us” and “we” can there be any reconciliation. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, p. 311) 95

INTRODUCTION We all have individual characteristics that differentiate us from or connect us to others. Gender, height, skin colour, nationality, ancestry, and eye colour are a few examples of such characteristics. Take a minute and consider how you would describe yourself. When we thought about this question, Vicky described herself as female, brown haired, hazel eyed, 5’4”, urban Canadian, and white. Matias described himself as white, male, Argentinian-Canadian, 6’2”, and hazel eyed. Janice described herself as a female with brown hair and hazel eyes who is just over 5’9” tall, with strong roots in Cree, Scottish, and English descent. Audrey is an anglophone female, English/Welsh Canadian who is 5’4”. Yet as each of us live out or “do” our lives, those individual characteristics are continually reshaped by our experiences. For example, Vicky recollects how some children have considered her tall, while adults often claim that she is short. Her eye colour varies with what she wears, and her values, beliefs, and behaviours have been shaped by years in the Canadian north and by the specific cultural practices she learned there and continues to follow. Matias notes that his studies of Canadian immigrants and the entrepreneurship of those immigrant families help him to reflect on what is meaningful about cultural differences and give meaning to his migration experiences. For Janice, different contexts call attention to different parts of her identity. For instance, when she is in primarily non-Indigenous contexts, her Indigenous (or even Cree) heritage becomes important. Other times, when she is in a mostly Indigenous context, it might be her feminine or mixed heritage that comes to the forefront. When Audrey moved to Ottawa, she learned that she needed to reflect on the inequities not only between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians (the focus of her research), but also between Anglophones and Francophones. So, while we can each describe our individual characteristics, that description changes over time and from the perspectives of others. Some of these characteristics take on a particular social significance in our society. While eye colour remains largely unimportant at a social level, characteristics such as ethnicity and race have become socially constructed markers of difference that impact how individuals make sense of others and create social groups. Race refers to socially constructed distinctions between groups of people based on physical or genetic characteristics, such as skin colour, hair type, and facial features (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2017). Ethnicity refers to the cultural characteristics shared by a social group, such as customs, language, beliefs, and history that “hold the group together and assist others to recognize them as separate” (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2017, p. 1). Our sense of who we are is constructed in relation to groups we believe are similar to or different from us. Personal actions turn these beliefs into reality because actions are shaped by socially constructed understandings about our and others’ racial and ethnic characteristics; we act out or “do” what we believe is appropriate given these beliefs. For example, as we “do” physical activities, such as sports, we shape, reinforce, or challenge the understanding we—and others—hold about our racial and ethnic identities. Students in a physical education class learning basketball all perform the same activities, but the ways those movements reinforce or challenge each individual’s sense of his or her own race and ethnicity influences the meaning assigned to those movements and the enjoyment felt or not felt within the class. After school, a South Asian youth may head to a program where she participates with others from her ethnic background in physical activities tied to her cultural

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roots. Through this process, she reinforces the importance of her ethnic identity in a manner that was not possible in her earlier gym class on basketball. A black male student who practices with the school basketball team at the end of the day may feel confirmed as a talented athlete as he emulates the playing styles of his favourite NBA players. Another student heads home to spend time with her family, having no interest in afterschool athletics. Day after day, these students continue to know themselves and to represent themselves to others through their involvement or noninvolvement in physical activities. This chapter explores the relationships between physical culture, sport, race, and ethnicity in Canada. Our assumption is that movement opportunities in Canada, such as sport, potentially provide the opportunity for all individuals to generate a feeling of pride in their cultural heritage. However, the sport system has been structured so that some individuals—specifically, white Anglophone Canadians of European descent—are privileged to experience racial and ethnic pride moreso than others, and to have their preferred approach considered the best way to “do” sport, although these hegemonic patterns (like all social relations) are slowly changing. Our aim is to encourage you, our readers, to enter into a reflective process through which you can better understand how ethnicity and race are constructed in our society and in sport. By doing so, you can more knowledgeably shape your own identities while honouring the preferred identities desired by those who are marginalized— prerequisites for shifting existing hegemonic, unequal ethnic and racial relations and creating an inclusive, multicultural sport system in Canada.

Terminology Terminology used in this chapter is worth explanation. In our discussion, dominant refers to those people in Canada who hold the power to make decisions and to exert control over others. We use the word minority when referring to people who identify as non-European-white groups and individuals. We realize the problematic nature of this term, since most of the world’s population is non-European-white. However, in Canada most people think of “Canadians” as Anglo-European-white—it has become a part of their practical consciousness—and since labels like minority racial and ethnic groups tend to be commonly used in Canada, we continue to use these terms. We also use both Aboriginal and Indigenous to describe the first peoples of Canada. While Aboriginal is the term used in the Canadian Constitution, Indigenous has become the globally preferred label for identifying those individuals who first inhabited the land. This term is used, for example, in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, to which Canada has been a signatory since 2016.

THE ETHNIC AND RACIAL STRUCTURING OF CANADA The geopolitical area now known as Canada has a long history of unequal ethnic relations, particularly between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, Anglophones and Francophones, and new Canadians. Canada is a settler state. Officially, Canada is a bilingual (English/French) country, which reflects the idea of the British and French “establishing” or “settling” Canada. Equal language rights between Anglophones and Francophones, for example, were embedded in the 1867 Canada Act and further clarified in the 1988 Official Languages Act.

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Canada is also legislatively a multicultural country. The 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act ensures that each Canadian citizen is able to preserve their cultural identity, retain their ancestry and cultural heritage, and still feel a sense of belonging within Canada (Government of Canada, 2018). It means that in Canada, we ostensibly support newcomers in preserving their cultural identities if they choose to do so (Glazer, 1970). It also insinuates that cultural diversity can strengthen and add to an ever-changing, ever-developing Canadian society. According to the 2016 census, more than one in five (21.9%) residents of Canada reported being a landed immigrant or permanent resident. For many years, Europe was the source continent for new immigrants to Canada; more recently, Asia and Africa have displaced Europe. The 2016 census reported that the majority of newcomers to Canada (61.8%) were born in Asia. As a result of there being more immigrants from nonEuropean countries, the number of visible minorities within Canada has grown to represent one fifth of the Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2017). However, the legislatively supported, dominant narrative of Canada as a bilingual, multicultural country fails to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have inhabited the land since time immemorial. Indigenous peoples’ struggles for selfdetermination and human rights within the settler Canadian context have often received little attention in comparison to Francophones’ or immigrants’ rights. Even when Indigenous peoples’ contributions to Canadian history are recognized, the nuances between different Indigenous nations are often erased or marginalized. “Aboriginal peoples,” as defined by the Canadian Constitution, include First Nations (pop. 1,673,780), Métis (pop. 588,545), and Inuit (pop. 65,025) (Statistics Canada, 2018a); together these groups make up about 4.3% of the Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2018b). Indigenous peoples have faced and continue to face human rights abuses due to discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, prompting nation-wide calls for change such as are found in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report and as we discuss later in this chapter. While these varying categories of ethnic groups co-exist in Canada, it is through exploring their particular relationships to physical culture, including sport, that we develop the ability to recognize more clearly the ways that unequal power relations have shaped which cultural practices are legitimized, considered worthy of needed resources, and thus embedded in our practical consciousness as “Canadian sport” and allowed to flourish.

Race and Ethnic Relations In society, individuals always act in relation to others. The possibilities within which we live are thus formed through the “social relations” that exist between individuals and groups. Through social relations, rules are (re)produced concerning how things work and how resources can be distributed. They thus become “power relations,” because those rules always provide for or privilege some people over others. Race and ethnic relations are a particular type of power relation—they privilege individuals on the basis of race or ethnicity. As noted in Chapter 1, power is “the capacity of a person or group of persons to employ resources of different types in order to secure outcomes” (Gruneau, 1988, p. 22). It was also noted that there are three measures of power in sport: the ability to structure sport, to establish sport traditions, and to define legitimate meanings and practices associated with dominant sport practices. Donnelly (1993) captured these different aspects of power when he wrote: “A fully democratized sport and leisure environment would include both the right to participate, regardless of one’s particular set of social characteristics, and the right to be involved in determination of the forms, circumstances 98

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and meanings of participation” (p. 417). When we reflect on sporting practices, it is important for us to analytically consider if individuals have the opportunity to fit within the rules and access the resources needed for their full engagement in sport. But it is also important to consider if they have the opportunity (or not) to shape those and other activities in ways that make the activities meaningful to them. Having the opportunity to participate is one step forward; being engaged in shaping available opportunities is different and equally important in making sport equitable. As an example, if we look at professional sport, it visually appears that the NBA is more racially democratic than the NHL, because there are significant numbers of black players in the NBA while the percentage of black hockey players remains low. That would address the first part of Donnelly’s (1993) definition. The second important aspect to consider, however, is who makes the decisions about what the league’s practices are and who gets to decide on the distribution of resources. On this measure, neither league looks very good, since decision makers, such as owners, coaches, and administrators, remain largely white. Select professional sports leagues have tried to address the under-representation of minorities in administrative positions in professional sport. This underrepresentation is seen as a legacy of the broader societal racial ideology that saw people of colour considered unfit for leadership and thinking positions. For example, the Rooney Rule, created in the NFL to correct the lack of visible minority coaches in the league, has existed since 2003. At that time, about 65% of players were black, but only about 6% of teams had minority coaches. The controversial rule stipulates that NFL teams must interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching and senior management positions. While this rule has led to the hiring of more minority coaches in the NFL, it only requires that a minority candidate be interviewed, which makes it a superficially symbolic action at times when the team management already knows who they would be hiring as their next coach. In January 2018, the English football governing body announced that they would be adopting their version of the Rooney Rule, “interview[ing] at least one applicant from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background for future roles in the England set-up” (BBC, 2018, para. 1). These two examples make clear that it is the organizers of select sport leagues who decide to bring in initiatives to address the underrepresentation of minority coaches, not the minority coaches themselves. These actions thus address the first part of Donnelly’s definition of democratization, but not the second part. Varying aspects of power, differently shaped by race and at times by ethnicity, can thus be examined when looking at mainstream sport and at sporting opportunities created by and for minority ethnic and racial sport participants. Our ethnic and racial identities shape and are shaped by our sport participation. As residents of a settler nation, non-Indigenous Canadians can be linked to one or more ethnic groups, whether it is one of the dominant European, white, English- or French-speaking groups, or one of the more than 200 other ethnic subgroups in this country (Statistics Canada, 2011). Participation in sport and leisure activities is one way social groups define who they are or aspire to be, the values and practices that matter to them, and what distinguishes them from other groups of people. Ice hockey, for example, has come to be closely associated with Canadian identity. It is a cultural icon, which people around the world have come to associate with Canada; in Canada’s 150-year history, ice hockey has often defined who we are or aspire to be as Canadians and the values that matter to us (Robidoux, 2002). As discussed in Chapter 3, this identity became painfully obvious in April 2018, when the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League were Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada

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t­ ravelling to a playoff game in a bus that collided with a semi-trailer truck, leading to injuries to 13 and the death of 16 people. Ten of the fatalities were Humbolt players. The public outcry of emotion across the country was overwhelming; along with many symbolic acts of solidarity, a GoFundMe campaign raised over $15 million dollars in 12 days (Ali, 2018). This tragedy continues to resonate, leading to acts of remembrance across the hockey world, but it also has raised uncomfortable questions. For example, Adam Ali (2018), “a mixed-race Canadian with Pakistani and European backgrounds . . . was saddened by the tragedy and . . . the lasting effects it will have on the victims’ families, friends, and community, but [he] also wanted to understand why such overwhelming forms of mourning are not extended in other circumstances” (para. 4). The same outpouring of symbolic and financial support had not occurred, for example, when an attack on a Quebec mosque in January 2017 “left six Muslim men dead and 19 more injured . . . [or with] the ongoing search for missing and murdered Indigenous women” (para. 4). Ali (2018) noted, If we consider responses to Humboldt as racially coded  .  .  .  [the] overwhelming deployment of affect unleashed . . . tells us which lives are coded as grievable, as worthy of mourning, and cemented in national memory. This collective mourning also, however, betrays the optimistic discourses on multiculturalism and acceptance on which the construction of a benevolent, friendly Canada exists. (para. 5)

In a similarly insightful analysis, Courtney Szto (2016) begins by pointing out that the capacity to play and watch hockey has been found to be especially meaningful for South Asian Canadians, “the largest group of visible minorities in Canada” (p. 208). For example, since 2008, a Punjabi language version of Hockey Night in Canada has been offered alongside the traditional English version (first created as a radio version in 1931). In her examination of Twitter responses by Canadians to the Punjabi language version, Szto explored the claim that a “problem with [multiculturalism] . . . is that it implicitly constructs the idea of a core English-Canadian culture, and that other cultures become ‘multicultural’ in relation to that unmarked, yet dominant, AngloCanadian core culture” (Mackey, 2002, p. 2, cited in Szto, 2016, p. 209). Szto found about 45% of tweets reinforced the idea of multiculturalism as a national characteristic, for example, portraying the broadcast as “encourag[ing] cross-generational integration within families and the Punjabi community . . . bringing grandchildren together with their non-English speaking grandparents” (p. 212). A second category of tweets was considered “ambiguous ambivalence”; “it seemed as though a number of people were not sure what to make of the unfamiliar sight of three dark-skinned men wearing turbans anchoring a sports desk speaking in an unofficial language about a game still controlled by white faces” (p. 213). The third group of tweets resisted the value of Canadian multiculturalism, with half of them employing humour, which “occurs where there is a disconnect or a departure from what is expected as normal behaviour  .  .  .  the dissonance between hockey and Punjabi people” (p. 215). These varied Twitter responses to the Punjabi version of Hockey Night in Canada, as well as the earlier example of perceptions related to the Humboldt tragedy, demonstrate that the relationship between ethnicity, race, and physical cultural practices in Canada such as hockey can offer keen insights into the unequal power relations shaping understandings of multiculturalism in Canada. Claude Denis (1997) uses the term whitestream society “to indicate that Canadian society, while principally structured on the basis of the European, ‘white,’ experience, is far from being simply ‘white’ in socio-demographic, economic and cultural terms” (p. 13). Extending his term, the rules of mainstream, or “whitestream,” sport 100

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have been primarily shaped by individuals of white European heritage in ways that privilege their traditions, practices, meanings, and sport structures. This is an example of systemic racism, since the structure of the system, if followed, will always produce outcomes that discriminate against those who are not white—it will privilege white people of European heritage over others. This can be seen, for example, in the results of a recent report exploring racial representation in U Sports at eight universities across Canada (Danford & Donnelly, 2018). The researchers found that interuniversity sports teams, both male and female, had an overrepresentation of white athletes as compared to the racial makeup of the student body at their universities: 1,336 student athletes (81.5%) were identified as White, and 303 student athletes (18.5%) were identified as Other than White [i.e., Black, East Asian, South Asian, “Other”]. The proportion of White students in the sports included over 90% of the players on ice hockey and volleyball teams, approximately 80% of the players on field hockey teams; three-quarters of football players were White, and almost two thirds of basketball players. Basketball, with 34.3% Other than White players, is the sport that comes closest to the proportion of Other than White students (47.25%) at the eight universities where demographic data were available. (p. 5)

Canada has a long history of systemic discrimination by race in amateur sport. Cosentino (1998) argued that while class formed the basis of amateurism in England, in Canada race also became a powerful definer of who could compete. For example, the first definition of an amateur in Canada, created by the Montreal Pedestrian Club in 1873, noted that no “labourer or Indian” could be given that designation. Discrimination in sport by race was expressed through outright bans, such as black jockeys being banned from competing at the Niagara Turf Club in 1835. In 1880, Indigenous players were excluded from competing in amateur competitions for lacrosse—a game that had originated in Indigenous culture! As late as 1913, the Amateur Athletic Association of Canada opted to ban blacks from competing in Canadian amateur boxing championships, since “Competition of whites and coloured men is not working out to the increased growth of sport” (Amateur Athletic Union of Canada, cited in Cosentino, 1998, p. 13). At times, segregation was reinforced in other ways. For example, the first formal regatta held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1826 offered prizes “for first and second class boats and a canoe race for Indians  .  .  .  which was considered the most entertaining . . . [and] remained part of the Nova Scotian scene until at least 1896” (Young, 1988, pp. 87–88). If black or Indigenous athletes were allowed to compete together with white athletes, descriptors such as “Indian” or “coloured” were added after their name to indicate that they were different from, and subservient to white competitors. In a similar manner, George Beers, a white dentist from Montreal, was able in 1860 to create and then institutionalize his version of “legitimate” lacrosse rules, as opposed to recognizing and formalizing the ways the game was played by Indigenous peoples in the Montreal area. Through his actions, Beers demonstrated his position of privilege in sport, by race, over the originators of the game of lacrosse (Cosentino, 1998).

NON-WHITESTREAM RACEAND ETHNIC-STRUCTURED SPORT SYSTEMS Opportunities for sport created by and for racial and ethnic groups outside whitestream society also have a long history in Canada. The organizers of these events, by exercising their power to shape the sporting opportunities they preferred, challenged the Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada

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­ erception that the whitestream system was the sole legitimate opportunity for sport in p Canada, a necessary prerequisite before the possibility of social change to a more inclusive sport system can be imagined. These alternative possibilities, available outside of the whitestream sport system, meant minority athletes didn’t have to remain excluded from sport opportunities; they also didn’t have to participate within whitestream sport structures that did not contribute to positive experiences for them in sport, such as having to endure expressions of racism directed at them. For example, when Indigenous or black athletes were banned from whitestream sports, they often countered with the creation of their own leagues and competitions, limited to participants from a specified racial background. This provided organizers with the opportunity to assign their own meaning to sport and to develop traditions in keeping with Indigenous, black, or Asian cultural understandings. And it created opportunities for marginalized group members to play sports when they did not have that chance in the mainstream sport system. Newcomers to Canada, who experience many benefits tied to sport participation, are one sector of society who have created their own, segregated sporting organizations as well as joining in on whitestream sport opportunities. New Canadians who identify with diverse ethnic, racial, and religious groups benefit from involvement in sport, leisure, and recreation in many ways. Sport and leisure activities, by encouraging interaction among different ethnic groups, offer a space in which ideas, practices, games, pleasures, and possibilities can be shared, exchanged, and borrowed. Sport and recreation participation can be beneficial for new immigrant youth, providing opportunities for social integration with other youth in their neighbourhoods. Tirone, Livingston, and colleagues found that immigrants from diverse ethnic, racial, and religious groups engage in sports as part of their leisure, as a means to gain acceptance and a sense of belonging in their communities, and in some cases as a source of income for those who immigrate to be professional coaches (Livingston, Tirone, Miller, & Smith, 2008; Tirone, Livingston, Miller, & Smith, 2010). Tirone’s (2000) longitudinal study of leisure in the lives of children of immigrants from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh revealed the difficulties and tremendous advantages young South Asians encountered as they pursued sport, recreation, and leisure. For the youth in that study, it was evident that sport has the potential to facilitate inclusion for some young people while also being the source of exclusion and discrimination for others. While participants from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds can benefit from involvement in physical cultural practices such as sport, leisure, and recreation, barriers to sport participation based on ethnic identity are often compounded by racism. Being able to participate free from this negative environment is one benefit of creating and using segregated sport organizations. Nakamura and Donnelly (2017) explored ethnic sport organizations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). They identified three types of segregated sporting organizations. The first group of organization activities were only played by the first generation of immigrants and then died out—traditional activities such as bandy, hurling, pessapallo, and eisstock. A second type of segregated sport organization also declined after the first generation of players, but then were revived by later immigrants to the GTA. For example, although hurling had died out, later Irish ­immigrants revived Gaelic football. In another example, cricket declined in terms of Caribbean participants but was then revived by South Asian immigrants. The third type of organization started out segregated within one ethnic community, but became increasingly inclusive of people from different ethnic backgrounds over time. At times this was done to promote the activity broadly, or to increase the number of participants necessary to maintain competitions. “The North American Chinese 102

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Invitational Volleyball tournament, for example, includes participation of non-Chinese players and even has codified rules [for who can participate]” (Nakamura, 2016, p. 114). Nakamura (2016) pointed out, “All teams must have at least 2/3 of the players on the court at all times who are 100% Chinese in order to participate in any of the games of the tournament [while] remaining players must be of Asian descent” (and the countries are specified) (p. 146). The multiple identities these players share extended beyond their Asianness, including, for example, pride in their city and country (Canada or the USA), while also, “through their involvement, players identified with their Asian identities, felt comfort with other Asian people, and felt buffered from racism and stereotyping that they experienced in mainstream sport settings” (Nakamura, 2016, p. 151). Nakamura and Donnelly (2017) identified two further types of ethnic sport organizations. The first had been inclusive of various ethnic groups from their inception in the GTA, such as Aussie Rules football and various martial arts; however, the second type of organization started out with mixed ethnic participants, then over time became more separate within select ethnic communities that chose to organize their own competitions, such as soccer. The authors thus showed the varieties of ways that segregated sport organizations might form, continue, disappear, and revive based on a variety of factors such as participant interest, the need for more players, the desire to have control over their sporting experience, and commercial interests. One example of a race-structured sporting event would be the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG), first held in 1990 in Edmonton. These international Games, restricted to those of verifiable Aboriginal ancestry, “stress fun and participation while encouraging our youth to strive for excellence” (Aboriginal Sports/ Recreation Association of BC, 1995, cited in Paraschak, 2003, p. 26). The Games include primarily mainstream sports, because the intent is to provide a stepping-stone to national- and international-level sport competitions; however, the cultural program showcases various traditional games and dances as well. The 2017 Games in Toronto had more than 5,000 participants celebrating Indigenous culture as well as competing in sporting events organized by Indigenous sports organizations (Unifor, 2017). Through this event, Indigenous sportspeople experience more power in sport than is found in the whitestream system—they are in charge of its structure, its practices, and meanings, and of the traditions they will continue to foster into the future. Unfortunately, these race-structured opportunities rarely qualify for the kinds of financial and material rewards given to “legitimate” whitestream sport, although the Canadian government has acknowledged the presence of the Aboriginal sport system in Canada through federal policy and funding, as outlined in the 2002 Canadian Sport Policy (but not the 2012 Canadian Sport Policy 2.0) and in Sport Canada’s Policy on Aboriginal Peoples’ Participation in Sport (Canadian Heritage, 2005). People sometimes attach the term reverse racism to describe situations where normally privileged individuals—usually white people—are excluded from opportunities on the basis of race. For example, non-Indigenous people cannot compete in the NAIG, even though Indigenous athletes can theoretically compete in mainstream sporting events. As directed by Section 15(2) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, however, efforts to address the “conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race” (Government of Canada, 1982) are seen as a necessary part of providing equality rights, because such efforts are required to help correct the imbalance created by unequal privilege in the first place. Race and ethnicity have been, and remain, indicators or “markers” that provide meaning in our everyday sporting practices. In order to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of ethnicity or race, have opportunities to find meaningful participation in Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada

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sport, ethnic- and race-structured sporting opportunities are currently needed to ensure that the sport system in Canada provides broadly for the needs of all Canadians. Until whitestream sport broadens even further and becomes truly inclusive, alternative ethnic- and race-structured opportunities should be celebrated and supported as part of the Canadian sport system. In this way, the institution of sport becomes a more welcoming practice, reflective of the cultural meanings and traditions of all Canadians.

USING THEORY TO MAKE SENSE OF ETHNICITY AND RACE IN SPORT AND PHYSICAL CULTURE In Chapter 2, Ian Ritchie has argued that “[t]heory is the central tool that sociologists use to understand the human social world.” (Quote by Ian Ritchie. Used with ­permission.). As a result, sport sociologists who are interested in race and ethnicity use certain theories to understand these and other related concepts and issues. In trying to understand the behaviours (e.g., differences in participation rates, choice of activities) of ethnic minority people, North American researchers have relied primarily on two theoretical perspectives: marginality theory and ethnicity theory. Marginality theory suggests that the differences in participation in activities like sport are due to the poverty experienced by many minority racial and ethnic people, which is a function of the discrimination they face in accessing training and education as well as jobs. Poverty has long been known to prevent many Canadian youth from participating in organized sports, and often children in poor families have little or no access to nonorganized sports and recreation (Frisby et al., 2005; White & McTeer, 2012). This might include recent immigrants who are employed but earn less than Canadian-born workers; the wage gap between these two groups in the years between 1980 and 2005 has also increased steadily (Statistics Canada, 2009). Far fewer children in low-income families participate in sport compared with children in high-income families (Frisby et al., 2005). Ethnic minority youth in low-income families can also face additional limitations because of parental priorities that emphasize academic pursuits and discourage participation in sports (Rosenberg, 2003; Tirone & Pedlar, 2000). In this view, if economic barriers were removed, there would be no difference in sport participation between high and low-income groups. Marginality theory thus helps to explain why some minority group Canadians do not choose the same sports as the dominant majority population. However, it falls short when applied to ethnic minority people who are not poor and who have somewhat different sport participation patterns, such as South Asian Canadians who often play field hockey, cricket, and other sports that are not popular among dominant group Canadians, but are growing in popularity among people who identify with some of Canada’s ethnic populations (Tirone & Pedlar, 2000). For example, the popularity of cricket is on the rise across Canada, and in 2018 King City, Ontario, hosted the inaugural Global T20 Canada professional cricket league (Globe and Mail, 2018). Ethnicity theory posits that differences in behaviour can be explained by the existence of a distinct set of subcultural norms and values (Washburne, 1978). This approach suggests that ethnic subgroups interact with dominant cultural groups for school, jobs, commerce, and when needs cannot be met within the subgroup (Li, 1990). In this view, sport participation among ethnic minority people is the result of specific group interests and is created and directed to meet these needs. Using this approach, researchers compare behaviours such as sport participation patterns of

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ethnic minority people to the leisure experiences of dominant group members. Problematic here is that the behaviours of the white, Eurocentric majority are normalized and minority people are considered as “others” for the sake of comparisons. Critical race theory (see Chapter 1) has also been used by sociology of sport scholars to examine race and racism in sport (see for example Hylton, 2008; 2010). Hylton (2008) argued that there are five main aspects of critical race theory: i) it centralizes race and racism; ii) it challenges convention and colour-blindness; iii) it focuses on social justice; iv) it centralizes marginal voices; and v) it is transdisciplinary. This theoretical approach aligns with the “whitestream” description of mainstream sport in Canada, as it recognizes that individuals of white European heritage structured sport in ways that privileged their traditions, practices, meanings, and sport structures. Critical race theory directs us to examine the possibility of situational and systemic discrimination affecting the participation of ethnic minority participants in sport in Canada. In a report that examined sport participation rates across Canada using the national 2010 General Social Survey data (Canadian Heritage, 2013), researchers noted that participation in sport for non-Anglophones has declined since the last report was published in 2005. While participation rates for French-speaking Canadians dropped to 20% (from 30% in 2005), those rates remained stable for English-speaking Canadians at 30%. Participation rates for those in the “other” category slightly increased (24% for 2010 versus 22% in 2005), but rates for those who report speaking multiple mother tongues decreased to 22% (down from 30% in 2005). These patterns prompt us to explore further if Anglophones may be privileged by engaging in a language-friendly sport system as compared to other types of speakers in Canada. Other patterns in this report suggested that gender patterns of immigrants align with Canadians generally, with females participating in sport less than males regardless of when they came to Canada. Difference in participation rates have also been explored and vary by the year immigrants came to Canada. While recent immigrants (who came to Canada after 1990) tend to participate regularly in sport and at the same rate as Canadians born in Canada (27%), established immigrants (who moved to Canada before 1990) participate in sport less (16%), which fits with Canadian patterns generally. These research-based patterns provide an opportunity for us to reflect more on the ways that immigrants find value (or not) in sport participation, including their participation in mainstream and segregated sporting opportunities. For example, researchers in a study of leisure and recreation practices of teenagers who were the children of South Asian immigrants suggested that racism and indifference were reasons why some youth stopped participating in mainstream sports (Tirone, 2000). That group explained how, when faced with overt racism or situations in which they were criticized or ridiculed because of skin colour, clothing, or religious practices, no one in a position of authority attempted to intervene in the situation.

FRANCOPHONES AND SPORT IN CANADA In Canada, the structural inequality and discriminatory treatment of French Canadians in elite sport has been well documented. For example, francophones in the Canadian population ranged between 25% and 30% between 1908 and 1980, yet the percentage of francophones on national teams in those years “rarely exceeded 10 percent” (Coakley & Donnelly, 2004, p. 272). When the Olympics were held in Montreal in 1976, the Quebec government set a target of 30% francophone athletes on the Canadian team; the 28% achieved overall aligned with francophone representation across Canada, although many Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada

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of the sporting events at that Olympics still had no francophone athletes from Canada. Francophone athlete numbers then declined again. While francophone athlete numbers on national teams increased beginning in the 1980s, the numbers of coaches and executives, and access to French language services remained problematic (Coakley & Donnelly, 2004). A 2000 report by the Commissioner for Official Languages noted inadequacies in sport services being provided equally in both official languages, and issued a number of recommendations that were never implemented. In the updated 2003 Physical Activity and Sport Act, this situation was structurally addressed in the preamble, which noted in part that the Government of Canada recognizes that physical activity and sport are integral parts of Canadian culture and society and produce benefits in terms of health, social cohesion, linguistic duality, economic activity, cultural diversity and quality of life; [and] . . . the Government of Canada is committed to promoting physical activity and sport, having regard to the principles set out in the Official Languages Act (Government of Canada, 2003, preamble) (italics in original).

Following on this Act, athletes have the right to be coached in either official language, and all government-funded reports must be released simultaneously in both official languages. These requirements are examples of a shift in structural expectations in sport services to make sport a more welcoming and equitable place for francophone athletes, coaches, and administrators. Along the lines noted earlier, the centrality of language in shaping francophone identities through ethnically distinct sporting festivals has been explored by sociologists Christine Dallaire and Jean Harvey (2017). They documented the ways that two separate francophone youth sporting events (the Jeux de la francophonie canadienne and the Finale des Jeux du Quebec) generate different kinds of Francophone identities in Canada. The Jeux de la francophonie canadienne (JFC) is a pan-Canadian youth festival that celebrates French language, culture and identity as a focal feature of Canadian nationalism that highlights its linguistic duality despite the minority status of Francophones. Conversely, French language and its cultural dimensions are taken for granted rather than feted at the Finale des Jeux du Quebec (FJQ). (p. 163)

These researchers have recognized the centrality of language to the construction of Francophone identities, and highlight ways that access to French language has intertwined with athlete and organizer expectations in both mainstream and segregated sporting events in Canada.

RACE AND SPORT We might look to white people for leadership, black people for athletic talent, Aboriginal peoples for environmental guidance, and Asian Canadians for academic excellence. By assuming that race automatically gives individuals an advantage in some areas more so than others, we are perpetuating race-based understandings of human behaviour. David Leonard explored the concept of “playing while white” to outline the ways that whiteness is part of our practical consciousness in contemporary sport. #PlayingWhileWhite means being seen as a leader, being celebrated as an intelligent athlete, and being praised for embodying the positive values found in our sporting landscapes . . . For the black athlete, trash-talking and other indiscretions off the field result in narratives about “thugs” who don’t respect the game, widespread debates about role models, values, morality, and punishment. The same

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behaviors in white athletes generate stories about passionate players who simply need to mature. When black players yell at teammates, they are seen as selfish hip-hop ballers; for white players, this behavior is a sign of a desire to win and a commitment to leadership. (Leonard, 2017, pp. 6–7) Racial images may have an affect on how people catalogue various races. Amer Ghazzal/Barcroft Media/ Getty Images

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Skin colour has taken on social meanings in North America that hegemonically privilege white people over others. A hierarchy of privilege/discrimination has thus been created—commonly referred to as racism. Satzewich and Liodakis (2017) explained that racism occurs when individuals are treated in a discriminatory or prejudicial way because of their perceived, biologically different “race.” Identification by race is not, however, a straightforward process. When Serena Willliams played in the finals match at the US Open Tennis championships in 2018, her competitor was Naomi Osaka. Osaka, who won, is proudly bi-racial. “In interviews, Osaka has been adamant about embracing both her Asian and black heritages, conceding that while she represents Japan in sporting events, she doesn’t identify solely as Japanese. She proudly reps her Haitian side” (Blay, 2018, para. 7). However, a cartoon about the match in the Australian Herald Sun depicted Williams as stereotypically black, “as a hulk-like figure with unkempt hair and large lips reminiscent of the minstrel or the mammy” while Osaka, depicted with “light skin, slim frame, blonde hair” was “cast as the innocent white girl even though she’s not even white” (Blay, 2018, para. 2,3,5). Racial labels and images, as in this cartoon, can be assigned to people without those labels being accurate, and the way individuals view themselves may be quite different from the racial category assigned to them by others.

RACIAL PATTERNS IN CANADIAN SPORT: THE PERSISTENCE OF WHITESTREAM SPORT While overt discrimination by race has at times decreased, systemic racism as found in the whitestream sport system along with situational acts of racism continue to limit social change in the democratization of Canadian sport. For example, criteria used to identify and fund legitimate sport continue to privilege activities played in international competitions, including the Olympics and world championships. The federal government criteria for funding sports reflect this; physical activities that fall outside the whitestream model have had difficulty in being recognized as legitimate and have been denied federal funding. For example, the Northern Games Society, which has organized yearly Inuit traditional games festivals in the Northwest Territories since 1970, was informed by letter in 1977 that its federal sport funding would be stopped. The letter pointed out that the Games activities, which had their origin in Indigenous cultures, were not deemed to be “legitimate sport” according to the parameters of the funding agency. Indigenous organizers argued that their traditional activities were also sports, but they had less power over defining “legitimate” sports, and thus lost their funding (Paraschak, 1997). Despite this presence of systemic racism underpinning sport, there have been moments when black athletes have found acceptance more readily in Canada than in the United States. Jackie Robinson, for example, broke the longstanding colour barrier in Major League Baseball by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. However, the president of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, actually signed Robinson in October 1945 to play professionally for the minor league Montreal Royals, where Robinson enjoyed a tremendous and far more receptive response from Canadian fans than he later did from American fans. Three decades later, Warren Moon was able to play professional football as a black quarterback in Canada when that opportunity was not available in the United States. At that point in NFL history there had only been three black quarterbacks in the

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s­tarting role: Fritz Pollard (1920), James Harris (1969–1977), and Joe Gilliam (1974) (Burnaby Now, 2013). Researchers (e.g., Best, 1987; Leonard, 2017; Sage & Eitzen, 2013) have demonstrated in a number of sports, including professional football, that during this time, decision makers, in accordance with racist ideological beliefs, appeared to be positionally segregating or “stacking” blacks in the athletic running positions because they were supposedly “natural” athletes, while only whites were “stacked” in central, leadership positions, such as quarterback, centre, and middle linebacker, simply because they were assumed to have the ability and intellect to fill such positions. Warren Moon’s treatment by the NFL aligned with this racist belief. After being selected as the 1978 Rose Bowl Most Valuable Player in his role as quarterback, Moon was completely overlooked by the NFL in its 1978 US college draft. As a result, he came to play with the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League and won five Grey Cups with them. In 1984 he became the highest-paid player in football when he joined the Houston Oilers of the NFL (Mullick, 2002), and in 2006 he became the first black quarterback inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. While these particular events in Canadian sport might suggest that we have a more racially welcoming sport system, research on patterns of exclusion by race in Canadian sport suggest otherwise. For example, Robert Pitter (2006) outlined racism specifically in hockey, which he sees as part of broader systemic racism in Canadian sport. He details the long history of both Indigenous and black participants in hockey, along with the delay of their entrance into the National Hockey League (NHL) until 1954 for Indigenous players, when Fred Sasakamoose joined the league, and 1958 for black players, when Willie O’Ree joined. Racist treatment followed these athletes into the NHL as well. “Aboriginal players depict a Canadian hockey subculture in which racist behaviours are endemic, ranging from routine use of the nickname ‘Chief’ to pointedly demeaning and hostile treatment” (Pitter, 2006, p. 130). Willie O’Ree, who first played in the NHL in 1958, is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builder category in 2018. Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images

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Pitter’s argument about a racist hockey subculture in North America is supported by the experience of black players who faced and continue to face racial taunts and actions within hockey (Harris, 2003; Kalman-Lamb, 2018; Bueckert, 2018). For example, P. K. Subban, who is black, was the target of racist tweets on social media after he scored the winning overtime goal for the Montreal Canadiens against the Boston Bruins in the 2014 playoffs (Associated Press, 2014). A promising development pointing toward a less racist hockey culture occurred in 2018, when journalists celebrated the announcement that Willie O’Ree, the first black hockey player in the NHL, would finally be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builder category (Clipperton, 2018). This happened around the same time, however, that a team of Indigenous hockey players was competing in a tournament in Quebec and faced racist taunts from spectators, coaches, and other players. When approached, the referees chose to do nothing about it, demonstrating that racist behaviour remains part of the sport for visible minorities (Page, 2018). These patterns tied to racism in sport demonstrate that while moments of potential social change occur, too often they do not lead to fundamental structural change and a more inclusive sport system in Canada. These examples demonstrate different ways that race has been given social meaning in Canadian sport. Such meanings are indicative of broader societal race relations. Frideres (2008), writing on racism in Canadian society, noted that “Racism in Canada from 1800 to 1945 was reflected in restrictive immigration policies and practices regarding non-white immigrants, particularly the Chinese, Blacks and Jews, and by the treatment of native peoples” (p. 1816). Racist sport practices during this

❯❯❭❯ BOX 5.1

 estructuring the Whitestream Sport Structure: R Amateur Soccer in Canada

In Canadian amateur soccer, a controversy arose when the Quebec Soccer Federation banned youth from wearing turbans because they were deemed to be “unsafe.” The director general of the provincial organization, when asked about its decision, commented that if Sikh kids want to play soccer while wearing a turban there’s an easy solution: they can play in their own yard . . . the reason to maintain the ban is for player safety reasons  .  .  .  When asked how many injuries have been linked to turbans [the director general] said there are none. (Associated Press, 2013, para. 5)

This comment points to both situational racism and to its contribution toward systemic racism. The administrator felt comfortable arguing that turbans threaten player safety even though he had no data to back up his claim. His whitestream-informed perspective, which did not see turbans belonging in sport, led to his enforcement of this rule based on a limited interpretation of player safety. Outrage was expressed across the country, including protests by soccer players on one team whose members all donned turbans to play. The Canadian Soccer Association

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suspended the Quebec Federation for refusing to overturn this decision. The suspension demonstrated an effort by the national organization to bring about social change within the Quebec Soccer Federation. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) then addressed the issue. In its ruling, FIFA specifically addressed Canada and said that men’s head coverings were permitted as long as they met safety standards and complied with rules such as being the same colour as uniforms. The rule applied “in all areas and on all levels of the Canadian football community,” FIFA said (Peritz, 2013, para. 7). The Quebec Soccer Federation subsequently revoked its decision to align with the FIFA rule clarification. This is one example wherein competing understandings of what is seen as “legitimate” arose within sport organizations, and where the ability or power of national and international organizations to exercise their interpretation of rules relative to their provincial members led to actual change, which was embedded structurally through the ruling taken. This outcome enabled participants wearing turbans in amateur soccer to feel welcomed wherever they competed in Canada.

time period would thus have reinforced and been shaped by broader understandings of race. Canadian attempts to address racial inequity through legislation coalesced in the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, where equality rights in the public domain were entrenched. Human rights commissions have also provided a legal avenue for addressing racial inequities in Canada. Participants and administrators who wish to make sport a more welcoming—and legislatively aligned—place for all can benefit by understanding the social construction of race and racism in sport.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND SPORT Indigenous people have a unique place in Canadian society; as the original inhabitants of the land, their relationship with other Canadians has been written into the Constitution Act of 1867 and into previous and subsequent treaties and legislation such as the Indian Act of 1876. While they have been affected by unequal historical, racial and ethnic patterns in sport, as discussed thus far, they have also faced unique challenges due to the colonial and legislative framework of Canada, which actively pressed for their assimilation into Canadian society through all institutions including sport. For instance, colonial officials have always been aware of the power of sport and recreation to change Indigenous lives. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Indian Affairs, the government department responsible for Aboriginal administration at the time, attempted to replace traditional Aboriginal cultural practices with Euro-Canadian sports and games. They believed Aboriginal customs to be heathen and counterproductive to Aboriginal economic progress because some customs went on for days (with officials seeing this as time away from work) while others involved the destruction or redistribution of private property (which interfered with capital accumulation) (Pettipas, 1994). Euro-Canadian sports were, for example, used widely throughout the residential school system (discussed below), especially from the 1940s onwards when school authorities came to see sport as a way to ease the path to assimilation. Sport, with its clear set of technical rules for time, facilities, and play, provided a “fun” way to inculcate new identities and attitudes among the students. Usually, boys, more so than girls, were engaged in sports, with hockey, track and field, and boxing being among the most popular activities offered at these institutions. Some schools even created in-house leagues to encourage a competitive ethos among the boys. At Spanish Indian Residential School in central Ontario, for example, male students were organized into four teams named after prominent NHL hockey teams to motivate them to complete school chores in a fast and efficient process (Johnston, 1988). Since every school relied almost wholly on student labour, from chopping wood to fuel the school furnace, to clearing land for farming, to carrying out the building and repairing of facilities, these institutions were more like factories run on forced labour than places of learning. Some schools also provided coaching and equipment, and went to great lengths to cultivate a talented pool of athletes and teams that would compete against students from other residential schools and the public school system, or in amateur sports events. Presumably, with proper coaching and supervision, lessons learned on the field of play would translate into other areas of life, such as work and home, as well as serving the nation in times of conflict (Forsyth & Heine, 2017). By way of contrast, when physical activities for girls were provided in residential schools, they typically required little to no exertion, such as walking, or were offered only on special occasions, such as school sports days or civic holidays, which linked sports to Canadian identity (Miller, 1996). The lack of opportunities for girls (and the provision of activities for boys) in the residential schools thus reinforced broader Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada

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notions about the proper role of women and men in society. While boys were expected to embrace their physicality and take on leadership roles, especially in the public sphere, girls were expected to restrain their energies and learn to play a supportive role, especially in the private sphere. The impact of gender on residential school sporting behaviour is an area needing further research attention. The examples above demonstrate how residential school sports helped to create and reinforce relations of racial, ethnic, and gender difference in Canadian society by controlling the rules and resources for sport in a way that aligned with the whitestream system. Indigenous people too have been aware of these efforts, and often resisted these colonizing attempts, or adapted the activities to meet their own needs and aspirations—albeit in limited ways because they did not control the rules and resources tied to mainstream sport opportunities. For instance, the Inuit and Dene people of northern Canada have worked hard to grow their traditional sporting practices by linking them to a major sporting event called the Arctic Winter Games, which involves participants from the circumpolar region of the globe (Paraschak, 1997). The continuation and legitimization of traditional Indigenous games has been one important way that Indigenous participants, through their physical cultural activities, challenge stereotypes that have been and remain an integral part of whitestream sport.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 5.2

 liminating Stereotypes of Indigenous People E in Sport Mascots and Team Names

Researchers have been identifying “the historical and contemporary ramifications of racialized representations in sport” since the 1990s (NASSH, 2017, p. 2). Examples of current team names linked to Indigenous peoples in professional sports include the CFL Edmonton Eskimos, the NFL Washington Redskins, and the MLB Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians. C. R. King (2016), for example, critiques the history of the Washington Redskins—a term he notes is a racial slur, used by "the franchise, the National Football League (NFL), and their media partners to profit from" (King, 2016, p. 1). The use of this name, which dictionaries define “as an offensive, antiquated, and insulting reference to an American Indian” (King, 2016, p. 3) continues despite calls from Indigenous organizations, academics, politicians, and media to remove it. Numerous claims about the damage done by the use of these racist names and images are backed up by research. For example, in the NASSH Resolution Opposing the Use of Racialized Indigenous Imagery in Sports (2017), each concern raised about racialized Indigenous imagery in sport is linked to research that supports the claim, such as: a growing body of social science literature that shows the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful

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effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity development and self-esteem of American Indian young people”; “educational institutions and national sports franchises [should be directed] to cease their use of such race-based Native logos, mascots, and names, in the effort to remove these stereotypes and raise the selfesteem of Native students so they have the same opportunity as their non-Native peers to achieve academically without discrimination”; and “a case was brought before the Ontario Superior Court, asserting that racially discriminatory sporting team names and iconography against Indigenous peoples are in violation of Canada’s Human Rights Act and the Ontario Human Rights code. (NASSH, 2017)

In Canada, the CFL use of “Eskimos” has been labelled racist by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents over 60,000 Inuit in Canada. Recently, the ownership of the Edmonton Eskimos has been exploring the suitability of their team name more proactively. They carried out a survey about the appropriateness of the name “Eskimo” with their season ticket holders, and then went to the Northwest Territories to ask Inuit and other northerners what they felt about the name. “Inuit” is the Inuktitut name for “the people,” as opposed to “Eskimo,” which as long been a derogatory term for Inuit. The Edmonton ownership team returned with plans to

visit Nunavut, Ottawa, and Edmonton on this issue in the future. For now, however, “Edmonton’s CFL team has no plans to discard the Eskimos name, says the team’s CEO” (CBC, 2018, para. 1). This is an example of unequal power relations tied to hegemonic privilege; non-Indigenous professional team owners are able to create and follow a process of their own making, to assess if it is in their (not Indigenous peoples’) best interests to use a term that has been formally identified as racist by an Inuit organization. “Redmen,” the title of the varsity men’s teams at McGill University, is another sport team label currently creating controversy. The university claims that the name is tied to the Celtic roots of the university and the red colour of their jerseys; however, from the 1930s to 1990s, stereotypic images, including an Indian head logo, along with descriptions of the team in the media all drew upon and reproduced stereotypic concepts of Indigenous peoples. For example, at one point the varsity women’s teams were call the “squaws” (juniors) and the “super squaws” (seniors), a highly derogatory term for

Indigenous women that, when used, contributes to a perception that they are of less value than other women, justifying their derogatory treatment in the broader society. It is because of the racist historical legacy tied to the term “Redmen” at McGill that Indigenous groups and others on campus and more broadly across North America have been calling for the university to retire the title permanently (Peritz, 2018). Allowing these names to persist in sport, along with the stereotypic words, images, and actions associated with such usage, makes sport a hostile place for Indigenous athletes and it also empowers people to draw on those racist images and actions, and to reproduce them in sporting contexts where Indigenous athletes participate, as was seen at the Quebec City minor hockey tournament in 2018 (Page, 2018). Importantly, in 2019, after lobbying and public protests by Indigenous students, Faculty, and staff, McGill announced that it will change the name of its men’s sports teams. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/mcgill-redmenname-1.5095289

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION’S CALLS TO ACTION: CHALLENGING WHITESTREAM SPORT One of the most disturbing aspects of Canada’s colonial history was the Indian Residential Schools system, whereby the government and churches engaged in cultural genocide by removing at least 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families and forcing them to attend residential schools across Canada from 1883 until the late 1990s. At these schools, Aboriginal children faced unspeakable abuse. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, released its report on the history and legacy of residential schools. In doing so, the TRC highlighted the role that sport can play in both colonialism and in reconciliation. In light of its findings, the TRC, in its 527-page Executive Summary, left readers to address one important question: “Now that we know about residential schools and their legacies, what do we do about it?” (TRC, 2015, p. vi). Canadians were thus challenged to think through the problems that led to the development and maintenance of a school system that was predicated on the erasure of Aboriginal ways of life. To assist readers in that mission, the Executive Summary of the TRC (2015) offered a general framework for understanding what reconciliation means. It stated that reconciliation, is about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in this country. In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour. (pp. 6–7)

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In other words, the relationship between the state and Aboriginal people is still a colonial one, and it is embedded in unequal power relations that limit Aboriginal people and Aboriginal communities from reaching their full potential. That is why the Executive Summary went on to say, “We are not there yet,” because the power imbalance still needs to be addressed (TRC, 2015, p. 7). To address the ongoing power imbalance, the TRC published 94 Calls to Action, which is a list of actionable items all Canadians and governments are being called upon to implement. Five of the Calls to Action focus on sport (TRC, 2015, p. 336, see numbers #87–91). Broadly speaking, they identify the need to support the development of the Aboriginal sport system and traditional physical practices; to develop a better understanding of Aboriginal sporting experiences and share those understandings with the public; to ensure Aboriginal needs and concerns around health and physical activity are enshrined in policies and legislation; and to involve Aboriginal people in the hosting of major games taking place on their lands. The Calls to Action thus speak to Aboriginal people’s enduring commitment to sport as a way to advance their interconnected set of aspirations. In other words, the TRC identified sport as a central component of Aboriginal community revitalization and showed how sport draws its strength from and supports other facets of Aboriginal livelihood in Canada. One example that highlights how these unequal relations continue in sport can be found in the way a number of government agencies and organizations jumped on efforts to reconcile the past without giving careful thought to what needs to be addressed or how to go about implementing their ideas. For instance, in spring 2017, the Ontario government announced its funding support for NAIG, which was being hosted in Toronto later that summer. At the time of the announcement, the Ontario website stated that its funding was just “one of many steps on Ontario’s journey of healing and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples,” suggesting the funding was provided because of reconciliation, when in fact the Federal and Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for Sport, Recreation and Fitness had already agreed in 2003 (pre-TRC) to support the hosting component of the NAIG when they are held in Canada (Forsyth & Paraschak, 2013). Moreover, the funding was for hosting the event itself and did not cover important things like travel, food, team apparel, and accommodations for the athletes, so that, in most regions, this came out of pocket from a population that already struggles financially. For example, “[f]our out of every five Aboriginal reserves have median incomes that fall below the poverty line, according to income data from the 2016 census” (Press, 2017, para. 1). Many of the participants who attend the NAIG also come from rural and remote areas, making travel costs high (Porter, 2016). The lack of support brings a level of uncertainty to the NAIG that participants in other major multi-sport events, such as the Canada Games, do not have to face; as participants, Canada Games’ athletes automatically receive government funding for travel, food, accommodation, and clothing. Therefore, as governments and organizations attempt to engage in reconciliation, some are moving swiftly, claiming they are doing the things that need to be done to fulfill the TRC mandate without pausing to reflect on what the TRC is about or whether what they are doing is really reconciliation. If sport administrators reflect on and engage authentically with the TRC’s Calls to Action, then structural changes to the whitestream sport system in Canada will appropriately follow, making the sport system one which is more inclusive and welcoming for Indigenous participants. 114

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CONCLUSION Race and ethnicity are aspects of our heritage that take on social meaning in Canadian society. These constructed meanings become naturalized each time we “do” them in accordance with the dominant beliefs around us. White people of European descent in Canada have been the most privileged in sport, with those from other racial backgrounds often discriminated against both overtly and through systemic racism. Whitestream hegemonic sport has emerged, legitimizing select activities such as Olympic sports and marginalizing other activities that do not fit within such understandings. Segregated sporting opportunities have likewise emerged, enabling organizers and participants from marginalized groups to structure their own experiences in sport in ways that foster pride in their cultural heritage, while giving the athletes opportunities to play that are not available otherwise. Legitimizing these sporting opportunities, and the alternative ethnic practices preferred by immigrants and their descendants, as well as by Indigenous peoples, takes us one step further toward creating a sport system that is representative of all individuals in Canada. In keeping with the sociological imagination, we need to recognize the social construction of race and ethnicity as integral aspects of sport, along with physical culture more broadly, and to reflect upon our individual contributions that either contribute to or challenge these patterns if we hope to find ways to decrease discrimination based on these factors. We also need to identify the positive ways that our cultural identities can be shaped by movement and facilitate those practices equally for all in sport and physical culture more generally, regardless of race or ethnicity. Additionally, as we each learn about others from different cultural backgrounds and see how they know themselves through movement, we can expand the ways that we can potentially know ourselves. In this way, we can help to be shaped by, as well as to shape, the social meanings assigned to race and ethnicity in Canadian sport. We will then be more prepared to help create equitable opportunities for all people trying to access meaningful sport in Canada by providing activities that are universally popular, as well as legitimizing physical cultural activities that honour rather than erase the racial and ethnic differences between participants.

Key Terms Aboriginal Peoples: In the 1982 Constitution Act, “ ‘aboriginal peoples of Canada’ includes the Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples of Canada.” (Government of Canada, 1982, section 35(2)). Assimilation: Refers to the loss of a minority group’s cultural identity as people in that group become absorbed into the dominant culture. Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988: Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism acknowledges that diversity is an essential element of Canadian society and establishes individuals’ rights to maintain their cultural heritage, to have their cultural needs accommodated, and to be treated as equals under the law (Canada, 1988). Colonialism: “The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.” (oxforddictionaries.com) Discrimination: “Discrimination is an action or a decision that treats a person or a group badly for reasons such as their race, age, or disability. These reasons, also called grounds, are protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act.” (Canadian Human Rights Commission, “what is discrimination?” retrieved from https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/eng/content/what-discrimination).

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Ethnicity: Refers to the cultural characteristics shared by a social group, such as customs, language, beliefs, and history that “hold the group together and assist others to recognize them as separate” (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2017, p. 1). Indigenous peoples: The first people/nation who inhabited a land/territory, and who thus have a right to maintain their own cultural practices and forms of societal organization on that land (United Nations, 2007) Linguistic duality: “Linguistic duality is the presence of two linguistic majorities cohabiting in the same country, with linguistic minority communities spread across the country.” (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 2019). Multiculturalism: The concept of multiculturalism can be interpreted in different ways: descriptively (as a social condition of cultural diversity resulting from immigration), politically (as policy and laws for managing that diversity), or normatively (as an ideology endorsing a free and diverse society) (Wong, 2008). Race: Refers to socially constructed distinctions between groups of people based on physical or genetic characteristics, such as skin colour, hair type, and facial features (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2017). Racism: When individuals are treated in a discriminatory or prejudicial way because of their biologically different “race.” (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2017, p. 278). Reconciliation: Establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada, through an awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour. (TRC, 2015, pp. 6–7). Visible minorities: Defined as “persons, other than aboriginal persons, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour”. Whitestream sport: Canadian sport has been primarily shaped by individuals of white European heritage in ways that privilege their traditions, practices, meanings, and sport structure.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. Find the website or social media account of a cultural association in your area and document the physical activities and sports that they offer. 2. If you are working with children from a minority ethnic family, what are some of the questions you might ask them to determine if there are factors that may either prevent or enable their participation in sport or physical activity? How could you use this information to facilitate their involvement in sport or physical activity? 3. What are two ways that a coach, teacher, or sports administrator might respond to an incident of overt racism, such as name-calling directed at a teenager in a basketball program? 4. Write about an incident where the social meanings attached to race influenced your life by either privileging you or providing a barrier to opportunities you wished to experience. 5. How do race-structured sporting events address discrimination in mainstream sport?

Suggested Readings Forsyth, J., & Giles, A. R. (Eds.) (2013). Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada: Historical foundations and contemporary issues. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.

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Golob, M., & Giles, A. R. (2015). Multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and immigrant minorities’ involvement in the formation and operation of leisure-oriented ventures. Leisure Studies, 34(1), 98–113. Joseph, J., Darnell, S., & Nakamura, Y. (Eds.). (2012). Race and sport in Canada: Intersecting inequalities. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Leonard, D. (2017). Playing while white: Privilege and power on and off the field. Seattle. WA: University of Washington Press. Paraschak, V., & Thompson, K. (2013). Finding strength(s): Insights on Aboriginal physical cultural practices in Canada. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 17(8), 1046–1060.

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Leonard, D. J. (2017). Playing while white: Privilege and power on and off the field. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Li, P. S. (1990). Race and ethnicity. In P. S. Li (Ed.), Race and ethnic relations in Canada (pp. 3–17). Toronto, Canada: Oxford University Press. Livingston, L. A., Tirone, S. C., Miller, A. J., & Smith, E. L. (2008). Participation in coaching by Canadian immigrants: Individual accommodations and sport system receptivity. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 3(3), 403–415. Miller, J. R. (1996). Shingwauk’s vision: A history of Native residential schools. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Mullick, R. (2002, February). Warren Moon. CFL Legends. The Official Site of the Canadian Football League. Retrieved from http://www.cfl.ca/CFLLegends/moon.html. Nakamura, Y. (2016). Rethinking identity politics: The multiple attachments of an ‘excusive’ sport organization. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(2), 146–155. Nakamura, Y., & Donnelly, P. (2017). Interculturalism and physical cultural diversity in the Greater Toronto Area. Social Inclusion, 5(2), 111–119. NASSH (2017). NASSH Resolution Opposing the Use of Racialized Indigenous Imagery in Sports. North American Society for Sport History. Retrieved from https://www.nassh.org/ wp-content/uploads/2017/06/mascot-resolution-final-draft.pdf. Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (2019). “Linguistic Duality”. Retrieved from https://www.clo-ocol.gc.ca/en/resources/frequently-asked-questions#Q9. Oxfordictionaries.com (2019). “Colonialism”. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries. com/definition/colonialism. Page, J. (2018, June 1). Racist slurs at minor hockey tournament in Quebec City symptom of widespread problem. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ montreal/racist-slurs-at-minor-hockey-tournament-in-quebec-city-symptom-of-widespread-problem-1.4687852. Paraschak, V. (1997). Variations in race relations: Sporting events for Native peoples in Canada. Sociology of Sport Journal, 14(1), 1–21. Paraschak, V. (2003). ‘Get into the mainstream’: Aboriginal Sport in Canada, 1967–2002. In V. Paraschak & J. Forsyth (Eds.), North American Indigenous Games research symposium proceedings, July 25th and 26th 2002 (pp. 23–30). Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba. Peritz, I. (2013, June 14). FIFA authorizes wearing of turbans at all levels of Canadian soccer. Globe and Mail. Accessed from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/fifaauthorizes-wearing-of-turbans-at-all-levels-of-canadian-soccer/article12550476/. Peritz, I. (2018, November 13). Mending fences: McGill pressed to scrap Redmen team name as sign of Indigenous reconciliation. Globe and Mail. Accessed from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-mcgill-students-vote-to-scrap-redmen-team-name/. Pettipas, K. (1994). Severing the ties that bind: Government repression of Indigenous religious ceremonies on the prairies. Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba Press. Pitter, R. (2006). Racialization and hockey in Canada: From personal troubles to a Canadian challenge. In D. Whitson & R. Gruneau (Eds.), Artificial ice: Hockey, culture and commerce (pp. 123–139). Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press. Porter, J. (2016, December 15). First Nations Girls Suit Up With Donated Gear For Newly Formed Hockey Team, Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/firstnations-donated-hockey-equipment-1.3897249. Press, J. (2017, October 10). Over 80% of reserves have median income below poverty line, census data shows. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3795083/reserves-poverty-line-census/. Robidoux, M. (2002). Imagining a Canadian identity through sport: A historical interpretation of lacrosse and hockey. The Journal of American Folklore, 115(456), 209–225.

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Rosenberg, D. (2003). Athletics in the Ward and beyond: Neighborhoods, Jews, and sport in Toronto, 1900–1939. In R. C. Wilcox, D. L. Andrews, R. Pitter, & R. L. Irwin, (Eds.), Sporting dystopias: The making and meanings of urban sport cultures (pp. 137–152). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Sage, G. H. & Eitzen, D. S. (2013). Sociology of North American sport. 9th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Satzewich, V., & Liodakis, N. (2017). “Race” and ethnicity in Canada: A critical introduction. Don Mills, Canada: Oxford University Press. Statistics Canada. (2009). Earnings and incomes of Canadians over the past quarter century, 2006 Census highlights. Retrieved from https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/ as-sa/97-563/p13-eng.cfm. Statistics Canada. (2011). Analytical document: Immigration and ethnocultural diversity in Canada. National Household Survey, 2011. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/ nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm. Statistics Canada (2017). Immigration and ethnocultural diversity: Key results from the 2013 census. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025b-eng.htm. Statistics Canada (2018a). Aboriginal peoples highlight tables, 2016 census. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/hlt-fst/abo-aut/Table. cfm?Lang=Eng&T=101&S=99&O=A. Statistics Canada. (2018b). Canada [country] (table). Aboriginal population profile. 2016 census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-510-X2016001. Released June 21, 2018. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/abpopprof/index.cfm?Lang=E. Statistics Canada. (2019). Visible minority of person. Retrieved from http://www23.statcan. gc.ca/imdb/p3Var.pl?Function=DEC&Id=45152. Szto, C. (2016). #LOL at multiculturalism: Reactions to Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi from the twitterverse. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33 (3), 208–218. Tirone, S. (2000). Racism, indifference and the leisure experiences of South Asian Canadian teens. Leisure: The Journal of the Canadian Association of Leisure Studies, 24(1), 89–114. Tirone, S., Livingston, L. A., Miller, A. J., & Smith, E. L. (2010). Including immigrants in elite and recreational sports: The experiences of athletes, sport providers and immigrants. Leisure, 34(4), 403–420. Tirone, S., & Pedlar, A. (2000). Understanding the leisure experience of a minority ethnic group: South Asian teens and young adults in Canada. Society and Leisure, 23(1), 145–169. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future, summary of the final report of the truth and reconciliation commission, Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, Ltd. Unifor (2017, June 16). Unifor partners with the Toronto 2017 North American Indigenous Games. Retrieved from https://unifor.org/en/whats-new/press-room/unifor-partnerstoronto-2017-north-american-indigenous-games. United Nations (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf. Washburne, R. F. (1978). Black underparticipation in wildland recreation: Alternative explanations. Leisure Sciences, 1, 175–189. White, P., & McTeer, W. (2012) Socioeconomic status and sport participation at different developmental stages during childhood and youth: Multivariate analyses using Canadian national survey data. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(2), 186–209. Wong, L. (2008). Multiculturalism and Ethnic Pluralism in Sociology: An Analysis of the Fragmentation Position Discourse. Canadian Ethnic Studies 40(1), 11–32. Canadian Ethnic Studies Association. Young, A. J. (1988). Beyond heroes: A sport history of Nova Scotia: Vol. 2. Hantsport, Canada: Lancelot Press. 120

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Chapter 6 

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Mary Louise Adams and Sarah Barnes

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to:

4 Analyze how sport creates opportunities for people to both reproduce and challenge norms, expectations, and stereotypes related to gender and sexuality.

Members of the Canadian women’s basketball team celebrate after winning a gold medal at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto. Historically, women have fought hard to gain access to high level playing opportunities in sport.

5 Discuss the role of feminism in helping to transform girls’ and women’s sport.

KEVIN VAN PAASSEN/AFP/Getty Images

1 Define gender, sexuality, and related terms. 2 Understand gender and sexuality as social constructions. 3 Identify norms related to gender and sexuality in sport.

6 Identify and evaluate strategies that athletes, social activists, grassroots ­organizations, and others have used to promote a more inclusive and equitable sport system. 7 Reflect on how gender and sexuality have shaped their own experiences of sport. 8 Contribute to discussions and efforts in their own communities to make sport more inclusive and equitable.

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“My vision encourages sport and the Olympic Movement to do what it is supposed to do best: harmonizing and celebrating through sport the magic and enormity of our human diversity.” Kristen Worley, transgender athlete and advocate (Aalgaard, 2017)

INTRODUCTION For people interested in sex, gender, and sexuality, sport provides seemingly endless opportunities to think about norms and stereotypes, equality, and discrimination. Sport has been derided for celebrating hypermasculine behaviours that lead to ­excessive and violent aggression, risk-taking, and the development of sexist and homophobic attitudes. It has also been promoted as a source of empowerment for women and girls and criticized as an inequitable institution in which female athletes don’t get their fair share of resources or respect. More recently, sport has been seen as a key site in struggles for LGBTQ inclusion. In the sociology of sport, a widely shared view is that there is nothing inherently good or bad about sports themselves, and this is certainly the case with respect to gender and sexuality. As an institution, sport can reinforce the existing organization of gender and sexuality in our culture or it can challenge it. Historically, in Canada and elsewhere, it has done both, with different effects for people of differing physical abilities, ages, and nationalities, as well as racial, ethnic, or class backgrounds. In this chapter we will introduce the main theoretical concepts and frames that sociologists have used to examine issues related to gender and sexuality in sport. We will question the popular assumption that sport is (really!) a male sphere, before looking at women’s participation in sport in Canada and how experiences in sport have become relatively commonplace for some Canadian girls and women. The chapter also examines issues related to sexuality and issues of concern to transgender, transsexual, lesbian, and gay athletes. The purpose of the chapter is not to provide a survey of current issues but to offer conceptual tools that will help you make sense of the issues you encounter in other texts or in your own experiences of sport.

CLARIFYING OUR TERMS Sex and gender are the key concepts in this chapter. While these two terms are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, sociologists find it useful to distinguish between them. Sex is a classificatory scheme that is intended to divide humans into groups on the basis of their reproductive capacities. For the most part, people are assigned to one of two groups according to the shape of their genitals or to the presence or absence of certain secondary sex characteristics like beards or breasts. In our culture there are two generally recognized sexes: female and male. While anthropological research suggests that all human societies have classified people by sex, not all societies have classified them into the simple two-category binary system that is dominant in most contemporary Western industrial societies (Nanda, 2000). Sex is important sociologically because it is central to the way we understand other people. Sex is one of the first things that registers for us when we encounter someone new. Was that person who just walked by a woman or a man? In our society, the answer to that question matters; many people find it unsettling when they 122

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are unable to classify another person’s sex. Sport is one of many institutions that contribute to the maintenance of the binary classification of sex. Of course, as anyone reading this book will know, mainstream Western cultures do not only divide bodies into male and female categories; they also saddle the different categories of bodies with different expectations regarding appearance and behaviour. These expectations reflect a belief that not just male and female bodies but also male and female people are essentially different from each other—physically, psychologically, and socially. Sex refers to bodies; gender refers to the different cultural expectations for behaviour, attitudes, and appearance that are imposed on people in relation to their physical sex. Male bodies are supposed to demonstrate masculine traits; female bodies are supposed to be feminine. Stereotyped notions of what counts as appropriately masculine or feminine often serve as the basis for norms against which people’s behaviour is judged. We see evidence of such judgment when a boy is teased or ridiculed for wanting to pursue so-called girls’ activities like ballet. We see the effects of the judgment when boys keep their desire for such activities to themselves. In the 1970s, anthropologist Gayle Rubin coined the term “sex/gender ­system,” which she used to refer to the “arrangements” or cultural processes by which sex ­(biological reproductive capacity) is transformed into gender (expressions of masculinity or femininity) (Rubin, 1975, p. 159). Rubin (1975) wrote that all societies have a sex/ gender system, or as she put it, a “systematic way of dealing with sex, gender and babies” (p. 168). While such a system could be egalitarian, or organized around a continuum rather than a binary, most are not. In North America, despite the decades-long fight for women’s equality, and considerable change in the positions of men and women in society, the sex/gender system remains patriarchal. A patriarchy is an unequal hierarchical social system in which men have more power than women. In a patriarchal sex/gender system, the domination of men and the subordination of women is produced by a whole range of institutional structures and practices. As we can see in our own society, however, not all men are equally privileged in a patriarchy and not all women are equally subordinated. The inequalities that are produced in a patriarchal system are themselves influenced by other major social forces like white supremacy and capitalism. We will talk more about this below when we discuss intersectionality. In mainstream Western society, both sex and gender are binary categories; each category allows for only two possible ways of classifying people. The assumption is that people with male bodies will grow up to feel like and enjoy being men, and people with female bodies will grow up and enjoy being women. The term cisgender captures this experience and refers to people whose gender identity lines up with the sex assigned to them at birth. Cisgender identities are the norm in our society. However, the expected tidy equation between bodies and genders is neither scientifically justified nor reflective of all people’s experiences. The term transgender is an umbrella term that refers to people whose gender identity does not line up with the sex that was assigned to them at birth. Some transgender people identify as nonbinary, that is, as neither masculine nor feminine, or as having a gender identity that is more fluid, in which case they might describe themselves with a term like genderfluid, or gender-queer. Some people identify with the sex that they were not assigned at birth and describe themselves as transsexuals. Some trans people choose to take hormones and/or have gender-affirming surgeries that will align their bodies with their gender identities. Other trans people eschew medical interventions and set their own path through the expectations of a culture heavily invested in having bodies and genders line up in very particular ways. Later in this chapter, we will address the issues faced by transgender people in sport. S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y

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The assumed tight links between sex and gender have implications in all aspects of life, but they are particularly strong in the areas of sexual identity, sexual attraction, and sexual behaviour. The conventional equations are that male body = masculine person = attraction to women, and that female body = feminine person = attraction to men. And so people who express non-normative versions of gender are often assumed to be gay. And while there are many gay people who reject conventional gender norms, not all gay people do. Similarly, not all heterosexual people accept them. The conflation of gender and sexual orientation has contributed to the acceptance and celebration of hypermasculine behaviour in some men’s sporting cultures. Historically, it has also had an impact on women’s sport participation, as we will see below. Over the past three decades, Canadians have been witness to significant changes in the relationship between lesbian and gay communities and mainstream culture. The most important of these were the major legal victories of the 1980s to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The 2005 Supreme Court decision that opened the door to same-sex marriage also marked a huge shift in public attitudes toward lesbians and gay men and the willingness of government agencies to reflect it. Despite these achievements, Canadian culture is still largely organized around the assumption that everyone is heterosexual until proven otherwise. Heteronormativity is an awkward but useful term that marks the fact that social institutions—like education, law, media, popular music, or sport—privilege and value heterosexuality more than other forms of sexual identity or expression. The term captures the fact that heterosexuality is more valued not just because it seems to be more common, but because it is considered normal. By corollary, other sexual orientations or identities are seen, at best, as not quite normal and, at worst, as deviant. Homophobia is a more frequently used term that means, quite literally, the fear of homosexuals; it is a product of a heteronormative culture.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: A FRAMEWORK FOR THINKING ABOUT GENDER NORMS Where do gender norms come from? Some might argue that their roots lie in biology. The notion that men play more contact sports than women do because men’s bodies produce more testosterone is an example of this kind of argument. While sociologists do not discount the fact that there are differences between male and female bodies, they do question the extent to which these physical differences provide the grounds for gender-specific behaviours. Sociologists would call the testosterone-leads-to-contact-sports argument a kind of biological determinism. In other words, it is an argument that explains human social behaviour as a product of human biology. Because such arguments reduce complex phenomena (the fact that more men than women play tackle football) to the effects of a single biological cause, sociologists consider them to be reductionist. The preferred social science perspective is a theoretical framework called social constructionism. In studies of gender, social constructionism came to prominence as a critique of biological determinism. It emerged as a means of explaining the tremendous crosscultural and historical variations in what counts as “normal” masculine or “normal” feminine behaviour. If gendered behaviours were primarily determined by biology, would we not expect that masculinity and femininity would look fairly similar across time and place? The history of sport provides very good evidence for the fact that they do not. A century ago, in the expanding industrial societies of North America 124

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and Europe, it was widely believed that women’s biology made them incapable of participating in vigorous sports. This position was developed by white, middle- and upper-class professionals, like physicians, teachers, and ministers, and was directed toward women of similar background and social position. It is not, therefore, surprising that white, middle- and upper-class women did not, for the most part, engage in vigorous sport at that time. Given their lack of experience with hard labour or other physically demanding activities, they may not have believed that they were capable of doing so. And yet clear evidence of women’s strength was easily available to those same women, and to the professionals who advised them, in the hard physical work done by their own female domestic servants. In short, what was considered “natural” for women in the 19th century varied between classes and racial groups, as it varies with what is seen as “natural” for women today. Canadian girls and women now play a broad range of sports in numbers that would have been unimaginable to earlier generations. Did female biology change over the past century to make this possible? Of course not. What changed were the dominant social and cultural norms around how women and girls should act, what their bodies should look like, what they should wear, and how they should move. The white, middle-class norm that suggested 19th-century women should not be physically strong would have positioned working-class women, who were strong, as unnatural and inferior. Social norms about femininity, therefore, helped to construct and maintain the social dominance and privilege of middle-class women. In this example we can see how dominant norms reflect the values and interests of powerful groups in society. The concept of social construction is a tool that helps us to pay attention to historical and cultural variation in human activity and experience. For most sociologists, the point of studying variations in human society is not simply to document them, but to show that societies change, and thus our society, with its continuing inequities and damaging social hierarchies, could be different in the future. Sociologists use theory to help us make sense of the variations we see and to consider the kinds of change that might be desirable or possible in the future. Critical theories draw our attention to the role of power, social hierarchies, and inequalities in the social milieus that we study. Feminist theory is the critical theory that has done the most to make visible the importance of sex and gender to both macro and micro aspects of our social worlds. As a theoretical tool, social constructionism reminds us that what is considered natural and normal in one place or time might be viewed and experienced as abnormal in another. This approach is reflected in C. Wright Mills’s (1959/2000) concept of the “sociological imagination,” which encourages us to see the links between personal troubles and larger social patterns and problems. For Mills, like Gayle Rubin and other social theorists, context matters. As you have read in previous chapters, our capacity to imagine the linkages between our own experiences and social life hinge on our ability to cultivate “historical” and “comparative sensitivities” (Mills, 1959/2000). These “sensitivities” keep us mindful of the fact that human behaviour is variable; they provide assurance that the way gender is arranged now does not have to be set in stone. Things can and will change. Many sport scholars who study gender do so with the goal of promoting changes in sport that will feed gender equality in the broader society.

IS SPORT REALLY A MALE THING? “Sport is a in the sociology of sport. As you saw in Chapter 3, the history of sport has indeed been a history that highlights men, boys, and masculinity. A report published by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) described the S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y

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ancient Olympics in Greece as a “male-only extravaganza” (International Olympic Committee, 2009, p. 3). When modern sporting institutions were developed in Europe in the 19th century, they were designed by and for men. There were no events for women in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, saw women’s role as spectators and not competitors. Coubertin, a French aristocrat, imported his ideas about sport from England. According to historian James Walvin, the 19th-century sports that Coubertin admired had emerged as part of the “cult of manliness” that pervaded boys’ private schools in the mid-1800s (Walvin, 1987). In the Victorian era, manliness “stood for neo-Spartan virility as exemplified by stoicism, hardiness, and endurance” (Mangan & Walvin, 1987, p. 1). Educators promoted athletic competition to foster these qualities in boys. In this sense, sport developed as a moral and pedagogical tool of imperialism. Upperclass boys were educated so they could govern colonies throughout the British Empire; sport was meant to teach them about leadership, team play, and courage. For the working-class boys who would one day have to follow their orders, sport was meant to promote the discipline, obedience, and deference to authority required by expanding capitalist economies and military service. In both cases, sport was called upon to help turn particular kinds of boys into particular kinds of men—in other words, to prepare boys for the station determined by their class. This was the model of sport that was exported to Canada and other British colonies around the world. Over the past century and a half, many people have continued to understand sport as a device to toughen up young men and to see athleticism as a central component of virility. Some sociologists argue that sport plays a key role in the construction of hegemonic masculinity, a term introduced and developed by sociologist R. W. Connell. Hegemonic masculinity is one of many possible models of masculinity that circulate in a specific cultural context. It is a dominant and “idealized form of masculinity” (Connell, 1990, p. 83) that has achieved broad public acceptance and operates as “common sense,” serving to define what men should be like. In the process of becoming the dominant ideal, hegemonic masculinity sidelines other ways of being a man; it sits atop the hierarchy of gender identities available to people in male bodies. Connell says the ideal helps to secure patriarchal power and to perpetuate the subordination of women and the marginalization of gay men. The particular features of the ideal can and do change to maintain acceptance. In today’s capitalist consumer economy, the ideal emphasizes physical strength (but not too much), toughness, occupational success, and competitiveness. Sport helps produce and promote the ideal, with certain male athletes embodying the ideal in practice. As Connell writes, “To be culturally exalted, the pattern of masculinity must have exemplars who are celebrated as heroes” (Connell, 1990, p. 94). Men who play on professional sports teams have the cultural visibility to fulfill this role. The status that accrues to male professional athletes in North America is a product of the hegemonic masculine ideal and helps to legitimize it. Connell has argued that “sport has come to be the leading definer of masculinity in mass culture” (1995, p. 54). Men and boys who are not athletic lose access to a key marker of masculinity (Gill, Henwood, & Maclean, 2005). Research shows that ­elementary and high school students understand this and use athleticism as protection against gender-based and homophobic bullying. In a study with British elementary schoolchildren, Emma Renold found that some boys who were high-achieving students—and thus at risk of being seen as feminine—used sport strategically as a way to protect their masculine reputations (Renold, 2001). And what about boys 126

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who don’t like to or are unable to play sports or who choose to play sports that are considered to be “feminine”? Too often they are at risk of being marginalized as “wimps” or “sissies.” It is not a coincidence that girls outnumber boys at Mary Louise’s local figure skating club by a ratio of about 10:1. There is both misogyny (hatred of women) and homophobia at work here. The tough-guy (hegemonic) masculinity that is produced in some men’s contact sports has troubling consequences not just for those who reject it but also for those who aspire to it. The fear of being called a “wuss” is one of the reasons some male athletes play while injured, engage in violence, take steroids, and go along with offensive, misogynous, and homophobic hazing rituals (Johnson & Holman, 2004; White & Young, 2007). There are many other versions of masculinity available Canada has produced a long line of men’s World Figure Skating Champions, like Patrick Chan, pictured here. Yet strict gender norms in our culture mean that despite such excellent role models, figure skating is not a popular sport for young Canadian boys. Iurii Osadchi/Shutterstock

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in sport, for example, in cross-country skiing or triathlon or Ultimate (formerly known as Ultimate Frisbee), but these do not receive the recognition or the rewards that accrue to athletes in the hypermasculine professional sports, like football and hockey, that garner the most attention and have the biggest influence in popular culture.

Female Athletes in Sport Media To consider the maleness of present-day sport from a different direction, one can see how female athletes are represented in sport media. The sports sections of daily newspapers are dominated by stories about the big four North American professional male sports leagues. Television has similar, abysmally low rates of coverage of women’s sport (see Chapter 11). While very little recent research has been done on sport media in Canada, a longitudinal study has been tracking the coverage of women’s sport on local television news programs in Los Angeles and on the ESPN highlights show SportsCenter. This study demonstrates that coverage of women’s sport (in non-Olympic periods) has declined over the past 20 years, despite the expansion of women’s professional leagues and women’s participation in a wider range of sports. On the television news programs that were part of the study, and on SportsCenter, coverage of women’s sport now accounts for just 1.3 to 1.6% of the total content (Cooky, Messner, & Hextrum, 2013). Sociologist Margaret Carlisle Duncan writes that the treatment of women athletes in the media is both “ambivalent and derogatory” (Duncan, 2006, p. 247). She argues that studies in various countries show that female athletes are sexualized in images and text; their accomplishments are trivialized and obscured; and stories about them often have little to do with their athletic skills (Duncan, 2006). Reporters routinely mention women’s appearance and romantic and family lives as a means of imposing a heteronormative frame over narratives that might otherwise threaten conventional assumptions about sex and gender. For instance, it was not uncommon for news stories about Canadian hockey superstar Hayley Wickenheiser to make frequent references to her responsibilities as a mother. Certainly, it is important to recognize that athletes have lives that extend beyond sport. Yet, it would be a rare story about a male hockey player that would comment on his ability to juggle sport and parenting. Research suggests that media coverage tends to focus most on female athletes who fall within the parameters of dominant femininity (e.g., women who are white, able-bodied, middle-class, and considered conventionally attractive). Female athletes from less socially privileged groups are often overlooked or presented in ways that reproduce racism, sexism, ableism, and classism (Cooky, Wachs, Messner, & Dworkin, 2010). Françoise Abanda, an African-Canadian Montrealer who is currently one of Canada’s top-ranked tennis players, took to social media in May 2018 to express her frustration about the lack of media coverage she has received during her career (Hickey, 2018). At the time, Abanda was the top-ranked player in the country. Yet her rise in the tennis world has gone mostly unnoticed by the Canadian public. “I feel like when you’re black you don’t get the same exposure,” Abanda said. “I’m not asking to get the same recognition as players who have achieved more. I’m just saying there is a minimum that sometimes I don’t even get” (Hickey, 2018). Media coverage both reflects and establishes what we value in our society. The assumption that sport is, at its core, a male preserve has meant that women, and 128

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Françoise Abanda is one of Canada’s top-ranked tennis players. She has argued publicly that racialized athletes do not receive the same amount of media coverage as white athletes. Tennis Canada Association

members of other subordinated groups, have long had to struggle for resources, recognition, and respect both as athletes and for their participation in sport to be seen as ordinary and valuable.

SEX AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SPORT Sport is a high status, pervasive cultural institution in which sex and gender differences are, especially at the highest levels, fundamental. Indeed, sport without sex difference is almost inconceivable. The most powerful means of fostering and maintaining sex and gender difference in sport is the routine segregation of the sexes. Sex segregation operates in sport in two significant ways. First, with exceptions for young children and some recreational leagues, almost all sports have separate events for women and men; female and male athletes almost never compete against each other. Second, some sports are still popularly understood to be more appropriate for one sex than the other. The sociological term for this is sport typing. North American football is a good example, as are the aesthetic sports (rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming, figure skating, artistic gymnastics, and diving). Gender difference is also fostered in sport by the fact that many events have different rules for men and women. What messages are conveyed by such rules? Often, they tell us that women are weaker than men: women hockey players can’t take hits; women cross-country skiers can’t ski as far as men. Judith Lorber (1994) writes that when we believe there are big differences between women and men, then that is what we will see. In sport, gender-specific rules reflect such beliefs. As these rules are followed during play, the beliefs are put into practice. So gender differences are what we see—women don’t run as far as men do! And once we have seen gender differences, they come to be what we look for. Sports could be organized differently. Indeed, sport could S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y

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be an excellent vehicle for demonstrating the similarities between female and male bodies and the overlapping feminine and masculine traits that all people are capable of expressing. It’s the potential of sport to challenge dominant understandings of sex and gender that has made sport an issue of concern for feminists in the general effort to achieve greater gender equity in society. But there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard. In the following section we discuss how one of the most basic characteristics of modern sports—separate events for men and women—helps to maintain and legitimize sexual difference. We also look at two issues that are directly related to this sex segregation: sex testing and the inclusion of transgender and transsexual athletes. We then move on to talk about lesbian and gay issues in sport.

Separate Events for Men and Women Why do sport organizations organize separate events for male and female athletes? Most would say because it ensures fairness for women, given that, on average, men are bigger and stronger than women. But if the issue is primarily a matter of size and strength, why does one see sex segregation in sports where men’s size and strength present no advantage? Let’s take the shooting event of Olympic skeet (trap shooting) as an example. Introduced in 1968, it was a mixed-sex competition at the Olympics. In 1992, a Chinese woman named Zhang Shan won the gold medal. At the 1996 Games women were not permitted to compete. A separate women’s event was introduced in 2000. Now sex-segregated, shooting has gender-specific rules. Men get five rounds of 25 targets while women get three. In a sport where strength and size make no difference to performance, what was the reason for separating men from women? And what was the reason for giving women fewer rounds? Ski jumping raises similar questions. The preferred body shape for ski jumpers is small and light. Male ski jumpers often weigh less than 130 pounds; there is certainly no argument in favour of men’s size in this sport. Indeed, before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the record holder for the 95-metre hill at Whistler was American Lindsey Van. Yet women were not permitted to compete in the 2010 Games, so Van didn’t get the chance to defend her record. The International Ski Federation did not start recognizing women’s events until 1998. And the IOC did not permit women ski jumpers at the Olympics until the 2014 Games in Sochi. The fact that women’s events finally made it to the Olympic schedule was not a matter of the IOC simply doing the right thing. It was the result of court challenges and extensive lobbying by female ski jumpers and their advocates (see Chapter 3). In a society where gender rights advocates have been working for years to eliminate gender segregation in the professions, education, and politics, sport presents us with high-profile events that have strict divisions between women and men. The point here is not that there are no physical differences between women and men that might need to be accommodated to make some sports fair, although some sociologists [Kane, 1995] suggest that we organize events in terms of weight categories or other sport-specific markers rather than sex. The point is that continually referring to gender differences gives them a lot more weight than they would have had otherwise, or than we need them to have in a society in which women and men should be participating equally in domestic and private spheres, and in physical, intellectual, and emotional work.

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 6.1

Co-ed Recreational Sport Settings for Adults

As we have seen, male and female athletes rarely compete against each other in elite sport. However, there are many sport organizations that offer adults opportunities to play in mixed-sex recreational settings, like the Sport and Social Clubs of Canada (SSCC) that operate in cities across the country. Research suggests that there can be many positive aspects associated with mixed-gender recreational spaces. Such environments can draw attention to men’s and women’s similarities and foster physical cultures that allow men to become more aware of women’s skills and capacities as athletes (Henry & Comeaux, 1999; Wachs, 2002). Men and women develop friendships and learn to enjoy intense physical competition together (Henry & Comeaux, 1999; Wachs, 2002). Both men and women may challenge presumed gendered differences and stereotypes that are built upon beliefs about male superiority and female inferiority in the athletic realm. Some scholars have even explored how coed physical culture could help radically transform ways of thinking about gender and gender relations on a societal level (Henry & Comeaux, 1999; Wachs, 2002). However, scholars Alex Channon, Katherine Daspher, Thomas Fletcher, and Robert Lake (2016) note the integration of men and women in sport and physical culture can take many forms and not all arrangements may challenge normative understandings of gender. For instance, play in co-ed recreational settings may just as easily reinforce, rather than challenge, ideas about gender differences and inequality. Leagues like the SSCC often adopt rules that treat male and female athletes differently and in ways that emphasize gender asymmetries. In sports like soccer or touch football, women might be awarded more points for scoring a goal or a touchdown. In basketball, organizations might enforce rules that say men cannot take on an advantage position in the “key” while women can move freely on the court. What are the specific messages in these gendered rules? Often these rules tell us that women are weaker and less capable than men. The assumption is that in order to create a level or fair playing field in co-ed sport, the conditions must be made more difficult and challenging for men while being easier for women.

Play in organizations such as the SSCC is also often governed by rules that state the “minimum” number of women and men who can be on the court or field at any time. So in 6-on-6 soccer at least two women and two men must be field, while the remaining two spots are regarded as “gender neutral” because, in theory, either men or women can fill them. But, as writer Catherine LeClair (2018) observed in her own experience of playing adult, co-ed recreational sports, many teams opt to play the maximum number of men and the minimum number of women. In LeClair’s experience, this meant that women were often sidelined and waiting to substitute into play. Many women in her league played a few games and then quit. These types of rules position women as second-class citizens in sport. And what do such rules mean for transgender people? In co-ed sports men and women are often treated as fundamentally gendered. Given the ideas about gender that tend to circulate in sport, that means they are not treated equally and that men tend to benefit. How might different rules and different ways of organizing play make co-ed sport and recreational spaces more inviting? How might they shift the way people think of what counts as fun on the playing field, and what qualities are valued in fellow players? How might they help develop everyone’s playing skills? There are positive examples of mixed recreational sport settings that try to do things differently. Quidditch, for example, a game inspired by the Harry Potter book series, is growing in popularity across North America. The sport’s organizing principles challenge normative gender ideas and aim to create more gender-inclusive spaces that appeal to women and people who reject binary notions of gender. Instead of forcing players to choose between binary gender identities, play is governed by a “maximum” rule that states teams cannot have more than 4 players on the field at a time who identify as the same gender (US Quidditch, n.d.). By building regulations around the idea of gender “maximum” (instead of gender “minimum”), Quidditch encourages its participants to field teams that reflect and celebrate diverse gender identities (US Quidditch, n.d.).

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Sex Testing in Sport One of the striking consequences of sex-segregation in sport is the practice in major competitions like the Olympics of testing female athletes to verify their sex. This is not a practice to which male athletes are subjected. The ostensible point is to keep men from competing unfairly against “real” women, although no sex test has ever caught a man masquerading as a female athlete. The problem with “sex tests” is that there is no exact standard by which one can determine exactly who is and who is not a woman. Humans do not divide neatly into the subclasses of male and female. Upon which criteria would one determine who belongs in which category? Genitalia? The rate of sexual indeterminacy has been estimated to be between 1 in 1,500 and 1 in 2,000 births (Intersex Society of North America, n.d.). Hormones? Both male and female bodies produce so-called male and female hormones, and there is no absolute level or ratio that separates one sex from the other. Chromosomes? Even the IOC eventually admitted that these are unreliable. After considerable public outcry, the IOC and other major sports organizations abandoned the practice of across-the-board “gender verification” (their term) (Genel, 2000). Yet they continue to test particular athletes, as was the case in 2008 at the Beijing Olympic Games, and in 2009 when South African world champion 800-metre runner Caster Semenya was subject to extensive testing by the IAAF and humiliating treatment in the media after officials and other c­ompetitors accused her of not being a “real” woman. In 2014 Dutee Chand, a 200-metre sprinter from India, was disqualified from the Commonwealth Games for having what the IAAF deemed as “too much” naturally occurring testosterone to compete against other women. Chand appealed the ruling at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won on the grounds that no science supports the view that natural testosterone provides an athletic advantage (Branch, 2015). Despite ongoing research and advocacy that challenges the idea that sex can be scientifically determined, struggles around sex-testing in women’s sport are as contentious as ever. In 2018, for instance, the IAAF introduced new rules that would prevent female athletes with so-called elevated levels of testosterone from racing in middle-distance events: i.e., in races between 400 metres and a mile in length [Longman, 2018]. Such rules put athletes who are deemed to have “too much” testosterone, like two-time Olympic 800-metres champion Caster Seymena, in an impossible situation. Athletes who do not wish to reduce their testosterone levels through hormone therapy or other medical interventions face a difficult choice: to compete against men, to change events, or to drop out of sport (Longman, 2018). Caster Semenya and her supporters have filed a legal challenge to eliminate these IAAF rules, calling them discriminatory. Some researchers have noted that the majority of women who have had their sex called into question are women of colour from the global south. Katrina Karkazis has argued that the IAAF’s science is being used to support discrimination against women who do not meet Western standards for white femininity (Karkazis, 2018). In May 2019, the CAS—the ruling body that Semenya and her team appealed to—upheld the IAAF’s decision. Again, this means that Semenya will be required to artificially suppress testosterone in her body if she wants to compete in these events. Many women’s organizations and sports organizations, including the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), argue that sex verification testing should be abolished. While the tests may have been designed to search out men, they now serve primarily to identify athletes who are intersex, that is, who have congenital variations that lead to nontypical physical characteristics related to sex. As many observers

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have noted, elite sport is the domain of atypical bodies. Why single out this particular physical characteristic for censure? A report put out by the CCES argues that “the overall evidence from genetics and science support[s] dismantling the structures of suspicion toward athletes with variations of sex development. Even as our knowledge continues to grow, the pivotal point is to transition sport policies and attitudes from gender verification to gender inclusion” (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, 2012, p. 8).

Transgender Athletes in Sex-Segregated Sport Gender inclusion is another important issue that pertains directly to the segregation of the sexes in sport. Discriminatory attitudes around gender variation have made sport a difficult space for transgender people. As sociologist Ann Travers (2018) recently explained in The Globe and Mail, “[f]or trans people of all ages, sex segregation of sport and physical recreation is a key obstacle to participation.” The almost universal categorization of sport participants by sex has led to constraints for transgender people who may resist being categorized or who may categorize themselves differently than sport officials do. The main issue from the perspective of transgender and transsexual athletes is to ensure that they can participate in sport in the sex category with which they identify. The main issue for sport organizations is whether male-to-female transsexuals who have had sex reassignment surgery and who take female hormones have an unfair advantage in women’s competitions; medical evidence makes it clear that they do not (Canadian Centre for Sport Ethics, 2012). In 2004, the IOC adopted rules, referred to as the Stockholm Consensus, that permitted the participation of fully transitioned trans athletes, that is, athletes who have undergone surgeries and taken hormones for at least two years to align their bodies with their gender identities. This narrow medical approach to gender diversity privileged athletes from countries where this kind of surgery is available and recognized, while doing little for trans people who are unable to access or are not interested in medical interventions. The IOC updated the Stockholm Consensus in 2015 to better reflect current legal, scientific, and political views of sex and gender (International Olympic Committee, 2015). The new guidelines are less restrictive. They endorse the idea that trans athletes have the right to participate in international sport events without having to undergo surgery. While trans athletes who identify as men may now compete in men’s events without restriction, trans athletes who identify as women are still subject to medical scrutiny. Trans athletes may only compete in women’s events after 12 months of hormone therapy. Women must also be able to show that their testosterone levels have remained below a certain point for at least one year prior to competition (International Olympic Committee, 2015). Canadian sport organizations have, for the most part, just started to adopt policies to address the inclusion of trans athletes. Such policies are now required by recent amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act (see Sociological Insight Box 6.2 below). Among the first sport governing bodies to address the needs of transgender athletes was the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA), which passed a trans athletic inclusion policy in 2012 (CCAA, 2012). The CCAA policy does not require trans athletes to have had surgery, but it does require athletes to have been on hormone therapy for at least one year. U Sports, the governing body for Canadian university sport, passed a trans inclusion policy in September 2018. The U Sports policy allows athletes to compete on teams that

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correspond with their gender identities or with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. U Sports is among a growing number of Canadian sport organizations that do not require trans athletes to undergo hormone treatment. U Sports officials say they took guidance on this aspect of the policy from a 2016 Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) report that shows hormones have little effect on athletic performance (CCES, 2016). Advocates for trans athletes encourage sport organizations to write policies that do not assume trans people should have medical interventions and that permit transgender people to maintain their privacy (Travers & Deri, 2010). Organizations such as the CCES and the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Girls in Sport (CAAWS) have issued “best practice” statements that encourage participation based simply on gender identification. Particularly at lower levels of sport, policies are needed to make sure no one is denied an opportunity to participate because they do not identify with binary sex and gender categories. Even small steps can demonstrate the intent to be inclusive. The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, for instance, holds a regular transfriendly All-Bodies Swim, an event that can attract more than 100 swimmers (McKinnon, 2013).

❯❯❭❯ BOX 6.2

New Policies for Gender Inclusion in Sport

In 2017, the Canadian federal government amended the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds for discrimination. This type of protective legislation represents an important step toward creating a more inclusive society. Yet, legislation alone cannot transform hostility toward trans people or ignorance about sex variation or gender non-conformity. As numerous studies have shown, trans people in Canada continue to experience high levels of harassment and violence on the street, in their families, at school, in the health care system, and at work (Ashley, 2018). All institutions in Canada, including sport, have a role to play in transforming binary notions of gender and promoting gender diversity. At every level of competition, trans athletes, coaches, parents, and officials are working to change discriminatory policies and cultures and to make sport more accessible and inviting. In 2016, Tim Howell, a parent and coach of a recreational under-16 softball team in Edmonton, resigned to protest rules that would have required teenaged trans athletes to provide medical proof of their ongoing gender transition. As we

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mentioned ­earlier, not all people who identify as transgender or transsexual have access to or are interested in medical interventions. Howell explained to the CBC, “[the policy] wasn’t inclusive. It was very intrusive. And I think it was overkill, especially when we're talking community ball” (Zabjek & Harvey, 2018). Howell’s decision to resign from coaching prompted the Edmonton Youth Softball Association, Softball Alberta, and Softball Canada to begin rewriting their policies on gender inclusion. Sport organizations need to make sure that policies related to locker-room behaviour, travel arrangements, and uniforms provide a comfortable environment for all players regardless of gender identity (Taylor et al., 2011). As more trans people “come out” at younger ages, their inclusion in sport may force a rethinking of the current default organization of sport along lines of sex. Do all sports at all levels really need to separate male and female bodies? If sex segregation is intended to promote fairness in sport, how must our notions of fairness change when we think about the accessibility of sport to people who do not conform to normative categories of sex or gender?

Harrison Browne was the first transgender male athlete to play on a professional women’s hockey team. Browne played in the National Women’s Hockey League from 2015 to 2018. He retired to pursue a medical transition that would bring his body in line with his masculine gender identity. Some trans athletes like Brown face difficult decisions around their playing careers, as the hormones that assist their transition are in violation to anti-doping regulations. Mary Altaffer/AP Images

Lesbian and Gay Issues Sport has not always provided the most welcoming environment for lesbian and gay athletes. As we have seen, homophobia has shaped attitudes about who plays what. Women who excel in sports once reserved for men have often been presumed to be gay. The assumption that women’s teams are full of lesbians has led to some parents keeping their daughters from certain sports, to a heavy emphasis on visible markers of femininity (e.g., hair ribbons and makeup) on some women’s teams, and to a reluctance on the part of some lesbian players and coaches to come out (Demers, 2006). The influence of homophobia on men’s sport has been different. Homophobia is part and parcel of the hypermasculinity some male athletes aspire to; it has led to a lot of pain in all-male sport spaces, from the casual but pernicious homophobia of the locker room to the sexual violence that is part of some hazing rituals. In 2005, the McGill University football season was cancelled after veteran players subjected rookies to humiliating and sexually abusive acts (CBC Sports, 2005). In what kind of world does one foster “team spirit” by sexually assaulting a teammate with a broomstick? In the mainstream sport media, lesbian and gay issues are largely reduced to the question of which male pro athlete will come out next? While it is true that a highprofile gay player could perhaps shift attitudes among sport fans and other players, the real work in addressing homophobia has to happen at every level of sport, and it has to focus on creating a climate in which athletes of all sexual orientations can feel comfortable. Such efforts are underway with straight–gay alliances in some community and university sport programs and in well-publicized organizations like the You Can Play Project that has close ties to the NHL. These anti-homophobia initiatives are about eliminating discriminatory attitudes from sport and about making arenas

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and playing fields safe places for lesbian and gay players. You Can Play’s slogan is “If you can play, you can play.” In other words, if you are going to help us win, we don’t care if you are gay or straight. While this is not the most inclusive position that the organization could have taken, it is definitely a start in terms of shifting the dialogue in environments like hockey team dressing rooms. The message here needs to be simple: there is room for everyone in sport, but there is no room for attitudes that make homophobic or transphobic insults, misogynous treatment of women, or violent hazing of teammates seem okay. It is also important for anti-homophobia and gender-inclusive work with athletes to extend beyond the playing field. The effects of hypermasculinity and homophobia in sport are not just a problem for gay ­athletes—they have effects outside of sport too.

FEMINISM AND WOMEN’S SPORT Few readers of this book would see anything unusual in women playing soccer. Indeed, one might expect that many women reading this book have played soccer themselves, given that soccer has one of the highest female participation rates of any sport in Canada—39% of registered soccer players are female (Canadian Soccer Association, 2016). The fact that women’s soccer is now unremarkable reflects huge changes in the gendering of sport over the past few decades. The presence of significant numbers of girls and women in mainstream sporting venues is one of the most visible results of the women’s rights movements that emerged in Canada in the 1960s. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the number of girls and women involved in sport grew quickly, as did the number of sports they played. In the mid-1980s, fewer than 6,000 women and girls were registered to play hockey in Canada (Hall, 2002); by 2016–2017, there were 88,541 (Hockey Canada, 2018). Girls and women now routinely compete in a range of sports, including those once thought to be appropriate only for men: rugby, wrestling, boxing, water polo, long distance running, and others. These changes would not have been possible without feminism. Feminism, also known as the women’s liberation movement, is an international social, political, and cultural movement that has as a primary goal the resolution of inequities related to sex and gender and the elimination of discrimination against women and girls. Feminist theorist bell hooks defines feminism: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (hooks, 2000, p. viii). hooks makes the point that the feminist project is much bigger than simply working for equality between the sexes, because women are not just oppressed due to their gender. hooks argues that the aim of feminism “is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives” (hooks, 1984, p. 26). For hooks, the goal of feminist activism and feminist thought is a world without oppression and domination. In this sense we can think of feminism as a broad-based movement for social justice. One key aspect of feminist thought and politics is the understanding that privileges and oppressions related to sex and gender do not work independently of other systems of oppression and inequality such as race and class. Women and men from different ethnic, racial, and class backgrounds, Indigenous peoples, or people who live with a disability are all positioned differently in relation to sex and gender. People’s locations in the capitalist system—for instance, whether they are unemployed, or are minimum-wage workers, salaried managers, or owners of companies—have a big 136

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influence on their ability to mitigate and avoid or, conversely, to benefit from sex and gender-related inequality in the workplace and in the world around them. Similarly, people’s locations in a racial system shaped by white supremacy have an influence on their ability to challenge or meet gender norms, as we mentioned above in our discussion of sex testing Feminists argue for the importance of what is called an intersectional analysis or approach to understanding oppression and privilege—to understanding the effects of power in people’s lives (Birrell & McDonald, 2000). An intersectional analysis helps us to understand how different categories of identity and different structures of power, such as ableism (the privileging of bodies that have not been labelled as disabled), racism, sexism, and class, are intertwined (Birrell & McDonald, 2000). None of us, for instance, whether we are members of racialized groups or whether we are white, experiences our gender separately from our race. The two categories combine to shape who we are and how we are seen and treated in the world. To adopt an intersectional approach in research or advocacy work is to acknowledge that our own experiences are not universal and that our society produces more than one form of inequality. It also helps us to be mindful not to obscure the experiences of marginalized groups with the perspectives of groups that are more dominant.

The Transformation of Women’s Sport Over the past three decades, feminists have done research and designed programs to promote sport for women and girls, influence policy, and get women into coaching and other leadership positions in sports organizations. Feminist organizations like the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport lobbied Sport Canada to produce a formal policy on women’s sport, which it did for the first time in 1986 (Sport Canada, 1986). Feminists launched court cases (so girls could play on boys’ teams) and took complaints to human rights commissions (so they could get access to facilities and resources). They argued for changes to physical education and challenged media representations of female athletes. The fact that women’s sport looks different today than it did when Mary Louise was growing up in the early 1970s is a direct result of the efforts feminists put into making sport more equitable. But even in terms of participation, we have not yet achieved gender equity in sport. A study of interuniversity sport in Canada has shown that in 2012–2013, the numbers of female and male varsity teams across the country were almost equal (482 for women and 483 for men). Forty-three percent of university athletes were women. Yet women make up 56% of all university students, and so women remain disadvantaged by the current varsity sport system. For every 100 male students in Canada there were 2.8 chances to be on a varsity team; for every 100 female students, there were 1.7 chances. Inequities are even more pronounced in terms of coaching opportunities. In 2013 only 17% of university coaches were women, down from 19% two years earlier (Donnelly, Norman, & Kidd, 2013). At the Olympic level, a gender equality audit of the 2014 Sochi Games noted lingering inequalities in terms of sex and gender, despite the fact that there was an increase in the total number of women’s and mixed gender events (Donnelly, Norman, & Donnelly, 2015). At the Sochi Games, 1,708 men and 1,158 women competed. Men had 7.5 more opportunities to compete for a gold medal; 75% of events (or 72 of 98 events) had different maximum numbers of competitors or different rules for women’s and men’s events. Authors Michelle Donnelly, Mark Norman, and Peter Donnelly note that there have been improvements at the Olympics over S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y

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the past two decades, and yet, there is still much to be done—and this even before considering important questions about funding, sponsorship, and media coverage of athletes (Donnelly, Norman, & Donnelly, 2015). What of sport at recreational levels? Despite increases in the participation of women and girls over the past 40 years, it is still the case that men participate regularly in sport at about twice the rate that women do. Figures taken from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey show that in 2010, only about 35% of men and 16% of women 15 years of age or older participated regularly in sport (Canadian Heritage, 2013). The gap between men’s participation rates and women’s participation rates has been getting wider since 1992, when it was 14%; in 2010 it was 19%. Men’s participation rate in 2010 was much the same as it had been at the time of the previous survey in 2005; women’s participation rate, by contrast, had decreased by 4%, primarily because of a 13% drop for young women between the ages of 15 and 19 and a 14% drop for women between 20 and 24 years of age (Canadian Heritage, 2013).

❯❯❭❯ BOX 6.3

#MeToo and Canadian Sport

In late 2017, mainstream media began to report on accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault made against the American film producer Harvey Weinstein. These accusations launched the #MeToo movement, a broad public effort to expose and counter sexual harassment and sexual violence. Women in the film industry, media, politics, the arts, and higher education have come forward to share their experiences of sexual abuse, harassment, and non-consensual sexual contact in the workplace. Women athletes have also been part of this movement. For example, former national alpine ski coach Bertrand Charest was convicted in December 2017 of 37 charges related to sexual assault and exploitation of nine teenage skiers in the 1990s. Four of the skiers abused by Charest have spoken up in the media, and they were present when members of the Quebec National Assembly passed a motion to work to “make sport abuse free.” Sexual harassment and abuse in Canadian sport is not new. Peter Donnelly and Gretchen Kerr (2018), sport researchers from the University of Toronto, explain that since 1990, Canada has had some of the most progressive policies in the world when it comes to sexual harassment and abuse in sport. For instance, in order to qualify for federal funding, all National Sport Organizations (NSOs) must have policies to deal with instances of sexual abuse and harassment, and NSOs are supposed to use independent investigators if, or when, maltreatment is reported. Yet, Donnelly and Kerr’s (2018) research also shows that many NSOs have difficulty implementing

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and enforcing rules that are intended to protect athletes. Donnelly and Kerr (2018) offer several recommendations on how NSOs might comply with existing policies and create better conditions for athletes. For example, NSOs might create better tools to make reporting safer and more accessible for athletes, and provide training for coaches and officials about how to prevent sexual abuse and mistreatment before it happens. But as feminist scholars Sandra Kirby, Lorraine Greaves, and Olena Hankivsky (2000) correctly point out, the elimination of sexual harassment and abuse in sport is not only the responsibility of sport organizations. While sport organizations should be more transparent and accountable on these issues, harassment and abuse are widespread public problems that concern everyone. It is important for Canadians to reflect on how patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and an ethic of over-conformity have permitted cultures of sexual abuse and harassment to grow in sporting environments. There are many questions about whose voices and experiences are recognized in the #MeToo movement, and it remains to be seen how the growing awareness about the systematic nature of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace and other settings will translate into social and institutional change (Zarkov & Davis, 2018). Nevertheless, the emergence of the #MeToo movement has highlighted the necessity of recognizing sexual abuse and harassment as barriers to full gender equality and justice in all social institutions, including sport.

What these figures tell us is that sport is a regular leisure-time activity for only a minority of Canadians, that women, and especially younger women, participate at significantly lower rates than men, and that those rates are dropping. Statistics Canada figures also show that participation rates decrease steadily with age and that people with higher levels of education and higher incomes participate more. People with household incomes of more than $80,000 had a rate of sport participation that was approximately five times higher than the participation rates for people with household incomes of less than $20,000 (Canadian Heritage, 2013). Men in both the highest and the lowest income categories had participation rates twice as high as the women in the same categories, but the rates for women in the highest category (20.7%) were twice as high as for the men in the lowest (10.1%). In the winter of 2018, the federal government announced a new funding initiative to address ongoing gender inequity in Canadian sport, dedicating $30 million (over three years) to research and innovation that will promote sport participation among girls and women. As feminist sport scholars, we are encouraged by this development and believe that everyone benefits from efforts to make sport more gender-inclusive. However, we also believe that it is important to raise questions about the types of situations and the beliefs and values that girls and women encounter in sport.

CONCLUSION This chapter has outlined a conceptual frame for doing your own analyses of gender issues in sport. The concepts we have introduced in the chapter can help to see how notions of gender and sexuality are playing out in sport. We have drawn these concepts from feminist theory, which is considered a type of critical theory because it is concerned primarily with issues of power and inequality. We have highlighted the usefulness of a social constructionist approach, showing how it can be used to exercise our sociological imaginations. As a tool, the notion of social construction helps us to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about gender and sexuality, and to see how unequal social arrangements are not so much “natural” as they are products or outcomes of historical and social processes. Sociologists of sport use these tools and concepts to make sense of a range of issues, including: representations of gender and sexuality in sport media; fan cultures and spectatorship; sexual harassment and violence in sport; cross-cultural differences in gendered sporting experiences; the special relationship between gender and nationalism that emerges during the Olympics; racialized stereotypes of male and female athletes; and the impact of motherhood on women in sport. Many sport scholars also investigate and promote activism and other efforts to eliminate discrimination in sport and to produce sporting experiences that promote social justice. As we said at the beginning of this chapter, gender is fundamental to the organization of contemporary sport at all but the least competitive levels. Sport presents seemingly endless opportunities for us to reflect on how gender works in contemporary Canadian society. The analytic tools presented here will allow you to analyze the issues that you find important and to do your own assessment of the construction of gender and sexuality in sport—at both the broad social level and in relation to your own experience—and to think of ways to make it more inclusive and more equitable. S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y

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Key Terms Binary categories of sex and gender: The classification of humans into two distinct groups, female/ male, women/men. An alternative perspective would see both sex and gender on a continuum. Biological determinism: A framework that explains human social behaviour as a product of human biology. Cisgender: A term that refers to people whose gender identity lines up with the sex assigned to them at birth. Feminism: A social, political, and cultural movement that has as a primary goal the resolution of inequities related to sex and gender and the elimination of oppression and discrimination experienced by women and girls. Gender: The cultural expectations about behaviour, attitudes, and appearance that are imposed on people in accordance with their sex. Hegemonic masculinity: A dominant and “idealized form of masculinity” that has achieved broad public acceptance and operates as “common sense,” serving to define what men should be like. The hegemonic ideal subordinates femininity and other ways of being a man. Heteronormativity: The social and cultural privileging of heterosexuality over other forms of sexual identity or expression. Homophobia: The fear of homosexuals, manifest in discriminatory and marginalizing treatment; a product of a heteronormative culture. Intersectionality: A theoretical approach that tries to understand how different categories of identity and different structures of power, such as ableism, racism, sexism, and class, are intertwined. Patriarchy: An unequal hierarchical social system in which men have more power than women. Sex: A classificatory scheme that divides humans into groups on the basis of their reproductive capacities. Sex/gender system: A term coined by Gayle Rubin to refer to the cultural processes by which sex (biological reproductive capacity) is transformed into gender (expressions of masculinity or femininity). Social constructionism: A preferred social scientific framework that explains social behaviour as an outcome of social and historical forces. Sport typing: A term that reflects how some sports are popularly understood to be more appropriate for one sex than for the other. Transgender (also trans): An umbrella term that refers to people whose gender identities do not align with the gender identities they were assigned at birth. Transsexual: A person who identifies with the sex that was not assigned to them at birth. Some transsexual people choose to take hormones or undergo surgeries to align their bodies with their gender identities.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. Are there gender-specific rules in the sports you play? How does the presence or absence of such rules affect the gender reputation of the sport? 2. Why are we more likely to find girls in rugby than boys in figure skating? 3. In what ways has your own athletic history been shaped by gender norms? How have race, class, and ability been relevant to this process?

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4. Statistics Canada figures show a sharp decline in sport participation for young women. What kind of research project could you design to learn why young women’s levels of participation are falling? What assumptions would ground your study? What data would you need to collect? 5. How could sport be made more inclusive for transgender and transsexual athletes? Are you aware of any such efforts in your own community? How would such efforts change sport generally? 6. This chapter has argued that to understand gender in sport we need to consider the relationship between gender and other categories like race and class. Find an example of a sport story in the media that demonstrates how this kind of analysis could be more helpful than an analysis of gender alone. 7. Recently, many sport organizations have initiated efforts to challenge homophobia in sport. Have any such efforts been launched at your school? If so, what do you think the outcome will be? If not, do you think one could be started? What do you think would help such initiatives be successful?

Suggested Readings Adams, M. L. (2011). Artistic impressions: Figure skating, masculinity and the limits of sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Anderson, E., & Travers, A. (2017). Transgender athletes in competitive sport. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge. Bridel, W., & Martyn C. (2011). If Canada is a team, do we all get playing time? Considering sport, sporting masculinity and Canadian national identity. In J. A. Laker (Ed.), Canadian perspectives on men and masculinities: An interdisciplinary reader (pp. 184–200). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Daniels, D. (2009). Polygendered and ponytailed: The dilemma of femininity and the female athlete. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press. Hall, M. A. (2002). The girl in the game: A history of women’s sport in Canada. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Kidd, B. (2013). Sport and masculinity. Sport in Society, 16, 553–564.

References Aalgaard, T. (2017, July 27). Transgender cyclist Kristen Worley wins settlement in rights case.  Canadian Cycling Magazine.  Retrieved from  https://cyclingmagazine.ca/advocacy/ transgender-kristen-worley-settlement-rights/. Ashley, F. (2018). Don’t be so hateful: The insufficiency of anti-discrimination and hate crime laws in improving trans well-being. University of Toronto Law Journal, 68(1), 1–36. Birrell, S., & McDonald, M. G. (Eds.). (2000). Reading sport: Critical essays on power and representation. Richmond, VA: Northeastern University Press. Branch, J. (2015, July 27). Dutee Chand, female sprinter with high testosterone level, wins right to compete. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/ sports/international/dutee-chand-female-sprinter-with-high-male-­hormone-level-wins-rightto-compete.html. Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA). (2012). Transgendering CCAA Student-athletes. Policy Excerpt, CCAA. Retrieved from www.sportlaw.ca/wp-content/ uploads/2012/06/CCAAPolicyExcerpts.pdf.

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Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. (2012). Sport in transition: Making sport in Canada more responsible for gender inclusivity. Ottawa, ON: Developed by the Trans Inclusion in Sport Expert Working Group. Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. (2016). Creating inclusive environments for trans participants in Canadian sport. Ottawa, ON: Developed by the Trans Inclusion in Sport Expert Working Group. Canadian Heritage. (2013). Sport participation 2010: Research paper. Retrieved from http:// publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/pc-ch/CH24-1-2014-eng.pdf. Canadian Soccer Association. (2016). Canadian Soccer Association’s annual report: Think globally act locally. Ottawa, ON: Author. CBC Sports. (2005, October 18). McGill scraps football season over hazing. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/mcgill-scraps-football-season-over-hazing-1.553792. Channon, A., Dashper, K., Fletcher, T., & Lake, R. J. (2016). The promises and pitfalls of sex integration in sport and physical culture. Sport in Society, 19:8–9, 1111–1124. Connell, R. W. (1990). An iron man: The body and some contradictions of hegemonic masculinity. In M. A. Messner & D. F. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men and the gender order: Critical feminist perspectives (pp. 83–95). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Cooky, C., Messner, M. A., & Hextrum, R. H. (2013). Women play sport, but not on TV: A longitudinal study of televised news media. Communication & Sport, 1(3), 1–28. Cooky, C., Wachs, F. L., Messner, M., & Dworkin, S. L. (2010). It’s not about the game: Don Imus, race, class, gender and sexuality in contemporary media. Sociology of Sport Journal, 27(2), 139–159. Demers, G. (2006). Homophobia in sport—Fact of life, taboo subject. Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching, 6(2). Retrieved from http://www.coach.ca/april-2006-vol-6-no2-p132855. Donnelly, P., & Kerr, G. (2018). Revising Canada’s policies on harassment and abuse in sport: A position paper and recommendations. Toronto: Centre for Sport Policy Studies. Donnelly, M., Norman, M., & Donnelly, P. (2015). The Sochi 2014 Olympics: A gender equality audit. Toronto, ON: Centre for Sport Policy Studies. Donnelly, P., Norman, M., & Kidd, B. (2013). Gender equity in Canadian interuniversity sport: A biennial report (No. 2). Toronto, ON: Centre for Sport Policy Studies. Duncan, M. C. (2006). Gender warriors in sports: Women in the media. In A. A. Raney and J. Bryant (Eds.), Handbook of Sports and Media (pp. 231–252). New York, NY: Routledge. Genel, M. (2000). Gender verification no more? Medscape Women’s Health, 5(3), E2. Retrieved from http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/OlympicGenderTesting.html. Gill, R., Henwood, K., & McLean, C. (2005). Body projects and the regulation of normative masculinity. Body & society, 11(1), 37–62. Hall, A. (2002). The girl and the game: A history of women’s sports in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Henry, J. M., & Comeaux, H. P. (1999). Gender egalitarianism in coed sport: A case study of American soccer. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 34(3), 277–290. Hickey, P. (2018, May 16). Françoise Abanda says lack of media coverage is ‘because I am black’. Montreal Gazette. Retrieved from https://montrealgazette.com/sports/francoiseabanda-says-lack-of-media-coverage-is-because-i-am-black. Hockey Canada. (2018). 2016–2017 Annual report. Ottawa, ON: Author. Retrieved from http://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/Corporate/About/Basics/Downloads. hooks, b. (1984) Feminist theory: From the margin to the center. Boston, MA: South End Press. hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics. Boston, MA: South End Press.

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International Olympic Committee. (2009). Women and sport: The current situation. Retrieved from http://www.wcse2011.qa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Women-and-Sport-TheCurrent-Situation-2009-10-eng-.pdf. International Olympic Committee. (2015). IOC consensus meeting on sex reassignment and hyperandrogenism. Retrieved from https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/ Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_ reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf. Intersex Society of North America. (n.d.). How common is intersex? Retrieved from http://www. isna.org/faq/frequency. Johnson, J., & Holman, M. (2004). Making the team: Inside the world of sport initiation and ­hazing. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Kane, M. J. (1995). Resistance/transformation of the oppositional binary: Exposing sport as a continuum. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 19(2), 191–218. Karkazis, K. (2018, April 26). The treatment of Caster Semenya shows athletics' bias against women of colour. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/26/testosterone-ruling-women-athletes-caster-semanya-global-south. Kirby, S. L., Hankivsky, O., & Greaves, L. (2000). The dome of silence. Fernwood. LeClair, K. (2018, July 25). Why co-ed sports leagues are never really co-ed. Deadspin. Retrieved from https://deadspin.com/why-co-ed-sports-leagues-are-never-really-coed-1827699592. Lorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes of gender. New Haven, MA: Yale University Press. Longman, J. (2018, June 19). Olympian will challenge testosterone rule in court. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/sports/caster-semenya-iaaflawsuit.html. Mangan, J. A., & Walvin, J. (1987). Introduction. In J. A. Mangan & J. Walvin (Eds.), Manliness and morality: Middle class masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (pp. 1–7). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. McKinnon, A. (2013, May 14). Vancouver Parks Board wants to make its spaces more transfriendly. Xtra. Retrieved from http://dailyxtra.com/vancouver/news/vancouver-parksboard-wants-make-spaces-trans-friendly. Mills, C. W. (1959/2000). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Nanda, S. (2000). Gender diversity: Crosscultural variations. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Renold, E. (2001). Learning the “hard” way: Boys, hegemonic masculinity and the negotiation of learner identities in the primary school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22(3), 369–385. Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: Notes on the “political economy” of sex. In R. R. Reiter (ed.), Towards an anthropology of women (157–210). New York: Monthly Review Press. Sport Canada. (1986). Women in sport: A Sport Canada policy. Ottawa, ON: Author. Taylor, C., & Tracey, P., with McMinn, T. L., Elliott, T., Beldom, S., Ferry, A., Gross, Z., Paquin, S., & Schachter, K. (2011). Every class, in every school: The final report on the first national climate survey on homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in Canadian schools. Toronto, ON: EGALE Canada Human Rights Trust. Travers, A. (2018, July 20). For trans people of all ages, sex segregation of sport and physical recreation is a key barrier to participation. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https:// www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-for-trans-people-of-all-ages-sex-segregation-ofsport-and-physical/. Travers, A., & Deri, J. (2010). Transgender inclusion and the changing face of lesbian softball leagues. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(6), 1–20.

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US Quidditch (n.d.). Rules. Retrieved from: https://www.usquidditch.org/about/mission/ rules. Wachs, F. L. (2002). Leveling the playing field: Negotiating gendered rules in coed softball. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 26(3), 300–316. Walvin, J. (1987). Symbols of moral superiority: Slavery, sport and the changing world order, 1800–1950. In J. A. Mangan & J. Walvin (Eds.), Manliness and morality: Middle class masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (pp. 242–260). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. White, P., & Young, K. (2007). Gender, sport and the injury process. In K. Young & P. White (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (pp. 259–278). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Zabjek, A., & Harvey, M. (2018, March 21). Softball coach calls out league policy on transgender athletes, sparks national response. CBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/ news/canada/edmonton/softball-league-transgender-policy-1.4584947. Zarkov, D., & Davis, K. (2018). Ambiguities and dilemmas around #metoo: #Forhowlong and #whereto? European Journal of Women's Studies, 25(1): 3–9.

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Chapter 7

Youth Sport and Physical Culture Jesse Couture and Jason Laurendeau

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 List some of the ways that children and youth are socialized into and through sport and physical activity. 2 Describe and assess the benefits and limitations of physical activity guidelines for children and youth.

Sport and physical activity are important features in the lives of many Canadian youth and their families. Shutterstock

3 Explain how alternative sport participation can be read in relation to or as a response, to broader developments in prolympic youth sports. 4 Explain how parents and coaches can positively and negatively influence young people’s participation in sport and physical activity. 5 Debate and discuss the strengths and limitations of children’s use of digital health technologies (e.g., wearable activity trackers). 145

“. . . I remember [my Physical Education teacher] grabbing the dodge ball and making me run and throwing it and hitting me in the head and thinking it was funny, and sent me flying. I remember him picking me up by the throat and holding me up in the air and I remember him dropping me and I was like—I don’t know, thinking back, no more than three feet tall.” Roddy Soosay, Residential School survivor. Source: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: The Survivors Speak. (2015). p. 192.

“The premise of the physical literacy model is that if we set kids up with these tools early in life, then they have all of the skills that they need to maintain an active lifestyle as they grow up . . . Healthy, active kids lead to healthy, active adults.” Dr. Jennifer Copeland, key contributor to the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Learn to Play– Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy project (October, 2018) Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Lethbridge. Used with permission.

INTRODUCTION When you think of your childhood experiences with sport, what comes to mind? Do you fondly reminisce about the personal satisfaction of mastering a new skill, or about the camaraderie you experienced as part of a team? Perhaps you remember your experiences with sport as a welcome reprieve from schoolwork, chores, or other responsibilities. For many young people, sport serves as an important space of personal growth, interpersonal connection, and enjoyment. But perhaps, like others, you recall your encounters with youth sport in more negative terms. Perhaps it was a space of exclusion, of reminders of skills you did not master, of being asked to do things that you did not enjoy. In this chapter, we invite you to consider both of these “sides” of the phenomenon of youth sport and physical activity. We highlight the sense in which youth sport is, for many, an important and positive influence in their lives, and for their broader communities. Drawing upon critical theory and the work of C. Wright Mills, we also, however, explore some of the most significant and pressing public issues associated with youth sport in Canada. We invite you to join us as we consider the idea that sport and physical activity for young people can be both of these things: it has the potential to be not only enabling and healthy, but also unpleasant, even oppressive. In order to take up these ideas, we consider the contemporary state of affairs with respect to child and youth sport in Canada, exploring such themes as the kinds and extent of involvement in sport and physical activity, the involvement of parents and coaches in sport for young people, as well as the factors that contribute to high rates of dropout and withdrawal. Moreover, we urge you to consider “how the seemingly private experiences of children and youth are connected to large-scale societal processes and social structures” (Chen, Raby, & Albanese, 2017, p. 2). In other words, it is not simply that some young people enjoy sports and others do not. Rather, the particular ways in which sport operates are intimately connected to other socially constructed institutions, processes, and practices. Our task in this chapter is to detail some of these structural connections for you, and invite you to see connections in your own lives.

PROLYMPISM AND DEFINING “THE CHILD” According to Peter Donnelly (1996), prolympism describes a “global sport monoculture” in which victory is the preeminent goal and, thus, where the ultimate purpose of sport participation is the attainment of professional status, winning Olympic gold 146

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medals, or setting new world records. Alan Ingham and his colleagues (2002) draw on conflict theory to suggest that prolympism is ideological; “it is elitist, achievement oriented, and purportedly meritocratic” (p. 309). In other words, rather than a focus on process—on the benefits of participation in sport and physical activity—there is a focus on rationalized outcomes: the “production” of young elite athletes. Prolympism affords some children great opportunities and experiences. Some young athletes might go on to play at the varsity level and earn valuable collegiate athletic scholarships, and others might qualify for international sporting mega-events such as the Olympic Games. Following Donnelly (1996), however, we suggest that the existing system is fundamentally skewed toward “failure,” that is, not reaching the upper echelons of sport (e.g., professional basketball player, Olympian, etc.). Of course, we know that it is simply not possible for every kid who plays sport to become a professional athlete. But this narrative—the dream of “making it” by “going pro”—is developed early on and sold not only to youth athletes but also to their parents, who often imagine sport as not only a viable but potentially lucrative endeavour. Importantly, many young athletes “hold themselves responsible for their failure” if (or, rather, when) they don’t “make it” and are led to believe that “they, not the system, did not develop their human capabilities to rise to the top” (Ingham et al., 2002, p. 309). At heart, we argue, all these issues relate to debates over how we define and understand “the child” and “childhood”—how we think about young people and the notion of “youth” itself. As such, there is value in first briefly considering some of the dominant ideas about who and what a child is or should be—and reflecting on how dominant values in youth sport impact the health and wellbeing of young people. In terms of practical consciousness, it may well seem that we all know what childhood means. And yet, the dominant understandings of childhood in advanced industrial societies like Canada are historically and culturally specific. In other words, they are socially constructed. As Chen, Raby, and Albanese point out, although the life cycle—maturing from young to old—is a naturally occurring phenomenon, when childhood and youth begin and end, what meaning we give them, and what constitutes the “content” of these categories, including ideas about how lives should be lived during childhood and youth, have varied historically, geographically, socially, and culturally, and are always contested. (2017, p. 6)

Highlighting the social construction of childhood, Shanahan (2007) reminds us that it is important to consider the “difference between children as human beings and childhood as a diverse set of cultural ideas” (p. 408). Children have only recently come to be seen as adults “in-training” (Malkki, 2010), an idea implicit in the prolympic model of youth sport. The idea of adolescence is itself a recent historical phenomenon as well, becoming popularized only in the early 20th century (Cote & Allahar, 2005). Moreover, the development of adolescence as an idea is directly connected to physicality and goal-rational action; as historian Kristine Alexander notes, the “‘discovery’ of adolescence in the early twentieth century also ushered in the idea . . . that young people should be trained to embody an idea of citizenship that was characterized by self-control and physical robustness” (2017, p. 88). Shanahan (2007) describes a societal shift in North America in the early 20th century toward an “infatuat[ion] with youth and the young” (p. 409). She explains that, among other things, this meant that “saving children” became understood as “a way to save society” (Shanahan, 2007, p. 409). Previous researchers have highlighted the ways that sport operates as one of the central vehicles by which future Yo u t h S p o r t a n d P h y s i c a l C u l t u r e

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citizens and disciplined workers are moulded. This can be seen, for example, in such initiatives as the playground movement and the development of Little League baseball and Pop Warner football (Adams, 2011; Laurendeau & Konecny, 2015). Similarly, in a consideration of the emergence of boys’ minor hockey in Canada, Adams and Laurendeau argue that the development of minor hockey was a function of the commercialization of hockey, to be sure. At least as importantly, however, minor hockey came about as part of a much broader project of physical and moral development in the project of nation-building. (Adams & Laurendeau, 2018, pp. 121−22)

In these examples, we see “the child” marshalled as the object of political and ideological attention and intervention. Moreover, this attention and intervention becomes embedded in social structures, and continuously reproduces childhood and youth as contested terrain. Another way that politics and ideology are relevant in this context can be seen in the ways that young people have often been framed by older generations as having a range of “problems” that need to be attended to, through the sorts of interventions noted above and those explored in the remainder of this chapter. Sociologists have described the phenomena of highlighting, and indeed exaggerating, such problems— especially in the framing of young people as “troubled and troubling”—as a moral panic. As above, a key feature of the moral panic is its political and ideological dimensions, to the extent that by highlighting apparent problems with children and youth—and thus distracting from the structural reasons that can help us explain the problems that do exist—attention is also being diverted away from those with the greatest influence over structural factors. In this way, decision-makers appear to be responding to important societal issues—issues that, in this case, are associated with children and youth—when, in fact, there might be good reasons to ask questions about the role these same decisionmakers may play in perpetuating a system from which they benefit and others do not. That is how this issue is ideological—the real reasons that problems around young people are highlighted might not be the reasons that are stated publicly. This argument has obvious relevance to thinking about sport and physical activity. Consider the kinds of narratives about youth that are taken up and perpetuated by journalists, parents, coaches and others pertaining to the problems with kids today—and the need for responses to a range of “risks.” Think about the risk of losing, risking injury, sport programs for at-risk youth, the risk of kids becoming “soft,” and much more. As sociologist Deborah Lupton (2013) highlights, risk has come to mean much more than a danger or hazard. More broadly, risk is invoked to produce or challenge ideas about a whole range of other issues; whether and how something is talked about as a risk constructs both ideas about that issue (e.g., childhood obesity) and a constellation of connected matters (e.g., health, individual responsibility, childhood). These ideas about risk impact the lives of young people in many ways. In the remainder of the chapter, we highlight some of these impacts, particularly when we consider health promotion initiatives and young people dropping out of sport.

YOUTH SPORT AND SOCIALIZATION It has been suggested that no “activity outside the home and schools holds greater potential for influencing the next generation” than sport, and that children’s participation not only enhances health but also teaches valuable lessons about citizenship, commitment, 148

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and teamwork (Abrams, 2011, p. 31). Put another way, in sport, and through sport, many young people have powerful socializing experiences. But what is socialization? Simply put, socialization is the process “by which children adapt to and internalize society” (Corsaro, 2018, p. 7). Observers highlight that children and youth encounter “agents of socialization” (e.g., family members, peers, teachers, coaches) who become important social actors in the process by which young people absorb the broader values of society. In many accounts, especially from a structural functionalist perspective, sport is a profoundly positive influence in the lives of young people. Proponents often frame youth sport participation as positively influencing character development, reforming “at-risk” populations, and fostering social capital that can lead to future occupational success and civic engagement (Coakley, 2011). On the latter point, Thomas Perks explains that youth sport participation is positively related to later (adult) involvement in other community activities (e.g., participation in the volunteer sector) and these effects last “throughout the lifecycle” (Perks, 2007, p. 378). Participation in sport and physical recreation can also be a meaningful part of the cultural transition process that recent immigrant children and youth face. In contrast to the generally positive view of youth sport participation as a socialization force, a more critical perspective invites us to question the “dual assumption that sport, unlike other activities, has a fundamentally positive and pure essence” and that all participants experience positive outcomes (Coakley, 2011, p. 307). These assumptions, critical scholars point out, falter somewhat in the face of evidence that youth sport and physical activity are not always experienced in positive ways by young people. In their study of the place of sport in immigrant settlement, for example, Doherty and Taylor caution that while some young people will find sporting experiences enriching, for others participation in sport may lead to feelings of social exclusion whether “because of language difficulties, unfamiliarity with mainstream sports, [or] prejudice on the part of their peers” (2007, p. 27). Similar evidence pertaining to sport more broadly can be seen in all of the chapters of this book, and we invite you to consider instances where youth especially are featured in these other cases. Below, in Box 7.1, we elaborate on one

❯❯❭❯ BOX 7.1

Sport and Residential Schools

Eurocentric sporting practices have been implemented in Canada by various social actors (e.g., government agencies, religious organizations) as part of what Woolford (2015) calls a “benevolent experiment” (or what Thomas King [2012], more pointedly, calls “benevolent assaults”). In the 19th and 20th centuries, in particular, sport was marshalled as one of a number of strategies to assimilate young Indigenous peoples in Canada. Residential schools, in particular, served as important sites for this physical, cultural, and ideological “education”: Native students were subjected to regimented physical training programs designed to inculcate patriotic values and instruct male and female students in appropriate masculine and feminine behaviours. . . . Aside from the obvious

health benefits derived from organized physical activities, regimented training programs were thought to provide Native youth with much-needed lessons in life. (Forsyth, 2012, p. 25)

Residential schools exercised control over every aspect of students’ lives, and, as such, exemplify what sociologists call total institutions (Norman, 2017). These schools prohibited students’ use of their native languages and shaped the kinds of understandings they formed of themselves, their bodies, and their relationships with their own kin and the land (McKegney, 2013). As Forsyth argues, “[s]ports and games were thus pivotal sites through which power was legitimized and exercised through Aboriginal bodies in the residential school system” (2012, p. 32).

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striking historical example of these issues that builds from material on race and ethnicity that appears in Chapter 5. Apart from the different theoretical perspectives on youth sport outlined above, there are reasons to be cautious in discussions of sport as an agent of socialization. Specifically, socialization theories have been criticized for both constructing children and youth as passive vessels absorbing (adult) culture—and for overemphasizing the individual aspects of the experiences of young people (and, in turn, underemphasizing the structural conditions that shape young people’s lives and that they need to maneuver within). Corsaro, for example, explains: “The problem is the term ­socialization itself. It has an individualistic and forward-looking connotation that is inescapable” (2018, p. 18). Responding to these issues, many scholars now emphasize and centre children and youth as active agents in shaping their social worlds, including those connected to sport and physical activity. Corsaro suggests that we instead think in terms of “interpretive reproduction . . . [which] captures the idea that children are . . . actively contributing to cultural production and change . . . [but are also] constrained by the existing social structure and by societal reproduction” (Corsaro, 2018, p. 18). Our discussion of alternative sports below highlights the idea that young people are not simply passive recipients of culture; rather, they may see elements of their culture that do not work for them, and actively work to reshape those elements—or simply create new cultural spaces for themselves through agency.

YOUTH SPORT PARTICIPATION: HOW MANY, WHO, AND IN WHAT WAYS? While sport indeed has positive impacts for many young Canadians, for others it is an arena from which they are excluded or in which they are shamed, harassed, and/or subjected to abuse of various kinds. In this section, we highlight patterns of participation, pointing to both levels of participation—which brings our attention to who has access to sport and/or chooses to participate—as well as to the kinds of structural ­barriers the can be inferred from these patterns. These kinds of considerations encourage us to look beyond individual young people to the structures and institutions that shape their social (sporting) worlds. Millions of Canadian children participate in organized sport programs each year, whether at school, at local community centres, or as members of organized sports leagues. Additionally, there are many other ways that young people participate in physical activity and informally organized sport; while they participate in mainstream sports like soccer, swimming, and ice hockey (the three most common sports played by Canadian children), they also play basketball in great numbers; they surf, skateboard, dance, ski, rock climb, and more (Canadian Heritage, 2013). A 2010−2011 survey administered by the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute (CFLRI) revealed that approximately three quarters of young people in Canada, aged 5 to 17, participated in organized sport in the previous 12 months (CFLRI, 2013). Overall, however, sport participation in Canada tends to decrease as people get older. In 2010, slightly more than half of Canadian youth aged 15 to 19 were regularly participating in sport (Canadian Heritage, 2013). There are different reasons for the decline in participation as kids get older, some of which we discuss in greater detail below. It is not uncommon, for instance, for some kids to 150

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prioritize social lives outside of sport during adolescence, but there are also other important structural factors that contribute to rates of participation. Youth sports participation is higher in households with higher levels of parental education and income, in those with physically active parents, and in those located in cities and towns with populations between 10,000 and 50,000 (Statistics Canada, 2008). Overall, sport participation is lower among young girls (70%) than young boys (81%), and among children of recent immigrants than among children of Canadian-born parents (CFLRI, 2013). Children’s participation in a particular sport is also greatly influenced by their parents’ involvement in that sport, whether as participants themselves or as administrators/coaches. In 2010, nine out of ten children whose parents were both participants and involved in an administrative or coaching role participated in sport, compared to two thirds of kids whose parents were not involved (Canadian Heritage, 2013). Household income is also an influential factor in sport participation. In households earning less than $40,000 annually, 58% of children are involved in sport compared to households earning more than $80,000, where 85% of children participate. Finally, children from single-parent households were less likely (68%) to participate in sport than those children in a two-parent household (74%) (Canadian Heritage, 2013). These examples of often intersecting structural factors point to some of the ways that participation in sport and physical activity is not simply a matter of individual choice. Rather, choices are shaped by class, gender, ethnicity, and disability, to name just a few broader factors. In Box 7.2, below, we consider this idea with respect to disability specifically (see also Chapter 9). Youth sport is not simply reflective of broader patterns in terms of race, gender, disability, and more, but is implicated in the constitution of ideas about difference. In other words, sport is a site of cultural production, one in which ideas are not

❯❯❭❯ BOX 7.2

Young People and Disability

To the extent that sport structures and organizations even consider questions of disability, they tend to do so using a “biomedical” or “deficit-based” model (Goodwin & Peers, 2011, p. 186). From this perspective, “disability is understood to be a problematic biological abnormality or deficit that is rooted within an individual’s cognition, ­sensation and/or physiology” (Goodwin & Peers, 2011, p. 187). To most readers, this likely sounds quite familiar; this is a dominant understanding of disability. Nevertheless, it is an understanding that fundamentally fails to take account of how our personal biographies are shaped by the institutional contexts in which we find ourselves. In other words, it is important that we think critically about how disability is produced; we must engage our sociological imagination to consider disability not as something that people have (an idea that constructs disability in individualized terms), but as something that is produced by systems, institutions, and practices (thus framing it in structural terms):

Although disability sport can provide opportunity for positive identity development and protection and reassurance of its individual members, at the institutional level it can reinforce ableism. The systematic differentiation of disability sport from normal sport, for example, serves to reproduce the idea that . . . disability sport is a derivative, adapted version of natural able-bodied (male) sport. (Goodwin & Peers, 2011, p. 195)

It is important to consider that there is a notable lack of statistics regarding the extent to which children with disabilities participate in sport and physical activity more broadly. This lack of data is interesting in and of itself. In an era in which data—and data about physical activity in particular—are pervasive, the dearth of such data with respect to sport and physical activity for people with disabilities suggests that this is barely on the radar of most policymakers.

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Youth sport culture in disability communities is too rarely a topic of serious consideration amongst academics and the media. Pack-Shot/Shutterstock

simply reflected, but actively produced, reproduced, and, occasionally, challenged and reshaped. One of the key sites for the production and circulation of these ideas is in the arena of policies, recommendations, and guidelines governing much of youth sport.

POLICIES, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND GUIDELINES ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE Each year, a number of reports are produced about children and sport, some of which are used to inform policies, guidelines, and recommendations related to physical activity. The ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth is described as “the most comprehensive assessment of child and youth physical activity in Canada” and, in 2016, introduced the new Canadian 24-hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth: An Integration of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour, and Sleep (ParticipACTION, 2016). These guidelines recommend that Canadian children and youth get an average of 60 minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), a change from the previous recommendation of 60 minutes per day six days per week. Also departing from previous versions, the new guidelines include recommendations for sleep and screen time. Other data from the 2007−2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey suggest that 7% of Canadian children and youth aged 6 to 19 were achieving the MVPA recommendation, while the most recent survey, drawing on data from 2007−2015, suggests that a third of Canadian children and youth aged 6 to 17 are currently meeting the national recommendations for daily MVPA (Colley et al., 2017). This dramatic difference reflects less a shift in children’s actual participation in physical activity than it does the new guidelines and the ways these data are collected (Colley et al., 2017, p. 8).

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It is important to highlight the inconsistency with regard to the categorization of “child” in guidelines such as the CFLRI reports and the Active Healthy Kids Report Card. The CANPLAY (CFLRI) study describes Canadian children as those individuals aged 5–19, but when the same organization asked parents about their children’s participation in sport during the 12 months leading up to the survey, the age range was defined as 5–17 years old. This kind of inconsistency shapes the statistics on children and youth’s involvement in sport and physical activity, which are then used to inform parents, educators, and policymakers about the health, fitness, and physical (in)activity of an inconsistently categorized demographic. Importantly, reports such as this: serve as the basis for media coverage, public debate, policy discussion and change, research proposals, academic publications, local and international research conferences, communications campaigns, funding decisions and general discourse (Active Healthy Kids Canada, 2013, p. 3)

These inconsistencies point, yet again, to the importance of young people, as well as parents and other important adults in their lives, treating these kinds of physical activity recommendations with a degree of skepticism. At a more general level, it would be helpful if those agencies charged with producing guidelines such as these did more work to both achieve a higher degree of consistency, and to grapple with the reality that structural factors put some young people in a better position than other children and youth to achieve these targets. Together, the shifts outlined above highlight the point that such recommendations— indeed our understandings of childhood physical activity in general—are socially constructed to the extent that experts translate the latest research findings into often sweeping recommendations for and depictions of the behaviour of young people. Certainly, the guidelines change as the science around physical activity continues to develop; indeed, this is the very nature of scientific research. The concern though is that scientific knowledge itself is never neutral—it arises from within a set of understandings about underlying ideas (Tallbear, 2013). Moreover, scientific knowledge, and the creation of things like guidelines, have social effects. We are back again to concerns about how labels like “at risk” (due to inactivity—see next section) may impact the identities and self-perceptions of ­ young people, and  how others see and treat young people. There are important consequences to all of this in terms of public policy, everyday practices, and, indeed, how we think about ourselves and others. For example, “physical education curricula and government policy are shaped—and children’s perceptions of health impacted—in response to this alleged epidemic” (Laurendeau & Konecny, 2015, p. 337). An associated concern is that a label like “at risk” may lead to a set of assumptions about the reasons that young individuals fall into particular categories, without questioning how these categories came to be in the first place, how fluid these categories are, or the structural reasons that young people are positioned as they are. This concern aligns well with understandings of health that emphasize self-surveillance and regular bodily self-discipline as integral components of being a healthy and responsible citizen (Cheek, 2008). The idea being invoked here is neoliberalism, “a

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political and economic rationality that extends the logic of ‘the market’ into institutions and practices that once fell under the auspices of state agents” (Laurendeau & Moroz, 2013, p. 385). The most relevant dimension of neoliberalism for our current purposes is the individualization of responsibility—meaning, in this case, that it is the responsibility of young people themselves (and their families), regardless of circumstances, to manage themselves. In this context, active play is commonly framed as a personal solution to the risk of obesity. Such a framing, however, not only tends to overemphasize the role and effect(s) of exercise in weight management but at once renders invisible other important structural factors including socioeconomic status, gender, race and ethnicity, and geography. Moreover, it brings individual subjects (e.g., children, parents, physical educators) into a web of surveillance that shapes the lives of young people in important ways (Wiest, Andrews, & Giardina, 2015; Giardina & Donnelly, 2012). Put simply, overarching guidelines paint a diverse population with one broad brushstroke. A teen who has to work in a family-owned business outside of school hours, for example, is in a very different position to achieve these targets than one who has the flexibility, means, and support to participate in organized after-school activities. There are a range of other reasons, too, for why some young people are not involved in physical activity programmes or using recreational facilities (see Box 7.3, below). How, then, are we to navigate our social worlds, in which guidelines like these seem destined to play a central role? On one hand, it might be valuable to create spaces for sport and physical activity free of such guidelines. More generally, we suggest, it is important and valuable to treat guidelines with a healthy level of skepticism, both to reduce some of the power that comes with them, and as part of a process of reimagining what such guidelines look like. Might we, for example, think of guidelines in broader, more inclusive terms? Might we create guidelines that create space for reflection, sedentary play, and connections with important others in young people’s lives? These will be important questions in the years to come.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 7.3

Sex-segregated Sport and Recreational Facilities

Ann Travers explains that both sex-segregated sport and recreational leisure facilities, themselves, can create a crisis situation for transgender and gender-nonconforming kids since each is predicated on the taken-for-granted assumption that there are only two (fundamentally different) sexes (Travers, 2018a). Travers explains that sex-segregated and sex-differentiated sport programs often unfortunately lead to trans kids opting out of organized sport altogether (Travers, 2018a). Travers suggests there is a need to reconfigure sporting spaces and prevailing social practice to make sport more inclusive of trans kids and they highlight how a number of newly-developed policies point to how the

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Canadian sport landscape is beginning to address and take seriously trans inclusion in youth sport (Travers, 2018b, n.p.). A report published by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation urges educators and school administrators to enable transgender and gender-nonconforming kids to participate in all activities, including physical education and sport, in a manner consistent with their affirmed gender identity (Travers, 2018a). Travers (2018a) explains that most transgender and gender non-conforming kids still often encounter barriers to participation, in spite of such reports, in part due to uneven adoption of these policies by both school boards and other sport and recreation providers across the country.

PHYSICAL LITERACY AND DIGITAL HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES Since the early 1990s, the term “physical literacy” has been adopted by an increasing number of physical educators and policymakers. It is a concept meant to address more than simply physical activity; it captures “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life” (Canadian Sport for Life, 2015, p. 1) ((IPLA, 2017), International Physical Literacy Association (IPLA) (2017). Physical Literacy Definition. Available At: https://www.physical-literacy.org.uk.) In fact, there has been a strong push toward making physical literacy a priority amongst physical educators, particularly at the elementary school level; as Canadian Sport for Life, a branch of Canadian Sport Centres and Sport Canada argues, “physical activity is a lot more fun when we’re physically literate” (Sport for Life, 2018, n.p.). This represents a positive development, as it places more emphasis on developing the skills necessary for young people to enjoy physical activity. It is important, however, that we think critically about how this kind of initiative is put into practice, as it could become yet one more way in which young people’s activities are surveilled, and their capabilities measured. One example of an increasingly mainstream approach to promoting movement and enjoyment can be seen in the rise of digital health technologies. These personal and public technologies have proliferated in recent years, with the use of devices such as smartwatches and other GPS-enabled fitness trackers providing an important case in point. A 2014 Nielsen report suggested that 18% of Canadians owned a wearable device, and this number was predicted to grow in subsequent years as more products were slated to come to market. Of particular relevance to this chapter, recent reports suggest that up to 30% of total smartwatch shipments in 2021 will be devices designed specifically for children 2–13 years of age (Turner & Wang, 2018). Wearable activity trackers for kids allow children (and their parents) to track a variety of physical activity metrics throughout the day. Some devices have corresponding apps that include physical activity-based challenges that allow children to unlock real and virtual rewards by being active. Gamification is the process of integrating game mechanics into existing technologies to motivate participation and engagement. From a sociological perspective, the gamification of physical activity is interesting since it involves a repackaging (and commodification) of the simple idea that being physically active can be fun. Consider, for example, Garmin’s vívofit® jr.—a tracker first released in 2016 that is used in conjunction with the Garmin Connect mobile app. This tracker and app makes it possible for parents not only to monitor their children’s activity, but also to set daily goals and rewards. For instance, parents can personalize their child’s device with daily or weekly chores; by completing these tasks, kids can earn virtual coins toward “a predetermined award [parents and children] choose together, such as extra tv time or a trip to their favorite hangout” (Garmin, 2018). In addition to being an exercise tool, then, the vívofit® jr. is framed as a technologically mediated extension of parenting. In other words, companies like Garmin leverage the idea that there is an epidemic of physical inactivity and obesity, and market their products as one way for parents to improve the health of their child(ren) and, in so doing, mitigate risk. This serves as another example of the creation of “markets for products and services aimed at keeping our children safe” (Laurendeau & Konecny, 2015, p. 337), in this case from future harms ostensibly arising from obesity and inactivity. This highlights the importance of understanding how young (sporting) lives in Canada are shaped by the capitalist system of production and consumption. Yo u t h S p o r t a n d P h y s i c a l C u l t u r e

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Children’s activity trackers can undoubtedly be experienced by some children as fun and as a motivating tool that can encourage or remind them to be more physically active. A critical sociological perspective, however, would also draw attention to the ways that these devices (re)produce an ethos of individualized responsibility regarding health and physical activity. Couture (in press) has underlined the way that many prevailing narratives of health and physical activity encourage children to think about the body as adults are encouraged to do—as projects, as machines, and as perpetual works in-progress (see also Chapter 10). There are other reasons to be cautious too. For example, there is a small but steadily-growing body of research on children’s use of digital health technologies with scholars like Goodyear, Kerner, and Quennerstedt (2017) finding that although Fitbit use among youth aged 13 to 14 led to more physical activity at first, these young people stopped using the Fitbits over time. Not only was the novelty short-lived, but Goodyear and colleagues also found that many youth experienced negative feelings after using these devices. Similarly, Depper and Howe (2017) found that adolescent girls’ regular use of fitness apps reinforced narrow and often “unhealthy” understandings of health and tended to place an emphasis on weight management and slenderness.

DROPOUT AND WITHDRAWAL IN YOUTH SPORT As noted above, levels of participation in youth sport and physical culture are high, though more for some groups (e.g., boys in general and youth in families with higher levels of income and education) than for others. Levels of dropout, however, are also elevated. According to a poll by the National Alliance for Youth Sports, nearly 70% of participants drop out of organized youth sport by the age of 13 (Miner, 2016). As with levels of participation, we invite you to see these rates of dropout as choices, but as choices shaped by important structural factors. Some observers, for example, suggest that the right coach can be one important factor in keeping kids interested in sport (Brylinsky, 2010). In addition, rising fees associated with involvement may be prohibitive; this forces parents—particularly those with more limited disposable income—to make difficult decisions about their children’s participation in what Richard Gruneau (2016) calls the “pay for play” society. Another contributing factor influencing withdrawal from sport is the trend toward single-sport specialization: a young person’s involvement in a single sport for nine months of the year or more. Coakley suggests that this trend “has emerged in connection with two changes in the larger society: (1) the privatization and commercialization of youth sports, and (2) the development of unique ideas about parenting, especially the definition of what constitutes a good parent” (Coakley, 2010, p. 16). Coakley explains that in the 1980s, neoliberalism influenced what it meant to be a good parent: “[m]any became obsessive about nurturing the dreams of their children and seeking culturally valued and professionally supervised activities for them” (2010, p. 18). Prolympic youth sports were well positioned to fill this supposed gap. This, of course, presented new commercial opportunities for individuals and corporations offering specific and highly organized competitive youth sport activities. Such entrepreneurs capitalized on this opportunity in the market, offering a range of specialized youth sport camps, programs, and clubs. While most of these programs were well intentioned, there was also an incentive for organizers to entice parents to enroll their children in programs year-round (Coakley, 2010). Elite hockey academies exemplify the single-sport-specialization phenomenon and the broader focus on rationalization and labour. These schools, which 156

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r­ outinely charge tens of thousands of dollars per year in tuition fees, ostensibly provide students with both a unique educational experience and an advantage, as they aspire to play on collegiate, national, and professional hockey teams. These academies do little, however, to contribute to broader access to sport and recreational opportunities for young people. In fact, particularly in the case of sports already precariously positioned, these kinds of elite schools may erode certain kinds of resources at broader levels, making it more difficult to sustain accessible opportunities for participation (Adams & Leavitt, 2018). The case of girls’ hockey illustrates this point rather well. There are far fewer registrants in girls’ hockey than in boys’ hockey in Canada, making it difficult for leagues to organize games between teams in neighbouring communities, a problem that is particularly pronounced in rural areas. Elite girls’ hockey schools, then, draw the strongest players (and the parent/volunteer labour that comes with them) out of a system already struggling in certain important respects. So, not only are these elite opportunities financially out of reach for most families, but they may drain resources from more grassroots levels of youth sport. Paradoxically, this kind of specialization often backfires, since kids who play and train year-round for a single sport are more likely to sustain overuse injuries than those who participate in different sports throughout the year; they’re also more likely to burn out, both physically and emotionally (recall the point about “failure” above). As noted at the outset of the chapter, even the President and CEO of Hockey Canada is now advising parents against single-sport specialization. Kids who train for one sport all year can also be more socially isolated in other spheres since their commitment to sport can limit the time they have for friendships and other extracurricular activities outside of sport, including their schooling. The question of burnout and withdrawal in a prolympic youth sport context is also related to labour and to conflict theory. Sociologists of sport have argued for over 30 years that children’s involvement in high-performance sport might be understood as a form of child labour (Donnelly & Petherick, 2004). It’s not uncommon for Canadian children, particularly those competing at a high-level, to be practicing before and after school and playing league games during the week and on weekends throughout the season. In Canada, there are laws designed to prevent the exploitation of child labour and there are firm guidelines in place concerning when and how much a child can legally work. Not only do such guidelines help curtail the economic exploitation of youth but they are also designed in such a way as to not interfere with schoolwork and other facets of family life. Sociologists of sport have drawn attention to the ways that similar concerns are often absent when it comes to sport and physical activity. As Donnelly and Petherick (2004) suggest, “given [the] international recognition of children’s rights to participate in sport and physical activity, it may be surprising to note that . . . children’s rights are occasionally or routinely violated in most countries when we consider children’s involvement—direct and indirect—with sports” (pp. 301−302). As discussed above, children are commonly conceptualized as adults in training. A sociological perspective grounded in conflict theory allows us to draw attention not only to the way that this type of labour becomes normalized in and through sport but also to how it at once aligns with and reproduces what is referred to as the myth of meritocracy—the idea that individual successes (whether in sport or elsewhere) are simply a matter of individual effort, skill, and hard work (and, thus, downplays or otherwise effaces broader structural explanations). Once again, in a system predicated on the Yo u t h S p o r t a n d P h y s i c a l C u l t u r e

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“failure” of the vast majority of those who aspire to elite status, this myth has negative impacts on the emotional well-being of many who do not “make it.” Of course, the youth sport landscape in Canada is not an equal playing field and the opportunities (or lack thereof) afforded to Canadian children differ and are influenced by factors such as class, disability, and gender—each of which can supersed young peoples’ ability or willingness to work hard.

“ALTERNATIVE” YOUTH SPORT As Coakley (2017) explains, since child and youth sport is most often structured and controlled by adults, “some young people seek alternatives allowing them to engage more freely in physical activities on their own terms” (p. 89). The term alternative sport refers to physical activities that are relatively unstructured and participant-controlled, such as skateboarding, parkour, and surfing. These activities are generally understood as alternatives to traditional, often competitive, rule-bound forms of sport and physical activity. Many alternative sport spaces provide opportunities for participants to resist dimensions of mainstream sporting and social practices that they find unenjoyable, even oppressive. They are often more participant-driven, and hence more democratized. They may also foster more inclusive cultures, and hence provide opportunities for some young people who might not feel welcome or comfortable in more rationalized sporting cultures (Thorpe, 2018). Becky Beal’s (1995) foundational research with young skateboarders, for instance, points to skateboarding as a “site of cultural resistance,” one in which elite competition is de-emphasized, and participant control of the activity is a central guiding principle. In a different vein, Kelly, Pomerantz, and Currie’s research with “skater girls” in Vancouver revealed “that girls gravitated toward skateboarding and other forms of alternative youth culture as a way of offsetting the oppressive rules girls felt they ‘had’ to follow in order to be perceived as a certain kind of (popular) girl” (2008, p. 114). Both of these examples highlight the related notions of hegemony (see Chapter 1), resistance, and subculture. Beal captures the interconnectedness of these ideas: Hegemony is never secured, and within most practices of popular culture there are elements of hegemony and counter hegemony. Alternative practices, or resistances, are continually challenging the hegemony of the dominant group, but this struggle is full of apparent contradictions because it is encased in a hegemonic while simultaneously trying to break it down. (1995, p. 254)

Beal (and others) highlight that subcultural formations resist elements of the dominant (sporting) culture, but also that these subcultures are complex, fluid, and often both resistant and transformative at the same moment. Particularly when thinking of youth subcultures, we must keep in mind both agency and structure. Madeleine Leonard’s (2016) notion of “generagency” suggests that young people’s agency plays out in an environment in which “existing hierarchies between adults and children structure the conditions under which children practice their agency” (Leonard, 2016, p. 9). This helps us think about alternative sporting practices, as it highlights that young Canadians are shaping their own social worlds, but do so, necessarily, within a context in which parents, teachers, and corporations often frame themselves as the experts. For example, a recent scholarly article highlights the value of Parkour not as an activity to be pursued simply for pleasure, but as a training aid in terms of athlete development for elite (prolympic) sport (Strafford, van der Steen, Davids, & Stone, 2018). 158

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Alternative sport participation is growing among today’s youth, and points to possibilities beyond the highperformance model that dominates the youth sport landscape. Altanaka/Shutterstock

While often embraced for their lack of rigid rules and for their penchant for creative physicality, alternative sports are not altogether antithetical to competition. As exemplified by the enduring popularity of events like the X Games and Winter X Games, which first debuted in the mid-1990s, there are many young people who participate in individual alternative sports who enjoy competing with and against others. Skateboarding, for example, will make its Olympic debut at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. The complexity of the skateboarding subculture, however, is evident in that the decision to bring it into the mainstream has been met with some resistance from skateboarding “purists” who consider the activity a lifestyle and not a sport (cf., Wheaton, 2004).

PARENTS, COACHES, ETHICS, AND FAIR PLAY In recent years, organizations have emerged to provide resources and platforms where coaches, parents, and physical educators can learn about and discuss some of the challenges that continue to face youth sport in Canada. For the Love of the Game (www. fortheloveofthegame.ca) and Paradigm Sports (www.paradigmsports.ca) provide education and resources for youth sport coaches and parents to improve the overall youth sport landscape in Canada. This is critically important because, as noted above, parents, coaches, and other adults shape the experiences of youth in sport and physical activity to a great extent. Parents, for example, constitute the core volunteer labour force supporting many youth sport organizations, and provide the domestic labour that supports youth sport behind the scenes (though both of these forms of labour fall out along gendered lines, with men over-represented among coaches, and women overrepresented among team managers who provide much of the invisible and emotional labour, for example—see Messner, 2009). Coaches, meanwhile, play a critical role for most young people involved in organized sport; they “are expected to teach technical athletic skills, mold teamwork, contribute to the character formation of young players, and judiciously blend a joy of participation in sport with an ­appreciation of what it Yo u t h S p o r t a n d P h y s i c a l C u l t u r e

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takes to win” (Dyck, 2012, p. 85). For many young athletes, coaches exemplify the kinds of positive and supportive agents of socialization mentioned above. At the same time though, both parents and coaches may also be negative influences in youth sport. Both may push young people too hard—whether out of hope that young athletes might achieve success at collegiate or professional levels, or out of a desire to experience youth sport vicariously through children and youth. In other cases, coaches and parents are abusive to participants, (other) coaches, officials, and/or (other) spectators. Box 7.4, below, outlines a major and ongoing issue of concern that has come to light once again recently. To mitigate against these negative behaviours, numerous organizations have initiated codes of conduct, mandated training (e.g., the National Coaching Certification Program), and/or produced advertising campaigns that draw attention to the importance

❯❯❭❯ BOX 7.4

Sport and Sexual Assault

Recent cases of athlete sexual abuse at the hands of coaches such as Michael Arsenault (gymnastics, Edmonton, Alberta) and Dr. Larry Nassar (former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics national team doctor) have illustrated the massive scope and impacts of these predatory behaviours, as well as the (criminal) failures on the part of other organizational actors to prevent future assaults when presented with evidence of wrongdoing (Giardina & Denzin, 2012). Each time a new case comes to light, there are renewed calls to action to enforce rigorous screening and mandatory background checks for youth sport coaches and others. From a sociological perspective, screening and background checks are insufficient measures in and of themselves, as they are aimed simply at weeding out the “bad apples” who might prey on young athletes, and only reveal convictions, missing accusations that did not result in conviction, for example. Rather, sociologists suggest that there are certain elements of sport cultures that make these kinds of abuse possible, and allow them to continue for years amidst suspicion, even accusation. Sandra Kirby and her colleagues argue persuasively that there is a “dome of silence” in competitive sport that creates the conditions for abuse of athletes. This dome, they point out, functions to keep the sporting world separate from the outside world and to put tremendous pressure on athletes within the dome to “create a self-sufficient and self-perpetuating sport system” (Kirby, Greaves, & Hankivsky, 2000, p. 119) in which the conduct of coaches and other authority figures is rarely challenged.

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In Canada, the case of Graham James is, tragically, a touchstone in terms of youth sport and sexual assault. Former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy accused James of abusing him and another player between 1984 and 1995 while they played junior hockey. In 1997, James pleaded guilty to 350 sexual assaults involving the two players, was sentenced to three and half years in prison, and was banned for life from coaching by the Canadian Hockey Association. James fled Canada and the public eye in 2000, but in the early 2000s was found to be coaching the boys national team in Spain. In 2007, James was pardoned by the National Parole Board, prompting national outrage. In 2010, James was arrested on a nationwide warrant and faced nine new sex-related charges involving three boys between 1979 and 1994. He pleaded guilty in 2011 and was sentenced to five additional years in prison. Against the backdrop outlined above, it is striking that a recent analysis of data from a sample of National Sport Organizations (NSOs) in Canada and Provincial Sport Organizations (PSOs) in Ontario reveals that a great many NSOs and PSOs are not in compliance with Sport Canada’s requirement that they each have a policy “to deal appropriately with incidents of harassment and abuse [and] have trained designated arm’s-length harassment officers” (Donnelly, Kerr, Heron, & DiCarlo, 2016, p. 34). Donnelly and his colleagues “highlight the need for further investigation of the implementation and effectiveness of sport policies related to athlete welfare” (2016, p. 47). In other words, policies themselves are not enough. They need to be well thought out, carefully administered, and anchored to broader questions of athlete well-being.

of appropriate behaviour in sporting contexts. Sociologists of sport highlight that it is not simply unethical practices or a win-at-all-costs approach in need of reconsideration. All coaches could benefit from a deeper understanding of the ideological underpinnings of their coaching practices. Indeed, coaching is too often an exercise in disciplinary power, one in which coaching practices “serve to subordinate, normalize and objectify athletes’ bodies and as a consequence limit and constrain athletes not empower them” (Denison, Mills, & Konoval, 2017, p. 773). Though this may sound somewhat pessimistic, sociologists of sport see opportunities for coaching practices and principles to be improved by being problematized: No coaching knowledge or so called “best coaching practices” should be uncritically accepted and applied by coaches . . . all coaching knowledges and practices have their uses, but also their dangers and problematic effects and . . . a commitment to mitigating these dangers should be a priority for all of us involved in coach education and development. (Avner, Markula, & Denison, 2017, p. 108)

CONCLUSION Our aim in this chapter has been to both consider youth sport as a potential space of exploration, fun, and growth for active young people, and to highlight some of the challenges and abuses prevalent in these spaces. We are optimistic that sport and physical activity can continue to play a positive role in the lives of young people in Canada. Those invested in the future of youth sport should not simply continue the dominant pattern of adults organizing youth sport in terms of what they think is best for young Canadians. Involving young people themselves in the decision-making ­processes might make for more democratic, and perhaps more inclusive and sustainable, models of youth sport and physical culture in the years ahead. With this in mind, Coakley (2017) suggests a child-centred approach to sport and physical activity, organized around action (which might, for instance, mean speeding up the pace of play by changing the structure of the teams or the games themselves), exciting challenges, personal expression (where games allow and encourage creativity and/or experimentation), and reaffirming friendships. Each of these can go a long way toward keeping sport and physical activity fun and to fostering long-lasting relationships both amongst children and also between children and physical activity. Coakley further suggests there may also be value in developing and promoting hybrid sports, that combine features of player-controlled informal games and adult-­ controlled organized sports. Coakley maintains, however, that the challenge for adults is to be supportive and provide guidance without controlling young people who need their own spaces to create physical activities. Adult guidance can make those spaces safer and more inclusive—for boys and girls [and, we would add, transgender and gender non-conforming kids] as well as children with a disability and from various ethnic and social class backgrounds. (2017, p. 98)

In a similar way, critical sociologists of sport invite us to imagine alternatives to prolympism that move beyond a logic of highly competitive and rigidly organized sport. Ingham and his colleagues (2002), for instance, outline what they refer to as a Yo u t h S p o r t a n d P h y s i c a l C u l t u r e

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developmentally informed model of youth sport. It is worth considering whether a “sport for all” model, which is often used by policymakers and other government initiatives designed to promote youth sport participation, is fundamentally (in)compatible with prolympism. Where the former is interested in access, inclusion, equality, involvement, and cooperation, the latter is a uniquely performance-based and, thus, ultimately an exclusionary model where friendship and fun are usurped by the anticipation of ascendance (Ingham et al., 2002). As we have looked in this chapter to examples of alternative sports especially that offer other options for child and youth participation, the value of using a sociological imagination—of, in this case, thinking comparatively—becomes especially clear.

Key Terms Alternative sport: Various “non-traditional” forms of physical activity. Related to action sports and lifestyle sports, these are often unstructured leisure pursuits that encourage creative physicality (e.g., surfing, climbing, parkour). Childhood: Commonly understood to indicate a stage of life, it also refers to a constellation of ideas about young people. Digital health technologies: A term used to describe various forms of technology (including computers, tablets, smartphones, wearables, etc.) designed to help users monitor and track various aspects of their health. Gamification: The process by which traditional elements of game playing (e.g., earning points, competition with others) are used to encourage engagement with a product or service. Moral panic: The process whereby a particular issue (e.g., performance-enhancing drugs) becomes the topic of intense public scrutiny, often including hyperbolic media constructions of the nature, extent, and/or scope of the problem. Neoliberalism: A way of thinking about our social world, political structures, and more. It emphasizes individual explanations of, and market-based solutions to, social problems. Prolympism: The dominant conceptual and organizational structure of the youth sport system in Canada (and elsewhere), which emphasizes winning and structural progression toward professional or Olympic-caliber status. Risk: A web of understandings about what is (or might be) dangerous in our lives and in society more generally. This web of understandings shapes how we understand ourselves and the world around us. Socialization: The process by which children come to understand and internalize many of the values and meanings of the surrounding society. Subculture: A term used to describe a social group that shares similar interests, styles, and patterns of behaviour, often formulated in resistance to dominant understandings (e.g., of sport). Total institution: An institution that governs nearly every aspect of the lives of residents/inmates. Youth: Commonly understood to indicate a stage of life, it also refers to a constellation of ideas about young people.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What are some of the key limitations and strengths with respect to data about young people’s levels of physical activity in Canada?

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2. Discuss how the concept of neoliberalism shapes young people’s participation and sport and physical culture in Canada. 3. What does it mean to think about childhood and youth as a “set of ideas”? 4. To what extent might wearable technologies influence children and youth’s relationship to sport and physical activity? 5. In what ways do sport and physical culture bring young Canadians under the surveillance of experts and other adults? 6. How do children and youth’s participation in alternative sport relate to the processes shaping mainstream sport for young people?

Suggested Readings Cooky, C., & Messner, M. (2018). No slam dunk: Gender, sport, and the unevenness of social change. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Dagkas, S., & Armour, K. (Eds.) (2011). Inclusion and exclusion through youth sport. London: Routledge. Forsyth, J., & Giles, A. R. (Eds.). (2012). Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada: Historical foundations and contemporary issues. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Giardina, M., & Donnelly, M. (Eds.) (2008). Youth culture and sport: Identity, power and politics. New York: Routledge. Messner, M. (2009). It’s all for the kids: Gender, families, and youth sports. Berkeley: University of California Press. Messner, M., & Musto, M. (Eds.) (2016). Child’s play: Sport in kids’ worlds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

References Abrams, D. (2011). Achieving equal opportunity in youth sports: Roles for the “Power of the Permit” and the “Child Impact Statement.” In S. Spickard Prettyman and B. Lampman (Eds.), Learning culture through sports: Perspectives on society and organized sports (2nd ed., pp. 32–42). Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2013). Are we driving our kids to unhealthy habits? 2013 Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card of Physical Activity for Children and Youth. Toronto Ontario, Canada: Author. Adams, C. (2011). Supervised places to play: Social reform, citizenship and femininity at municipal playgrounds in London, Ontario, 1900−1942. Ontario History, CIII(1), 60−80. Adams, C., & Laurendeau, J. (2018). “Here they come! Look them over!”: Youth, citizenship, and the emergence of minor hockey in Canada. In J. Ellison & J. Anderson (Eds.), Hockey: Challenging Canada’s game (pp. 111−124). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Adams, C., & Leavitt, S. (2018). “It’s just girls’ hockey”: Troubling progress narratives in girls’ and women’s sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53, 152−172. Alexander, K. (2017). Guiding modern girls: Girlhood, empire, and internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Avner, Z., Markula, P., & Denison, J. (2017). Understanding effective coaching: A Foucauldian reading of current coach education frameworks. International Sport Coaching Journal, 4, 101−109. Beal, B. (1995). Disqualifying the official: An exploration of social resistance through the subculture of skateboarding. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 252−267.

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Brylinsky, J. (2010). Practice makes perfect and other curricular myths in the sport specialization debate. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 81, 22−25. Canadian Heritage (2013). Sport Participation 2010 Research Paper. Retrieved from http:// publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2013/pc-ch/CH24-1-2012-eng.pdf. Canadian Sport for Life. (2015). Canada’s physical literacy consensus statement. Retrieved from http://sportforlife.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Consensus-Handout.pdf. Reprinted with permission. CFLRI. (2013). Getting kids active! 2010−2011 physical activity monitor: Facts and figures. Retrieved from https://www.cflri.ca/sites/default/files/node/1147/files/CFLRI%20 PAM%202010-2011_Bulletin%201%20EN.pdf (accessed December 4, 2018). Cheek, J. (2008). Healthism: A new conservatism? Qualitative Health Research, 18(7), 974−982. Chen, X., Raby, R., & Albanese, P. (2017). Introduction: Taking stock and claiming space for the Sociology of childhood and youth in Canada. In X. Chen, R. Raby, & P. Albanese (Eds.), The sociology of childhood and youth in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Scholars. Coakley, J. (2010). The “logic” of specialization. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and dance, 81(8), 16–25. DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2010.10598520. Coakley, J. (2011). Youth sports: What counts as “positive development”? Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 35(3), 306−324. Coakley, J. (2017). Sports in society: Issues and controversies (12th ed.). McGraw Hill: New York, NY. Colley, R. C., Carson, V., Garriguet, D., Janssen, I., Roberts, K. C., & Tremblay, M. S. (2017). Physical activity of Canadian children and youth, 2007 to 2015. Health Reports, 28, 8−16. Couture, J. (2019). “Protecting the Gift”: Risk, parental (ir)responsibility, and CrossFit Kids Magazine. Sociology of Sport Journal, 36(1), 77−86 Corsaro, W. (2018). The Sociology of Childhood (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Cote, J. E., & Allahar, A. L. (2005). Critical Youth Studies: A Canadian Focus. Pearson: Toronto. Denison, J., Mills, J. P., & Konoval, T. (2017). Sports’ disciplinary legacy and the challenge of “coaching differently”. Sport, Education and Society, 22(6), 772−783. Depper, A., & Howe, P. D. (2017). Are we fit yet? English adolescent girls’ experiences of health and fitness apps. Health Sociology Review, 26, 98−112. Doherty, A. & Taylor, T. (2007). Sport and physical recreation in the settlement of immigrant youth. Leisure/Loisir, 1(1), 27−55. Donnelly, P. (1996). Prolympism: Sport monoculture as crisis and opportunity. Quest, 48(1), 25−42. Donnelly, P., Kerr, G., Heron, A., & DiCarlo, D. (2016). Protecting youth in sport: An examination of harassment policies. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 8(1), 33−50. DOI: 10.1080/19406940.2014.958180. Donnelly, P., & Petherick, L. (2004). Workers’ playtime? Child labour at the extremes of the sporting spectrum. Sport in Society, 7(3), 301–321. Dyck, N. (2012). Fields of play: An ethnography of children’s sports. University of Toronto Press: Toronto. For the Love of the Game (2018). About us. Retrieved from http://www.fortheloveofthegame.ca/. Forsyth, J. (2012). Bodies of meaning: Sports and games at Canadian residential schools. In J. Forsyth & A. Giles (Eds.), Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada (pp. 15–34). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Forsyth, J., & Giles, A. R. (Eds.). (2012). Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada: Historical foundations and contemporary issues. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Garmin. (2018). vivofit® jr. App. Available at https://buy.garmin.com/en-CA/CA/p/568169. Giardina, M., & Denzin, N. (2012). Policing the “Penn State crisis”: Violence, power, and the neoliberal university. Cultural Studies 3 Critical Methodologies, 12, 259−266. Giardina, M. & Donnelly, M. (Eds.)(2008). Youth culture and sport: Identity, power, and politics. New York: Routledge.

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Giardina, M., & Donnelly, M. (eds.) (2012). Youth culture and sport: Identity, power and politics. New York: Routledge. Goodwin, D., & Peers, D. (2011). Disability, sport and inclusion. In S. Dagkas & K. Armour (Eds.), Inclusion and exclusion through youth sport (pp. 186−202). London: Routledge. Goodyear, V. A., Kerner, C., & Quennerstedt, M. (2019). Young people’s uses of wearable healthy lifestyle technologies; surveillance, self-surveillance and resistance. Sport, Education and Society, 24(3), 212−225. Gruneau, R. (2016). Goodbye Gordie Howe: Sport participation and class inequality in the “pay for play” society. In D. Taras & C. Waddell (Eds.), How Canadians communicate V: Sports (pp. 223−246). Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press. Ingham, A. G., Chure, M. A., & Butt, J. (2002). From the performance principle to the Development principle: Every Kid a Winner? Quest, 54(4), 308−331. Kelly, D., Pomerantz, S., & Currie, D. (2008). “You can break so many rules”: The identity work and play of becoming skater girls. In M. Giardina & M. Donnelly (Eds.), Youth culture and sport: Identity, power, and politics (pp. 113−126). New York: Routledge. King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A Native narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press. King, T. (2012). The inconvenient indian: A curious account of native people in North America. New York: Random House. Kirby, S. L., Greaves, L., & Hankivsky, O. (2000). The dome of silence: Sexual harassment and abuse in sport. Fernwood: Halifax. Laurendeau, J., & Konecny, D. (2015). Where is childhood? In conversation with Messner and Musto. Sociology of Sport Journal, 32, 332−344. Laurendeau, J., & Moroz, S. (2013). Morality in the mountains: Risk, responsibility, and neoliberalism in newspaper accounts of backcountry rescue. Communication & Sport, 1, 382−399. Leonard, M. (2016). The sociology of children, childhood, and generation. London: Sage. Lupton, D. (2013). Risk (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Malkki, L. (2010). Children, humanity, and the infantilization of peace. In I. Feldman & R. Ticktin (Eds.), In the name of humanity: The government of threat and care (pp. 59–85). Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822393221-003. McKegney, S. (2013). “Pain, pleasure, shame. Shame.”: Masculine embodiment, kinship, and Indigenous reterritorialization. Canadian Literature, 216, 12−33. Messner, M. (2009). It’s all for the kids: Gender, families, and youth sports. Berkeley: University of California Press. Miner, J. W. (2016, June 1). Why 70 percent of kids quit sports by age 13. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/06/01/ why-70-percent-of-kids-quit-sports-by-age-13/?utm_term=.3bc840f1a773 Norman, M. (2017). Sport in the underlife of a total institution: Social control and resistance in Canadian prisons. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(5), 598−614. DOI: 10.1177/1012690215609968. Paradigm Sports (2018). About us. Retrieved from https://www.paradigmsports.ca/aboutparadigm-sports-2/. ParticipACTION (2018). ParticipACTION Teen Challenge. Retrieved from https://www.­ participaction.com/en-ca/programs/teen-challenge. ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth (2016). Retrieved from: https://www.participaction.com/sites/default/files/downloads/2016-06-16%20EN%20 Highlight%20-%20FINAL%20DESIGN%20-%20singles.pdf. Perks, T. (2007). Does sport foster social capital? The contribution of sport to a lifestyle of community participation. Sociology of Sport Journal, 24(4), 378–401.

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RBC Learn to Play (2018). About the RBC Learn to Play Project. Retrieved from http://www. rbc.com/community-sustainability/community/learn-to-play/about-the-rbc-learn-to-playproject.html. Shanahan, S. (2007). Lost and found: The sociological ambivalence towards childhood. Annual Review of Sociology, 33(1), 407–428. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131808. Silk, M., Millington, B., Rich, E., & Bush, A. (2016). (Re-) thinking digital leisure. Leisure Studies, 35, 712−723. Sport for Life (2018). Physical Literacy. Retrieved from http://sportforlife.ca/physical-literacy/. Statistics Canada. (2008). Sports participation of children aged 5 to 14 by socio-demographic characteristics, 2005 (table). Canadian Social Trends. Statistics Canada online catalogue no. 11-008-XWE. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-008-x/2008001/t/10573/5214760eng.htm (accessed December 4, 2018). Strafford, B., van der Steen, P., Davids, K., & Stone, J. (2018). Parkour as a donor sport for athletic development in youth team sports: Insights through an ecological dynamics lens. Sports Medicine—Open, 4(21): https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-018-0132-5. Tallbear, K. (2013). Native American DNA: Tribal belonging and the false promise of genetic science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Thorpe, H. (2018). Feminist Views of Action Sports. In L. Mansfield, J. Caudwell, B. Wheaton, and B. Watson (eds.) The Palgrave handbook of feminism and sport, leisure and physical education (pp. 699–719). Palgrave Macmillan: London. Travers, A. (2018a). Transgender issues in sport and leisure. In L. Mansfield, J. Caudwell, B. Wheaton, & B. Watson (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of feminism and sport, leisure and physical education (pp. 649−665). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Travers, A. (2018b, July 20). For trans people of all ages, sex segregation of sport and physical recreation is a key obstacle to participation. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https:// www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-for-trans-people-of-all-ages-sex-segregation-ofsport-and-physical/. Turner, G. & Wang. S. (2018, January 9). Fitbit Considers Developing Smartwatch for Kids. Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-09/fitbit-is-saidto-­consider-developing-smartwatch-for-kids. Wiest, A. L., Andrews, D. L., & Giardina, M. D. (2015). Training the body for healthism: reifying vitality in and through the clinical gaze of the neoliberal fitness club. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 37, 21−40. Woolford, A. (2015). This benevolent experiment: Indigenous boarding schools, genocide, and redress in Canada and the United States. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Wheaton, B. (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity, and difference. Routledge: New York.

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Chapter 8 

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture Jason Laurendeau and Danielle Peers

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter students will be able to: 1 Explain different sociological approaches to deviance. 2 Describe the social processes through which particular bodies or actions come to be understood and policed as deviant. 3 Compare what are understood as deviant acts within different sport, gender, or (dis)ability contexts.

Ben Johnson’s victory in the men’s 100-metre sprint in the 1988 Olympic Games, and the drug scandal that followed, remains a touchstone moment in Canadian Olympic and sporting history. DIETER ENDLICHER/AP images

4 Examine contemporary sport issues through a deviance lens. “Everybody in the world knows there was state-sponsored cheating in Russia. They went from the host of the 2014 Games to not being allowed to participate as a country in 2018.” Dick Pound, founding President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (https://globalnews.ca/news/4255431/wada-anti-doping-athlete-forum-key-outcomes/, June, 2018). 167

INTRODUCTION On October 17, 2018, recreational marijuana was legalized in Canada. Among the litany of stories about cannabis legalization in the Canadian media, there were many that addressed the question of how this change would affect professional and other elite sport in Canada. The Canadian Football League, for instance, is not particularly affected by this change, as their “drug-testing policy for players has never included testing for cannabis or other recreational drugs, [focusing instead] on performance-enhancing drugs” (Toy, 2018). National Hockey League players, meanwhile, find themselves in a more complicated position. While recreational consumption is legal in Canada (and some US states), it would be illegal for a player to transport cannabis into the US, and “players who might hope to one day play in the Winter Olympics have to take the World Anti-Doping Agency into consideration” (Johnston, 2018). The World AntiDoping Agency (WADA), meanwhile, is at the centre of a complicated web of considerations with respect to banned substances, including cannabis: “Cannabis has always posed a dilemma for WADA, with marijuana illegal in many countries and medical opinion divided on whether it is performance-enhancing or not” (“WADA should,” 2018) . Canadian Ross Rebagliati, for example, was awarded the gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, but was stripped of the medal when he tested positive for a tetrahydriocannabinol, a psychoactive component of cannabis. His medal was returned, however, because cannabis was not, at the time, on WADA’s list of banned substances, but this did not remedy the other impacts on his life, such as international humiliation and loss of several sponsorship opportunities. What do you think? Should cannabis consumption be prohibited in sporting contexts? Is it a performance-enhancing substance? Might it give some athletes an unfair advantage in competition? While the questions above are important, there are also some deeper, more sociological questions we might ask. For example, what do we mean, exactly, by “performance-enhancement”? For that matter, what do we mean by “unfair advantage”? In what ways might we think of performance-enhancing drug use as a rational response to a set of conditions in elite sport? How are individual decisions to use banned substances shaped by the structures and practices that pervade elite sport? Perhaps these questions come as something of a surprise to you. Perhaps you anticipated that a chapter on “sport deviance” would seek to explain what makes particular people and groups engage in deviant activities. In contrast, in this chapter we will concern ourselves not with deviance as a “thing” to be explained or understood, but as the outcome of a social process and cultural struggle (Deutschmann, 2002). In other words, what many scholars of (sport and) deviance find sociologically interesting are the ways in which particular ideas about what constitutes deviance are produced and enforced, and the structural factors that shape athletes’ decisions about engaging in “deviant” activities. These are the central questions that inform this chapter. Our approach is rooted in C. Wright Mills’s (1961) touchstone articulation of the sociological imagination, in which Mills stresses the importance of understanding “personal biography” (in this case, individual decisions to conform or to engage in deviance) in relation to the social and historical locations in which those decisions arise. How deviance is socially constructed and how society responds to deviance both formally and informally are part of the “deviance dance”: “the interactions, negotiations, and debates among groups with different perceptions of whether a behaviour or characteristic is deviant and needs to be socially controlled” (Bereska, 2011, p. 23).

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In what follows, we will consider what kinds of people, activities, ways of being, and ways of participating in sport and recreational pursuits come to be understood as “normal,” and who and what come to be seen as abnormal, pathological, immoral, and so on (e.g., by formal social control organizations, by the “general public,” and even by the “deviants” themselves). This approach reminds us to keep squarely in focus questions of power and ideology as we undertake sociological analyses of sport and physical culture, allowing us to “unpack the centre” (Brock, Raby, & Thomas, 2012). By unpacking the centre, we mean that rather than always focusing on the “problem” of those who are deemed deviant, we seek to question the taken-forgranted centre: how did it come to be seen as good, normal, or natural; what are its social implications; and how does it serve to reproduce the idea of a deviant other? It is important, then, to critically examine what is historically considered to be not only “normal” or “deviant” behaviour, but also—and perhaps more importantly—the power relations within which these distinctions are embedded. In order to explore the topic of sport and deviance in the ways described above, we first consider how deviance is conceptualized, exploring questions of what kinds of theoretical approaches to studying deviance characterize this body of work. Second, building upon a critical theoretical framework, we consider the question of “deviance and otherness” and the related notion of deviantized bodies and embodiments as central in framing this chapter. Third, we take up issues of social control, highlighting the sense in which deviance is not only about the deviant behaviour or identity, but also about the ways in which others interpret, respond to, and attempt to regulate this conduct. Next, we consider a number of specific examples of deviance on and off the field of play, pointing out how they help us shed light on the idea of deviance as dynamic and subject to contestation (e.g., when deviants exercise agency and resist being labelled), and the related notion that the deviance dance is embedded within particular power relations and also serves to produce power relations. Finally, we take up questions of deviantized sports and sporting identities and draw together the most important threads from the chapter, pointing out opportunities and challenges for sociologists of sport, as we continue to consider questions of sport and deviance.

CONCEPTUALIZING DEVIANCE The notion of “tolerable deviance” is a useful framework for thinking about sportrelated deviance. Sport is “viewed as a separate social world with its own allowable rule violations,” exemplifying the process by which a “culturally tolerable deviance violates a normative code but is not interpreted by audiences as a legitimate threat to the collective (or moral) good” (Atkinson & Young, 2008, p. 11). The tolerable deviance framework aligns with structural functionalism (see Chapter 2) and sheds important light on the extent to which sport is socially constructed as a space in which certain kinds of deviance, by certain kinds of people, are accepted, tolerated, or even celebrated. There are various sociological and lay approaches to conceptualizing deviance. Some people take deviance as a social fact, working from the “assumption that there is something inherent in a person, behaviour, or characteristic that is necessarily deviant” (Bereska, 2011, p. 5). The aim from this perspective is to explain the “person, behaviour, or characteristic in question” (Bereska, 2011, p. 22). Other analysts, meanwhile, see deviance as goal-oriented rational action connected to systems of

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social inequality. From this perspective, deviance is a social construction, and there is nothing that is inherently deviant. In other words, deviance is understood not as a thing to be explained, but as an outcome of a social process informed by power and involving negotiation and contestation (Deutschmann, 2002). Moreover, from this perspective, deviant behaviour is not irrational or immoral, but often constitutes a rational response to particular social conditions. Many scholars advocate for more sustained critical attention to the groups, institutions, and regulatory agencies that create and apply the deviant labels through the application of various rules and the distribution of resources—and to the processes by which these labels come to be understood as “common sense,” and hence play important roles in the maintenance and (re)shaping of hegemony (see Chapters 1 and 2). From this perspective, it is important to ask critical questions about those in positions to create, modify, and enforce the rules, whether formal or informal, and the particular ideas that are made to seem normal or common sense in applying these rules. What is at stake here is not simply particular definitions of what constitutes deviance, but also broader ideological struggles about such topics as gender, nationalism, race, sexuality, (dis)ability, and health. This is the critical theoretical approach taken in this chapter, one that lends itself to a number of important questions about deviance and sport that shift the focus from those approaches outlined above. For example: 1. How do particular actions, identities, and performances come to be understood as deviant? 2. What formal and informal mechanisms and structures of social control are employed in attempts to bring or keep those defined as deviant “in line”? 3. In what ways are current definitions of deviance shaped by power relations in a particular sociohistorical context and by broader historical narratives? 4. How might we understand deviance not simply as reflective of particular power relations but as actively involved in (re)producing those power relations? 5. How do particular definitions of deviance serve to produce, reproduce, or transform broader systems of social organization such as race, gender, (dis)ability, and sexuality? 6. How are individual subjectivities shaped and constrained by the definitions of deviance that predominate in particular social contexts? 7. How can we understand individual agency (individuals’ abilities to make choices that might resist dominant understandings) with respect to the “rules” that govern the particular sporting spaces they occupy?

DEVIANCE AND OTHERNESS Though numerous sociologists of sport highlight the importance of institutions and practices that serve to privilege some groups and individuals and to marginalize others, few conceptualize this as a question of deviance and as a matter of hegemony. And yet, dominant “groups have the power to impose the norms that comprise their culture on all other cultural groups in society, labelling the norms of conflicting cultural groups as ‘deviant’ and in need of measures of social control” (Bereska, 2011, p. 90). For the purposes of this chapter, we must understand “culture” in the broadest sense (e.g., it might refer to the socially constructed cultural patterns such as heteronormativity, the pattern of social relations that construct heterosexuality as the dominant and only normal expression of sexual desire), and the cultural norms created and sustained

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 8.1

Doping in Canadian Sport

The case of Ben Johnson is illustrative of a number of important points discussed at the outset of this chapter. In 1988, Johnson was one of the best-known athletes on the planet. A Canadian sprinter of Jamaican heritage, Johnson exploded onto the sporting scene, establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with in one of the most prestigious sporting events there is: the men’s 100-metre sprint. Johnson’s dramatic victory in the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games established a new world record and solidified his position as the “fastest man on Earth.” The fame Johnson gained with this victory was surpassed, however, by his fall from grace less than 48 hours later when it was revealed that he had tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid. Officials publicly stripped Johnson of his gold medal and whisked him out of South Korea. In the years that followed, the Dubin Inquiry, which cost Canadian taxpayers $3.6 million, “revealed what almost everyone already knew: that Ben Johnson

had used steroids and that the use of performanceenhancing drugs was endemic in elite sport” (Jackson & Ponic, 2001, pp. 54–55). The Dubin Inquiry is of sociological significance for two other reasons. First, it “was the first full-scale examination of doping in sport that looked beyond the athlete’s guilt [and] attributed partial responsibility for Ben Johnson’s doping offence to his coaches, trainers, and other consultants” (Teetzel, 2009, p. 87). Second, though the Inquiry did more than blame an individual athlete for a doping infraction, it still located culpability very much at the feet of particular people, indicting their moral character for “cheating.” In so doing, the inquiry failed to critically consider a sociological analysis of the structure of high performance sport (one that continues to dominate national discussions of sport) that creates the backdrop against which we must consider individual and collective decisions to use performance-enhancing substances (Beamish & Ritchie, 2006).

in particular times and places (e.g., the common sense norms that characterize certain sporting cultures). What is important to appreciate for the purposes of this discussion, then, is the notion that creating a deviant “other”—feared, loathed, or even admired—is a cultural process as well as a means of maintaining an idealized self. An understanding of “otherness” helps to explain why identities are often characterized by overly simplified binaries that serve to practice inclusion and exclusion within our language systems: “insiders” and “outsiders;” “us” and “them”; men and women; black and white; disabled and able-bodied; “normal” and “deviant” (Greer & Jewkes, 2005, p. 20). These systems of classification are produced and reproduced rather than simply reflected in the media and other cultural texts (Hall, 2000). These texts include, for example, the mediation of competitions themselves, but also the rules and codes of conduct in circulation in particular sporting spaces, as well as the interpretations and implementations thereof.

Deviantized Bodies and Embodiments One central line of questioning directly related to the discussion of deviance and otherness is the production of particular bodies and particular embodiments or bodily (in)capacities as “normal” or “deviant.” These processes serve to remind us who belongs and who does not in particular sporting spaces. In other words, they socially construct specific ideas about bodies and bodily (in)actions, ideas that produce and reproduce particular understandings of ourselves and others and legitimize certain social relations (see Chapter 2). These processes are an exercise in power. Consider the example of larger-bodied participants in long-distance running, a sport that tends to be dominated by slighter

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athletes: The “large or fat running body presents a site where the disciplinary processes are active and where the participants are subjected to extensive surveillance” (Chase, 2008, p. 140). Particular examples of this kind of surveillance and policing must be understood within a broader social and political landscape in which “fatness” is deviantized more broadly (McDermott, 2007). Bodies that are read as “disabled” are also deviantized in numerous ways that function in tandem with broader ableist belief systems: beliefs that those with typically functioning minds and bodies are inherently—and categorically—more valuable and desirable than those with atypical body-minds (Wolbring, 2008). Such ableist beliefs underscore the assumption that folks with atypical functioning are pathological, disabled, deviant Others who are fundamentally different than their able-bodied counterparts, thus justifying widespread attempts at normalization, exclusion, and segregation. Athletes with disabilities, for example, are widely understood to deviate so significantly from dominant athletic norms of superior physical ability that they are often treated more as inspirational stories than as athletes (Peers, 2012b). For example, in 2004, Canadian wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc returned from the Athens Paralympics with five gold medals, three world records, as well as Canada’s only firstplace finish at the Athens Olympic Games (Christie, 2004)—having won the Olympic demonstration wheelchair racing event (an Olympic demonstration event between 1984 and 2008, but never granted medal status). That year, Athletics Canada named her co-winner of their Female Athlete of the Year award, to be shared with ­non-­disabled hurdler Perdita Felicien, who had not won a single medal that year. In opposition to this decision, and in a decisive demonstration of agency, Petitclerc refused to accept the award—an act that numerous journalists cast as deviant in its own right. This equation of Petitclerc’s and Felicien’s athletic achievements demonstrated the degree to which disabled bodies and their accomplishments are Othered and understood to deviate from those of “real” or “normal” athletes (Christie, 2004). In line with the process described above, the Olympic Games are produced as the real Olympics, whereas the Paralympic Games, the Special Olympics, and Deaflympics are socially constructed as derivative and less relevant versions of the “real” event. This notion is perpetuated by the (largely non-disabled) organizers of the Paralympics themselves. An advertising slogan for the 1996 Paralympic Games, for example (“The Olympics is where heroes are made. The Paralympics is where heroes come.”), constructs Paralympians as heroic simply for showing up, while Olympians are “made into” heroes in and through their training, athletic successes, and personal sacrifices (Peers, 2009). This erases Paralympian training and athleticism, even as it celebrates and pedestalizes Paralympic athletes themselves. This is not the only such example of the types of struggles associated with the Paralympic Games. The dominant traditional history of the Paralympics is that Dr. Guttmann, a benevolent, non-disabled benefactor, invented and institutionalized a preferred vision of sport for disabled people and created the Paralympic Games (Bailey, 2008). What this story erases is, first, the agency of disabled athletes who invented and organized a wide variety of disability sports in countries all over the world, sports that are either credited to non-disabled experts or never had the institutional support to survive (see introductory chapter). Indeed, the names of disabled organizers and even disabled athletes are rarely included in Paralympic histories (Peers, 2009). What this history further erases, however, are the ways that Paralympic organizers have repeatedly modified and enforced its rules in order to exclude those with impairments whose bodies and capacities are determined to deviate too much from 172

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the able-bodied norm. Dr. Guttmann, for example, successfully fought to exclude all impairments except spinal cord injuries from the Paralympics until 1976 (Bailey, 2008). Organizers also repeatedly voted against the participation of athletes with intellectual disabilities in the Games (Bailey, 2008) and have repeatedly cut competitions and resources for those with the most significant disabilities (Howe, 2008). Further, Paralympic organizers, mainstream media, and even Paralympians themselves, have been shown to favour athletes at the top of the hierarchy of disability, that is, those who adhere more closely to normalized able-bodied aesthetics and capacities or who are seen as cyborg athletes who use sleek, fetishize-able technologies (like Oscar Pistorius’s prosthetic legs) (Howe & Silva, 2017). This celebration of cyborg athletes, however, tends to turn to mistrust, accusations of cheating, and even moral panic when such athletes threaten to outperform non-disabled athletes. All of this illustrates the power of certain social actors to unevenly shape the social world and the opportunities available to others in sporting spaces. It is important to remember that individual choices are both situated within, and serve to reproduce, challenge, or transform broader ableist institutions and structures. As a former Paralympian, Danielle’s own negotiations and performances of disability have sometimes served to reproduce the very conditions that marginalize

❯❯❭❯ BOX 8.2

Playing with Pain

There is perhaps no act more heroized in sport than an elite athlete playing through serious pain—risking extreme discomfort and worsening injury—to win. Famous examples include Tiger Woods golfing on a broken leg in the 2008 US Open, Canadian rower Silken Laumann winning a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympic Games only 10 weeks (and five surgeries) after shattering her right leg in a rowing accident, and a whole host of Olympic runners limping across the finish line. In contrast, at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) cracked down on Paralympic athletes “cheating” by competing injured. Some athletes with high level spinal cord injury are susceptible to a condition called autonomic dysreflexia, a neurological reaction to extreme bodily stimuli that increases blood pressure, heart rate, and, by extension, potentially athletic performance but also increases risk of seizures and stroke (Roelf, 2015). The IPC believed that some Paralympians purposefully caused autonomic dysreflexia reactions by triggering a pain response in body parts that they could not feel: a practice known as “boosting.” The most common techniques alleged to be employed include sitting on a pin, overfilling the bladder, breaking small bones, or—the most deviantized alleged act—twisting or sitting on one’s scrotum. Whether or not Paralympic athletes were engaging in

these particular practices is very much up for debate. What is undeniable, however, is that the IPC and the media treated this as a pressing issue, deviantizing Paralympians in the process. In response to concerns about “boosting,” the IPC began to check athlete blood pressure just prior to competitions to search for “cheaters” whose systolic blood pressure was found to be above 160 mmHg. Any ­athletes whose blood pressure was above this limit were barred from competing; they could not be otherwise sanctioned by the IPC because there is no way to know whether blood pressure is high due to an accidental injury, purposeful injury, or other unrelated stimuli. After all, despite the widespread media frenzy leading up to the Rio Games about Paralympians as desperate “scrotum-squeezing ‘boosters’” (Roelf, 2015), auto­ nomic dysreflexia is a naturally occurring reaction to a range of bodily stimuli including competing in hot ­temperatures, in-grown toenails, bowel issues, and even sexual stimulation (HealthlinkBC, 2017). The question for us, as sociologists of sport, is not whether or not these athletes were purposefully boosting, but rather why are Paralympians playing with pain and injury treated more as deviants than their non-disabled counterparts? And what are the power effects of constructing and treating Paralympians as deviant boosters?

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me as disabled (Peers, 2012a). To the extent that I (ambivalently) adopted the role of the “supercrip” in my career as a wheelchair basketball player, I was complicit in further entrenching a dominant narrative about disability that constructs a tremendously narrow range of possibilities for those with disabilities. The supercrip is a narrative that emphasizes the individual capacity of disabled deviants to overcome disability and the obstacles they face, rather than challenging and dismantling these very dangerous social obstacles and questioning whether disability is a form of deviance that must be normalized or overcome.

SOCIAL CONTROL As noted above, it is imperative that we consider social control efforts and mechanisms of power as part of the social construction of deviance. In other words, deviance is not deviant in and of itself; it becomes defined as such by particular people and groups in particular geographical and social locations as part of the deviantization process described above. This process is not politically or ideologically neutral. Rather, what is being contested is nothing less than what we understand—and treat— as “normal.” It is important to note that social control efforts might be formal or informal (e.g., codified rules versus commonly understood norms); they might be direct and specific or more general and diffuse (e.g., penalties for specific rule violations versus broader systems of meaning that operate to remind us of what we should be doing and not doing and who we should want to be); and they might come from within a particular sporting location or be imposed from another institution (e.g., “doping” rules and norms within the sport of cycling versus police actions initiated from outside of the sport itself). One avenue of investigation that sheds important light on deviance and social control is the question of informal mechanisms of social control in operation within sporting spaces. Though large-scale examples of deviance tend to come easily to mind, everyday violations of expectations, and the responses to such forms of deviance, illustrate the notion that deviance is contextual and contested. Within particular sporting spaces (including spaces that some might think of as inherently deviant), there are expectations and norms (defined and policed by the group or subculture itself) as to how one goes about participating in a sporting activity or what it means to be a “real” participant. As part of Jason’s research into BASE jumping, for example, he learned of a phenomenon known as “BASE ethics.” One central component of BASE ethics is the expectation that jumpers visiting an area contact local jumpers prior to jumping off particular objects. The seriousness of the expectation to “contact the locals” is highlighted by the case of John Vincent, who, many years ago, travelled to Atlanta and, without contacting the locals, jumped a crane. As a result of the ensuing press coverage, the crane came under much tighter security, the construction company initiated an investigation, and the crane operator who had been friendly to local jumpers lost his job (Laurendeau, 2012). In breaking the “contact the locals” rule, then, Vincent upset local BASE jumpers enough that they were willing to drive several hours to Vincent’s residence, force their way inside, and literally tar and feather him. What’s more, they videotaped the events in a recording that has since become folklore in the BASE jumping community (Laurendeau, 2012). 174

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DEVIANCE ON THE “FIELD OF PLAY” Much academic and popular attention is devoted to considering examples of deviance on the field of play (the course, the ice, etc.). Perhaps the best-known work in this area explores questions of conformity to the sport ethic, which Hughes and Coakley define as “what many participants in sport have come to use as the criteria for defining what it means to be a real athlete” (1991, p. 308). The notion of positive deviance emphasizes the idea that deviance is not always rooted in a failure to observe the norms and the formal and informal rules in a sports setting. Rather, we might also understand acts of deviance as an overly enthusiastic adoption of a set of expectations and cultural norms that characterizes particular sports and physical activities (Hughes & Coakley, 1991). There are four central beliefs that define the sport ethic. Athletes “make sacrifices, strive for distinction, accept risks and refuse limits—practices that initially facilitate success but ultimately compromise health” (McEwen & Young, 2011, p. 157). From this perspective, we might think of examples such as the widespread use of ­performance-enhancing drugs in particular sports and sport cultures or the willingness of athletes to neglect their physical wellbeing in the search for athletic excellence as examples of positive deviance. Positive deviance occurs not because athletes fail to understand and observe the social expectations of them in a particular sporting context, but rather because they observe too well (and perhaps too uncritically) the central expectations and beliefs of their sport: for example, they make sacrifices until they have sacrificed their health to win a single game; they accept risks of getting caught doping in order to be the best. Positive deviance occurs not from failing to follow the norms, but rather from over-enthusiastically following the norms. Acts of extreme aggression and violence in sport (especially, but not exclusively, those which violate the rules of particular sports), can be partially understood through the idea of positive deviance. The on-ice assault by Vancouver Canucks’ Todd Bertuzzi against Colorado Avalanche rookie Steve Moore on March 8, 2004, is just one example of this line of inquiry, which the next chapter will address in depth. For our current purposes, though, it is important to highlight that while we might understand Bertuzzi’s actions as an individual deviant act, we can also conceptualize it as an overly enthusiastic engagement with celebrated hockey norms, including protecting your teammates, playing physical, and sacrificing yourself for your team.

Drugs in Sport The topic of drugs in sport is one that is hotly contested, deeply politicized, and full of contradictions. For many students, it is one of the first topics that comes to mind when asked to think about examples of deviance in sport. This is not surprising since there is something of a moral panic about the use of performance-enhancing drugs. In a classic text in the field of deviance studies, a moral panic is defined as follows: Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media. (Cohen, 1972, p. 9)

In many respects, this describes the contemporary debates around drugs in sport. It is also important to note that we can understand moral panics as intimately

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intertwined with questions of ideology: the ways that words and ideas are used in the service of dominant social groups. In other words, institutions and governing bodies (like the IOC) are sometimes complicit in the construction of moral panics as part of the process of “orchestrating” or “manufacturing” hegemony. That is, governing bodies claim to crack down on “immoral cheaters” as a way of making the norms, values, excesses, and controlling practices of these major sporting institutions seem fair, natural, and justifiable. These dominant organizations are in a position to shape media content, and in so doing reproduce particular understandings of competition and fairness (ideology), which in turn serve to reproduce dominant relations of power and cultural norms and values more broadly (hegemony). As you will recall, we must use our sociological imagination to understand ­phenomena in social and historical context. As such, any sociological conversation about performance-enhancing substances needs to be contextualized in terms of the history of “cheating” in sport. The deviantization of doping, for example, is a relatively recent phenomenon, one at odds with a longer history: As difficult as it may be to accept today, sound historical studies have documented that the use of performance-enhancing substances has a long history of acceptance. During ultra-marathon cycling races lasting many days, and the late nineteenth century pedestrianism craze, the use of stimulants among contestants was commonplace. (Beamish & Ritchie, 2006, p. 109)

Furthermore, more recent practices of using performance-enhancing substances must be understood as part of the rationalization and professionalization of elite sport, or what Beamish and Ritchie (2006, p. 136) call the “brave new world of highperformance sport.”

Which Drugs? Take a moment to think about drug use in sport. What comes to mind? Perhaps, like many, you think of performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids, erythropoietin (EPO), or human growth hormone (HGH). Or perhaps you envision practices such as blood doping, in which an athlete has blood drawn and later replaced to increase their oxygen-carrying capacity. Or maybe a well-known case of systematic drug use comes to mind. Perhaps you conjure the image of a famous athlete who had a fall from grace after being caught “cheating,” such as Lance Armstrong, who, after years of denials and bullying behaviour, confessed in 2013 to years of doping while he dominated professional cycling. The examples cited above expose some important questions about our understandings of “cheating.” Why is it, for instance, that the use of steroids to enhance performance is considered cheating, whereas other techniques aimed at improving athletic performance (e.g., artificial hydration or the use of altitude simulation tents to increase oxygen-carrying capacity) are simply thought of as sophisticated and stateof-the art training techniques? Similarly, we might ask whether a practice or product should be considered cheating when it’s use is widespread. Or we might inquire as to why these particular performance-enhancing drugs are demonized, whereas others (e.g., Cialis or Viagra to treat erectile dysfunction) are acceptable for “performance enhancement” in other areas of our lives. Furthermore, we might inquire as to why performance-enhancing drugs constitute such a concern in elite sport at this particular historical juncture. Contemporary 176

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concerns about performance-enhancing drugs are quite unusual, historically speaking. In other eras, for example, concerns about keeping sport “pure” were focused not (directly) on the substances athletes put into their bodies, but on questions of amateurism. As Gleaves and Llewellyn point out, one of the central concerns at the highest levels of sport in the 20th century was “the desire to preserve amateur sport as a moral sphere of healthy competition” (2014, p. 850). Moreover, regulations around performance-enhancing drugs emerged directly from these debates around amateurism. As Gleaves and Llewellyn point out “from 1962 through 1975, the IOC’s anti-doping rule remained part of the IOC’s eligibility rule—the rule governing its amateur requirements—which was its most seriously enforced rule governing athletes’ conduct” (2014, p. 850). The examples of “doping” that we tend to hear about and around which we tend to see investigations and government hearings and reports (such as the Mitchell Report on the topic of steroid use in Major League Baseball) capture only a narrow slice of drug use in and around sport. For example, the most used and abused drug vis-à-vis sport is not EPO, HGH, or steroids. Rather, sport and alcohol are closely linked, and numerous scholars have considered the complexities of this pairing, including such topics as alcohol use among recreational and competitive athletes, the place of alcohol in sport-related rituals (e.g., hazing), and the “sport-alcohol-finance nexus,” where companies that sell alcohol are major sport funders and advertisers, making the destructive abuse of alcohol in sport profitable for sport and the alcohol industry alike (Dunning & Waddington, 2003, p. 355). There is a lengthy debate as to the benefits and drawbacks of alcohol consumption with respect to athletic performance, and it continues to be touted as a method of reducing anxiety in certain sporting contexts (Collins & Vamplew, 2002), making the point that performance-enhancing substances are not only those that heighten physiological capacities. Substances like alcohol or cannabis (mentioned at the outset of this chapter) may reduce anxiety, benefiting athletes in situations where tension might inhibit performance. In a different vein, King and colleagues (2014) take up the question of painkillers in sport, particularly in the exceptionally physically punishing sport of professional football. Their analysis highlights that the use of, and media stories around, painkillers in professional football intersect with ideas about race, gender, and labour. In other words, context matters, as the use of these over-the-counter drugs might be considered deviant in some cases and understood as part of a noble battle in others. These scholars invoke the idea of a fluid drug, arguing that sport sociologists need to take seriously the contexts and histories of particular drugs used by particular athletes: “Recognizing the fluidity of drugs and the multiple uses to which they are put helps move our conceptualizations away from rigid categorizations that work as vehicles for moral regulation, and toward more complex renderings” (King et al., 2014, p. 263). This concept helps better account for how particular kinds of drug use are deviantized in particular historical and social contexts. Investigations reveal that drug use in sport is many things, including: a much broader, more insidious “problem” among amateurs and recreational athletes; culturally revered and encouraged in many sporting spaces; and tied to broader normalized understandings of “healthy” bodies, masculinity, and femininity, to name but a few systems of stratification (Safai, 2013). Too often neglected in these discussions are the ways in which other (often over-the-counter) drugs are used by athletes at many ages and levels of experience and participation. For example, some athletes trying to “make weight” use laxatives or appetite suppressants (wrestling, gymnastics), while Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture

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painkillers are regularly used (and sometimes abused) by athletes in their “push to perform at the edge in the name of success” (Safai, 2013, p. 122), even at recreational levels. These are all relevant examples of positive deviance.

Policing Performance-Enhancing Drugs Particular acts only become deviant in relation to the rules in place and those charged with policing those rules. For example, WADA, established in 1999, plays an active and central role as a moral compass, functioning to define what constitutes “cheating” with respect to performance-enhancing products and practices and to surveil and police athletes in an effort to eradicate the use of drugs in sport (or, at the very least, weed out the “bad apples” who use them). We might understand WADA as the logical outcome of a process that began in the Cold War era, in which “international sporting events became a heated battleground of competing state ideologies,” laying the groundwork for the proliferation of “a number of pharmaceutical products and methods (i.e., blood doping) that could boost athletic performance” (Park, 2005, p. 177). The 1998 Tour de France served as a flashpoint of sorts. During the scandalplagued tour, “almost half of the participants withdrew from competition because of the severe doping inspection” (Park, 2005, p. 178). In response, the IOC organized the World Conference on Doping in Sport in early 1999, and with the participation of partners such as the European Union, the World Health Organization, and Interpol, formed the framework for WADA by July of that same year (Park, 2005). To the extent that WADA continues to play a leading role in the ideological war on performance-enhancing drugs, we must also appreciate their reach, as other regulatory bodies draw on WADA policies and procedures. WADA plays a central role in the never-ending battle for “clean” sport. In recent years, for example, WADA produced an Independent Person Report outlining Russian government complicity in a wide-ranging program of performanceenhancing drugs for Russian athletes (Girginov & Parry, 2018). The McLaren report was foundational in the restrictions placed on Russian athletes for the 2016 (Para/O) lympic games. Less than two years later, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in the lead-up to the 2018 Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang, South Korea. Individual Russian athletes, if cleared by the IOC, competed under the Olympic flag as Olympic Athletes of Russia. Amidst considerable controversy, WADA reinstated Russia in 2018, and cleared the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to resume operations. Some observers—and insiders—see this as a betrayal of the underlying principles of fairness, suggesting that this reinstatement was premature and constituted a “devastating blow to clean sport” (“World AntiDoping,” 2018). The controversy over state-sponsored doping in Russia, and the complicity of RUSADA, is explored in a compelling documentary entitled Icarus. The question of policing performance-enhancing drug use is, however, complex. WADA and similar agencies have been the subject of considerable criticism on several fronts. First, some critics suggest that drug-testing protocols violate the basic human rights of all athletes (Rushall & Jones, 2007). Second, scholars have highlighted that in the history of Olympic drug-testing, underlying questions of what constitutes an “equal playing field” have been overshadowed: “As the IOC and IAAF medical committees increasingly turned to scientific practices and personnel to authenticate performance, concerns about fairness, based on anything even remotely resembling ‘ethics’, virtually disappeared” (Krieger, Pieper & Ritchie, 2018, p. 13). 178

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Third, scholars have highlighted that these testing protocols do much more than simply ensure a level playing field (if such a thing is possible); they also shape how all athletes come to understand themselves, their bodies, and their athletic endeavours. WADA does not simply operate to detect who is doped and who is not by conducting drug testing and penalizing doped athletes. Rather, WADA attempts to govern doping practices through the administration of a series of programs and the deployment of disciplinary mechanisms . . . seek[ing] to shape athletic conduct by working through [athletes’] desires, aspirations and beliefs. (Park, 2005, p. 179, emphasis added)

Considerations such as those outlined above inform some of the arguments against drug testing. These arguments include that there is an oppressive level of surveillance both in and out of competition, an erosion of trust between various stakeholders, and arbitrary and inconsistent regulations and applications (Waddington, 2010). Perhaps more centrally, however, sociologists are compelled to look at the various and regimented ways in which athletes’ training, diet, preparation, and physiological adaptations are managed, measured, and closely monitored in the interests of performance enhancement and to ask “Why are some methods and drugs banned and not others?” (Connor, 2009, p. 327). In other words, the anti-doping movement itself is as sociologically interesting as particular instances of doping, or systematic programs of doping. For example, one of the central arguments made by proponents of drug testing is that performance-enhancing drugs are detrimental to athletes’ health. And yet, if the health of athletes is a central concern, then drugs are a miniscule part of their personal health “problems.” To make elite sport healthy, it would make sense to pay less attention to anti-doping codes and place much more emphasis on broader structural solutions—including anti-training/ competition codes that limit the type and amount of training and competition to which an athlete can be subjected (Connor, 2009, p. 335). Even more radically, we might need to eradicate (or dramatically restructure) sports shown to carry an extraordinary risk of head injury that may result in dramatic long-term brain injury (Brayton et al., 2017).

DEVIANCE OFF THE FIELD OF PLAY In September 2017, Sydney Crosby, icon of Canadian men’s ice hockey, became the focus of a (social) media firestorm. Crosby’s National Hockey League (NHL) team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, accepted an invitation to visit the White House, a longstanding tradition for victors of major North American (men’s) sports leagues. Against the backdrop of other athletes’ and leagues’ criticisms of US President Trump’s “incendiary rhetoric” (Strashin, 2017), Crosby’s support of the Penguins’ decision to accept the invitation was heavily criticized; some in his home province of Nova Scotia (in which Crosby is generally seen as a near-deity) went so far as to suggest that it was an “act of moral cowardice” (DiPaola, 2017). The framing of Crosby’s decision as “cowardly” is only one small dimension of a much larger story that has been unfolding since Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL), garnered media attention after sitting during the US national anthem at a pre-season game against the Green Bay Packers on August 26, 2016. Kaepernick explained his reasoning in a post-game interview that day: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. . . . There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture

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murder” (Wyche, 2016). Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the US national anthem became a lightning rod for discussions of sports and politics, inspired many other professional and amateur athletes to engage in their own protests, ignited a backlash against the NFL in general and Kaepernick in particular, and, arguably, resulted in Kaepernick being “blackballed” by NFL owners. Sociologically, what captures our scholarly imagination is how this particular story became the focus of so much time, energy, and media attention, particularly in relation to the NFL. In a league plagued by criminal accusations and convictions— including gender-based violence—and concussion-related suicides of former players, why did kneeling during the anthem become the story of deviance: an act of deviance so egregious as to lead to blackballing and ongoing international news coverage? How is it that Kaepernick, rather than Roy Miller, Rodney Austin, Damian Miller, or Michael Vick became the face of deviance in the NFL? Analyses of “off the field” deviance sometimes focus on specific examples of deviance, such as sports crowd disorder. The aim of work like this is to broaden our understandings of sporting deviance, shifting the focus from participants’ behaviours in competition onto those involved in the production of sporting leagues, organizations, and practices, as well as more peripheral participants (such as fans). Often, however, the “object of inquiry” is not the deviant behaviour itself but the moral codes at play in particular contexts. These moral codes are made visible by the social control response to the behaviour or circumstances. For example, after the 2011 “hockey riots” in Vancouver, numerous press outlets, as well as police officials, referred to those involved as “anarchists” and left-wing “troublemakers.” Other analysts, meanwhile, see examples of deviance as an entry-point into investigations of systems of power such as gender. For example, one of biggest stories of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver was that of Canada’s women’s hockey team, jubilantly celebrating their gold-medal victory over their long-time US rivals, who took to the ice long after the after the game had concluded Celebrating their gold-medal win at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games subjected the Canadian women’s hockey team to a degree of public scrutiny not imposed on men in similar circumstances. Adam Stoltman/Alamy Stock Photo

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to celebrate by drinking beer and champagne and smoking cigars. Though the only people in the stands at this time were “a few Canadian and international journalists . . . completing reports and so forth” (Edwards, Jones, & Weaving, 2013, p. 682), images of the private celebrations quickly went public, and the team was said to have tarnished the reputation of women’s hockey. The IOC promised an investigation (a promise from which they later backed away), and Hockey Canada issued an apology. What is telling about the example highlighted above is not that this was the response of the press and Olympic officials; what is striking sociologically is that this particular celebratory behaviour was vilified. Only days earlier, Canadian skeleton athlete Jon Montgomery, after an emotional gold-medal victory, repeatedly drank from a pitcher of beer on national television in public while walking down a street in Whistler, BC. It was not the case, then, that the drinking behaviour of the women’s hockey team was deviant in and of itself. Rather, this example illustrates the notion that deviance is “relative” (Deutschmann 2002, p. 23); the behaviour was constructed as deviant in relation to particular (gendered) expectations about celebratory behaviours. And, in this case, these expectations reveal as much about gender as a social structure and system of social organization as about deviance. The expectations (made visible through the social control response to the women’s celebration) emphasize that “there are ways of being gendered that are ‘normal’ and ways that are ‘deviant’” (Newman, 2012, p. 65). Moral codes are also made visible by the ways in which the “accused” respond. Erving Goffman, in his influential work on deviance, defined stigma as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting,” (1963, p. 13), noting that which particular attributes are seen as discrediting are a product of society’s views as to what is deviant or different. A stigmatized person, then, is labelled as deviant or different, resulting in a spoiled identity; an athlete caught breaking the rules, for example, might find themselves labelled a “cheat” rather than an athlete. Oftentimes, though, individuals resist this labelling process by managing their identity in any of a number of ways. In 1991, for example, National Basketball Association (NBA) star Magic Johnson announced that he had been diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus, better known as HIV, the precursor to AIDS. This news rocked the NBA, and Johnson’s role in the league was called into question. Tellingly, one important component of the fallout of this announcement was Johnson’s insistence that he had contracted HIV not through same-sex intercourse, but because he had engaged in numerous extramarital (and, he insisted, heterosexual) sexual encounters over the years. He thus disavowed one stigmatizing label (that of being “gay”) by adopting another (being “virile” and promiscuous), one that comes with a more manageable stigma (or even celebration, if the person is male) and serves to reinforce the dominant “logic of containment” around HIV and AIDS (Cole & Denny, 2004).

DEVIANTIZED SPORTS AND SPORTING IDENTITIES Much of the discussion above has centred on questions of particular ways of participating in sport and physical activities, ways that come to be defined as deviant. At this point, we want to reflect on cases wherein one is constructed as deviant simply by participating in a particular sport at all: Although notably, some individuals will be constructed as particularly or differentially deviant due to how such sports intersect with gendered, racialized, or disabled identities. Still, as we shall see, in some cases an activity is thought of as deviant regardless of who undertakes it. In others, however, only certain individuals or groups are read as deviant for participating in certain kinds of activities, once again illustrating the extent to which deviantization processes are fluid, malleable, and interwoven with power. Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture

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One particular field of activities often constructed as deviant (and yet simultaneously heralded) is so-called “risk sports.” As Deborah Lupton (1999) argues, risk no longer signals the idea of probability—that a particular course of action might have a positive or a negative outcome. Instead, risk has come to signal only negative possibilities. Moreover, in what some call the “risk society,” risk has become a pervasive web of understandings about what is (or might be) dangerous in our lives and in society more generally. In the late 20th century and into the 21st, voluntary risk-taking has come to be seen “as foolhardy, careless, irresponsible, and even ‘deviant,’ evidence of an individual’s ignorance or lack of ability to regulate the self” (Lupton, 1999, p. 148). In their study of newspaper accounts of back-country adventurers who found themselves in need of rescue assistance, Laurendeau and Moroz (2013) highlight that participants in these kinds of activities are often thought to have a “death wish” or are believed to lack a sense of responsibility toward both themselves and others. These newspaper accounts of rescue operations, then, serve both to deviantize the participants in question and to remind readers of their own responsibilities with respect to managing their “risk profiles” (Laurendeau & Moroz, 2013). The point above is also germane to a consideration of how particular social actors are deviantized for their participation in sports thought to be characterized by a high degree of danger. Scholars, for example, have considered the ways in which women are deviantized for their participation in “risk sports,” while men are more often lionized for their bravery and adventurousness (Laurendeau, 2008). Consider, for example, the case of Alison Hargreaves, an elite mountaineer. When Hargreaves was killed in 1995, we saw the morality of risk taking go into overdrive. As a mother of two, Hargreaves had effectively abandoned her children by taking such extraordinary risks. The particular cultural definitions and limitations imposed upon Hargreaves ensured she would never dramatically, if fatally distinguish herself from the crowd as a climber, but rather as an errant, unthinking mother. (Palmer, 2004, p. 66)

The following year, however, when Rob Hall died on Mount Everest, the media did not criticize him for “abandoning” his wife and yet-to-be born child (Donnelly, 2004). The deviantization of such activities and participants, however, is not as straightforward as the examples above might seem to suggest: “Sport continues to celebrate risk while it is also troubled by it!” (Donnelly, 2004, p. 54). This ambivalence is evident in the case of risk sport participants who are constructed on the one hand as deeply irresponsible, while on the other hand lauded for their willingness to put themselves “in harm’s way” for the sake of exploration (consider the idea of a “first ascent” of an elusive peak), spectacular performance (think here of the recent Red Bull Stratos jump, in which Felix Baumgartner set several world records in performing a parachute jump from an estimated altitude of 39,045 metres), or simply for the sake of entertainment (such as the X Games). It is worth noting, however, that the celebration (and commodification) of particular individuals or sporting activities does not necessarily indicate that they are not deviantized. On the contrary, this very process of marking “extreme” athletes as spectacular is, in certain respects, simply another reminder that they are fundamentally different from “us.” So, though we celebrate their accomplishments and are often willing to explore “the edge” vicariously through them, we often do so from the comfort and safety of our living rooms, from where we might later say “I told you so” if and when things go wrong. 182

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CONCLUSION In this chapter, we have highlighted the importance of considering and interrogating the ways that deviantization processes work in tandem with various structures of social organization such as gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, race, and class, to name but a few. That is, considering deviance as relational and as an outcome of a social process, rather than a phenomenon to explain, allows us to delve into how unequal social relations are produced and maintained by constructing particular ideas about normality and abnormality. Underscoring power in this way allows us to “unpack the centre” to reveal as much, and perhaps more, about who and what are constituted as “normal” as about who is “deviant” and why.

Key Terms Ableism: The widespread, often-unacknowledged, belief system that people whose bodies and minds work in more typical ways are inherently more valuable, worthwhile, and socially desirable than those whose bodies and minds differ from a given society’s expectations. This set of beliefs often translates into individual and collective attempts to normalize or eradicate such forms of variation within bodies, social spaces, or society as a whole. Cyborg athlete: An athlete that is perceived to be successful only partly due to human performance, and otherwise due to the performance of the technologies that they use. Although most athletes use technology to compete (e.g., high-tech shoes, bobsleds, sticks), athletes with disabilities who use wheelchairs or prostheses are far more likely to be represented as cyborgs, and thus as less-skilled athletes who simply buy unfair performance advantages in the form of ever-advancing technology. Deviance dance: The social process by which certain actions, attributes, and subject positions come to be understood as deviant. Fluid drug: The notion that whether or not a particular drug is taken up as a social problem is connected to questions of context, histories of particular drugs, and systems of social inequality (e.g., race, gender, class). Moral panic: The process whereby a particular issue (e.g., performance-enhancing drugs) becomes the topic of intense public scrutiny, often including hyperbolic media constructions of the nature, extent, and scope of the problem. Positive deviance: Deviance that arises not out of a disregard for the norms in operation in a particular space, but out of over-conformity to those norms. Risk: A web of understandings about what is (or might be) dangerous in our lives and in society more generally. This web of understandings shapes how we understand ourselves and the world around us. Spoiled identity: As a result of a process of stigmatization, those defined as deviant are relegated to a lower identity status. Sport ethic: The criteria accepted by many as defining what it means to be a real athlete. Stigma: An attribute (or action, or subject position) that is seen as deeply discrediting. Supercrip: A way of representing athletes with disabilities that focuses not on their athletic achievements or the extensive social barriers that they face, but rather on the ways that they have inspirationally overcome their disability. Supercrip narratives have been criticized both for undervaluing athletic achievements and for naturalizing ableist barriers as things to individually overcome rather than things that should be systematically changed.

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Critical Thinking Questions 1. How is deviance the “outcome of a social process”? In what ways is this connected to questions of power? 2. Why is it important to consider the ways that deviantization processes produce ideas about who and what is “normal” as well as about who and what is “deviant”? 3. In what ways might particular questions about sporting deviance (including those asked by sport scholars) be part of the “deviance dance”? 4. What kinds of questions do social constructionist scholars ask about sport and deviance, and how do they differ from those that someone who sees deviance as a ‘social fact’ might ask? 5. What do we learn by “unpacking the centre” in contemporary examples of deviance and sport?

Suggested Readings Christiansen, A. (2005). The legacy of Festina: Patterns of drug use in European cycling since 1998. Sport in History, 25, 497–514. Henne, K. (2015). Testing for athlete citizenship: Regulating doping and sex in sport. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Kirby, S., Greaves, L., & Hankivsky, O. (2000). The dome of silence: Sexual harassment and bullying in sport. Halifax, NS: Fernwood. Murray, S. (2008). Pathologizing “fatness”: Medical authority and popular culture. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25, 7–21. Silva, C., & Howe, D. (2012). The (in)validity of Supercrip representation of Paralympian athletes. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 36, 174–194. Young, K. (2002). Standard deviations: An update on North American sports crowd disorder. Sociology of Sport Journal, 19, 237–275.

References Atkinson, M., & Young, K. (2008). Deviance and social control in sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bailey, Steve. (2008). Athlete first: A history of the Paralympic Movement. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Beamish, R., & Ritchie, I. (2006). Fastest, highest, strongest: A critique of high-performance sport. New York, NY: Routledge. Bereska, T. (2011). Deviance, conformity, and social control in Canada (3rd ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada. Brayton, S., Helstein, M., Ramsey, M., & Rickards, N. (2017). Exploring the missing link between the concussion ‘crisis’ and labour politics in professional sports. Communication & Sport, DOI: 10.1177/2167479517740342. Brock, D., Raby, R., & Thomas, M. (2012). Power and everyday practices. Toronto, ON: Nelson. Chase, L. (2008). Running big: Clydesdale runners and technologies of the body. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25, 130–147. Christie, J. (2004, December 3). Shared award annoys Paralympic hero. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/shared-award-annoysparalympic-hero/article18278879/. Cohen, S. (1972). Folk devils and moral panics: The construction of the Mods and Rockers. London, UK: MacGibbon and Kee.

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Cole, C., & Denny, H. (2004). Visualizing deviance in post-Reagan America: Magic Johnson, AIDS, and the promiscuous world of professional sport. Critical Sociology, 20, 123–147. Collins, T., & Vamplew, W. (2002). Mud, sweat and beers: A cultural history of sport and alcohol. Oxford, UK: Berg. Connor, J. (2009). Towards a sociology of drugs in sport. Sport in Society, 12, 327–343. Deutschmann, L. (2002). Deviance and social control (3rd ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Thomson. DiPaola, J. (2017, September 26). Penguins, Syndey Crosby’s White House visit ‘act of moral cowardice,’ Nova Scotia activist says. Retrieved from https://archive.triblive.com/sports/penguins/ penguins-sidney-crosbys-white-house-visit-act-of-moral-cowardice-nova-scotia-activist-says/. Donnelly, P. (2004). Sport and risk culture. In K. Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-related injuries (pp. 29–57). Oxford, UK: Elsevier. Dunning, E., & Waddington, I. (2003). Sport as a drug and drugs in sport: Some exploratory comments. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 38, 351–368. Edwards, L., Jones, C., & Weaving, C. (2013). Celebration on ice: Double standards following the Canadian women’s gold medal victory and the 2010 Winter Olympics. Sport in Society, 16, 682–698. Girginov, V., & Parry, J. (2018). Protecting or undermining the integrity of sport? The science and politics of the McLaren report. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 10, 393–407. Gleaves, J., & Llewellyn, M. (2014). Sports, drugs and amateurism: Tracing the real cultural origins of anti-doping rules in international sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31(8), 839–853. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2013.831838. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Greer, C., & Jewkes, Y. (2005). Extremes of otherness: Media images of social exclusion. Social Justice, 32, 20–31. Hall, S. (2000). Racist ideologies and the media. In P. Marris & S. Thornham (Eds.), Media studies: A reader (pp. 271–282). New York, NY: New York University Press. HealthlinkBC. (2017). Spinal cord injury: Autonomic Dysreflexia. Retrieved from https:// www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/ug2980. Howe, P. D. (2008). The cultural politics of the Paralympic Movement: Through an anthropological lens. London, UK: Routledge. Howe, P. D., & Silva, C. F. (2017). The cyborgification of Paralympic sport. Movement and Sport Sciences, 3, 17–25. Hughes, R., & Coakley, J. (1991). Positive deviance among athletes: The implications of overconformity to the sport ethic. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8, 307–325. Jackson, S., & Ponic, P. (2001). Pride and prejudice: Reflecting on sport heroes, national identity, and crisis in Canada. Culture, Sport, Society, 4, 43–62. Johnston, P. (2018, October 17).  How marijuana legalization will—and won’t—affect the NHL. Retrieved from  https://theprovince.com/news/national/patrick-johnston-how-marijuana-legalization-will-and-wont-affect-the-nhl. King, S., Carrey, S., Jinnah, N., Millington, R., Phillipson, A., Prouse, C., & Ventresca, M. (2014). When is a drug not a drug? Troubling silences and unsettling painkillers in the National Football League. Sociology of Sport Journal, 31, 249–266. Krieger, J., Pieper, L., & Ritchie, I. (2018). Sex, drugs, & science: The IOC’s and IAAF’s attempts to control fairness in sport. Sport in Society, DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2018.1435004. Laurendeau, J. (2008). “Gendered risk regimes”: A theoretical consideration of edgework and gender. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25, 293–309. Laurendeau, J. (2012). BASE jumping: The ultimate guide. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Laurendeau, J., & Moroz, S. (2013). Morality in the mountains: Risk, responsibility, and neoliberalism in newspaper accounts of backcountry rescue. Communication & Sport, 1, 382–399.

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Lupton, D. (1999). Risk. New York, NY: Routledge. McDermott, L. (2007). Governmental analysis of children “at risk” in a world of physical activity and obesity epidemics. Sociology of Sport Journal, 24, 302–324. McEwen, K., and Young, K. (2011). Ballet and pain: Reflections on a risk-dance culture. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 3, 152–173. Mills, C. W. (1961). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Grove Press. Newman, Z. (2012). Bodies, genders, sexualities: Counting past two. In D. Brock, R. Raby, & M. Thomas (Eds.), Power and everyday practices (pp. 61–85). Toronto, ON: Nelson. Palmer, C. (2004). Death, danger and the selling of risk in adventure sports. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference (pp. 55–69). New York, NY: Routledge. Park, J. (2005). Doped bodies: The World Anti-Doping Agency and the global culture of surveillance. Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 5, 174–188. Peers, D. (2009). (Dis)empowering Paralympic histories: Absent athletes and disabling discourses. Disability & Society, 24, 653–665. Peers, D. (2012a). Interrogating disability: The (de)composition of a recovering Paralympian. Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 4, 175–188. Peers, D. (2012b). Patients, athletes, freaks: Paralympism and the reproduction of disability. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 36, 295–316. Roelf, W. (2015, November 17). Paralympics get rough on scrotum-squeezing ‘boosters’. Reuters. Retrieved from https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-paralympics-boosting/paralympicsto-get-tough-on-scrotum-squeezing-boosters-idUKKCN0T61VS20151117. Rushall, B., & Jones, M. (2007). Drugs in sport: A cure worse than the disease? International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2, 335–361. Safai, P. (2013). Sports medicine, health, and the politics of risk. In D. Andrews and B. Carrington (Eds.), A companion to sport (pp. 112–128). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Strashin, J. (2017, September 25). As athletes protest, Crosby and the NHL strike an off-key chord. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/trump-protests-crosby-nhloff-key-chord-jamie-strashin-1.4306467. Teetzel, S. (2009). Sharing the blame: Complicity, conspiracy, and collective responsibility in sport. Acta Universitatis Palackianae Olomucensis. Gymnica, 36, 85–93. Toy, A. (2018, October 17).  Sports leagues in Canada ready for cannabis legalization. Retrieved from  https://globalnews.ca/news/4551600/sports-leagues-in-canada-ready-forcannabis-legalization/. “WADA should remove cannabis from banned list, says Canadian snowboard legend.” (2018, October 17). Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/rebagliati-cannabis-banned-listwada-1.4866595. Waddington, I. (2010). Surveillance and control in sport: A sociologist looks at the WADA whereabouts system. International Journal of Sport Policy, 2, 255–274. Wolbring, G. (2008). The politics of ableism. Development 51, 252–258. “World Anti-Doping Agency votes to reinstate Russia.” (2018, October 16). Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/wada-russia-reinstatement-1.4831159. Wyche, S. (2016, August 27). Colin Kaepernick explains why he sat during national anthem. Retrieved from http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/colin-kaepernickexplains-protest-of-national-anthem.

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Chapter 9

Violence and Sport Stacy L. Lorenz

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Describe the main approaches and theories that help us to understand violence in sport. 2 Explain the historical relationship between violence and masculinity in sport.

Violent sports have long been the object of public fascination. Katy Blackwood/Alamy Stock Photo

3 Assess the arguments made by proponents and opponents of fighting in men’s hockey. 4 Discuss the key concerns and debates around head injuries and concussions in sport. 5 Identify the three main categories of violence committed by male athletes, and consider how similar types of violence may be carried out by female athletes socialized into sport culture.

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“There is little justification for eliminating fighting from hockey, except for those who wish to see the sport emasculated even further. We’ve already ceded the ground on mandatory helmets and participation trophies for every kid that plays. Let’s at least let the professionals play the game as it was meant to be—tough, passionate and gritty.” Jesse Kline, National Post, 2011 (Kline, 2011, p. A3).

INTRODUCTION Since the development of the first organized athletic spectacles in the ancient world, violence has been a key part of the attraction of sport. Donald Kyle (2007) describes ancient Greek and Roman sport as “visceral, visual, and vulgar” (p. 22). For example, at the ancient Olympic Games and on elaborate tracks throughout the Roman Empire, chariot races could end in dangerous collisions and lethal crashes. The poet Statius observed that “one would think the drivers were pitted in savage war, so furious is their will to win, so ever-present the threat of a gory death” (quoted in Perrottet, 2004, p. 92). The Greek Olympic program featured wrestling, boxing, and a form of no-holds-barred fighting called the pankration. Participants in these combat sports expected broken bones, scarred and disfigured faces, and battered heads. Strangling was a legitimate strategy used by pankratiasts; one athlete managed to win an Olympic title despite being choked to death because his opponent was in so much pain from a dislocated ankle that he conceded victory first (Perrottet, 2004). Huge crowds gathered at the Colosseum in ancient Rome to watch animal fights and gladiator combats, where death was part of the entertainment package. Across the Roman Empire, exotic beasts were killed in large-scale hunts and public shows. Animals were used to execute deserters, runaway slaves, or criminals. And gladiators duelled—and often died—in violent mass spectacles sponsored by the state and important political leaders. In modern society, violent sports still command the attention of many fans and spectators. Michael Messner (2002) argues that the centre of sport—the most rewarded and renowned part of the world of sport today—is “defined largely by physical power, aggression, and violence” (p. xviii). The NFL is the most successful sports league in the United States, and it sells a combination of high-speed collisions and hard hits to massive stadium and television audiences. In Canada, the NHL is the dominant sports business—and the only major sports league that does not punish fistfights between players with ejection from the game. Fighting, body checking, and manly displays of toughness are widely regarded as crucial elements of hockey’s spectator appeal. Boxing was perhaps the most widely followed sport of the 20th century, although its economic and cultural significance has diminished in recent decades. However, the growth of mixed martial arts (MMA) since the 1990s, particularly the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), indicates the ongoing public fascination with combat sports and raises questions about the place of sporting violence in contemporary culture. In addition, gender identities are closely connected to our understandings of violence in sport, both historically and in the present. Involvement in violent sport has often been an incubator and a proving ground for manhood, but increasing numbers of women athletes are showing “that behaving aggressively, violently or deviantly in sport settings does resonate with females” (Young, 2012, pp. 167–168).

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When we pay attention to how broader social and cultural changes are related to ways that perspectives on violence and aggression in sport have also changed, as I do in this chapter, we are using a sociological imagination. Using our sociological imaginations helps us see ways that understandings of violence in and around sport are socially constructed. This means that these understandings are not “natural,” but instead emerged through struggles over how sports should be played, how sports have been historically institutionalized in “preferred ways,” and what playing sports signifies ideologically. It also means that agreements about what are acceptable and unacceptable forms of violence in sport can change (and have changed) over time, and are always open to debate.

DESCRIBING AND CLASSIFYING FORMS OF VIOLENCE Despite its ubiquity, the concept of violence in sport is not easy to define. Discussions of sporting violence are often inconsistent and contradictory because it is difficult to distinguish “violent” behaviours from acts that are “aggressive,” “rough,” “hard,” or “physical.” In addition, violent actions in sport are not only expected and tolerated, they are also frequently celebrated, respected, and admired. Michael Smith (1983) describes aggression “as any behaviour designed to injure another person, psychologically or physically” (p. 2). Violence can therefore be seen as a more specific form of aggression—it “is behaviour intended to injure another person physically” (Smith, 1983, p. 2). Although violent behaviour will potentially cause physical harm or injury, violent actions in sport are often permitted as an acceptable “part of the game” (Smith, 1983, p. 9). Another dimension of sporting violence occurs off the playing surface and in the stands and in the streets. Sports crowd violence can be defined “as acts of verbal or physical aggression (threatened or actual), perpetrated by partisan fans at, or away from, the sports arena that may result in injury to persons or damage to property” (Young, 2012, p. 42). The post-event riot, when fans respond to the outcome of significant sporting events, is the most common recent example of collective violence in North American sport. For instance, when the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 1986 and 1993, downtown Montreal was the scene of considerable looting, numerous arrests, and a significant number of injuries to both riot participants and police officers. On the other hand, the rioting that occurred on the streets of Vancouver in 1994 and 2011 and in Edmonton in 2006 was a response to the Canucks and Oilers losing the Stanley Cup Final (Young, 2012). Kevin Young (2012) introduces the concept of sports-related violence (SRV) to convey a broader sense of the manifestations of violence—and the outcomes of violence—that can occur within or as a product of the sporting context. This view widens the scope of thinking about violence in sport beyond the two most frequently examined elements of the issue: “violence among athletes, or player violence, and violence among fans, or crowd violence” (Young, 2012, p. 13). As a result, Young (2012) offers the following, more expansive definition of sports-related violence: 1. direct acts of physical violence contained within or outside the rules of the game that result in injury to persons, animals, or property; and 2. harmful or potentially harmful acts conducted in the context of sport that threaten or produce injury or that violate human justices and civil liberties. (p. 15)

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This perspective on SRV includes such behaviours as violent actions or crimes committed by participants away from their sport; injuries and other threats to athletes’ health; initiations and hazing of new members of sports teams; sexual harassment and sexual assault; parental abuse in youth sports; harm to animals; and acts of racism, sexism, and environmental destruction related to sport. While some of these examples are not usually considered as types of “sports violence,” “they represent concretely or potentially harmful acts that cannot be separated from the sports process and that only begin to make sense when the socially embedded character of sport is closely scrutinized” (Young, 2012, p. 14). I elaborate on this broader understanding of SRV later in this chapter. Smith (1983) attempts to categorize sports violence on a scale of legitimacy, as perceived by participants in the sport, the general public, and the legal system. His analysis includes two “relatively legitimate” types of violence—which he calls “brutal body contact” and “borderline violence”—and two “relatively illegitimate” types of violence—described as “quasi-criminal violence” and “criminal violence” (Smith, 1983, pp. 9–23). Brutal body contact is permitted by the official rules of a particular sport, while “borderline violence” does not conform to the rules, but nevertheless is widely accepted as a legitimate aspect of the sport. Examples of brutal body contact include tackles in football, punches in boxing or MMA, and the kind of physical play that is permitted in soccer or basketball. Examples of borderline violence include fistfights in hockey, “brushback” pitches aimed near a batter’s head in baseball, or the pushes and bumps that occur in a pack of distance runners—practices that might be penalized or, in some cases, lead to ejections or suspensions, but which “occur routinely” and usually can be justified within the context of the sport (Smith, 1983, p. 12). In addition, the “sanctions imposed by sports leagues and administrators for borderline violence have been notoriously light” (Young, 2012, p. 19). On the other hand, quasi-criminal violence “violates not only the formal rules of a given sport (and the law of the land), but to a significant degree the informal norms of player conduct” (Smith, 1983, p. 14). In hockey, for instance, “cheap shots,” “sucker punches,” and in recent years hits from behind into the boards—especially when these actions result in serious injury—would be regarded as quasi-criminal forms of violence. Other examples include vicious head butts in soccer, benchclearing brawls in basketball, or batters charging the pitcher’s mound to start fights in baseball. While such acts are more likely to lead to suspensions or fines than borderline violence, punishment is not always consistent for those involved in such incidents. In addition, legal authorities may become involved in dealing with this type of violence, although criminal charges for actions occurring during the course of a sporting contest are rare. Civil litigation is more common in these cases. Finally, there are incidents of criminal violence in which the degree of violence is “so serious and obviously outside the boundaries of what could be considered part of the game that it is handled from the outset by the law” (Smith, 1983, p. 21). While Smith’s categories are useful in attempting to understand sporting violence, the boundaries between these different types of violence are not always clear, and they can change over time. They are, in other words, socially constructed. For example, as the long-term consequences of concussions have become more apparent, the NFL and the NHL have come under pressure to make their sports less dangerous for players. Both leagues have made rule changes that are intended to reduce the number of head injuries sustained by participants, making some acts that had previously been regarded as allowable forms of body contact into plays that are 190

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now considered borderline, or even quasi-criminal, forms of violence. As a result, actions that have long been considered acceptable within the cultures of football and hockey are increasingly being seen as violations of the written rules and unwritten codes that operate within these sports. And if some of these trends continue, perhaps the ideology for what constitutes criminal forms of violence may change as well.

THEORIES OF VIOLENCE Two influential ideas put forward to explain violence in society (and, by extension, violence in sport) are the instinct theory and the frustration–aggression theory. The classic expression of instinct theory is Konrad Lorenz’s On Aggression, first published in 1966, which examines “the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species” (Lorenz, 2002, p. ix). In this view, violent behaviour is inevitable because it is rooted in human biology and “natural” instinct. Proponents of this theory also suggest that such violent impulses can be released “safely” through catharsis—a healthy venting of aggression that reduces the risk of further, more dangerous manifestations of violence. Sport, for instance, can function as a “safety valve” that provides a controlled outlet for potentially harmful, innate, aggressive energies. These explanations have clear connections to the structural functionalist perspective described in Chapter 2 to the extent that sport-related violence here is seen to “serve a need” and to stabilize both sport and society, and is an approved means for minimizing what some see as “unavoidable” forms of violence. The frustration–aggression hypothesis, on the other hand, proposes that individuals act aggressively, and perhaps violently, when they respond to frustration (Dollard, Doob, Millier, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939). According to this individualistic model, people release built-up frustration through a form of catharsis in ways that are similar to the dissipation of aggression described by the instinct theory. Sport, for example, is regarded as being cathartic for players and even spectators because it channels frustration into socially acceptable forms of aggression. However, sociologists have raised significant questions about the biological and psychological/individual bases of violence, the degree to which frustration alone can account for aggressive behaviour, and the extent to which catharsis permits the safe discharge of violence. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence to suggest that violence can be attributed to structural and cultural factors, that frustration is only one contributor to aggression, and that catharsis does not lead to the harmless expression of violence. This is an example of how using a sociological imagination might inspire questions about why justifications for SRV are so often individual-focused, and how SRV might be better explained by considering dominant ideological beliefs about the meaning of (and value of!) violence in sport (a point discussed in more detail later). A more convincing explanation of violence is the social learning theory (Bandura & Walters, 1963). From this perspective, violence isn’t simply “natural” or instinctual; it is learned through socialization processes and cultural understandings of what is acceptable and unacceptable in particular societies and social contexts. Aggressive behaviour is a product of observation and interaction with others, including peer groups, role models, and community institutions and other social structures. In sport, for instance, violent behaviours frequently become naturalized and normalized over time as acceptable, ordinary parts of the game. In this view, then, violence in sport is produced by sporting environments that put “people in situations where aggression visibly ‘works’ and is rewarded and that sanction and even applaud aggressive behaviour” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 177). When individuals are Violence and Sport

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placed in positions where they can observe violence, where they are encouraged to be violent, or where they are subjected to violence themselves, they are likely to respond aggressively or violently to a variety of situations. Social learning theory also raises questions about the validity of the catharsis hypothesis. If violence is a learned response, then violent acts are likely to trigger more violence rather than culminating in a safe, cathartic release of aggression. In contrast to catharsis theory, it is well known that aggressive environments produce aggressive actions, which regularly lead to more violent outcomes. As a result, “sports violence is a socially constructed and learned behaviour that serves to legitimate and foster more violence” (Hall, Slack, Smith, & Whitson, 1991, p. 217). In other words, sport does not reduce violent tendencies by providing a place for the healthy venting of aggression. For example, former NHL player Ken Dryden (1989) points out that hockey fights may be “therapeutic” by allowing players to purge violent feelings. However, fights are often “inflammatory,” as players “create new violent feelings to make further release (more fighting) necessary” (p. 232). In this way, “violence feeds violence, fighting encourages more fighting” and as the culture of hockey tolerates and accepts such acts they are “learned and repeated” over time (Dryden, 1989, p. 233). Sociologists have identified a number of external and historical factors that influence aggressive behaviour in sport. Sporting violence is encouraged by parents, coaches, other players, team owners and league officials, fans, and, especially, the mass media. If parents reward or approve of their children’s aggression, young players learn that such acts are acceptable and “normal.” For example, a Canadian lacrosse official reported, “I have seen young mothers at tyke and novice games (six to ten years old) screaming at their sons to ‘kill’ the opposing player” (Smith, 1983, p. 84). Players also need to impress their coaches if they want to maintain their position on a team. Coaches often want players to display toughness and aggression, and they expect players to engage in the type of violence that is necessary to secure victory. As former NBA coach Pat Riley stated during a lengthy break between playoff contests, “Several days between games allows a player to become a person. During the playoffs, you don’t want players to be people” (Messner, 2002, p. 49). Similarly, players gain respect from their peers by showing courage, demonstrating a willingness to stand up for their teammates, and executing the violent tactics that help the team win. Franchise owners and league commissioners are reluctant to denounce violence because they are confident that it contributes to spectator interest and, hence, profit. The NFL, for instance, has packaged and promoted violence since its inception, portraying players as gladiators, linking the game to war, and making aggression into art through its highly successful NFL Films series. Although UFC and MMA have modified some of their rules to make fights safer, the success of these sports as live events and pay-per-view television spectacles relies on the promise of vicious, often bloody, combat. The sports industry markets violence to fans, and people respond by buying tickets, purchasing merchandise, and watching violent sporting events on television. Smith (1983) explains that “the popularity of violent sports  .  .  .  has to do with the tension- and excitement-generating character of violence—not ‘mindless violence,’ as the media are wont to put it, but violence involving genuine drama, or ‘action’” (p. 100). Even promoters of soccer, tennis, and squash—not just hockey, football, and lacrosse—have incorporated violent and confrontational images into their commercial advertising (Smith, 1983). Finally, the media publicizes and exploits violence to capture audiences that can be sold to advertisers (see Chapter 11). In this way, the media models and legitimizes violence, conveying “the idea that violence is acceptable, even desirable, behaviour and that violence-doers are to be admired” (Smith, 1983, p. 118). 192

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VIOLENCE, MASCULINITY, AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION: HISTORICAL SENSITIVITY Contemporary attitudes toward violence in sport are linked to historical conceptions of violence and hegemonic masculinity. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the most influential masculine ideals in North America was an aggressive version of manliness that valued combativeness, competitiveness, and toughness. Many men, of course, actively consented to this vision of manhood. For instance, Duffield Osborn, a defender of boxing, wrote in the North American Review in 1888, “This vaunted age needs a saving touch of honest, old fashioned barbarism, so that when we come to die, we shall die leaving men behind us, and not a race of eminently respectable female saints” (as cited in Kimmel, 1996, p. 138). Anchored in concepts of physicality, martial spirit, and primitivism, this new standard of “muscular” manhood placed a high value on bodily strength and athletic skill. At the same time, changes in the middle-class workplace raised questions about the ability of men in clerical, sales, business, and professional positions to fashion a masculine identity through “soft” jobs in expanding corporate and government bureaucracies (Rotundo, 1993). The fear that young boys were spending too much time with their mothers and female teachers also produced anxiety about weakened manhood. Capitalist production increasingly took fathers out of their homes and into factories and offices, while their sons attended elementary schools and Sunday schools. Thus, through family, educational institutions, and churches, women were frequently in charge of the socialization of the next generation of men (Burstyn, 1999). This “overpresence” of women in boys’ lives was widely perceived as a significant problem. Michael Kimmel (1996) writes, “Men sought to rescue their sons from the feminizing clutches of mothers and teachers and create new ways to ‘manufacture manhood’” (p. 157). As frustrations with the new world of male white-collar work and concerns about cultural feminization and “overcivilization” spurred efforts to revitalize manhood in new ways, sport became one of the most important vehicles for countering effeminacy and conferring manliness. At the same time, sport was viewed as an instrument of social regeneration that would produce moral as well as physical benefits for young men. In this context, the violence and roughness of sports like boxing, football, hockey, and lacrosse were seen as acceptable—even necessary—in the building of manly character. When injuries and even deaths occurred in rugged sports, supporters argued that the benefits of such activities outweighed the harmful consequences of violence. For example, a historical examination of violence in hockey demonstrates the long-standing consensual acceptance of a high degree of roughness and brutality in the sport, and of hegemonic masculinity in general. In addition, the justifications for the institutionalization of violence that were articulated during the first wave of criminal trials involving hockey players in Canada in the early 1900s are still prominent in the culture and in the structure of hockey today. In 1905, for instance, during an assault case in Brockville, Ontario, Kingston’s George Vanhorn stated that in knocking an opponent unconscious with his stick during a brawl, he “only acted on the ice as an ordinary hockey player would in a strenuous game” (Lorenz, 2004). During a particularly vicious 1907 match between the Ottawa Silver Seven and the Montreal Wanderers, the Ottawa “butchers” left several Montreal men bleeding and unconscious on the ice. Although an Ottawa player was arrested for hitting a Wanderers player in the face with his stick, the judge in the case concluded that such Violence and Sport

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roughness was a normal occurrence in hockey, so the attacker was discharged. As the Montreal Star reported, “during a game, where all players must expect to receive their share of hard knocks, there was a scrimmage and a rough check” (Lorenz & Osborne, 2006, p. 142). The first criminal trial involving an on-ice hockey-related death in Canada occurred in 1905, following the death of Alcide Laurin as a result of injuries sustained during a game in Maxville, Ontario. Allan Loney, a member of the Maxville team, was arrested for striking Laurin, a member of the Alexandria Crescents, in the head with his stick following an altercation between the two players. During Loney’s manslaughter trial, his lawyer claimed that “a manly nation requires manly games,” and “when a life was lost by misadventure in manly sports it was excusable homicide” (Lorenz & Osborne, 2017, p. 710). Similarly, Saturday Night magazine cautioned against overreacting to Laurin’s death by curtailing participation in vigorous pastimes: There is little doubt that many of the qualities that have made the Anglo-Saxon race the world force that it is have been developed on the playground. It would be folly and contrary to the teachings of the past to recommend the abandonment or discouragement of strenuously contested games of athletic sport. It would be almost a national calamity if Canadian youth should discard their hockey and lacrosse sticks and puncture their footballs and grow deeply interested in croquet and “button, button, who’s got the button.” (Saturday Night, 1905, p. 1)

In other words, Laurin’s death was the unfortunate price paid for forging hardy Canadian manhood through the competitive rigours of hockey. And when the jury reached a verdict of not guilty, Loney was carried through the streets of Cornwall by a jubilant group of supporters.

Proponents of fighting in hockey argue that it decreases the level of dangerous violence in the sport. Matt Kincaid/Staff/Getty Images

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CONTEMPORARY SPORTING VIOLENCE Thinking Sociologically about Fighting in Hockey and “The Code” One of the most contentious issues in modern sport has been the institutionalization of fighting in men’s hockey. Although other sports penalize fighting with ejection from the game and possible additional punishment, combatants in hockey simply receive a five-minute major penalty—served simultaneously while the teams continue to play with five skaters a side—then return to the match. Critics of fighting have become more outspoken in recent years, questioning the purpose of this practice in the modern game and calling attention to the injury risks associated with fighting. Drawing from a structural functionalist framework, supporters of fighting frequently argue that it is a “natural” part of the sport, emerging out of the unique mix of speed, sticks, and rugged masculinity that makes hockey distinct from other team games. Some fights develop spontaneously during the course of action, when angry or frustrated players drop their gloves and use their fists against each other. Most hockey fights, however, result from the workings of an elaborate and unwritten ideological “code” that, according to its defenders, enables the players to “police” the game themselves—and ultimately to reduce the amount of violence in the sport through the strategic use of fighting. At times, players also attempt to instill a higher level of emotion in their teammates or alter the momentum of a game through fighting. These purposeful, tactical applications of violence demonstrate that fighting is learned behaviour in response to certain structural conditions, and, hence, a social construction. Ideologically, under the “NHL theory of violence” (Dryden, 1989, p. 233), fighting functions as a “safety valve” that releases dangerous tensions among the players relatively harmlessly and prevents more serious forms of violence, such as stick attacks and overly aggressive hits (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). According to the “code” that governs the NHL, a player who crosses the line with excessive or unacceptable physical play must “pay the price” for his actions by fighting one of his opponents or having a teammate fight for him. Thus, fighting acts as a deterrent to potentially more vicious actions on the ice. In this way, skilled players are protected, dirty players are punished, and cheap shots are minimized. In particular, fighting is supposed to limit the way smaller “rats” and “punks” use their sticks as weapons because they will be held accountable for their choices. However, opponents of fighting argue that harmful body checks and stick work could be curtailed more effectively simply by increasing the penalties for such acts, as these rules do in other levels of the sport. Handing out more major penalties, game misconducts, and suspensions would teach players very quickly that engaging in such behaviour will not be tolerated and would deter cheap and dirty play more effectively than fighting. The “code” that governs fighting is a variation of catharsis theory—the structural functionalist idea that fighting safely discharges the violence inherent in the sport. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, for example, has likened fighting to a “thermostat” that regulates the game. However, critics of the “code” note that catharsis theory has been discredited in many other contexts; in fact, violence generally leads to more violence, not less. Instead of preventing spearing, slashing, and dangerous hits, fighting frequently leads to more fighting or escalates into other forms of rough play. Marty McSorley’s assault on Donald Brashear in February 2000 could be seen as an example of this. The two players fought earlier in the game, but McSorley was

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unsatisfied with the outcome—and with Brashear’s taunting following the fight—so he challenged Brashear to another scrap. When Brashear refused, McSorley responded by clubbing him across the head with his stick. Similarly, Todd Bertuzzi’s notorious attack on Steve Moore in March 2004 shows that fighting does not effectively “police” the sport. Three weeks earlier, Moore hit Vancouver’s Markus Näslund with a legal, but in the Canucks’ judgment, unacceptable, check. As a result, Moore fought Matt Cooke in the next meeting between the two teams. According to the “code,” this should have resolved the issue, but Bertuzzi felt that Moore deserved further punishment and tried to entice him into yet another fight. When Moore refused, Bertuzzi punched him from behind and slammed him to the ice, giving Moore a severe concussion and breaking three vertebrae. Moore never played professional hockey again.

The Costs and Consequences of Violence Opposition to fighting in hockey has grown in recent years as the effects of concussions and head injuries have become more widely understood. At the same time, the NHL has faced increased pressure to eliminate hits to the head, “blind-side” hits that catch players by surprise, and hits from behind into the boards. Scientists have found evidence of significant brain injury in deceased boxers, professional wrestlers, football players, and hockey players, likely as a result of repetitive head trauma. In particular, a degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been detected in the brains of athletes who engage in these sports. Players suffering from CTE exhibit symptoms similar to dementia, and their brain function and capacity are severely impaired. CTE has been linked to memory loss, aggressiveness, confusion, paranoia, and depression (Concussion Legacy Foundation, 2018). The first NFL player diagnosed with CTE was former Pittsburgh Steelers lineman Mike Webster; more than 200 football players—one as young as 18 years old— have been subsequently confirmed to have this condition (Concussion Legacy Foundation, 2018). Unfortunately, a major difficulty with assessing CTE is that the only way currently to detect its presence is to examine the brain tissue directly following a person’s death. However, by 2017, 110 of the 111 deceased NFL players studied by researchers at Boston University had CTE. The brains of several hockey players have also tested positive for CTE. As a result, the NFL and the NHL are facing difficult questions about the level of brutality in their sports. Is such violence inherent in football and hockey, or are there ways that violence can be limited in these sports to reduce the risk of head injuries? In December 2008, Don Sanderson, a 21-year-old university student playing senior amateur hockey for the Whitby Dunlops, hit his head on the ice after losing his balance during a fight with an opposing player. He was in a coma for three weeks before he died in January 2009. Although Sanderson’s death triggered another round of discussion about hockey violence, the NHL made no substantial changes to curtail fighting or prevent similar incidents in the future. Commissioner Gary Bettman stated in February 2009, “I don’t think there is any appetite to abolish fighting from the game. I think our fans enjoy this aspect of the game” (Gillis, 2009, p. 51). Former NHL player and general manager Mike Milbury even responded to the assertion that a current player could die in a fight by saying, “Some guy’s going to die every day. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t play the game” (Arthur, 2009, p. S1).

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Can football be played safely, or are hits to the head a risk that players must accept as part of the sport? Herbert Kratky/Shutterstock

The league had a similar response to concerns about the possible consequences of violence when three NHL players passed away under troubling circumstances during the summer of 2011. Derek Boogaard died as a result of an overdose of painkillers and alcohol, and Rick Rypien and Wade Belak committed suicide. Boogaard was a classic NHL enforcer, Belak was a journeyman defenceman who fought regularly, and Rypien was a tough, hard-working player who was willing to fight much bigger opponents when called upon. The deaths of three such players in a four-month period prompted questions about the psychological pressures and health risks of fighting, particularly the possible connections to depression, substance abuse, and brain injury. Even though the damaging consequences of punches and checks to the head are becoming more apparent, many of the sport’s most outspoken defenders, like Don Cherry, continue to glorify rough, “old-time” hockey. Cherry’s defense of the game’s traditional character resists any move toward a less violent and physical version of hockey. As long as fighting and aggression remain markers of masculinity— and hockey continues to be seen as a training ground for manhood—it will be difficult to remove such forms of violence from the sport. Hockey “provides a public platform for celebrating a very traditional masculine ideal” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 190) at a time when societal roles for men and women are changing and opportunities for men to demonstrate toughness and physical prowess are diminishing. In the context of an unstable gender order, many men fear that the removal of fighting would not only jeopardize the masculine subculture of hockey, but trigger a wider erosion of manhood in society as a whole. For example, some commentators have suggested that taking fights and hard hits out of hockey would lead to the emasculation (Kline, 2011), “pansification” (Arthur, 2009), or “pussification” (Spector, 2013) of the sport.

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 9.1

CTE and Conflict Theory

One of the most significant developments related to violence in sport over the past decade or so is the growing understanding of the consequences of sporting violence for athletes, especially in relation to the possibility of brain injury. Increased media coverage of concussions, CTE, and the challenges faced by football and hockey players in retirement “has served to increase awareness of the concussion problem and encourage public debate about sport, health and safety” (Ventresca, 2015). However, significant questions remain about the commitment of professional leagues and sports organizations to accomplish meaningful change in reducing violence and injury as a labour/health and safety issue for players/ workers. The NHL, for instance, continues to highlight the lack of certainty in measuring the impact of concussions in order to justify inaction on reducing blows to the head, and to raise doubts about the league’s responsibility for players’ medical problems. From a conflict theory perspective, the NHL also views the struggles and difficulties—even deaths—of retired players as isolated, individual cases, rather than indications of broader structural issues related to violence within the sport and the working conditions of players who are ultimately alienated from their labour and from their own bodies. The NHL’s skeptical view of the connection between hockey and brain injury is in line with the caution expressed by the 2017 International Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sports, which states that there has not yet been a demonstrated “cause-and-effect relationship” between CTE and contact sports; therefore, “the notion that repeated concussion or sub-concussive impact cause CTE remains unknown” (quoted in Ventresca, 2018, p. 10). However, it is crucial to note that a requirement for clear “proof” of the link between hockey, CTE, and other degenerative brain diseases sets an extremely high standard of evidence before the NHL can be compelled to take more significant action to

ensure players’ safety. Under Gary Bettman’s leadership, the NHL has used the lack of completely settled science around brain injury—especially CTE—as an excuse not to change the sport (Dryden, 2017). Matt Ventresca (2018) argues that “proclaiming a need for more conclusive evidence is a strategic way for sports powerbrokers to delay making radical changes to league rules or styles of play, all the while selling their respective organizations as conscientious advocates for ‘good science’” (p. 13). But if we need “definitive knowledge before meaningful action can take place” (Ventresca, 2018, p. 13), will leagues ever be expected to act to protect players’ health? After all, “certainty is ever-elusive and there are always more studies to be done” (Ventresca, 2018, p. 13). A recent Toronto Star editorial summarized the NHL’s perspective: The increasing focus on CTE—a single terrifying outcome that can only be diagnosed after death—has skewed the entire debate around concussions in sport and created a ready excuse for Bettman and like-minded sport executives to delay much-needed safety measures. Bettman runs a lucrative business and likes his hockey product just the way it is. And, no doubt, lawyers have suggested that continued denials of any link may help defend against lawsuits by players who’ve suffered debilitating effects from head trauma, and their families. But let’s not pretend that’s got anything to do with the state of science. It doesn’t. It’s nothing more than an excuse to maintain the status quo and, shamefully, put players at unnecessary risk. (Star Editorial Board, 2018) (From Toronto Star. © 2018 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license.)

It is not difficult to see here how conflict theory can help us make connections between Bettman’s stated position on CTE, the profit motive that underlies professional sport, and the role athletes/workers play as mere instruments (and seemingly disposable ones at that) to enable profit generation for leagues and owners.

A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE IN SPORT Three Forms of Male Athlete Violence Michael Messner’s framework for analyzing violence related to sport is extremely useful in considering how different manifestations of violence are interconnected. Messner suggests that male athletes commit three main forms of violence, both 198

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during and outside of their sport: violence against women, violence against other men, and violence against their own bodies. He argues, “Far from being an aberration perpetrated by some marginal deviants, male athletes’ off-the-field violence is generated from the normal, everyday dynamics at the center of male athletic culture” (Messner, 2002, p. 28). The interactions and gender performances of male athlete peer groups are a crucial dimension of the triad of men’s violence in sports. Indeed, two group-based processes underlie men’s violence against women, against other men, and against their own bodies: “misogynist and homophobic talk and actions” and the “suppression of empathy” (Messner, 2002, p. 60). First, all-male groups bond through competitive, sexually aggressive talk that “serves to forge an aggressive, even violent, hierarchical ordering of bodies, both inside the male peer group and between the male peer group and any other group” (Messner, 2002, p. 38). Misogynist and homophobic insults and banter are used to punish and police non-conforming group members through “an everpresent threat of demasculinization,” exclusion, and humiliation, as well as to distinguish the group from outsiders (Messner, 2002, p. 60). At the same time, within athlete peer groups, boys and men learn to stifle any empathy they might have for women, for other men, and even for themselves. For example, rather than treated as equals, boys and men frequently treat girls and women as potential objects of sexual conquest and as opportunities to perform heterosexual masculinity for one’s male peers. In the book Our Guys, Bernard Lefkowitz (1997) points to a culture of disrespect for women as one of the factors that led a group of high school athletes in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, to assault and abuse their female classmates. Growing up within “a hermetic all-male world of teams and friends and brothers and fathers,” these privileged young athletes “just didn’t know girls as equals, as true friends, as people you cared about” (Lefkowitz, 1997, p. 91). After several members of the Glen Ridge “jock clique” were charged with sexual assault, a father whose daughter went to the same school recalled seeing the boys “getting stronger, closer, every time they got together and humiliated a girl.” He added, “My daughter would come home with stories—I’d just shake my head and wonder if they thought a girl was human” (Lefkowitz, 1997, p. 160). On the whole, there is considerable research suggesting “that the social worlds created around men’s power and performance sports subvert respect for women and promote the image of women as ‘game’ to be pursued and conquered” (Coakley, 2009, p. 213). A lack of empathy for girls and women is one of the primary reasons that male athletes, particularly in contact sports, appear to commit acts of sexual violence against women at a higher rate than nonathletes. Most researchers have concluded “that sexual assault by male athletes is bound up with wider social structures of gender and power and, in particular, with the acting out of codes of hegemonic masculinity, sexism, and misogyny—which, again, are far from rare in the often hyper-macho world of sport” (Young, 2012, p. 78). A study of reported sexual assaults at a range of US institutions with Division I sports programs indicated that male student-athletes were disproportionately involved in incidents of sexual assault on university campuses. For the years 1991 to 1993, male athletes made up 3.3% of the total male student population at these schools, yet they represented 19% of those reported to judicial affairs offices for sexual assault (Crosset, Benedict, & McDonald, 1995). However, despite the evidence of the overrepresentation of male athletes among those who engage in aggressive and violent sexual behaviour, the precise association between sports team membership and sexual assault remains unclear. In addition, disrespectful attitudes toward women are not unique to sport; the issue of men’s Violence and Sport

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violence against women is a broad social problem related to widely held views of women in society and culture as a whole. Still, students will be well aware of the sheer number of instances of sexual assault and domestic violence that have been committed by professional and amateur athletes in recent years. In committing violent acts against other men, male athletes are taught to objectify opponents as outsiders and enemies and to display toughness to their teammates. For instance, the following statement from Jack Tatum, a former NFL defensive back known as “The Assassin,” reveals how violence is rewarded and normalized in football while opposing players are eventually dehumanized: When I first started playing, if I would hit a guy hard and he wouldn’t get up, it would bother me. [But] when I was a sophomore in high school, first game, I knocked out two quarterbacks, and people loved it. The coach loved it. Everybody loved it. You never stop feeling sorry for [your injured opponent]. If somebody doesn’t get up, you want him to get up. You hope the wind’s just knocked out of him or something. The more you play, though, the more you realize that it is just a part of the game—somebody’s gonna get hurt. It could be you, it could be him—most of the time it’s better if it’s him. So, you know, you just go out and play your game. (quoted in Messner, 2002, p. 50)

Although Tatum called himself a “natural hitter,” his story highlights how “the tendency to utilize violence against others to achieve a goal in the sports context is learned behavior” (Messner, 1990, p. 207).

Injury, Violence, and Sport Culture Perhaps the most innovative element of Messner’s framework for understanding sporting violence is the way that he conceptualizes injury as a form of violence that athletes commit against themselves, and as a form of alienation. Male athletes often develop a sense of their bodies “as a machine, or a tool, to be built, disciplined, used (and, if necessary, used up) to get a job done” (Messner, 2002, p. 58). Injuries are an expected outcome of sport, even among children. However, athletes have long been judged on their willingness and ability to endure pain and to play hurt, even at the risk of their long-term health and well-being (Nixon, 1993). Boys learn that to show pain and vulnerability risks their being seen as “soft,” and they know from the media, from coaches, and from their peers that this is a very bad thing. Instead, they learn that they can hope to gain access to high status, privilege, respect, and connection with others if they conform to what sociologist Don Sabo calls “the pain principle,” a cultural ideal that demands a suppression of self-empathy and a willingness to take pain and take risks. (Messner, 2002, p. 58)

“The quickest way to earn the respect of your teammates and coaches is to play through injuries,” says NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. “The quickest way to lose respect is to say ‘Hey, I can’t go’” (quoted in Junod, 2013, p. 3). The expectation of violence committed against a male athlete’s own body is upheld by the sporting peer group through the same kind of misogynist and homophobic talk and actions that support other forms of violence. If a member of the group doesn’t meet this masculine standard by being willing to play hurt, he faces the threat of being labelled a girl, a sissy, a coward, a queer, or a pussy—something less 200

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than a “real” man (Messner, 2002, p. 58). At the same time, the ability to absorb pain and punishment without complaint is widely respected among players and consensually accepted as “common sense.” A veteran NFL player provides an insightful example of this attitude: If you get hurt, you feel like you’ve done something wrong, especially if you go on injured reserve. . . . Your pain threshold is used to decide what quality of football player you are, and what quality of person. Injuries are used as a gauge. And I’ve done it, too. Many times, I’ve been battling through injuries, soreness, or pain, and I’ve seen a young guy come off the field for something minute. And I’m thinking, What a pussy—let’s get a guy in there who’s tougher. (quoted in Junod, 2013, p. 3)

Some studies have suggested that this gender ideology has “softened” in recent years, and that there is now a greater openness to challenging traditional ideals of playing hurt and accepting injury without complaint (Anderson & Kian, 2012; McGannon, Cunningham, and Schinke, 2013). News reports and films like the PBS documentary League of Denial have started to “contest the rationalization of injury and the normalization of violence” in pro football, and question “the notion of head injury as merely ‘part of the game’ and a risk that players ostensibly understand” (Furness, 2016, p. 50). However, showing “a complete disregard for one’s well-being” continues to be “a way of ‘performing’ a highly honored form of masculinity” (Messner, 2002, p. 59). Another powerful example of the enduring influence and institutionalization of cultural attitudes toward violence and injury is the recent account given by 11-year NHL veteran Nick Boynton in The Players’ Tribune. Boynton, who retired in 2011, provided the following description of the cultural expectations that permeate the NHL, and the consequences of these structures for his personal health: The thing about hockey is that it’s a fast game. Things happen in the blink of an eye. People are flying around. And when you get your bell rung, it’s not like everything stops. You know what I mean? You just keep playing. That’s how it works. And it wasn’t really my coaches who pushed me to be that way. I expected it from myself. It was the only way I knew—me basically doing what I thought I was supposed to do, and what I saw everyone else doing. Push through, ignore the pain, finish out the shift, all that shit. It was all second nature to me. So I’m definitely not looking to blame my coaches or anyone else for all those head hits I took over the years and never really said anything about. I did it to myself. No doubt. But over time, all those hits to the head . . . they add up. And when you look back on it, honestly, it’s hard not to shake your head at how bad things actually were. I mean, I had eight or 10 confirmed concussions when I played in the NHL, but who knows how many others I just simply played through? I’d bet I had actually more like 20 or 30 of them altogether, and even that might be a bit low. But I just fucking toughed it out every time and kept things moving. (Boynton, 2018)

Although Boynton takes personal responsibility for his decisions and reflects on his own agency in the process, his words clearly demonstrate the overwhelming influence of socialization, culture, and hegemonic masculinity in shaping his determination to withstand violent acts and to repeatedly consent to physical punishment, including concussions. Violence and Sport

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Finally, while Messner’s analysis of the connection between manhood and attitudes toward pain is persuasive, it does not fully account for the dynamics of female athlete peer groups and how those interactions shape female athletes’ responses to injury. Charlesworth and Young (2004) found that female university athletes were willing “to place their bodies at risk by accepting injuries and tolerating pain” in ways that were “consistent with studies of male sports environments” (pp. 165–166). Similar to male athletes, these female athletes “quite frequently normalised and rationalised pain and injury as a necessary part of sport involvement” (Charlesworth & Young, 2004, p. 165). For instance, the group bonds and team commitments developed by female athletes, the pressure they felt from coaches and peers, and their acceptance of routine pain as an ordinary part of sport were comparable to the attitudes adopted by male athletes. Likewise, Young and White (1995) argue, “If there is a difference between the way male and female athletes in our projects appear to understand pain and injury, it is only a matter of degree” (p. 51). As a result of these similarities in the outlook of male and female athletes, Charlesworth and Young (2004) suggest that “the data invite us to consider the fact that while pain and injury are likely to be linked to gender socialisation processes, they may also be a product of socialisation into sport culture per se” (p. 178). In fact, growing numbers of female athletes are problematizing traditional constructions of masculinity and femininity, and deriving satisfaction and enjoyment from the physicality, intensity, competitiveness, excitement, skill, rigorous training, and psychological demands of various sports. Women athletes’ increasing involvement in sports like rugby, hockey, boxing, martial arts, and the expanding range of summer and winter extreme sports means that actions like “playing ultra-aggressively, hitting, being hit, becoming injured and injuring others are assuming an increasingly central place in female sport and female sport cultures” (Young, 2012, p. 168).

SPORTS-RELATED VIOLENCE: A WIDER VIEW Young (2012) has urged sociologists and observers of sport to look beyond conventional views of player violence and fan violence and examine “a far broader landscape of harmful, or abusive, behaviours” related to sport (p. 15). He suggests that if “the customary parameters of ‘sports violence’ are broadened to include aggressive, threatening, harmful or otherwise unjust practices enacted within the context of sport, it becomes evident that the subject matter may be far more expansive and varied than commonly assumed” (Young, 2012, p. 13). An expanded view of sports-related violence reveals the far-reaching implications and complexities of violent behaviours in sport. As Young (2012) points out, “there are many examples of how sport continues to encourage, systematically and in patterned ways, hyper-aggressivity, forms of exploitation and abuse and injuryproducing and community-compromising behaviours” (p. xii). For instance, “forms of SRV might include players being harassed, stalked or attacked away from the game, athletes involved in felonious ‘street crimes’, neophyte players being coerced by veteran team-mates into abusive initiation (‘hazing’) rituals against their will, animals being treated in a cruel and inhumane way, exploitative labour practices in the production of sport merchandise and forms of environmental damage in the preparation and hosting of large-scale venues and sports events” (Young, 2012, pp. 13−14).

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SRV also includes personal problems that are connected to broader public issues of sporting structure, including sports-related eating disorders; the chronic use of drugs like anabolic steroids and painkillers to enhance or maintain sporting performance; the sexual abuse of young athletes by coaches; and the unique risks of injury and death associated with extreme sports or dangerous activities like mountain climbing. A growing area of concern in relation to SRV involves “problem parents” who harass coaches and officials, threaten their children’s rivals, confront other spectators, encourage violent play, and pressure their “children into demanding or dangerous training regimens at extremely young ages” (Young, 2012, p. 83). On a bigger stage, incidents or threats of political violence or terrorism in relation to major international sporting events are types of SRV. In addition, many forms of gender and racial discrimination, the sexual exploitation and commodification of female athletes, homophobia, jingoism, and xenophobia can also be understood as manifestations of sports-related violence. These diverse formations of SRV offer a powerful perspective that runs through many of the issues and institutions examined in this book, from race, gender, and sexualities in sport, to youth sport, deviance, and health. Sports-related violence must also be considered in the context of the media, politics, business, globalization, and the environment. Finally, expanding our notion of SRV is valuable because it counters “the de-contextualizing inclination of existing research—that tends to view types of sports violence as separate episodes of social action, unrelated to other types or to broader social structures and processes—and highlights the links and associations that underpin many, if not all, forms of SRV” (Young, 2012, p. 14). For example, US national team luge athlete Samantha Retrosi (2014) connects the multiple levels of SRV she experienced during her career—her personal troubles—to broader public issues of social structure like the commodification and dehumanization of athletes in high-level international sport. She compares the Olympic Games to the fictional, dystopian world of The Hunger Games novels and films where children are forced to compete in televised fights to the death. Retrosi describes her historical dependence on corporate sponsorship and the ways in which the exploitation of her athletic labour underpinned the physical and emotional harm she endured: I grew accustomed to gritting my teeth under the strain of various forms of pain: the daily grind of hours of elite-level training, and the toll it exacted on my developing body; the pain I felt upon slamming into a wall of ice at 80 miles per hour; the biting winter cold that whipped across my thinly protected, spandex-clad form while sitting atop a frozen winter landscape. Then there was the emotional pain and fear, which took on various forms: the constant fear of bodily harm that scarred my mind, just as my body was scarred by more than a hundred stitches; the fear that I would disappoint those I loved and those who had invested time and money in my athletic career. There was the pain of failure, of hope swallowed by frequent defeat. Then there was the gendered pain: that of an adolescent female standing in underwear in the glass cube of sport science, each area of fat accumulation clinically pinched by a man with metal tongs. (Retrosi, 2014)

Using her sociological imagination, Retrosi’s critical reflection reinforces the value of adopting a “more diverse and encompassing” (Young, 2012, p. 16) approach to sports-related violence. Violence and Sport

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Hazing in Sport One of the key formations of sports-related violence is the practice of hazing: “the required performance by neophyte athletes of often traumatic initiation rituals in the pursuit of a new group identity and induction into a new team setting” (Young, 2012, p. 75). Margery Holman (2004) stresses that “the hazing actions that strip another individual of their freedoms, dignity, and self-identity, are components of a violent concept” (p. 51). Young (2012) calls athlete initiation “one of the worst kept secrets in all of sports” (p. 75), although he clarifies that “a growing trend toward policing and anti-hazing policy” in recent years, especially in school and university settings, “has changed its manifestation somewhat, as well as consolidated codes of silence around the practice” (p. 76). The practice of hazing has deep historical roots in educational institutions and the military as a means of socializing boys into manhood. In sport, initiations involve young men and women being forced into degrading and often dangerous situations as the price of admission into their athlete peer group (Johnson & Holman, 2004). Initiation activities are a means by which “veterans ‘test’ rookies and evaluate whether they have sufficiently adopted behaviours and beliefs required for membership” on a new team (Bryshun & Young, 2007, p. 302). Sports-related hazing frequently involves excessive alcohol consumption, nudity, simulated sex acts, humiliating or painful punishments, and other abusive and demeaning rituals. While the common public perception seems to be that hazing is a relic of a previous era, there is no doubt that forms of athlete initiation continue in present-day sport. For instance, in a recent study of hazing in Canadian university sports, more than half of the athletes surveyed reported experiencing at least one hazing behaviour, such as wearing embarrassing clothing, unusual public singing or chanting, attending a skit night or “roast,” or being forced to eat or drink something unpleasant (Johnson, Guerrero, Holman, Chin, & Signer-Croker, 2018). However, because this particular study did not ask respondents about their involvement in abusive, sexual, or alcohol-related initiation activities, the prevalence of hazing in Canadian intercollegiate athletics is likely even higher overall than these results indicated. In addition, female athletes (57%) reported more involvement than male athletes (43%) in the hazing rituals discussed in the study (johnson et al., 2018, p. 151). Bryshun and Young (2007) suggest “that hazing is linked to both gender socialization and sport socialization” (p. 319), with veteran male and female athletes alike supporting “aggressive and power-based methods in initiating rookie teammates” (pp. 319−320). Hazing rituals enable senior players to assert their status and superiority in relation to less experienced team members, although Bryshun and Young (2007) indicate that perhaps women do “not adhere as rigidly as their male counterparts to forms of aggression, dominance, and punishment in their initiations” (p. 320). Nevertheless, “for both male and female athletes, socialization into sport involves socialization into a culture that may denigrate, intimidate, and demoralize its rookies rather than encourage, respect and ‘celebrate’ them” (Bryshun & Young, 2007, p. 322). Former NHL player Daniel Carcillo recently raised renewed questions about hazing when he spoke out about the bullying and initiations he faced during the 2002−03 season as a 17-year-old rookie with the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League. Carcillo recalled initiation incidents in which he was forced to bob for apples in a cooler filled with a mixture that included urine and spit and beaten with the paddle of a sawed-off goalie stick. He also detailed situations where he and some of

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his teammates were stripped naked and trapped in the washroom on the team bus during road trips, or required to sit in the shower while veteran players urinated on them and spit tobacco juice at them (Chidley-Hill, 2018). Carcillo’s stories echo the hazing rituals described by Laura Robinson (1998), who demonstrated how players at various levels of Canadian junior hockey coerced their teammates into performing humiliating and embarrassing acts, all with the consent—and, at times, the participation—of coaches, other team personnel, managers, owners, and community leaders. Robinson persuasively connects a range of violent actions and behaviours committed by and against junior hockey players to a culture of exploitation and abuse that leads to these athletes becoming both perpetrators and victims of SRV. She argues that junior hockey’s structure and culture enable and encourage the economic exploitation of athletes, the pain inflicted by players against each other through hazing practices, and the denigration of young women in hockey communities. Robinson (1998) states that “in the social context of junior hockey, young men see themselves treated as objects, and consequently readily objectify young women” (p. 5). Therefore, it is not surprising that many of these women are mistreated or sexually assaulted by players who are seen as “young gods,” or that some male athletes are sexually abused by coaches, most notably in the case of Graham James (see Chapter 7). In these interconnected ways, hockey culture harms male athletes as well as the young females who frequently surround them. As a result, hazing can be seen as one manifestation of sports-related violence in an environment that condones and facilitates violence on many different levels.

CONCLUSION This chapter has provided theoretical, historical, and contemporary perspectives on violence in sport. More and more frequently, fan interest in violent sport is coming into conflict with the consequences of sporting violence for the health of participants. At the same time, questions are being raised about the responsibility of sports leagues to protect players from the damaging effects of sanctioned violence as part of a broader discussion of working conditions and labour relations. For example, more than 4,600 retired players sued the NFL in 2013 for the way it handled the issue of concussions and head trauma, “alleging that the league not only failed to warn athletes about the long-term dangers of repetitive blows to head, but also actively hid information about the threat to their mental and neurological health” (Hruby, 2013). Confronted by the prospect of a significant class-action lawsuit, the NFL eventually acknowledged a connection between football and CTE, and reached a settlement that would pay former players approximately $1 billion for a number of neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (Hruby, 2018). More than 20,000 retired players have registered for compensation, which may reach up to $5 million for each individual case. However, since the settlement was finalized in 2017, disagreements have continued over appropriate payouts, with players accusing the league of delay and intimidation, and the NFL making allegations of fraud and deception (Belson, 2018). A group of retired professional hockey players launched a similar class-action lawsuit against the NHL in November 2013. However, in July 2018, the federal judge overseeing the case in US District Court in Minnesota refused to grant class-action Violence and Sport

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status to the former players, meaning that lawsuits could only move forward on an individual basis (Westhead, 2018). The players’ inability to attain class-action status significantly limited their negotiating power with the NHL, leading to a tentative settlement worth a total of about $19 million that covers only the 318 players who had joined the lawsuit. The agreement provides for up to $75,000 for medical treatment and a potential cash payment of about $20,000 for each player, as well as a special fund of $2.5 million to help those with significant additional needs (Whyno, 2018). Unlike the NFL, the NHL continues to deny that there is a link between head hits in hockey and CTE. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has responded to questions about the impact of concussions by creating doubt about the science surrounding head injuries, while other hockey executives highlight the sport’s longstanding culture of violence: Bettman “retreated into his lawyerly instincts—where is the evidence; I don’t accept the premise; prove it— [and] his hockey guys retreated into their lifelong instincts—this is a tough game; this is how it’s played; this is hockey” (Dryden, 2017, p. 185). In the future, such injury settlements, court cases, and organizational responses to concussions will continue to be key sites for ongoing debate and struggle as we contemplate, criticize, and celebrate the violent acts that remain central to many of our favourite sports. Ultimately—and as there has been an increasing tendency to question what were long-standing taken-for-granted assumptions about SRV—it becomes easier to see how using a sociological imagination can help sensitize us to other ways that sport has been and might be played, and to remind us that the status quo of sports like professional hockey and football, and dominant understandings of acceptable and unacceptable violence, are more malleable than they might appear.

Key Terms Aggression: Any behaviour intended to injure another person, psychologically or physically. Catharsis: The healthy release of aggression (often through a form of “safety valve”) that reduces the risk of further, more dangerous manifestations of violence. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE): A degenerative brain disease, likely caused by repetitive blows to the head, which has been detected primarily in athletes who engage in contact sports, such as boxing, football, and hockey. Athletes suffering from CTE exhibit symptoms similar to dementia, and their brain function and capacity are severely impaired. Frustration–aggression theory: The idea that individuals act aggressively in response to frustration, which can be discharged safely through a form of catharsis. Instinct theory: The idea that violence is a “natural” form of human behaviour, rooted in an innate, biological instinct to act aggressively. Social learning theory: An explanation of violence as a product of observation and interaction with others. Aggression is learned through socialization processes and cultural understandings of what is acceptable and rewarded. Sports crowd violence: Acts of verbal or physical aggression taken by partisan fans at, or away from, the sports arena that may result in injury to persons or damage to property. Sports-related violence (SRV): Any aggressive, harmful, or unjust act carried out in the context of sport, which threatens or produces injury or damage to persons, animals, or property. Violence: A form of aggression that is intended to cause physical harm or injury.

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Critical Thinking Questions 1. Athletes have been hurting themselves for people’s amusement for centuries, going back to the pankratiasts of ancient Greece and the gladiators of ancient Rome. Even when fans know that players are being broken and diminished for entertainment purposes, they continue to enjoy the sport. At what point would a sport become so violent that you would stop watching it? Do you think public interest in violent sports will continue into the future? 2. As the dangers of contact sports become more apparent, the standard for what is considered “legitimate” violence appears to be changing. What are some examples of violent behaviours that were once considered acceptable within the norms of football and hockey, but which are now considered to be quasi-criminal actions deserving of significant punishment? 3. This chapter has contrasted biologically based theories of violence with socially and culturally oriented understandings of violent behaviour. Which of these models do you find most convincing in helping to explain violence in sport? Why do you find such approaches to be persuasive? 4. How do you think NHL hockey would change if the league penalized fights between players with ejection from the game—and perhaps suspensions for repeated fights—in a way that is similar to how other major team sports deal with fighting? Are you in favour of such a change? Explain your position. 5. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing Young’s broader definition of sportsrelated violence in understanding harmful and abusive behaviours in sport. Be sure to support your analysis with specific examples.

Suggested Readings Charlesworth, H., & Young, K. (2004). Why English female university athletes play with pain: Motivations and rationalisations. In K. Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-related injury (pp. 163–180). Oxford UK: Elsevier. Dryden, K. (2017). Game change: The life and death of Steve Montador and the future of hockey. Toronto ON: McClelland & Stewart. Forgrave, R. (2017, January 10). The concussion diaries: One high school football player’s secret struggle with CTE. GQ. Retrieved from https://www.gq.com/story/the-concussiondiaries-high-school-football-cte. Lorenz, S. L., & Osborne, G. B. (2017). “Nothing more than the usual injury”: Debating hockey violence during the manslaughter trials of Allan Loney (1905) and Charles Masson (1907). Journal of Historical Sociology, 30(4), 698–723. Young, K. (2012). Sport, violence and society. London and New York: Routledge.

References Anderson, E., & Kian, E. M. (2012). Examining media contestation of masculinity and head trauma in the National Football League. Men and Masculinities, 15(2), 152–173. Arthur, B. (2009, November 11). Winds of change a mere breeze. National Post, p. S1. Bandura, A., & Walters, R. (1963). Social learning and personality development. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Belson, K. (2018, April 13). N.F.L. says fraud plagues the concussion settlement. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/sports/nfl-concussion.html.

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Boynton, N. (2018). Everything’s not O.K. The Players’ Tribune. Retrieved from https://www. theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/nick-boynton-everythings-not-ok. Bryshun, J., & Young, K. (2007). Hazing as a form of sport and gender socialization. In K. Young and P. White, (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (2nd ed.) (pp. 302–327). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Burstyn, V. (1999). The rites of men: Manhood, politics, and the culture of sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Charlesworth, H., & Young, K. (2004). Why English female university athletes play with pain: Motivations and rationalisations. In K. Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-related injury (pp. 163–180). Oxford, UK: Elsevier. Chidley-Hill, J. (2018, November 29). Ex-NHLer Carcillo recalls alleged OHL beating with sawed-off goalie stick. CBC.ca. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/ carcillo-hazing-hockey-ohl-1.4920922. Coakley, J. (2009). Sports in society: Issues and controversies (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Concussion Legacy Foundation (2018). What is CTE? Retrieved from https://concussionfoundation. org/CTE-resources/what-is-CTE. Crosset, T. W., Benedict, J. R., & McDonald, M. A. (1995). Male student-athletes reported for sexual assault: A survey of campus police departments and judicial affairs offices. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 19(2), 126–140. Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., & Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dryden, K. (1989). The game: A thoughtful and provocative look at a life in hockey. Toronto, ON: Harper & Collins. Dryden, K. (2017). Game change: The life and death of Steve Montador and the future of hockey. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart. Furness, Z. (2016). Reframing concussions, masculinity, and NFL mythology in League of Denial. Popular Communication, 14(1), 49–57. Gillis, C. (2009, February 9). Can we please now ban fighting in hockey? Maclean’s, 122(4), 48–51. Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada: Sport, identities, and cultural politics. Toronto, ON: Garamond. Hall, A., Slack, T., Smith, G., & Whitson, D. (1991). Sport in Canadian society. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart. Holman, M. (2004). A search for a theoretical understanding of hazing practices in athletics. In J. Johnson and M. Holman, (Eds.), Making the team: Inside the world of sport initiations and hazing (pp. 50–60). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press. Hruby, P. (2013, February 8). The NFL: Forever backward. Sports on Earth. Retrieved from http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/41492872. Hruby, P. (2018, August 8). Startling jump in NFL player claims for Parkinson’s and ALS pushes payout projections past 65-year total in 18 months. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-nfl-medical-payouts-20180808-story.html#. johnson, j., Guerrero, M. D., Holman, M., Chin, J. W., & Signer-Kroker, M. A. (2018). An examination of hazing in Canadian intercollegiate sports. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 12, 144−159. Johnson, J., & Holman, M. (Eds.) (2004). Making the team: Inside the world of sport initiations and hazing. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press. Junod, T. (2013, January 18). Theater of pain. Esquire. Retrieved from http://www.esquire. com/features/nfl-injuries-0213-2. Kimmel, M. (1996). Manhood in America: A cultural history. New York, NY: The Free Press. Kline, J. (2011, October 13). Don Cherry is right, fighting is an essential part of hockey. National Post, p. A3. Material republished with the express permission of: National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. Kyle, D. G. (2007). Sport and spectacle in the ancient world. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 208

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Lefkowitz, B. (1997). Our guys: The Glen Ridge rape and the secret life of the perfect suburb. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lorenz, K. (2002). On aggression. London, UK: Routledge. Lorenz, S. (2004, December 28). On-ice violence has been a part of hockey for almost 100 years. Edmonton Journal, p. A16. Lorenz, S. L., & Osborne, G. B. (2006). “Talk about strenuous hockey”: Violence, manhood, and the 1907 Ottawa Silver Seven–Montreal Wanderer rivalry. Journal of Canadian Studies, 40, 125–156. Lorenz, S. L., & Osborne, G. B. (2017). “Nothing more than the usual injury”: Debating hockey violence during the manslaughter trials of Allan Loney (1905) and Charles Masson (1907). Journal of Historical Sociology, 30(4), 698–723. McGannon, K. R., Cunningham, S. M., & Schinke, R. J. (2013). Understanding concussion in socio-cultural context: A media analysis of a National Hockey League star’s concussion. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 891–899. Messner, M. A. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity and violence in sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25(3), 203–220. Messner, M. A. (2002). Taking the field: Women, men, and sports. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Nixon, H. L. (1993). Accepting the risks of pain and injury in sport: Mediated cultural influences on playing hurt. Sociology of Sport Journal, 10(2), 183–196. Perrottet, T. (2004). The naked Olympics: The true story of the ancient games. New York, NY: Random House. Retrosi, S. (2014, February 10). Why the Olympics are a lot like ‘The Hunger Games.’ The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/why-olympics-are-lot-hunger-games/. Robinson, L. (1998). Crossing the line: Violence and sexual assault in Canada’s national sport. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart. Rotundo, E. A. (1993). American manhood: Transformations in masculinity from the Revolution to the modern era. New York, NY: Basic Books. Saturday Night. (1905, April 1), p. 1. Smith, M. D. (1983). Violence and sport. Toronto, ON: Butterworths. Spector, M. (2013, October 16). The future of fighting in hockey is here, it’s in the CIS. Sportsnet. Retrieved from http://www.sportsnet.ca/cis/the-future-of-fighting-in-hockey-ishere-its-in-the-cis/. Star Editorial Board. (2018, May 29). Gary Bettman’s view on concussions in hockey has nothing to do with science. Toronto Star. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/opinion/ editorials/2018/05/29/gary-bettmans-view-on-concussions-in-hockey-has-nothing-to-dowith-science.html. Ventresca, M. (2015, January 16). Concussions aren’t only a medical issue. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/concussions-arent-only-a-medical-issue-35304. Ventresca, M. (2018). The curious case of CTE: Mediating materialities of traumatic brain injury. Communication & Sport, 1–22. Retrieved from https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library. ualberta.ca/10.1177/2167479518761636. Westhead, R. (2018, July 24). Ex-NHLers won’t appeal judgment in concussion case, lawyer says. TSN.ca. Retrieved from https://www.tsn.ca/talent/ex-nhlers-won-t-appeal-judgmentin-concussion-case-lawyer-says-1.1146800. Whyno, S. (2018, November 12). NHL, retired players reach tentative settlement in concussion lawsuit. CBC.ca. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/nhl-concussionlawsuit-settlement-1.4901856. Young, K. (2012). Sport, violence and society. London and New York: Routledge. Young, K., & White, P. (1995). Sport, physical danger, and injury: The experiences of elite women athletes. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 19(1), 45–61.

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Chapter 10 Sport and Health Parissa Safai

LEARNING OBJECTIVES Sports can be dangerous and not always seen as a healthy activity. Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans/ Shutterstock

After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Identify the sport-health paradox and debate the commonplace assumption that sport is good for one’s health all the time and for all people. 2 Discuss the health implications of conceptualizing the body as machine. 3 Explain the limitations of arguments that frame sport as a panacea for population health problems. 4 Describe the “culture of risk” in sport and the normalization of pain and injury tolerance in sport. 5 Apply the sociological imagination to such contemporary sport-health issues as healthism in sport, mental (ill) health in sport, and gender and sport-related injury. “Sport is a preserver of health” Hippocrates

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INTRODUCTION Hippocrates, often referred to as the “Father of Medicine” in recognition of his seminal contributions to the field of medicine—including advancing what we recognize today as systematic and clinical medicine and distinguishing it from ritual or superstition—once stated that “sport is a preserver of health.” As a researcher who explores the relationships between sport, health, and medicine, this quote routinely makes my internal red-flag radar (my practical consciousness) start to ping—I find I just can’t fully accept the too-tidy notion that sport preserves health for all people, all the time, as implied in the quote above. My resistance to this quote aligns with a large body of research on the interconnections between sport and health, scholarship that has steadily grown in the sociology of sport and physical cultural studies since the 1980s. Scholars from all across the world have turned their attention toward problematizing the commonplace and functionalist assertion that “sport is good for one’s health.” Through their analyses of a range of sport-health issues, these scholars raise important questions about sport and health, including: Under what conditions is sport healthy or unhealthy? And for whom? How do we negotiate or reconcile sport-related pain and injury in our daily lives? Who incurs the greatest risk with regard to health in competitive sport, and who incurs the least risk? Can sport systems be changed to ensure the health of those involved? And are we willing to change sport in order to ensure the health of all involved? Reflecting back on the different theories identified in Chapter 2 of this book, one can see that these types of questions draw on both macrosociological and microsociological traditions and are grounded within more robust theoretical perspectives, such as conflict, interactionist, and critical social theories. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to some of the contradictions associated with the too-common place assumption that sport is good for all people all the time. The chapter is organized in three sections. The first section explores the notion of the body as a machine and the health-compromising implications of such a conceptualization for those who engage with organized, competitive sport. The second section employs Mills’ sociological imagination to critically analyze the widespread belief that sport is a panacea (a solution for everything) for all types of health problems faced by individuals and groups in society. The last section critically examines the prioritization of performance above health in sport broadly, and in the structure of high performance sport specifically. The conclusion of this chapter pulls together the threads of the three sections and underscores the importance of exploring the issue of health and sport not as a personal trouble, but as a broad social phenomenon that “reflects an outer world of people, events, and forces. “The origins of our pain are rooted outside, not inside, our skins” (Sabo, 1989, p. 84).

THE HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF CONCEPTUALIZING THE BODY AS MACHINE Many students who choose to pursue studies in kinesiology in university do so for a range of reasons: they enjoy sport and physical activity, either as participant or as spectator, and want to link together their interest in sport and physical activity with their academic studies; they perceive that kinesiology is aligned with health promotion and therefore is the best stepping stone in their career progression into a

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­ edical, paramedical (e.g., athletic therapy or physiotherapy), or a related healthcare m field; they have come to accept the notion that the body is a performance machine and that sport is a site where the body’s performance is measured and enhanced; or sport is often routinely constructed in their practical consciousness as a panacea for all sorts of personal and social health troubles. These last two points require a bit of unpacking and this section will centre on the first of the two: the notion of the body as machine and its health-compromising implications. As noted already in the first chapter of this book, in the section on defining physical culture, we experience, possess, and are possessed by social and cultural bodies that are situated within historical, political, economic, social, and cultural contexts. Our bodies are also embedded within complex power relations such that we can both exert power onto others and have power exerted onto us (cf., Hargreaves & Vertinsky, 2006; Shilling, 2005). And yet, we are quite comfortable with thinking about the body almost solely in biological and functional terms—all across Canada, kinesiology students are encouraged to learn about what lies beneath the skin, from gross anatomy to cellular physiology, almost purely in terms of function: the femur does this and mitochondria do that. In turn, this pedagogical approach (which tends to de-emphasize and delegitimize other ways of understanding the body, such as the social body) promotes a conceptualization of the body as a sort of machine made up of various different parts that can be tweaked and enhanced and that may need, from time to time and depending on the problem, some degree of repair (whether fine-tuning or even major overhaul). For example, consider the following descriptions of the body as it is compared to a car in a free, online course on “Athletes and efficient hearts” offered by The Open University. We can think of the body as a device that operates on simple mechanical principles, that needs to be fuelled and that uses up this fuel as it is driven harder. The car [ . . . ] has an engine at its centre and the body has a heart. In both cases there are many moving parts. For the car, the movement is performed by hydraulics, gears and levers; while for the human, the movement is created through muscles connected to bones. In both cases the “machine”, both mechanical and human, needs to be fuelled in order to operate properly and uses fuel as it operates. A car uses more fuel as it works harder, such as when it is driven at higher speeds. Likewise, the human body requires more fuel (food and drink) as it performs greater physical activity (The Open University, n.d., pp. 14–15).

The normalization of this conceptualization of the body as a machine is not a new phenomenon. Take for example French philosopher René Descartes’s famous decree first published in 1637: je pense, donc je suis—“I think, therefore I am”—in other words, the mind and its ability to think are the only things of importance to a human being, and the body here is just a thing that gets the mind from one place to another. Or English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s description of the body from 1651: “For what is the heart, but a spring, and the nerves, but so many strings, and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body.” As the scientific and industrial revolutions fundamentally changed daily life and society, the conceptualization of the body as machine became increasingly dominant in science and medicine (Duffin, 2010; Safai, 2007). The reductionist paradigm of the body as machine has been explored and critiqued by many scholars who have raised concerns about how the mechanistic body discourages a sense of subjectivity and embodiment; encourages mind-body dualism; fosters a sense of the body as an object, and a fragmented one at that; denies emotional or spiritual engagement; 212

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privileges the scientific and technological gaze of the body; neglects the influence of history, culture, and, perhaps most importantly, power on our bodies (Shilling, 2005). As Pronger (1995, p. 29) states: “The power to make the body fit the machinery of society is . . . linked to knowledge of the body that conceptualizes it as a useful mechanistic object.” In other words, if we run with the idea that the car is a useful machine and that the body is like a car, then we are useful machines—the question then becomes, useful for what or whom? How does this all relate to sport and health? In our daily lives, we typically focus on how well machines perform a particular task and, if we understand the body as a machine, then this suggests that our focus is also on how well the body performs a particular task. There is nothing inherently wrong with such a focus on rationalization and goal-rational action, to return to Weber’s ideas. But, if that is the only way in which we consider our bodies or that is what we emphasize above other dimensions of bodily understanding (e.g., emotions such as pleasure, pain, fear, etc.; see Duquin, 1994), then we risk downplaying or just outright disregarding the lived experience of the body, including its health and well-being or lack thereof. In the context of sport, what this means is that we are more apt to fixate on how to build, engineer, and enhance athletic bodies (and body parts) in order to make sure that these athletic body-machines perform as well as possible. Again, we risk downplaying or disregarding the health or well-being of these athletic bodies, and further risk not even thinking of athletes as human beings—but, rather, seeing them as performance machines only (Shogan, 1999; Theberge, 2007). This fixation on performance is fundamentally reinforced in the sport context, as much of organized and competitive sport is focussed on the pursuit of “limitless performance” (Hoberman, 1992, p. 25) and “the conquest of the linear record” (Beamish & Ritchie, 2004, p. 366)—that is, the fastest time, the highest jump, the strongest lift, and the longest distance. But human bodies do have limits and bodily injuries (or worse) can occur. The paradox of sport is that, though most people think of sport as building, enhancing, and improving the body, sport also hurts and damages the body the more intense, rationalized, and competitive it becomes (Safai, 2013). At the highest levels of prolympic sport competition (e.g., professional sport or the Olympics), athletes are often held up as exemplars of ideal health as they pursue sporting glory for themselves, their team, or even their country. Yet, close investigation of their journeys to that level of competition often reveals both a lengthy list of health issues that arise from extraordinarily long hours in training and competition, and a general acceptance of the sacrifice of the body in the name of sport even though doing so often has longterm and painful consequences. Consider this elite female wrestler’s approach to pain and injury: “Even if you know your limits as an athlete, oftentimes, you’ll push way past that, especially if you have a very short season. . . . And you know if I play this game, I am going to die, and it’s gonna hurt so much, but I’ll have the whole year to rehab (Safai, 2001, p. 83). In many ways, this demonstrates a type of alienation among highly competitive athletes—the higher an athlete travels up the competitive sport ladder, the greater the emphasis becomes on their ability to produce winning performances and the less attention is paid to more intrinsic things such as the preservation of health (Theberge, 2008; Kalman-Lamb, 2018). As one junior (between 16−19 years of age) high performance triathlete puts it: “I really don’t care [about my health]. So, as long as my body can do what I want it to do then I’m fine” (Safai, johnson, & Bryans, 2016, p. 274).

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And when pain/injury occur, they are simply socially constructed as individual troubles that require individual management. Take for example the ways in which a coach describes his experiences working with junior elite triathletes, particularly one who suffers from bulging discs in her spine (Safai et al., 2016, p. 275): “They’re used to that culture of doing work, it’s just part of their normal physical activity routine. For one athlete here in particular, if she doesn’t do half an hour of core a day, she cannot function because she has two bulging discs in her back. But because she’s diligent, because she just takes care of it every day, she’s performing at, almost at an international level.” Drawing on conflict theory, this is another example of alienation where there is no real concern about such a significant health issue (bulging discs) for someone who is a teenager; rather the coach highlights how the athlete manages the injury as part of her sport labour in order to be able to perform at an international level (emphasis added). When it comes to an injury, the notion of the body as machine is also problematic, as we may be more apt to disregard the vulnerability of the body to injury— instead choosing to approach the rehabilitation and recovery of the injured athletic body in mechanistic, functionalist, and goal-rational ways. In their influential study on the sport injury experiences of elite athletes, Young, White, and McTeer (1994) highlight some of the ways in which athletes describe their injuries and rehabilitation according to a dominant ideology. These sociologists note that the elite athletes they spoke to not only routinely ignored or downplayed their injuries but, more generally, disassociated from their injuries and the repair of their injuries. Young et  al. (1994) describe such “injury talk” strategies as “rules of conduct or norms, but . . . also . . . various techniques of neutralization . . . and other linguistic justifications” (p. 183). The following are examples of how, through injury talk, “pain” was treated, and thus neutralized: hidden pain (denying or ignoring pain); disrespected pain (an attitude of ridicule toward pain); unwelcomed pain (a belief that showing pain or injury is demoralizing and thus pain/injury needs to be masked); and depersonalized pain (thinking and speaking about the body and injury in techno-rational ways where the body and injury are objectified and detached from the self). As one of their study participants shared: “It’s like it’s not a part of you. Like it’s a totally different portion or something” (Young et al., 1994, p. 186). In other words, the idea that “My engine broke down and I took it to the mechanic to get it fixed” is interchangeable here with the notion that “The ACL in the knee tore and I took it to a surgeon to get it replaced” or “The bone broke, and the doctor fixed it with metal screws and plates.” Interestingly, these strategies may be more pronounced among individuals or groups who are vulnerable to being perceived or treated as not suitable for sport. For example, Howe (2015) explores the ways in which Paralympic athletes often disregard and downplay their sport-related injuries because to admit pain or injury may reproduce ableist stereotypes about what a person with a disability may or may not be able to do and, in some cases within the Paralympic sport system, entire events get cancelled if there are too few athletes of a particular class of disability available to compete. This is such a significant issue that some Paralympic athletes disregard their health to the point where it is, in many ways, their very participation in elite sport that renders them disabled. Howe (2015, p. 163) offers the example of a former highly competitive wheelchair racer who “once had a champion’s physique, [but] was now confined to an electric wheelchair because his shoulders were no longer able to push a manual wheelchair”; in the athlete’s own words, “Look at me, I am now truly disabled.” 214

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 10.1

Mental Health and Sport

It is important to also acknowledge that the healthcompromising implications of the body as machine mentality are not just specific only to physical injury, but also to mental health and illness. In recent years, there has been growing scholarly attention being paid to the mental health issues among athletes, particularly for those participating in the highest levels of sport such as the Olympics/Paralympics or in professional sport. A consistent theme among scholars exploring this issue is that the all-encompassing focus on an athlete’s sporting performance contributes, for some, to a lack of attention to underlying mental health issues because anything that could negatively impact performance— including, for example, anxiety or depression—is distanced or suppressed. The encouraging news is that there is growing public awareness of the issue of mental health in sport, supported in large part by high profile athletes (e.g., Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes or former Toronto Raptor DeMar DeRozan) speaking publicly about their mental health struggles. This is a positive trend but, given our commitment to developing our sociological imaginations and our sensitivity to understanding individual troubles as public issues, we must be cautious simply because mental health issues in sport continue to be framed, more often

than not, as an individual athlete’s problem. In other words, rarely are aspects of the sport system itself—for example, the intensive training and competition regimens; the pressure from sport coaches, the public or media; the rigors of constant training; the consequences of abuse and harassment in sport (e.g., hazing/initiation rituals); etc.—identified as contributing factors to an athlete’s mental health struggles. It is often not until athletes retire from active competition and start to get some distance and perspective on their experience or start to move onto different chapters in their lives that we see critiques of the sport system emerging. Stories about hazing in sport, for example, continue to make news headlines, including the admissions of high-profile former professional hockey players that were victims of hazing during their junior careers and, as a consequence of their experiences of abuse, suffered from profound mental health issues including suicidal thoughts (Harrison, 2018). In a study of former elite child athletes, participants—all of whom participated in high performance sport as children—characterized themselves as survivors of the sport system (Donnelly, 1993); a powerful word that would not necessarily be used if sport was as beneficial and healthful as we often make it out to be.

SPORT AS PANACEA? As noted already in this chapter, there is a commonplace assumption that sport is good for us. In fact, supposedly, sport is so good for us that even just witnessing great feats of sport will have a positive impact on our lives. The grand claims often made during the Olympics (and other high performance sport mega-events) in official documents by spokespersons and media are grounded in the belief—commonly referred to as the trickle-down effect—that hosting or winning medals at a major games will positively trickle down to non-athletes and promote sport participation— participation that is, so the argument goes, unambiguously good for us (Donnelly & Kidd, 2014). Although arguments for the trickle-down effect are exceptionally prevalent, particularly in the lead-up to and during an Olympic year—and especially in statements from politicians and public officials who supported the event—empirical evidence for actual positive changes related to the trickle-down theory is weak or absent (Coalter, 2007; Donnelly et al., 2010). A major criticism of the theory is its lack of attention to the wide variety of social, cultural, and politico-economic factors necessary for full and equitable sport and physical activity participation among those who are apparently benefiting from

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the trickle-down, whether this be children (who are often highlighted as beneficiaries) or others (Misener, Taks, Chalip, & Green, 2015). Trickle-down rhetoric assumes that all individuals will want (i.e., be inspired) and be in a position to increase their participation in sport following exposure to a major games (i.e., after being inspired), yet there is substantial evidence of structural or systemic barriers for some individuals and communities that preclude full access to and opportunity for sport (Clark, 2008; Donnelly, 2013). Another major criticism of the theory is that it assumes that participating in sport is always healthful and neglects the research on the negative psychosocial and physical consequences borne by some as a result of participating in sport (for examples about the negative health consequences of sport among children and youth; see Donnelly, Kerr, Heron, & DiCarlo, 2014 or Kerr & Stirling, 2008). Yet, we still see the repeated promotion of the “sport as panacea” ideology by a wide range of national and international organizations and governing bodies. Using a critical social theory lens, we can see that the repeated promotion serves to reinforce particular ways of thinking about sport and particular relations of power that benefit some individuals and groups more so than others (e.g., those who are invested in and profit from public financial investment in professional sports; see Scherer, 2011 or VanWynsberghe, Surborg, & Wyly, 2013). I offer you two examples as to why we need to be alert to the “sport as panacea” argument. First, we need to pay close attention to the slippery language used when describing the benefits of physical activity, of which sport is but one form. In 2003, a report from the United Nations InterAgency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace (2003, p. 6−7) stated: In Canada, it is estimated that physical activity increases productivity by the equivalent of $513(CAN) per worker per year, resulting from reduced absenteeism, turnover, and injury, as well as an increase in productivity. Therefore, sports have significant economic benefits for business, communities, and nations. (emphasis added)

In 2005, the United Nations celebrated the International Year of Sport and Physical Education (IYSPE), noting that: Sport and physical activity are crucial for life-long healthy living. Sport and play improve health and well-being, extend life expectancy and reduce the likelihood of several non-communicable diseases including heart disease. Regular physical activity and play are essential for physical, mental, psychological and social development. Good habits start early: the important role of physical education is demonstrated by the fact that children who exercise are more likely to stay physically active as adults. Sport also plays a major positive role in one’s emotional health, and allows . . . valuable social connections, often offering opportunities for play and self-expression. (emphasis added) (International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005, 2005)

In both of these examples, sport is constructed as a common sense solution that can solve a myriad of health issues, and as beneficial to our physical, psychosocial, and emotional health. But I have taken care to emphasize key language in both excerpts to highlight the ways in which these physical culture terms (e.g., sport, play, exercise, etc.) are used interchangeably, and the ways in which sport is conflated (blended together) with other (non-organized, informal, non-competitive) forms of physical culture like play, exercise, and physical education. As noted by Safai (2008, p. 156): “Sport is a physical activity; sport is often used in physical education 216

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curricula; it incorporates exercise; and may even involve an element of play. However, this does not mean that sport is the same as physical education, exercise or play.” The blending together of sport with non-sport forms of physical culture helps to mystify or muddy the intensity and demands of organized, competitive sport—whether at a personal level in terms of the demands on our physical bodies, or at a societal level in terms of the demands on financial or environmental resources—and the near-constant repetition of this conflation helps to normalize or make commonsensical dominant (hegemonic) ways of seeing sport that don’t necessarily benefit all people all the time (e.g., the forced displacement of poor people to make room for the development of publicly funded sport facilities for professional men’s teams; see Whitson & Macintosh, 1996). Second, just as it is overly simplistic and problematic to equate sport to play or exercise, it is overly simplistic and problematic to suggest that sports and participating in sports will solve serious personal health issues. Many of the major, contemporary health problems that are faced by people all over the world—conditions like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease, malnutrition—are chronic in nature and multifactoral in causation. It is not just genetics or poor lifestyle choices that give rise to these conditions, and to locate ill health in only individualistic factors (i.e., as a result of genetics or individual lifestyle choices) neglects the importance of the structural conditions of our health. Compared to the ideology of individual responsibility for health, commonly referred to as healthism, a population health perspective emphasizes that the social determinants of health (SDOH)—the material conditions of our lives and the quantitative and qualitative distribution of power and resources among individuals and groups in society—have as much, if not more, influence on our health than genetics or lifestyle choices (Wilkinson & Marmot, 2006; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009).

HEALTHISM AND THE NEOLIBERAL ERA Healthism refers to the belief that health is a product of personal choices and individual practices (Crawford, 1980). Healthism permeates our lives, including physical culture, and thrives within neoliberalism which similarly encourages the individual to think and act solely through their sense of personal responsibility (and their consumption power!) as it hollows out and minimizes government responsibility for the health and well-being of citizens in the name of being fiscally responsible, in an effort to encourage business and industry (Ingham, 1985). Much like the ascetic Puritanism discussed in Chapter 2, healthism is a moralizing ideology, meaning that it stimulates ways of perceiving one’s self and behaviour in terms of good or bad. However, instead of acting in ways to prove loyalty to God, under healthist ideology, people will be health conscious, will control what they eat, will be more physically active, will purchase well and, in general, will make the right choices to “just do it” because that is what good, successful, and modern citizens do. Within healthism, “concepts as willpower, self-discipline and lifestyle operate to define health as a personal trouble rather than public issue” (Safai et al., 2016, p. 271), and poor health or even just the appearance of poor health is seen as a product of individual failure, lack of personal control, and weak character (Howell & Ingham, 2001). Bodies that don’t neatly subscribe to hegemonic ideals (e.g., fat bodies; see Ellison, McPhail, & Mitchinson, 2016) are marginalized or discriminated against outright, regardless of whether the individuals themselves are actually healthy or not. Sport and Health

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For example, despite severe and prevalent health conditions like anorexia and bulimia, slenderness is so extraordinarily privileged as a marker of personal restraint, self-discipline, and good character in our healthist society that “even those who are heavy but healthy elicit moral reproof: ‘s/he could afford to lose a few pounds!’ Cultural fanaticism for the socially trim body leads to guilt among those who don’t, quite literally, ‘shape up’” (White & Young, 2000, p. 57). Healthism deflects attention away from the health-compromising structures of social life. This ideology of individual and personal responsibility encourages us to focus only on our behaviours and lifestyle choices (e.g., the self-discipline to not eat fast food), rather than on thinking critically and acting collectively about the social determinants that underpin unhealthy behaviours and lifestyles choices (e.g., not having access to healthy food because one lives in a food desert or food swamp) and that which are beyond the control of an average individual (e.g., government policies and financial incentives to support farmers and the greater production of and access to fresh food for all). Within the SDOH paradigm, genetics and lifestyle choices interact and are embedded within broader social, structural, and environmental health determinants. The SDOH perspective posits that health travels along a social gradient or spectrum whereby people (individuals and groups) who are less advantaged in terms of their socioeconomic position tend to experience poorer health and earlier death than those who are more socioeconomically advantaged. Such a perspective directs our attention to such health-defining factors as income in/equality, food in/security, access to safe quality housing; access to education, employment and job in/security, and social supports and networks (Armstrong, Armstrong, & Coburn, 2001; Raphael, Bryant & Rioux, 2010). Furthermore, the SDOH paradigm locates solutions to ill health outside of “individualized approaches to disease prevention” (Raphael 2009, p. 193−194) and treatment. An SDOH proponent would argue that it is not enough to suggest that illness can be resolved if one plays more basketball; rather, we need to pay attention to the lack of accessible community centres for people to gather together, to the polluted neighbourhoods in which we are encouraging folks to go engage in sport, or to the precarious job market that prevents people from being able to purchase nutritious foods or their medications on a consistent basis, let alone any sports equipment needed in order to participate. The material conditions of our lives impact sport and sport participation—you need to have disposable money and available time to participate in sport. And, yes, one could argue that sport/sport participation positively impacts the SDOH, especially for those who experience upward social mobility (i.e., move up the socioeconomic ladder) through sport. The challenge with this argument is not that we can’t locate rags-to-riches stories about athletes who were able to move out of poverty and into wealth through their gifted sporting abilities. Rather, the problem is that these individuals are the exception and not the rule; upward social mobility in sport is so improbable that we refer to it more as myth than reality (Eitzen, 2016). Yet, the myth of mobility in sport is pervasive and, by being so connected to the ideology of meritocracy (the belief that one can advance in life on the basis of effort and talent, rather than wealth or class privilege), it helps to deflect attention away from the complex circumstances, the struggles, and inequities that many individuals experience pursuing the rags-to-riches dream (Spaaj, 2011). There is a lot around how power and material resources are equitably distributed (or not) in our communities that gets lost in such statements as “sport [is] a powerful means of enhancing society’s health and well-being” (Sport Canada, 2012, p. 2). 218

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Pain tolerance is understood as a physical and psychological marker of strength and character among many athletes. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

THE DARKEST SIDE OF THE CULTURE OF RISK In the sociocultural study of sport, researchers employ the term the “culture of risk” (Nixon, 1992) as a shorthand for the culture in which athletes tolerate pain, injury, and other types of health-compromising practices (e.g., excessive exercises, disordered eating) as an accepted feature of their sport experience (see Donnelly, 2004, for a nuanced discussion of risk in sport more broadly). Within the culture of risk, pain/ injury tolerance is understood as a physical and psychological marker of strength and character among both male and female athletes. The ability to “suck it up” or to demonstrate a “no pain, no gain” attitude no matter the consequence becomes proof of an athlete’s dedication to their sport and to their team. A key feature of the culture of risk, as noted in Chapter 8, is that the tolerance of pain and injury is accepted without question. Hughes and Coakley (1991) characterize this as a form of positive deviance to the sport ethic, a concept that refers to athletes’ over-conformity to a set of beliefs that athletes have “accepted as the dominant criteria for defining what it means, in their social worlds, to be defined and accepted as an athlete in power and performance sports” (Coakley & Donnelly, 2009, p.  155). Although not all athletes unquestioningly accept pain and injury as part of their participation experience or as part of their athletic identity, the culture of risk is common throughout sport and is particularly emphasized in some specific sport subcultures (e.g., professional hockey, mixed martial arts, elite gymnastics, etc.). Furthermore, the culture of risk in sport involves not just athletes but the range of participants in the sport system including coaches, administrators, healthcare clinicians (e.g., sports medicine doctors, athletic therapists, etc.), sport scientists (e.g., exercise physiologists, sport psychologists) and, arguably, even spectators. In their examination of the doctor-patient relationship in the NFL, Jenkins and Maese (2013, para. 2) describe that “there is medicine, and then there is National Football League medicine, and the practice of the two isn’t always the same.” They further add that there resides within the NFL “a medical culture with conflicts of interest and Sport and Health

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competing pressures, in which players feel they must play through pain and team doctors often utilize short-term cures to help them do it” (para. 5). Although one could argue that the recent attention paid to issues like brain injury or drug-use in sport represent some sort of tipping point in disrupting the culture of risk, more often than not, the culture of risk remains widespread, unspoken within sport circles, and without critical and sustained public attention to the consequences of the production and reproduction of the culture of risk in sport. This lack of public attention to the harmful consequences of the culture of risk is most pronounced when we look at the issue of death in competitive sport. For many, death in sport is seen as anomalous because sport is often thought of as something that is done by young, healthy people and death is not something commonly associated with young, healthy people. But tragically, there have been deaths in sport, particularly in high performance sport, that are caused by the very ways in which athletes subscribe to the culture of risk and the ways in which high performance sports are organized and produced as spectacles (cf., Safai, 2013). Take Nik Zoricic’s death as one example. On March 10, 2012, 29-year old veteran ski cross athlete Nik Zoricic died from severe neurotrauma following a run at a World Cup event in Grindewald, Switzerland. In ski cross, four skiers race down a mountain alongside one another to the finish line on a course that includes jumps and curves. In Nik’s final race, video shows that he veered to the right of the track following the final jump of the course near the finish line and went headfirst, at a speed of approximately 90 km/h, into safety netting and a hard-packed snow barrier. In the immediate aftermath of his death, police and International Ski Federation (FIS) officials characterized the death as a tragic but freak accident, and also intimated that Nik’s desire to win prompted him to take avoidable risks during the race. His family rejected the FIS’s position and called for an investigation of the course design and circumstances of Nik’s death, even going so far as to threaten legal action against the FIS (CBC News, 2013). To be clear, the family was adamant that they were not looking for financial compensation for the loss of Nik’s life, but they, wanted a ­thorough and transparent investigation of the circumstances of his death (Karp & Drapack, 2013). Two years later, a comprehensive report from the FIS confirmed that the course design was the determining factor in Zoricic’s death and that “more stringent guidelines” need to be enforced (e.g., more space between the finish-line post and fencing and the removal of hard objects, such as packed snowmounds, from near the finish line) in all ski events (Canadian Press, 2014). FIS officials noted Zoricic’s talent, skill, and experience in the sport as well as his careful demeanour—yes, ski cross is a high-risk sport but, as the FIS report confirmed, Zoricic was not one to take “unnecessary risks” (CBC News, 2013). If we reflect on Nik’s death in relation to our growing understanding of the pursuit of limitless performance in sport, especially in high performance sport, we see that the design of the course assumed the limitless athletic body and, in so doing, prioritized other elements such as “the need to fashion itself as an intense, fast-paced, exciting winter ‘extreme’ sport in order to attract audiences and corporate sponsors/ profit” (Safai, 2013, p. 113) above the safety (i.e., the bodily limits) of the athletes whose very bodies were engaged in the sport. The final FIS report professed a commitment to more safety-conscious course design—a positive commitment on the part of an international sport governing body but one that came too late for Nik Zoricic. As his mother, Silvia Brudar, noted: “Every cell in my body hurts—but knowing this could have been avoided, it makes it into agony” (CBC News, 2012). The issue of brain trauma or prescription drug use/abuse in professional men’s sport are two other examples of the ways in which the health and well-being of athletes 220

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has been deprioritized in the pursuit of limitless performance, spectacle, and corporate profit. These issues are discussed in the previous chapter on violence, but an emphasis on two key points is warranted. The first is that, unlike years prior, there is now widespread public acceptance that brain trauma and prescription drug use/abuse are prevalent public health problems in professional men’s sport, particularly in such collision or high-impact sports as gridiron football and ice hockey. For example, with regard to brain trauma in sport, as a result of the dogged efforts of researchers, physicians, and journalists since (roughly) the mid- to late-1990s, we now have troubling (and growing) evidence of a clinical connection between participation in professional football, concussions, and long-term neurological and cognitive problems. This is despite the National Football League’s (NFL) efforts to first outright deny and suppress this ­evidence—and then, subsequently, to downplay the prevalence and dangers of brain injury in professional football (see Fainaru-Wada & Fainaru, 2013, for one of the most comprehensive explorations of the NFL’s concussion crisis, including evidence of the NFL’s history of obscuring the seriousness of brain trauma in sport). Notable deaths of players, including tragic suicides, as well as recent class action lawsuits from former athletes in both the NFL and the National Hockey League (NHL) against their respective league owners have added to heightened public attention now being devoted to the issue of brain trauma in professional men’s sport. In a provocative essay, Gladwell (2009) compares professional football to dog fighting and argues that we show more collective concern about animal welfare than outrage for the human casualties of professional football. He argues that once we evaluate the game of pro football in terms of risks and rewards, it is the athletes who shoulder all the risks and get a fraction of the rewards, and it is the owners and the league who get all the rewards and shoulder none of the risks. In fact, he (and others) goes so far as to call for a ban of college football, as, he argues, amateur college athletes are students first and foremost and are not paid professionals who get financial compensation for participating in a dangerous activity.1 The violence of football has been compared to a dog fight. Jacob Kupferman/Cal Sport Media/Alamy Stock Photo

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This call for a ban has been met with outrage by some who insist that the institution of football can’t be changed. This raises the question—is it that football can’t change or that we don’t want it to change? The second key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a great deal of evidence that demonstrates that these health problems are rooted in the structure or organization of professional sport, in corporate negligence, and in medical negligence. In other words, unlike what we see in women’s sports around the issue of ACL injuries (see Box 10.2), neither brain trauma nor prescription drug use/abuse in professional men’s sport produces or reproduces the idea that male athletes are fragile or vulnerable because of their physiology. Rather, the reasons for the problems are external to men’s bodies. What about gender and its influence on sport-related norms and practices? In efforts to be seen as strong, tough, invulnerable, and brave, many male athletes tolerate health-compromising practices as a part of being a “real man” and, in fact, see the culture of risk as central to their masculinity (Messner, 1990; Sabo & Panepinto, 1990). Young (1993) stresses that the routinization of violence and injury as part of a masculinizing process is highly institutionalized in sport, meaning this is not about individual men and their individual actions. Yet, interestingly, we are starting to see more fluidity around and softening of hegemonic masculinity and, in relation to sport, some contestation of the willingness to sacrifice one’s brain for the game (e.g., see Anderson & Kian, 2012). To be clear, not all professional male athletes are choosing to foreground their health above the sport or above hegemonic masculinity or are even afforded the opportunity to act along lines that counter the leagues’ directives or counter hegemonic masculinity scripts. High profile and key position athletes (e.g., Sydney Crosby)—athletes who have pushed back in some way against the “no pain, no gain” and “suck it up” ethos of the NHL and NFL—enjoy levels of athletic capital, social privilege, and long-term contracts not shared by all athletes in all positions, and this makes a difference in some athletes’ ability to make and act on decisions that protect their health above performance (see Isquith, 2015). Some athletes are beginning to question the risk of injuries and are fighting the “no pain, no gain” mentality of their sport. Katatonia82/Shutterstock

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 10.2

Weak at the Knees

Sport remains an important site for the construction of hegemonic masculinity, including the use of force against oneself or against an opponent and the tolerance of pain/ injury inflicted onto one’s self through sport. However, a large body of research on women’s sport experiences makes clear that female athletes adopt similar norms and behaviours as male athletes when it comes pain/injury tolerance. Young and White (1995, p. 51) suggest, “if there is a difference between the way male and female athletes . . . appear to understand pain and injury, it is only a matter of degree” (see also Theberge, 1997; White & Young, 1999). In a very twisted way, one could suggest that this is evidence of women’s sports being on level ground with men’s sports; however, the twistedness of this logic is that the supposed equality rests upon the production and reproduction of the damaging culture of risk! Interestingly, though, we can still see some ways in which the bodies of women athletes are still socially constructed as weaker than male athletes. One example is the female athlete triad (a combination of disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis), a condition commonly isolated as a result of individual female athletes’ pathology; in other words, the female athlete triad is constructed as a personal problem and as evidence that women are not suitable for competitive sport. Yet critical scholars contend that the female athlete triad must be understood in relation to specific sport setting, forms, and practices, especially in contexts where “body surveillance and regulation are ubiquitous” (Cosh & Crabb,

2012, p. 20); in other words, we must see the female athlete triad as a social phenomenon and a public issue. Another example can be seen with the supposed “epidemic” of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries taking place in women’s sports (Sokolove, 2008). Critical sociocultural scholars (e.g., Theberge, 2015) suggest that framing ACL injuries as epidemic among women athletes risks reproducing the notion that women are more vulnerable than men because their bodies are innately more fragile or physiologically less strong, and therefore are in need of more guidance or protection. Theberge acknowledges that many clinicians and researchers are aware of this gendered bias and work to discourage such framing. But, this doesn’t mean, however, that bias does not exist—as evidenced by the sensationalist language of epidemic that gets used in relation to women’s knee injuries (Sokolove, 2008). The framing of women as weaker than men is not particularly new. In the Victorian era, women were actively discouraged from participating in any form of physical activity or sport out of fear that their life energy (which was believed to be quite finite) would run out or that they would lose their ability to bear children (that a woman’s uterus would fall out if she were to engage in vigorous activity; cf., Vertinsky, 1990). In mainstream science and medicine, those myths about women’s reproductive systems have been debunked and yet, in sport, we see a different version of the frail woman narrative being created around women’s knees.

Some have long since noted how sport organizations (i.e., leagues and teams) facilitate the culture of risk in sport. For example, Young (1993) argues that professional sport is a workplace where, unlike any other hazardous workplace settings, violence and injury done by and to athletes are accepted and expected occurrences. Young points out that the high rates of violence and injury are not just about the nature of the work undertaken by sport workers (i.e., by athletes), but more centrally are about the organization and supervision of that work. In other words, how pro sport leagues and teams are organized by owners and managers and how athletes are supervised by coaches and medical clinicians are just as, if not more so, hazardous to the health of pro athletes than the physical contact involved in the sport. Referring once again to conflict theory and Marx’s theory of alienation, players aren’t necessarily victims in these hazardous workplaces because, one can easily point out, they voluntarily choose these careers and how to practice them. But, does their choice to play these sports within these structured conditions mean that they consent to dangerous work and dangerous medical practice (e.g., the over-prescription of painkillers) and to what extent is their consent rendered meaningless by the organization and supervision of their work? Sport and Health

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As discussed in the previous chapter on violence, these types of questions are now more common in our conversations about professional men’s sports, as there is greater mainstream and consistent media and public attention being paid to the role played by sport organizations in compromising the health of players (whether with regard to brain injury or the over-prescription of drugs), and this has been, in part, due to major lawsuits against the NFL and NHL by former players. Despite legal settlement on the condition of no admission of liability in 2013, the lawsuit against the NFL by thousands of former players shone a spotlight on the NFL’s “concerted effort of deception and denial” in its handling of knowledge about the consequences of brain trauma on players’ health, as well as its subsequent hypocritical and superficial attempts to protect athletes’ health (see Zirin, 2011). Likewise, in 2018, the NHL reached a settlement in a lawsuit by former players who alleged that the league was negligent in its handing of head injuries, and knew of—and concealed—the relationship between brain trauma, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and participation in pro hockey. However, in reaching this settlement, which granted plaintiffs $22,000, the NHL, like the NFL, refused to acknowledge any liability whatsoever. Still, in both professional hockey and football, there is growing attention to and discussion of corporate negligence and medical malpractice around painkiller and other prescription drug use (see King, 2014). Athletes in these leagues have alleged complicity among the managerial, coaching, and medical staff against the players, including that prescription drugs were pushed onto them without their informed consent of the potential side-effects of long-term drug use in efforts to ensure that they performed on the field or ice. In other words, the players are saying that the leagues’ imperative (and profit motive) for them to perform and to work was prioritized above their lives and their wellbeing. For example, Anderson and Culbert (2015) explore the tragic story of Canadian hockey player Derek Boogaard, including his death at age 28 from an accidental overdose. In Boogaard’s case, he needed profound help for physical and mental health problems and received, instead of careful physical and psychological medical support, limitless prescriptions for major drugs known to be addictive. While the league and the owners of the team profited from his athletic labour on the ice, Boogaard bore all the physical and psychological risks involved with playing in professional hockey because the organization, structure, and supervision of the league facilitated that.

CONCLUSION The intent of this chapter was to disrupt the commonplace assumption that “sport is the preserver of health.” Since the 1980s, well before some of the issues explored in this chapter dominated our news headlines and became mainstream in our practical consciousness, sociologists have questioned this functionalist perspective in an effort to help us more fully explore the ways in which sport does not always protect our health and, at times, how it can actually contribute to our ill health. Drawing on more critical theoretical traditions and concepts such as alienation and hegemony, scholars locate the relationship between sport and health as a public issue, and not as a personal trouble. In so doing, they allow us richer insights into social relations and the distribution of power in sport that serve to benefit some, but not all. 224

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A keen sociological imagination sparks questions like: Under what conditions is sport healthy or unhealthy? And for whom? Can sport systems be changed to ensure the health of those involved? Are we willing to change sport in order to ensure the health of all involved? Some of the major themes raised in this chapter get at these questions by encouraging us to think about socially constructed norms and practices in organized, competitive sport, and to resist the normalization of such thinking as “the body as machine” or the re/production of the culture of risk—thinking which serves to deflect our attention away from the vulnerabilities of the body and privileges sport performance above health. To be clear, this is not an anti-sport chapter but rather a call—a call for us to imagine what healthy sport looks like in our daily lives, and to mobilize together to collectively bring healthy sport to life.

Key Terms Embodiment: A concept that can be loosely defined as the lived experience of having a body and being a body. Healthism: An ideological belief that health problems and solutions are located almost singularly at the level of the individual and their lifestyle choices, such as diet or exercise. Healthism emphasizes individual responsibility for one’s health, and scholars suggest that healthism’s encouragement of personal preoccupation with health deflects attentions away from collective action on health threats (e.g., environmental pollution or hollowing out workers’ health benefits). Positive deviance: In the context of sport, positive deviance refers to behaviour that goes so far (overconforms) in “following commonly accepted rules or standards that it interferes with the wellbeing of self or others” (Hughes & Coakley, 1991, p. 310). Reductionism: The theory that complex things can be understood by analyzing the simpler and smaller parts or components that comprise them. Social gradient: A term that highlights how health travels along the socioeconomic spectrum: people (individuals and groups) who are less advantaged in terms of their socioeconomic ­position tend to experience poorer health and earlier death than those who are more socioeconomically advantaged.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. Does it matter if the body is thought of and treated primarily as a machine or useful device? What are some of the consequences of this way of relating to the body? 2. What curriculum and types of knowledges are privileged in your institution’s kinesiology or physical education department? How does the discipline of kinesiology produce, reproduce, or resist the notion of the “body as machine”? 3. Robert Crawford published an article in 1977 entitled “You are dangerous to your health: The ideology and politics of victim blaming.” Discuss the title. What do you think he means by it? How does the notion of victim blaming relate to sport? 4. Reflect on your past experiences of sport-related pain and injury and, using your critical sociological imagination, discuss the social, cultural, and political dynamics that framed your experiences. What consequences have you had to deal with in regard to sport-related pain and injury?

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5. Sport-related pain and injury is not just about athletes. Identify other sport participants involved in the “culture of risk” and discuss their roles in the production and reproduction of tolerance for health-compromising behaviours.

Suggested Readings Gladwell, M. (2009, October 19). Offensive play: How different are dogfighting and football. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_ fact_gladwell. King, S. (2014). Beyond the war on drugs? Notes on prescription opioids and the NFL. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 38(2), 184−193. Laurendeau, J. (2011). “If you’re reading this, it’s because I’ve died”: Masculinity and relational risk in BASE jumping. Sociology of Sport Journal, 28(4), 404−420. Safai, P., johnson, j., & Bryans, J. (2016). The absence of resistance training? Exploring the politics of health in high performance youth triathlon. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(4), 269−281. Theberge, N. (2008). “Just a normal bad part of what I do”: Elite athletes’ accounts of the relationship between health and sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(2), 206−222.

Endnote 1. See https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/ban-college-football.

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White, P. G., & Young, K. (1999). Is sport injury gendered? In P.G. White and K. Young (Eds.), Sport and Gender in Canada (pp. 68−84). Toronto ON: Oxford University Press. White, P., & Young, K. (2000). Health and the new age ascetic. Reprinted in P. Donnelly (Ed.), Taking sports seriously: Social issues in canadian sport (2nd ed., pp. 56−58). Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing. Young, K. (1993). Violence, risk, and liability in male sports culture. Sociology of Sport Journal, 10(4), 373–396. Young, K., & White, P. (1995). Sport, physical danger and injury: The experience of elite women athletes, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 19(1), 45–61. Young, K., White, P., & McTeer, J. (1994). Body talk: Male athletes reflect on sport, injury and pain, Sociology of Sport Journal, 11, 175–94. Zirin, D. (2011, May 25). Roger Goodell’s message to NFL players and fans: Drop dead. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/roger-goodellsmessage-to_b_803766.html.

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Chapter 11

Sport, Media, and Ideology Jay Scherer and Mark Norman

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Discuss the main interest groups that make up the sports–media complex. 2 Explain why sports media rights are so valuable in the digital era.

The early days of sport on Canadian television. H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/ ClassicStock/Alamy Stock Photo

3 Discuss the most significant historical developments in the Canadian sportsmedia complex. 4 Explain why sports journalists have been criticized for their role in the Canadian sports–media complex. 5 Explain why men’s professional sport receives the bulk of media coverage in Canada. “I think rights fees are in for a correction.” Scott Moore, former President of Sportsnet, 2018

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INTRODUCTION The numbers and financial figures are staggering. In 2013, the Canadian telecommunications giant Rogers paid $5.2 billion to secure the exclusive media rights to NHL hockey in Canada until 2026. Only two years earlier, Rogers and BCE had paid more than $1 billion to acquire a 75% stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), in part, to secure the broadcasting rights to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, and Toronto FC (Rogers also owns the Toronto Blue Jays). These sports “properties” now air on numerous Rogers-owned regional and specialty channels (Sportsnet, Sportsnet One, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet World), BCE’s TSN and TSN2, and on a host of additional platforms (radio, magazines, and the Internet) that are owned by these deep-pocketed corporations. All of these deals, of course, underscore the unprecedented value of popular, dramatic, live sports content as both BCE and Rogers battle to secure subscribers and put together significant audiences on their platforms and distribution outlets that can then be sold to advertisers. The escalation of the costs of various sports media rights (see Tables 11.1 and 11.2) has also provided vast amounts of revenue and visibility for the various major leagues of North American sport and truly global sports organizations like the IOC and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). These are leagues and organizations that are themselves monopolies and cartels that have historically packaged and sold their exclusive sports products to various public and  private networks, telecommunications companies as well as e-commerce

Table 11.1 US Network Payments for Olympic Television Rights Winter

Location

Rights

Amount

Summer

Location

Rights

Amount (US$)

1960

United States

CBS

$50,000

1960

Italy

CBS

$394,000

1964

Austria

ABC

$597,000

1964

Japan

NBC

$1.5 million

1968

France

ABC

$2.5 million

1968

Mexico

ABC

$4.5 million

1972

Japan

NBC

$6.4 million

1972

West Germany

ABC

$7.5 million

1976

Austria

ABC

$10 million

1976

Canada

ABC

$25 million

1980

United States

ABC

$15.5 million

1980

Soviet Union

NBC (cancelled)

$87 million

1984

Yugoslavia

ABC

$91.5 million

1984

United States

ABC

$225 million

1988

Canada

ABC

$309 million

1988

South Korea

NBC

$300 million

1992

France

CBS

$243 million

1992

Spain

NBC

$401 million

1994

Norway

CBS

$300 million

1996

United States

NBC

$465 million

1998

Japan

CBS

$375 million

2000

Australia

NBC

$705 million

2002

United States

NBC

$545 million

2004

Greece

NBC

$793 million

2006

Italy

NBC

$613 million

2008

China

NBC

$894 million

2010

Canada

NBC

$820 million

2012

United Kingdom

NBC

$1.18 billion

2014

Russia

NBC

$775 million

2016

Brazil

NBC

$1.2 billion

2018

South Korea

NBC

$963 million

2020

Japan

NBC*

$1.45 billion

*In 2014, NBC paid US$7.75 billion for the exclusive broadcast rights to the six Olympic Games from 2022–2032.

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Table 11.2 Network Payments for Professional Sports Broadcasting Rights League

Broadcasting Rights

Value

Term

CFL (Canadian Football League)

TSN (Canada)

C$43 million/year

2014–2021

EPL (English Premier League)

BSkyB, BT Group

£5.1 billion (US$7.1 billion)*

2016–2019

MLB (Major League Baseball)

ESPN, FOX, Turner Sports

US$12.4 billion

2014–2021

NBA (National Basketball Association)

ESPN, ABC, TNT

US$24 billion

2016–2025

NFL (National Football League)

CBS, NBC, FOX, ESPN

US$39.6 billion

2014–2022

NHL (National Hockey League)

Rogers (Canada)**

C$5.2 billion

2014–2026

NBC (US)

US$2 billion

2011–2021

*Excludes hundreds of millions in broadcasting rights payments from networks in other nations. **Largest media rights deal in NHL history, and Canada’s largest sport media rights agreement.

(e.g., Amazon) and social media networks (e.g., Facebook), all of which are now competing for live streaming rights. The ability of the major leagues to sell their products as collective entities has only been made possible thanks to their ongoing exemption from anti-trust legislation. Of course, organized sport has, for several decades now, benefited handsomely from the substantial amount of “free” mass media coverage and the lucrative fees paid for the broadcast rights to their events and products. Beginning with the establishment of the first sports section in daily newspapers and the emergence of specialist sport journalists in the 1880s, regular detailed media coverage propelled the major leagues into the mainstream of popular culture and amplified an already broadening public interest in commercial men’s sport (Goldlust, 1987). To this day, for example, daily print and online newspapers provide commercial sport with an endless amount of promotional coverage, commentary, statistics, and injury reports (especially for fantasy sport enthusiasts), as well as trade rumours and gossip on a continuous news and publicity cycle. As the noted Canada author and sportswriter Roy MacGregor remarked, the sheer ubiquity of sport in the media has been worth its weight in gold for various teams and leagues over the years: “Ever see a team advertise? Why would you advertise when you have a daily advertisement called the newspaper?” (quoted in Gilbert, 2011, p. 251). At the same time, the creation of exciting sports “products” has, historically, provided advertisers valuable opportunities to reach significant audiences (of mostly affluent men) to market their products and brands. Indeed, in the rapidly changing digital landscape where Canadians have access to a seemingly endless flow of popular entertainment content on television sets, smart phones, and tablets, the value of live sporting events for capturing significant and predictable audiences has never been greater; this is precisely why sponsors are willing to pay significant amounts to advertise during sports broadcasts. The “liveness” of exciting broadcast sport content is the crucial element in these economic calculations. That is, unlike other popular shows and films that can be recorded or purchased independently on iTunes or Netflix (allowing viewers to skip commercial messages and watch at their own convenience), sporting events are generally consumed in real time and, thus, have far

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greater potential to expose audiences to advertising. For television networks, then, live sporting events are increasingly rare and highly lucrative “PVR-proof” broadcast products. In Canada, the most popular sporting events continue to capture significant audiences for advertisers. In 2010, for example, an average of 16.6 million Canadians watched Canada beat the United States in overtime in the men’s Olympic gold-medal game in Vancouver on the CTV/Rogers consortium’s eight channels—an all-time viewing record in Canada. Four years later, the 2014 men’s gold-medal game in Sochi, Russia, drew an average of 5.8 million viewers, despite an early morning faceoff time for Canadian viewers. In 2013, the final game in the first-round playoff series between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) set an audience record with 5.1 million viewers. Both the IOC and FIFA, meanwhile, claim to reach global audiences of billions of viewers during the Olympic Games and the Men’s World Cup, which is why television revenues have expanded significantly over the course of the last three decades. Still, it’s always important to interpret these statistics with a degree of skepticism; sport organizations (like FIFA and the IOC) report the highest audience numbers possible because these figures entice greater advertising revenue and, by extension, more valuable broadcasting contracts. Beyond these economic figures, there has never been a better time to be a sports fan: Canadians are now provided with vast amounts of live sports content on television and other digital and mobile platforms that were simply unthinkable even a decade ago. Indeed, in 2010, our use of the Internet for news, information, and entertainment surpassed that of television, marking a decisive shift in how we consume popular culture including sport (Marlow, 2010). Despite the recent expansion of viewing opportunities for sports fans, though, there are now also greater costs to access digital sport content that may exclude those Canadians who lack the financial resources to afford, or the digital media literacy to engage with, these new digital sport media. In other words, for technological and financial reasons, digital sports content inclusive of all citizens, including the less affluent in particular, is becoming increasingly marginalized, raising the prospect of a more pronounced division between the information rich and the poor (it has also increased issues associated with digital piracy). This is particularly important in light of the power of a small number of privately owned distributors (e.g., Rogers, BCE, Shaw, and Quebecor) to bundle television channels together in expensive packages, in addition to the emergence of a wide range of costly specialty sport channels or online streaming services that increasingly target niche markets of consumers who have the resources to access this content. Finally, there also remain significant limits in terms of the types of sports that Canadians are exposed to on a regular basis, including an ongoing lack of coverage of women’s sport, Paralympic sport, and amateur sport in general. Nonetheless, in an era of digital plenitude, paying sports fans can now follow not only the North American major leagues and the most popular sport mega-events, but also a host of other competitions (such as the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions League) that were once inaccessible to Canadian audiences in an earlier analogue era. Although Rogers and TSN/RDS, and to a much lesser extent CBC, still own the broadcast rights to most major North American sport competitions and international mega-events, in recent years multinational media Internet companies have begun bidding aggressively for these sports properties (and additional global sport events, such as rugby union and auto racing) and offering them to fans exclusively through online streaming. 234

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Digital technologies have also enabled fans to become “prosumers” of sport— that is, both consumers of sport media and, increasingly, producers of content through digital media such as blogs, Twitter, or digital video (Norman, 2017). Yet, while prosumption may empower sport fans by giving them a greater voice in the production of sport media content, it also supports the aims of sport leagues and media companies through the provision of free labour and additional content and publicity. For students born in the new millennium and who have never known a time when the Internet, Twitter, smartphones, and the multi-channel digital television universe did not exist, it seems unfathomable to think that there was a period when sports broadcasting and television itself were emergent phenomena in Canada and an even earlier era where live sports coverage was limited to the listening opportunities provided by another once innovative and popular form of broadcasting: radio.

THE SPORTS–MEDIA COMPLEX Given the sheer amount of digital sports content that Canadians consume, there is little doubt that mediated sport is a “significant component of popular culture and to understand it better is to understand more about the culture in which we live” (Whannel, 1992, p. 2). In this chapter, we provide a brief review of the symbiotic and mutually beneficial multi-billion-dollar partnership between the media, professional sport leagues/organizations, and advertisers in Canada. By symbiotic, we mean that these interest groups are now so highly intertwined and interlocked that they cannot be understood as separate entities and, crucially, they are motivated by a mutual desire for financial gain and subsequently flourish and profit by protecting and promoting each other’s interests. Together, these institutions form the sports–media complex (Jhally, 1984) and share not only similar economic agendas but a host of ideological interests that set distinct limits and pressures on the production and consumption of digital sport content in Canada, albeit under the governance of the public regulatory agency, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). However, the Canadian sports–media complex has historically been a contested terrain, so we begin this chapter by focusing on the political, economic, and ideological struggles between various public and private networks to secure the most popular Canadian sports content, especially because coverage of Canadian teams and athletes (amateur and professional) qualifies as Canadian content (according to the CRTC, all networks must fulfill specific Canadian content requirements). These developments have, for now, culminated in an oligopoly (a market dominated by a small number of firms) controlled by vertically integrated telecommunication empires that own and distribute large amounts of sports content to subscribers across a host of print, radio, television, and Internet platforms. While these broad economic dynamics and, indeed, our personal digital viewing habits may seem entirely natural and normalized—including the relatively new practice of directly paying for sporting and other media content—there is, in fact, a fascinating history of sports broadcasting in Canada, especially in the context of a much broader struggle between competing visions and models of broadcasting (e.g., public versus private institutions). These struggles inevitably raise questions of cultural citizenship and whether key elements of national popular culture (such as NHL hockey games) and events of national significance (like the Olympic Games) ought to Sport, Media, and Ideology

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be available for all Canadians in English and French “over the air” without additional costs or fees. Popular sports content distributed by various media play a critical role in organizing broader ideologies through which Canadians make sense of social relations and the ways that they see themselves and debate about society, culture, politics, and sport. The media, of course, does not sell an “innocent” product: They produce increasingly spectacular cultural sporting texts and rituals that are manufactured according to a host of economic, ideological, and institutional pressures, including widely embraced common sense understandings about what constitutes “good television” (Gruneau, 1989). Yet the sheer presence of mediated sport content—and the narrative structure of televised sport in particular—is so deeply taken for granted and familiar that we often only fully appreciate its existence as a social construction in the rare instances when the flow of sport content is significantly ruptured. As such, following many of the theoretical ideas outlined in Chapter 2 on critical theories, we examine some of the ideological effects of media as sites of struggle over various meanings and cultural identities, especially those associated with the social construction of popular understandings of community/national identity, gender, race/ethnicity, and militarism within and through various mediated sport rituals. Finally, we will also explore the role of sports journalists in promoting the fused economic and ideological interests of a male-dominated sports–media complex and some of the unique occupational structures that continue to set powerful limits and pressures on the agency of journalists that work to restrict a broader range of coverage (including critical commentary, coverage of female and amateur athletes, etc.). There is, however, now more audience interaction than ever before between sports reporters, fans, and at times players themselves, marking a profound transformation in the way Canadians consume digital sport content. So, too, is there a wider range of critical sports coverage on various sports-related blogs and increasingly popular podcasts.

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN THE CANADIAN SPORTS–MEDIA COMPLEX1 The era of televised sport began in Canada in 1952, when televised hockey was introduced on Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC in English and Radio-Canada in French. By the mid-1950s watching HNIC on CBC and La soirée du hockey on Radio-Canada had become a quintessential Canadian pastime inserted into the rhythms of the Canadian year. Pointing to the significance of the emergent medium of television in the sports–media complex, by the late 1950s revenues from both broadcasts had become a significant factor in the profits of the Montreal and Toronto NHL teams and in the finances of the public broadcaster itself (Rutherford, 1990). Importantly, the popularity of these hockey broadcasts also provided much needed Canadian content for CBC, which was, to the chagrin of many highbrow cultural nationalists, dependent on popular US imports to please audiences and attract advertising revenue. The early days of Canadian television and the televised sports–media complex were an era in which CBC and Radio-Canada enjoyed a monopoly position as national broadcaster with a mandate to express and promote a separate Canadian consciousness, given the increasing presence and popularity of US culture and Hollywood products for Anglophone Canadians north of the border. This was also, importantly, an era in which the ideological values of public service broadcasting

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were relatively dominant in Canadian society. The first of these values included universal accessibility and the establishment of the “viewing rights” (Rowe, 2004a) of Canadians—the ability to make television programming, to the extent that was technically possible, available “over the air” to all Canadians, including households in rural and remote areas, in both official languages on CBC and Radio-Canada. The second value of the public broadcasting era was universal access to a breadth of programs that were representative of a “common culture,” a notoriously difficult concept to define in light of the numerous enduring divisions in Canadian society. Still, the Canadian government’s commitment to a split-service public network in English and French made it possible to introduce a diverse and ambitious array of visual programs and a host of sporting events, including CFL football, wrestling, boxing, women’s softball, roller derby, and of course ongoing coverage of hockey on HNIC and La soirée du hockey. During the 1950s, then, watching sports on CBC and Radio-Canada was quickly “naturalized” and, through all of these developments, live televised sport became understood as important components of a Canadian way of life and as a “public good” that added to the lives of many citizens in both official languages. Nationally significant events captured the biggest audiences. For instance, five million Canadians watched the 1959 Grey Cup match between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats—only the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs gained a larger audience (Cavanaugh, 1992). In the early days of television, the Canadian sports–media complex was a predominantly masculine experience, and CBC and Radio-Canada supplied an overwhelming amount of male sport that was consumed by mostly male audiences with greater levels of disposable income and influence in family households. The sheer quantity of airtime dedicated to NHL hockey (and other male sports) on the public broadcaster reinforced the “symbolic annihilation” of women’s sport with regard to mainstream media and, once advertisers discovered the “remarkable ability of sports broadcasts to assemble affluent male consumers for their sponsors’ appeals” (Kidd, 1996, p. 260), the new broadcasting terrain was quickly structured to ensure that women’s sport was heavily under-represented. Second, telecasts of the most popular men’s sports on CBC—like NHL hockey and the CFL—were also public celebrations of hegemonic masculinity, an issue that we will return to shortly.

The CTV Era One of the most significant developments in the Canadian sports–media complex occurred in 1961 when CBC’s dual role as national broadcaster and regulator ended, thanks to the longstanding struggle by private broadcasters and their ideological allies to establish an independent broadcasting regulator, the Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG), nongovernment stations (second stations) in cities where CBC was installed and, crucially, the first national private network, CTV. Nicknamed “The Network That Means Business,” CTV’s emergence ran in stark contrast to the birth of CBC, which was intended to be a public instrument of nationhood. While the pursuit of profit unabashedly motivated the businessmen who invested in CTV, they also shared an ideological affinity to showcase Canadian private enterprise and to destabilize the ideological values associated with public broadcasting (Nolan, 2001). The paramount role of sport in the establishment of CTV cannot be overstated. In fact, CTV was established from an alliance between the proposed national network

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and the Toronto-based rightsholder to the 1961 and 1962 Big Four (eastern CFL) games, who sought to distribute these football matches to a national audience. As Nolan (2001, p. 27) notes, “(w)ithout the ‘Big Four’ eastern conference of the CFL, CTV might never have emerged as a network.” The entrance of CTV signalled a new era of competition for sports broadcasting rights between the public and private networks, resulting in significant increases in television revenues for various sports leagues, including the NHL and the CFL. Meanwhile, Canadian sports fans from coast to coast enjoyed an even greater amount of over-the-air coverage of sport on CBC and CTV. By the mid-1960s, within a climate of low unemployment, high disposable incomes, suburbanization, new levels of home and car ownership, and substantial increases in the purchase of light consumer goods, both CBC and CTV continued to stake their claims and battled to deliver significant weekend audiences for advertisers via expanded sports programming. The sport-driven audience commodity (Smythe, 1977)—a very predictable and stable demographic/market composed of mostly male viewers—was always the overriding product that these networks were putting together to sell to various advertisers and sponsors. Sports telecasts were thus “the lifeblood of the private broadcaster” (Nolan, 2001, p. 144) and delivered significant audiences—and specific market segments— that could be sold to advertisers. For example, more affluent men watched coverage of golf and represented a valuable commodity that could be sold to more upmarket companies via advertising. Coverage of golf continues to capture a demographic of primarily affluent, middle-aged, white men, which is precisely why, to this day, BMW, Rolex, and bank and insurance companies pay significant amounts of money to advertise during the most prestigious golf events and tournaments around the world. Networks continue to follow these historical patterns and use different sports to deliver specific audiences to advertisers that then attempt to interpellate, or hail, target markets of viewers through commercials. For example, compare the audience commodity that networks put together for advertisers during the Brier curling championship versus various World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) events and the differences in the commercials that air during these events. CTV began to provide coverage of a succession of Winter Olympics, beginning with the 1964 Games in Innsbruck, Austria, and also aired NHL hockey games on Wednesday nights, capturing significant national audiences for advertisers even on weeknights. CBC and Radio-Canada, meanwhile, enjoyed a significant presence in homes across the country through telecasts of professional and amateur events, including Canadian college athletics, track and field meets, alpine skiing, and the Summer Olympic Games. However, it was the sport of hockey and weekly broadcasts of HNIC and La soirée du hockey that remained the most valuable and popular sport program for the public broadcaster. Despite the entrance of the private sector in the Canadian television sports–media complex, CTV and CBC complemented each other on a number of levels and provided joint coverage of a number of highprofile events including the 1972 Summit Series between Team Canada and the Soviet Union, as well as the annual Grey Cup game.

A New Sport Broadcasting Order? By the early 1960s, though, the entrance of cable television began to radically transform the continental media landscape, thus opening the door to US television signals while siphoning audiences away from both CTV and CBC. In the context of the full 238

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emergence of cable television during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the competition between the public and private sector intensified and further escalated the cost of sports properties and increased the pressure on CBC and CTV to retain Canadian sports content. At the dawn of the 1980s, “[w]ith economic tremors from the end of the postwar boom rocking the economy and U.S. satellite signals nibbling at the edges of the broadcast system, the federal government developed a new policy vision for the communications sector” (Skinner, 2008, p. 7). Central to this new national communications agenda was an expanded subscription cable system to provide specialty Canadian and foreign programming services to help retain Canadian audiences. Unlike CBC and CTV, which were networks that were available “over the air” for all Canadians, these new specialty channels were discretionary services to be purchased from cable distributors as part of bundled packages. In 1984, the CRTC licensed the country’s first 24-hour cable sports specialty channel, TSN, owned by the Labatt Brewing Company (its sister network, the allsport French-language service RDS, was licensed in 1989). TSN had been created to promote the Labatt brand and products, but it was also a crucial circuit of promotion for the brewery to market its MLB team, the Toronto Blue Jays, to a principally male demographic that advertisers wanted to target. TSN quickly emerged as a wellresourced competitor to the major national networks (Sparks, 1992). The emergent cable channel was able to provide full coverage of entire tournaments, sporting events, and playoff series without disrupting regularly scheduled prime-time shows. This was a development that gave TSN an immediate competitive advantage and that “offered guaranteed exposure for sporting events, which in turn enticed other leagues and event organizers to side with TSN rather than any of the other ‘big three’ Canadian conventional broadcasters (Global, CTV, and CBC)” (Neverson, 2010, p. 37). Other political pressures were also on the horizon for CBC as the neoliberal era ascended (see Chapter 4). In 1984, the new Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, declared the country to be “open for business,” setting the stage for the landmark free trade agreement with the United States in 1988. The federal government also directed CBC to cut its budget by 10% and initiated a host of market reforms that would eventually lead to the further expansion of the broadcasting system in favour of the private sector. The political and economic pressure on the public broadcaster was further heightened during the early 1990s as a result of the impacts of globalization (see Chapter 14) and the emergence of new satellite and digital technologies. Indeed, all of these developments signalled a decisive “‘power shift’ toward the subordination of the public interest to private, commercial interests” (Winseck, 1995, p. 101), and the ascension of a new era of “consumer-driven” digital television characterized by unprecedented levels of consumer choice and customized channels (Skinner, 2008). The entrance of TSN/RDS heightened the competition for popular sport programming. It was at this point that private broadcasters and their ideological allies stepped up their lobbying efforts to force CBC and Radio-Canada to abandon their coverage of the most lucrative and desirable sports, most notably NHL hockey and the Olympic Games during an era of fiscal austerity. However, just as they had done for the past two decades, CBC and Radio-Canada executives vigorously defended the commitment they had made to HNIC and La soirée du hockey, pointing to the huge audiences that hockey attracts and the advertising revenues that hockey telecasts bring to the network—revenues that subsidize other programming and Canadian content. Sport, Media, and Ideology

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While the public sector was dealing with significant cutbacks, the CRTC continued to license new specialty sport channels owned by major corporate players in the broadcasting industry (e.g., Sportsnet2), while longstanding regulatory frameworks that kept broadcasting and telecommunications markets separate were rescinded by the federal Liberal government. Barriers that once separated print, broadcasting, telecommunications, and information/computer sectors evaporated and triggered an unprecedented acceleration of mergers and acquisitions and the formation of telecommunications companies like BCE and Rogers (Mosco, 2003). And, in 2001, over 200 CRTC-approved digital television channels were launched in Canada, including a host of new specialty sport channels that were financially backed by the most successful and, indeed, pre-established media players in the Canadian market (Neverson, 2010). All of these developments heralded and encouraged tighter integration in the communications and “infotainment” industries as deep-pocketed media conglomerates like BCE and Rogers began to aggressively compete for premium sport content that could be distributed and cross-marketed to subscribers through a host of integrated digital information and entertainment service arenas. Given their size, Rogers and BCE also have the ability to overpay for various sports broadcasting rights and amortize those costs over various properties and platforms, including multiple feeds and online streaming. As such, these telecommunications giants are now able to vastly outbid CBC/Radio-Canada, which are inevitably limited by constraints on the public purse and lack similar distribution networks.

The End of “Viewing Rights” for Canadians? Predictably, a number of properties that had once aired on CBC (e.g., CFL football, curling, the 2010/2012 Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, MLS Soccer, and the Toronto Raptors) were purchased by BCE and Rogers to supply much needed popular content to their growing distribution networks. In 2004, RDS (and its parent company BCE) secured the exclusive rights for all French-language NHL hockey broadcasts, marking the demise of the venerable La soirée du hockey at Radio-Canada and the ability of French Canadians to have over-the-air access to nationally significant sporting events, including the games of the Montreal Canadiens and the Stanley Cup playoffs. And in 2013, Rogers purchased the exclusive Canadian rights to the NHL for the next 12 years at a staggering cost of $5.2 billion while also shutting out its competitor TSN. CBC did, however, manage to secure an agreement with Rogers to continue to air HNIC for an additional four years once the public broadcaster’s contract with the NHL expired in 2014; in 2017, this was extended to 2026, the end of Rogers’s exclusive deal. While CBC pays nothing for this arrangement, it does not receive a dime of revenue from the advertising that airs during HNIC, although it does retain the ability to promote its other programming. Rogers has total editorial control over the show and the private company has essentially gained control over the public airwaves. However, even without editorial control and the ability to generate advertising income, the continuation of HNIC in the short term provides vital primetime Canadian content and spares CBC from having to produce other costly original programming to fill the void left by hockey telecasts. For now, though, hockey fans are able to enjoy “free” access to HNIC (although not to French broadcasts), although they may eventually be required to

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pay increasingly costly fees to access NHL content on Rogers’s television channels and online platforms. These developments would signal the end of the “viewing rights” of Canadians to have access to over-the-air coverage of hockey telecasts, while also marking another stage in the privatization of the sports–media complex. Indeed, CBC and Canadian taxpayers have built and supported the NHL for over 50 years through extensive and high-quality coverage of the sport; it appears now that the private sector is set to reap the substantial benefits from this historical public foundation. All of these developments, moreover, raise important questions surrounding the institution of public broadcasting in Canada and the type of role that the public broadcaster should play in contemporary Canadian life. For example, will CBC be able to survive without NHL hockey after its agreement with Rogers expires in 2026? Or is it destined to morph into a PBS-like model (subscriber supported) that only provides content that the private networks deem to be unprofitable? What would Canada look like without the presence of a public broadcaster that has the ability to provide a wide range of content (including sport) for all Canadians, regardless of their level of income? Should there be legislation, as there is in Australia and many European countries, to enshrine the “viewing rights” of Canadians to have over-the-air access to sporting events of national significance (Scherer & Rowe, 2013)? And should these rights be extended to digital media, which have become major forms of sport consumption for millions of Canadians? These are not solely the private issues of hockey fans, but rather a public matter of national interest that affects all Canadians.

THE IDEOLOGICAL ROLE OF THE MEDIA (Re)presenting Sport The organization and structure of various sports have been profoundly transformed into increasingly exciting and dramatic spectacles that could be sold to television networks. These networks, in turn, produced entertaining sports programming to capture the imagination and attention of sizable audiences to be delivered to advertisers. Beginning in the 1960s, the imperatives of television dictated substantial changes to professional (and amateur) sport, including: rescheduling game times to prime time to maximize television viewing audiences; the introduction of prearranged television timeouts for advertisers that inevitably interrupt the flow of various games; the relocation of franchises to urban centres with larger television markets (and, hence, the prospect of greater television revenue); and even the creation of entirely new sports that are supported by television revenue (e.g., most recently, Twenty20 cricket). Network executives, meanwhile, lobbied various leagues to make specific rule changes that would make sports even more exciting for television viewers. The NHL, for example, has adopted a number of rules over the years, including shorter overtime periods (with fewer players allowed on the ice) and shootouts to further dramatize the sport of hockey. The NBA implemented the three-point shot to increase scoring, and the American League in MLB approved the  use of designated hitters to increase offensive production. The replacement of match play (player against player over 18 holes) for stroke play (where scores cumulate over four days of play) has heightened the drama in golf and made it more appealing to viewing audiences around the world.

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As noted above, the economic pressure to cultivate larger television audiences in addition to the wide range of informational possibilities made possible by television and a host of new technologies have radically restructured the live sporting experience as a sports television program. You are likely well aware of the vast differences between attending a live sporting event and watching coverage of sport on television or on various digital media devices. Or, as Richard Gruneau, David Whitson, and Hart Cantelon (1988, p. 266) have suggested, “The representation of sport on television . . . presents a different event in which the conventions of camera work and narrative combine to render ideology much more ‘present’ than it is when one is viewing the event live, without mediation.” Rather than merely capturing and recording sporting events, television transforms those events through replays, sounds effects, graphics, close-up camera shots, commercials, and vast amounts of pre- and postgame coverage that “expert” commentators draw from selected dominant narratives and codes. To a large extent, though, it is through the live verbal commentary by the broadcasting team that the television sport narrative is constructed—a narrative that privileges certain cultural identities and ideologies “while leaving other meanings and values which could be readily associated with sport very much in the background” (Gruneau et al., 1988, p. 267). In other words, both sport and the media “are important sites in the construction of a ‘common sense’ which makes existing social practices and social  relations seem like reflections of nature rather than products of history” (Gruneau et al., 1988, p. 265). Televised sporting events are subsequently contoured by producers and commentators according to various hierarchies. These hierarchies include the actual sport selected for television, but also the type of socially constructed content associated and prioritized with the event including personalization strategies (e.g., a focus on individual star athletes and hero-making) and various descriptive and interpretive accounts. Clearly, many sporting events need extensive narrative and dialogue to create appealing storylines and dramatic content to realize their potential as television spectacles. For example, the production of alpine skiing events demands considerable narrative, in part to identify individual competitors who wear similar equipment and clothing, but also to simply know who had the best run (Cantelon & Gruneau, 1988). In turn, producers of alpine skiing events work hard to manufacture and emphasize various entertainment values that focus on “spectacle, individual performance, human interest, competitive drama, uncertainty, and risk” (Gruneau, 1989, p. 148). Sports such as baseball, golf, and cricket also require significant amounts of narrative to heighten various dramatic elements to keep the attention of television viewers during lulls in the action. Other sports that have high levels of continuous drama and action (such as tennis and hockey) simply do not require as much in-game narrative. Equally interesting is that the “style” of commentary associated with particular sports often varies tremendously and is reflective of the intended social characteristics (class, gender, race, etc.) of the television audience (Goldlust, 1987). These sentiments can easily be identified in Canada if we compare some of the commentary on Don Cherry’s Coach’s Corner to coverage of major PGA golf tournaments. Thus, while the Canadian sports–media complex produces spectacles of accumulation and consumerism, also produced are spectacles of legitimation that socially construct and privilege certain cultural identities and ideologies over others (MacNeill, 1996). In what follows, we present a brief outline of some of the ideological meanings and themes that are prominent within sport media content in Canada. While we have 242

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addressed these issues individually, we encourage you to consider how they intersect and connect with each other to form dominant meanings and values.

Gender and Sexuality Given their substantial investments in sports broadcasting rights and their ownership of various professional sports franchises, it is of no surprise that Rogers and BCE continue to commit significant amounts of airtime to their “properties” on a range of platforms to secure subscribers and sizable male audiences for advertisers. The most obvious consequence of these economic dynamics is that, despite the growth in the number of girls and women playing sport across the country, coverage of sport in Canada remains almost exclusively devoted to men’s professional sport, with the exception of the Olympic Games (every two years) and other sports such as figure skating, curling, golf, tennis, and increasingly coverage of the highly successful Canadian women’s soccer team—a perfect example of a socially constructed hierarchy. Research has revealed the extent to which women are systematically under-represented in broadcast and print media. For example, annual reports by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS) found that the level of Canadian newspaper coverage of female athletes consistently ranged from 2% to a high of 8%. CAAWS eventually stopped releasing their reports simply because those numbers never changed (Robinson, 2002). Research in the United States found that coverage of female athletes in influential media such as Sports Illustrated (Lumpkin, 2009) and ESPN (Cooky, Messner, & Hextrum, 2013) were severely under-represented and often had their athletic accomplishments trivialized through an emphasis on their physical appearance or domestic roles (wife, girlfriend, mother, etc.). Interestingly, BCE did commit some resources to establishing a specialty digital sport channel exclusively devoted to women’s sport, the Women’s Sport Network (WTSN) in 2001, but the channel was ultimately abandoned in 2003 for two interrelated reasons. First, WTSN was unable to generate significant audiences to attract advertising revenue, and the executives at BCE were simply unwilling to tolerate even short-term losses to keep the channel on the air and commit to a long-term increase in the coverage of women’s sport. However, the demise of WTSN also needs to be understood in the context of the ideological assumptions held by many of the businessmen in the sports–media complex who simply regard women’s sport as an inferior “product” and not worth the airtime (Neverson, 2010). In recent years, there have been some small changes toward greater mainstream media coverage of Canadian women’s sport, including an agreement between the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) and Rogers to air playoff games on Sportsnet. However, as women’s sport remains marginal on television, some leagues, including the CWHL and the US-based National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), are using digital media to provide free online streams to Canadian (and potentially global) audiences. Even with these developments, though, the CWHL ceased operations in 2019, highlighting the ongoing precarious position of women’s professional sport in Canada and its lack of sustained media coverage. Meanwhile, given the paucity of mainstream press coverage, some fans and journalists have turned to online platforms to publish women’s sport content. There are now hundreds of different websites and blogs devoted to women’s sport, many of which place a high priority on promoting the voices of female sportswriters in order to counter the male-dominance of mainstream sports media. Still, female bloggers routinely experience sexist attacks and sexual harassment online from male fans, who question their authority to Sport, Media, and Ideology

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Catastrophic injuries in football and other contact sports are usually only briefly discussed in the media. Kendall Shaw/CSM/Alamy Stock Photo

c­ omment on the masculine realm of sport. Ultimately, while digital media has created space for promotion and celebration of women’s athletic accomplishments, the sports–media complex remains overwhelmingly focused on men’s sport and the interests of male fans and consumers. It remains to be seen the extent to which digital media can challenge this ideological terrain in the coming years. The fusion of the allied economic and ideological interests of the sports–media complex has, for some scholars, pointed to the ascendance of a televised sports manhood formula (Messner, Dunbar, & Hunt, 2000) as a powerful, overarching narrative that cuts across sports broadcasts and commercials. Male viewers are also routinely exposed to crushing hits (“legal” and otherwise), violent fights between players, and a wide range of other thundering altercations during the ever-present daily highlight shows and in videos or GIFs shared on various digital platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. So too are audiences presented with a never-ending range of commercials designed to reach male audiences that celebrate and link these actions with various commodities. In fact, so naturalized and lauded is the warrior mentality and the use of men’s bodies as weapons (Messner, 1990) that, even after a sequence of catastrophic injuries and the deaths of NHL enforcers Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien, and Wade Belak in 2011, sports fans were provided with only a brief critical discussion of these public issues on the major television networks. Nonetheless, while the audience commodity has historically been a decidedly male one, marketers have slowly come to the realization that they have excluded a significant population of female viewers and, more recently, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) population (Robinson, 2002). Certainly, there has been more discussion about LGBTQ athletes (within definite limits) in the Canadian media than ever before, especially as more and more athletes come out (including athletes who are still in the midst of their professional careers) and as various political projects like the You Can Play campaign gain momentum and are endorsed by high-profile athletes and by the major leagues.

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Digital media, in particular, has been significant in opening up space for these discussions. For example, a number of blogs cater to or report exclusively about issues of relevance to LGBTQ sport fans. From its founding, the You Can Play project has made significant use of digital media to promote its message of LGBTQ inclusion, including a series of YouTube videos featuring NHL stars which were widely shared online. Still, there is an obvious absence of LGBTQ commentators and sports writers, while old stereotypes continue to linger. During coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, for example, RDS commentators Alain Goldberg and Claude Mailhot engaged in the following dialogue about US figure skater Johnny Weir (Sager, 2010): Mailhot: This may not be politically correct, but do you think he lost points due to his costume and his body language? Goldberg: They’ll think all the boys who skate will end up like him. It sets a bad example. We should make him pass a gender test on this point.

Despite the continued lack of coverage of female athletes, the digital era and the expansion of various sport highlight shows (e.g., TSN’s SportsCentre, Sportsnet Central) have raised the profile of female broadcasters and a small number of reporters, although these trends have simultaneously worked to trivialize the voices of women in the sports–media complex. For the most part, women remain relegated to the role of sideline reporters or as young, sexualized sports anchors employed to seemingly capture the male audience commodity. Indeed, there are regular online discussions about who is Canada’s “hottest” female sportscaster and it scarcely needs stating that these predominantly young, attractive, and Euro-Canadian women are held to widely different standards than their male counterparts who exhibit a far greater age range and level of attractiveness. Laura Robinson (2002) has described a similar pattern as the “ponytail rule,” whereby predominantly young, white, attractive, and presumably heterosexual women receive the lion’s share of the rare sponsorship and media opportunities afforded to women in the world of sport. All of these developments, of course, speak to the extent to which the bodies of professional and amateur female athletes (who pose in various men’s magazines or calendars to augment their income), in addition to popular female media commentators now exist as commodities to attract male audiences.

Militarism and Nationalism Since the English novelist and social critic George Orwell famously described international sport as “war minus the shooting” in 1945, sociologists of sport have drawn our attention to the socially constructed links between nationalism, international sporting contests, hegemonic masculinity, and militarism, and how the language of sport commentators has historically been interlaced with military themes and sayings (Burstyn, 1999). Today, coverage of sport remains so heavily saturated and steeped with symbols of national identity, militarism, and hegemonic masculinity that the presence of those images and ideologies—and their seemingly “natural” link to professional men’s sport in particular—are often taken for granted. Consider all of the militaristic sayings and “war-speak” that are regularly associated with sport (longbombs, blitzes, bounties, defensive lines, battling in the trenches). Of course, our regular exposure to images of fighter jets and other military equipment, Canadian

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Former gold medal Olympian, Cassie CampbellPascall, now commentates for NHL broadcasts to boost male audiences. Jonathan Kozub/National Hockey League/Getty Images

Forces personnel, and even the memorialization of fallen Canadian soldiers (e.g., on shows like Coach’s Corner) has nothing to do with what is happening on the ice or on the football field. The television presentation of these themes, though, is usually elaborately designed and orchestrated to emphasize various dominant ideological positions and national myths (and indeed the military–industrial complex in general), overlapping and equating the context of the hypermasculine “warriors” of professional sport with military personnel and interests. Indeed, thanks to its representational power, sport and the media continue to serve as powerful sites through which we tell stories about ourselves, about our communities, and about what it “means to be Canadian.” Sport has, of course, long provided popular and compelling spectacles to dramatize dominant national qualities, just as it has also provided occasions for public assertions of “us” versus “them,” especially during international sporting competitions like the Olympic Games and other high-profile events including both the 1972 and 1974 Summit Series between Team Canada and the Soviet Union. In these latter contests, for example, hockey “acted as a medium not just for the expression of national identity, but also for the reaffirmation of a preferred version of ‘national character’: tough and hard, passionate yet determined, individualistic” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 267). These types of populist associations continue to play out in innumerable countries around the world as various governments link dominant understandings of national identity and national character with the lives of ordinary people and with widely shared popular experiences including sporting events and athletes. In other words, mediated sporting experiences that commonly feature taken-for-granted connections to other national symbols and rituals (e.g., flags, anthems, political leaders) 246

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are powerful aspects of what Michael Billig (1995) has called banal nationalism—the habitual, day-to-day representations of Canada that work to socially construct powerful hegemonic understandings of national identity, solidarity, and cohesiveness. Still, it’s always important to question whether those visions of Canadian identity have inspired anything that even remotely approaches the imagined ideals of a unified nation, especially in light of the fact that there have always been subordinated groups (French Canadians, Indigenous Peoples, working-class people, and many women) “who have been historically excluded from the process of imagining Canada as a national community” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 273).

Race and Ethnicity The media has significant power in socially constructing and shaping our understandings of race and ethnicity. For example, many sociologists of sport have argued that the over-representation of black athletes in sports like basketball and football (and, conversely, the under-representation of black men in other media content and spheres of life) has naturalized a widely held belief that black men are naturally athletic—a belief that has encouraged young black men to internalize a sense of biological and cultural destiny and to aspire to be professional athletes above other more “realistic” occupations. Other examples of the social contruction of stereotypical racial identities in sport include the role of the media in representing high-profile Canadian athletes as racial “others,” the social construction of stereotypical racial identities in the advertising associated with the Toronto Raptors (Wilson, 1999), and, controversially, the use of Indigenous imagery to market and celebrate Canadian identity during the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics (O’Bonsawin, 2013). There are significant historical antecedents to these issues. For example, Indigenous marathoner Tom Longboat (1887–1949) was subjected to biased media coverage, and the legendary Canadian sprinter Harry Jerome (1940–1982) was the subject of racist media coverage during his athletic career (see the wonderful documentary Mighty Jerome). Meanwhile, hockey player Herb Carnegie (1919–2012), who was not allowed to play in the NHL because of the colour of his skin, remains unelected to the Hockey Hall of Fame (a form of media). Today, digital media have provided a platform for racist vitriol against non-white athletes. For example, during the 2014 NHL playoffs, the former Montreal Canadien, P.K. Subban, was racially attacked on Twitter by dozens of hockey fans after he scored an overtime goal to defeat the Boston Bruins (another black NHL player, Joel Ward, received a similar Twitter backlash in 2012). Likewise, various fan-produced memes have, at times, reproduced racist assumptions about black athletes as soft and selfish (Dickerson, 2016). For many years, the vast majority of sports writers and commentators were, of course, white men who wielded considerable power in terms of not only representing athletes of colour but also in rendering whiteness invisible. Still, Canadian society has undergone substantive demographic change and these changes have been reflected to some degree in various media content and coverage. Related to this latter point, CBC Sports recently extended the reach and depth of HNIC by providing broadcasts in Punjabi, Mandarin, and Cantonese at different points over the course of the last decade. There is also an increasingly diverse number of television anchors and on-air sports commentators, such as Kevin Weekes (NHL Network), David Amber (Rogers Sportsnet), and, from TSN, John Lu, Farhan Lalji, Jermain Franklin, Sport, Media, and Ideology

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Cabral Richards, Nabil Karim (now with ESPN), and Gurdeep Ahluwalia (now with CP24). However, not all Canadians have welcomed these changes. For example, in 2013, Karim and Ahluwalia were paired together as anchors on TSN’s SportsCentre and were subjected to a number of racist comments on Twitter by various anonymous trolls (Dowbiggin, 2013). Former MLSE anchor Adnan Virk (who worked until recently as an anchor at ESPN) responded to the incident by noting that he had never received racist insults while working in the United States while also remarking “Canada has this pluralistic impression of itself and thinks of itself as multicultural. Maybe we’re not as forward thinking as we think we are” (Dowbiggin, 2013). Finally, there remains a decisive lack of female journalists and sports commentators of colour in Canada, which may suggest that network executives do not yet regard female minorities as sellable commodities.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 11.1

Twitter Reactions to Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi

Since 2008, the CBC has provided online streams of Hockey Night in Canada in various languages. The most successful and enduring of these broadcasts, however, has been in Punjabi (“HNIC Punjabi”). For over a decade, despite a brief cancellation due to lack of funding, HNIC Punjabi has aired in online, cable, or digital formats, first under the management of the CBC and, since its 2014 acquisition of NHL broadcasting rights, later under Rogers. HNIC Punjabi has been widely celebrated for symbolizing Canadian multiculturalism and for fostering an intergenerational love of hockey among Punjabi Canadians. Such perspectives, however, simplify the complicated ways in which hockey and sport media are connected to dominant ideas about race and citizenship in Canada. Sport communications scholar Courtney Szto investigated how Canadian users of Twitter reacted to the HNIC Punjabi broadcasts. Szto began her research from the premise that, despite official government policies of multiculturalism, non-White (i.e., racialized) Canadians— including Punjabi Sikhs—regularly face subtle questions about their citizenship and “Canadian-ness” in their daily interactions. As such, her research explored whether the Punjabi language broadcasts of hockey reflected or challenged this everyday marginalization by analyzing a sample of tweets posted by Twitter users in reaction to HNIC Punjabi. These tweets were organized into four major themes: 1) “reproducing multiculturalism”; 2) “ambiguous ambivalence” 3); “(racist) resistance”; and 4) “laughing at difference.” Tweets that “reproduce[ed] multiculturalism” offered an uncritical celebration of HNIC Punjabi as ideally

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representing Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism (i.e., that there is no singular Canadian identity and that people are welcome to practice their cultural traditions within the framework of Canadian citizenship). These supportive tweets celebrated HNIC Punjabi for making hockey accessible to Punjabi speakers, as well as encouraging intergenerational fandom within this community. Although these tweets were very positive about the program, it is important to question whether hockey is a common cultural marker for old and new Canadians. Szto, in particular, suggested that uncritical celebrations of multiculturalism through hockey constituted “an erasure of the inherent discrimination built into a game historically dominated by Canadians of European heritage” (Szto, 2016, p. 213). Other tweets expressed “ambiguous ambivalence” about HNIC Punjabi. These tweets were not negative per se but expressed unease about a significant Canadian cultural product being announced by non-White announcers in a language other than English or French. In contrast to the celebration of or ambivalence toward multiculturalism, some tweets demonstrated “(racist) resistance” to HNIC Punjabi. These reactions situated hockey as a sport for white Canadians, and racially mocked the presentation of hockey broadcasts to nonwhite audiences. In so doing, these individuals sought to preserve the sport of hockey as a cultural bastion of “traditional” white, conservative Canadian values against the incursion of “others” into this sporting space. Finally, the tweets of some users were “laughing at difference”—that is, expressing amusement about the appearance and language of the HNIC Punjabi broadcast

crew. While laughter may like seem a benign reaction to the broadcast, Szto argues that it reinforces that hockey is a sport constructed by and for white people and marks those outside this norm (such as dark-skinned, Punjabispeaking, and turban-wearing announcers) as objects of difference and derision. Szto’s study of Twitter reactions to HNIC Punjabi raises a number of important issues about contemporary digital media and its contradictions. It highlights, first, how social media platforms like Twitter have facilitated

and expanded (often instantaneous) audience engagement with television broadcasts, allowing fans to become sport media prosumers in new and exciting ways. It also illustrates how sport media can engage an increasingly diversifying Canadian population, while simultaneously reaffirming historical patterns of social exclusion. Finally, it demonstrates how sport media is connected to broader social and political factors in Canadian society, such as immigration, multiculturalism, national identity, and social inclusion.

SPORTS JOURNALISM: CRITICAL THINKING? The profession of sport journalism has been central to the growth of both newspapers and commercial sport, while various journalists have played crucial roles in the social construction of sports news and the representation of sporting events in Canada. Indeed, it is precisely because of their centrality in the sports–media complex itself that significant criticism has been levelled at sports journalists and various pundits for being little more than the “toy department” (Rowe, 2007) of the news media—unabashed promoters of sport and boosters of specific franchises, as opposed to rigorous, investigative, and critical commentators who work at a degree of distance from the sports industry. Many of these issues have long-term historical antecedents that date back to the foundation of the sports–media complex in the latter decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, an era of growth for the newspaper industry and the consolidation of men’s sport (Burstyn, 1999). Regular sports sections proved to be intensely popular with North American readers, including a growing middle class of mostly male readers (the audience commodity). On this note, regular and detailed newspaper coverage provided various established leagues and competitions with cultural legitimacy and visibility and helped to cultivate fans, resulting in a steady growth of paying spectators—a development that only justified more newspaper coverage and fuelled the promotional role of the press (Lowes, 1999). The early sports writers (nearly always men) “were mainly promoters for the teams and the players with whom they travelled” (Hall, Slack, Smith, & Whitson, 1991, p. 147), and helped to make heroes out of star athletes by mythologizing their athletic exploits while ignoring their private lives. Sports teams recognized the value of this publicity and granted considerable access to athletes in locker rooms (a distinctly gendered occupational structure) in addition to providing media facilities in various arenas, stadiums, and ballparks to accommodate journalists. It is precisely because of the close, longstanding, mutually beneficial relationship between sport and the media that the Canadian communications scholar Mark Lowes has simply noted that “Sports journalism is an oxymoron” (quoted in Gilbert, 2011, p. 252). For Lowes, the role of sports journalists and the media in general is not simply to entertain or to provide information and stories, but to market pro franchises, their players, and the major leagues while also creating an endless flow of public buzz “that is indispensable to the franchise owners whose profits depend on filling their stands with paying customers and selling the whole spectacle to television” Sport, Media, and Ideology

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(quoted in Gilbert, 2011, p. 252). Lowes’s point is a crucial one in light of the sheer amount of coverage of game stories, previews, and player profiles, which can all too easily slip into cheerleading and boosterism. It is also important to re-emphasize the synergies between the sports media, wealthy individuals, and the concentrated group of corporations that now own various franchises and exert significant influence in the major sporting leagues. As noted earlier, there is now unprecedented ownership of sporting properties by a small number of telecommunications corporations that cover their own franchises on a massive number of platforms and distribution outlets that they also own. How can we possibly expect Rogers’ employees to provide substantial critical coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays or the Toronto Maple Leafs (both Rogers’ properties)? Or is the main role of sports journalists and commentators to simply promote the expansive range of products and services in the Rogers empire on a continual basis? The corollary of these ownership patterns and the dominance of this promotional ideology in the pages of the sports section is a “means not to know” about amateur sport, Paralympic sport, and women’s sport in general. Indeed, it remains striking just how gendered and incestuous the sports–media complex remains. For example, it is not uncommon for former players and coaches to pursue temporary and sometimes permanent careers as media commentators on sports panel shows that, predictably, promote the economic and ideological interests of the sports–media complex as common sense. And while there have been some gains in terms of the number of female sports journalists and commentators, it will take many more substantial changes to increase the quality and quantity of the coverage of amateur and women’s sport simply because of the powerful vested interests that the deeply gendered sports–media complex has in maintaining the economic and ideological status quo. As Gilbert (2011, p. 255) has noted, this is a status quo from which “others, mostly men, stand to gain: owners, management, players, players’ agents, union leaders, sports equipment companies, ad agencies—everything that’s integral to the professional sports behemoth, including the sports press.”3 Nonetheless, the work routines and labour practices of sports journalists have undergone substantive changes in recent years, and it is questionable whether sport organizations remain anywhere near as dependent on sports journalists and the pages of the sports section as they were in an earlier era of commercial sport. First, leagues and franchises now produce their own digital content and distribute information and commercial messages without relying on sports journalists or traditional media altogether (Scherer & Jackson, 2008). Most franchises, for example, simply post major announcements (trades, hirings, and firings) on Twitter rather than relying on press releases or individual journalists to break the news. Increasingly, sports teams and organizations are also restricting journalistic access to athletes simply because they can control the flow of information and publicity on their own networks and platforms rather than relying on traditional journalists. Second, the heavily concentrated newspaper industry in Canada has been decimated thanks to declining subscription rates, diminished advertising revenue, and a wide range of issues associated with the adoption of new digital platforms to accommodate new habits of media consumption. Since the 2008 economic recession, newsrooms across the country have suffered significant layoffs, and budgets to various sports departments have undergone sizable cuts as cost-saving and restructuring measures. As a result, sports journalists in Canada are now expected to simply “do more with less” (and on the same salary) and to continually produce unprecedented volumes of content for a host of online platforms (including blogs, podcasts, and 250

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A female sport journalist is seen on the field covering the Minnesota Twin’s win over the Astros, 2018. Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images

various social networking sites like Twitter, let alone their “normal” stories for the newspaper) to appeal to sports fans in the digital era who demand immediate information and interaction (Daum & Scherer, 2018). Traditional sports journalists must now compete with other blogs and freelance reporters, leading some observers to bemoan the lack of quality in contemporary sports journalism and the presence of even less critical commentary (Hutchins & Rowe, 2012).

CONCLUSION “Ideology is the form that culture takes in conditions of hegemony” (Jhally, 1989, p. 77)

In this chapter, we have emphasized a range of ideological and political struggles associated with the sports–media complex since the entrance of television in Canadian society, including changes and, more significantly, continuities to hegemonic sport media power structures in the digital era. As the competition for sports broadcasting rights has escalated, the historical role of CBC and Radio-Canada in providing live telecasts of sporting events of national significance for all Canadians in both official languages as a right of cultural citizenship has eroded considerably. And, thanks to a number of political, economic, and technological developments—coupled with a now dominant ideology of consumer choice—the “winners” in the digital era have been an oligopoly of vertically integrated telecommunications empires that now control significant sporting properties in addition to vast digital distribution outlets and media platforms in a near fully privatized sports–media complex. So, too, have various leagues and sport organizations profited handsomely from expansive broadcasting Sport, Media, and Ideology

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contracts; this is revenue that has been used to pay the increasingly high salaries of professional athletes. Canadians, meanwhile, have access to unprecedented amounts of sport content in the digital era, albeit through increasingly costly subscription packages and other associated products (mobile phones, tablets, etc.). Indeed, while an older generation of Canadians consumed sport in an era of relative scarcity of quality sport content, a digital plenitude now prevails and has become an inescapable part of the “normal” rhythm of the daily lives of most Canadians, especially for a younger generation of prosumers who have grown up in an era where it is simply “natural” to access a seemingly endless amount of digital sports content on phones, tablets, and other devices. What is clear from all of these developments, then, is that it is no longer possible to think of the interplay between these new technologies and consumption habits as “emergent” cultural phenomena, but rather as a dominant set of social relations within the digital sports–media complex. On this latter note, it is important to remember that one of the most significant and enduring ideological effects of the sports–media complex in Canadian society has simply been the naturalization of consumption practices and our identities as consumers (and, increasingly in the digital age, producers of sport media content). Indeed, because the dominant institutions in the sports–media complex share both ideological and commercial interests, they subsequently promote a host of cultural identities, social definitions, and ideologies as “natural” and “normal.” As David Rowe (2004b, p. 7) reminds us, “A trained capacity to decode media sports texts and to detect the forms of ideological deployment of sport in the media, is irrespective of cultural taste, a crucial skill.” Many young Canadians are, of course, well versed in these critical capacities and they realize that the meanings audiences embrace and internalize from programs such as HNIC or TSN’s SportsCentre may not be the precise meanings that were intended by producers and advertisers. Various resistant possibilities are also always present, especially in the digital era, thanks to the agency of individuals and groups with varying degrees of resources. The concept of prosumption highlights these tensions, as sport fan prosumers undertake free digital labour (e.g., publishing videos on YouTube, writing blog posts, tweeting) that both provides meaningful social outlets while also generating profits for multinational digital media corporations. However, despite its relatively seamless integration into the sports–media complex, digital media has also enabled some limited forms of resistance to these dominant power structures. For example, individuals who engage in alternative sporting subcultures (e.g., surfing, BASE jumping, parkour) have used digital media to creatively produce content and, at times, to challenge dominant definitions of sport and various social relations. Some sport organizations, including in emergent sports (e.g., Ultimate Frisbee) or those traditionally ignored by mainstream media (e.g., women’s leagues such as the CWHL and NWHL), now bypass broadcast television altogether and stream their games online directly to fans. Other digital media technologies have allowed citizens to organize and oppose the use of public funds for the construction of arenas and stadiums for professional sports franchises, in addition to a host of other political debates, or simply to voice critiques of the dominant commercial or ideological relationships of the sport-media complex (Norman, 2012). As such, the sports–media complex in the digital era will continue to exist as a contested terrain that Canadians shape and are shaped by, albeit against the backdrop of a host of political and ideological struggles that exert powerful sets of limits and pressures on Canadian society. 252

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Key Terms Audience commodity: The key product that is produced by the media, which is then monetized and sold to advertisers. Digital media: Content that is distributed and consumed electronically, through Internetconnected devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones. Digital media are characterized by their interactivity and include websites and social media or online networking platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.). Interpellation: A Marxist concept that underlines the process through which individuals are ideologically and often unconsciously hailed as subjects. Mass media: The institution that produces and distributes information, interpretation, and entertainment to mass audiences. Oligopoly: A market dominated by a small number of companies. Prosumption: A concept that explains how the interactivity of digital media has made many Internet users both consumers and producers of media content. Although they typically enjoy their online activity and have greater capacity to criticize and resist the ideologies of corporations, prosumers also represent a valuable audience commodity and provide unpaid labour to companies through the production of digital content. Sports–media complex: The symbiotic and mutually beneficial multi-billion-dollar partnership between the media, professional sport leagues/organizations, and advertisers. Televised sports manhood formula: The celebration and promotion on sports broadcasts of popular understandings of hegemonic masculinity and consumption in ways that support and expand the economic ambitions of the sports–media complex. The formula ties together sports fantasies and dominant understandings of masculinity in an ever-changing gender order with consumer products.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What does the term sports–media complex mean? 2. How has the Canadian sports–media complex changed since the entrance of television in the 1950s? 3. Why does there remain so little media attention devoted to women’s sport? 4. Why has criticism been levelled at sports journalists over the years? 5. Why is sport such a valuable media property in the digital era?

Suggested Readings Goldlust, J. (1987). Playing for keeps: Sport, the media and society. Melbourne, AU: Longman Cheshire. Hutchins, B., & Rowe, D. (2012). Sport beyond television: The Internet, digital media and the rise of networked media sport. New York, NY: Routledge. Jhally, S. (1984). The spectacle of accumulation: Material and cultural factors in the evolution of the sports/media complex. Critical Sociology, 12, 41–57. Lowes, M. (1999). Inside the sports pages. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. MacNeill, M. (1996). Networks: Producing Olympic ice hockey for a national television audience. Sociology of Sport Journal, 13, 103–124. Scherer, J., & Rowe, D. (Eds.). (2013). Sport, public broadcasting, and cultural citizenship: Signal lost? New York, NY: Routledge.

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Endnotes 1. The next three sections are derived from Scherer and Harvey (2013). 2. Launched in 1998 by CTV as a regional network (with four feeds for different regions), Sportsnet provided coverage of local teams, providing an important revenue stream for those franchises. 3. Several Canadian sports journalists and commentators have produced a number of insightful analyses that have elevated public understandings of a range of issues (e.g., violence in sport and the changing economics of professional sport), while others, including US writer Dave Zirin, have provided consistent critical commentary on sport and social relations for many years now.

References Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London, UK: Sage. Burstyn, V. (1999). The rites of men: Manhood, politics, and the culture of sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Cantelon, H., & Gruneau, R. (1988). The production of sport for television. In J. Harvey & H. Cantelon (Eds.), Not just a game: Essays in Canadian sport sociology (pp. 177–193). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Cavanaugh, R. (1992). The development of Canadian sports broadcasting 1920–1978. Canadian Journal of Communication, 17, 301–317. Cooky, C., Messner, M., & Hextrum, R. (2013). Women play sport, but not on TV: A longitudinal study of televised news media. Communication & Sport, 1(3), 203–230. Daum, E., & Scherer, J. (2018). Changing work routines and labour practices of sports journalists in the digital era: A case study of Postmedia. Media, Culture & Society, 40(8), 551–566. Dickerson, N. (2016). Constructing the digitalized sporting body: Black and White masculinity in NBA/NHL Internet memes. Sport & Communication, 4(3), 303–330. Dowbiggin, B. (2013). Racist tweets about TSN hosts reveal Canada’s nasty side. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/racist-tweetsabout-tsn-hosts-reveal-canadas-nasty-side/article9845192/#dashboard/follows. Gilbert, R. (2011). Playing on the same page. In P. Donnelly (Ed.), Taking sport seriously: Social issues in Canadian sport (3rd ed., pp. 251–255). Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing. Goldlust, J. (1987). Playing for keeps: Sport, the media and society. Melbourne, AU: Longman Cheshire. Gruneau, R. (1989). Making spectacle: A case study in television sports production. In L. Wenner (Ed.), Media, sports, and society (pp. 134–154). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey Night in Canada. Toronto, ON: Garamond Press. Gruneau, R., Whitson, D., & Cantelon, H. (1988). Methods and media: Studying the sports/ television discourse. Society and Leisure, 11, 265–281. Hall, A., Slack, T., Smith, G., & Whitson, D. (1991). Sport in Canadian society. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart. Hutchins, B., & Rowe, D. (2012). Sport beyond television: The Internet, digital media and the rise of networked media sport. New York, NY: Routledge. Jhally, S. (1984). The spectacle of accumulation: Material and cultural factors in the evolution of the sports/media complex. Critical Sociology, 12, 41–57.

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Jhally, S. (1989). Cultural studies and the sports/media complex. In L. Wenner (Ed.), Media, Sports, & Society (pp. 70–93). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Lowes, M. (1999). Inside the sports pages. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Lumpkin, A. (2009). Female representation in feature articles published by Sports Illustrated in the 1990s. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 18, 38–51. MacNeill, M. (1996). Networks: Producing Olympic ice hockey for a national television audience. Sociology of Sport Journal, 13, 103–124. Marlow, I. (2010). Canadians’ Internet use exceeds TV time. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/canadians-internet-use-exceeds-tv-time/ article4352565/#dashboard/follows. Messner, M. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity and violence in sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25(3), 203–320. Messner, M., Dunbar, M., & Hunt, D. (2000). The televised manhood formula. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 24(4), 380–394. Mosco, V. (2003). The transformation of communication in Canada. In W. Clement & L. Vosko (Eds.), Changing Canada: Political economy as transformation (pp. 287–308). Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Neverson, N. (2010). Build it and the women will come? WTSN and the advent of Canadian digital television. Canadian Journal of Communication, 35, 27–48. Nolan, M. (2001). CTV: The network that means business. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta Press. Norman, M. (2012). Saturday night’s alright for tweeting: Cultural citizenship, collective discussion, and the new media consumption/production of Hockey Day in Canada. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29, 306–324. Norman, M. (2017). Serious leisure, prosumption and the digital sport media economy: A case study of ice hockey blogging. In S. Carnicelli, D. McGillivray, & G. McPherson (Eds.), Digital leisure cultures: Critical perspectives (pp. 80–93). New York: Routledge. O’Bonsawin, C. (2013). Indigenous peoples and Canadian-hosted Olympic Games. In J. Forsyth & A. Giles (Eds.), Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada: Historical foundations and contemporary issues (pp. 35–63). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Robinson, L. (2002). Black tights: Women, sport and sexuality. Toronto, ON: Harper Collins. Rowe, D. (2004a). Watching brief: Cultural citizenship and viewing rights. Sport in Society, 7(3), 385–402. Rowe, D. (2004b). Sport, culture and the media (2nd ed.). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press. Rowe, D. (2007). Sports journalism: Still the “toy department” of the news media? Journalism, 8(4), 385–405. Rutherford, P. (1990). When television was young: Primetime Canada (1952–1967). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Sager, N. (2010). Canadian commentators fail to cool it with Johnny Weir jokes. Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved from http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-neate-sager/canadian-commentators-fail-cool-johnny-weir-jokes--olympics.html. Scherer, J., & Harvey, J. (2013). Televised sport and cultural citizenship in Canada: The “two solitudes” of Canadian public broadcasting? In J. Scherer & D. Rowe (Eds.), Sport, public broadcasting, and cultural citizenship: Signal lost? (pp. 48–73). New York, NY: Routledge. Scherer, J., & Jackson, S. (2008). Producing allblacks.com: Cultural intermediaries and the policing of electronic spaces of sporting consumption. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25, 243–262.

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Scherer, J., & Rowe, D. (Eds.). (2013). Sport, public broadcasting, and cultural citizenship: Signal lost? New York, NY: Routledge. Skinner, D. (2008). Television in Canada: Continuity or change? In D. Ward (Ed.), Television public policy: Change and continuity in an era of global liberalization (pp. 3–26). New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Smythe, D. W. (1977). Communications: Blindspot of western Marxism. Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 1(3), 1–27. Sparks, R. (1992). Delivering the male: Sports, Canadian television, and the making of TSN. Canadian Journal of Communication, 17, 319–342. Szto, C. (2016). #LOL at multiculturalism: Reactions to Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi from the Twitterverse. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(3), 208–218. Whannel, G. (1992). Fields in vision: Television sport and cultural transformation. London, UK: Routledge. Wilson, B. (1999). “Cool pose” incorporated: The marketing of black masculinity in Canadian NBA coverage. In P. White & K. Young (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (pp. 232–253). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Winseck, D. (1995). Power shift? Towards a political economy of Canadian telecommunications and regulation. Canadian Journal of Communication, 20(1), 81–106.

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Chapter 12

Sport, Politics, and Policy David Black and Maya Hibbeln

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to:

Some 3,000 people came out to protest the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Games’ $7.8 billion price tag.

1 Define politics and policy. 2 Identify ways sport features in both politics and policy. 3 Describe the range of political actors that influence politics in sport, and sport in politics.

Sergei Bachlakov/Shutterstock

4 Analyze how sport is used by these actors to pursue their political agendas. 5 Evaluate the political arguments for and against the hosting of sports megaevents as instruments of public policy. 6 Evaluate the arguments for and against targeting elite success (winning medals and championships) in public support for competitive sport. “To seek to isolate sport as an activity that stands alone in human affairs, untouched by ‘politics’ or ‘moral considerations’ and unconcerned for the fates of those deprived of human rights is as unrealistic as it is (self-destructively) self-serving.” Des Wilson (2004) 257

INTRODUCTION The once prevalent “myth of autonomy” (Allison 1993, pp. 5–6)—the resilient idea that sport and politics are and should remain separate spheres—is no longer plausible. We are routinely exposed to political leaders literally clothing themselves in sporting symbols (see Box 12.1); to debates about whether and how public funds should be committed to new sports arenas or stadiums that house lucrative professional sports franchises; to controversies and protests concerning the human rights records of sports mega-event (SME) hosts, such as Russia, Qatar, or China; or to heated debates about the continued use of team names (such as the Cleveland Indians Washington Redskins) that demean Indigenous peoples, among many other examples. Yet within the authors’ own field of political science, the study of the relationship between sport, politics, and public policy remains surprisingly limited.1 In this chapter, we will define politics and policy and show how they are closely intertwined with sport in many political “arenas,” from the local to the global. We will then zoom in on two specific issue areas which have been particularly persistent “political footballs,” in Canada and elsewhere: the politics of sports mega-events and policies concerning public support for high performance sport, and their implications for policies to promote “mass” or recreational sport.

DEFINING AND UNDERSTANDING POLITICS AND POLICY What then is politics, and how does it intersect with the domains of sport and physical culture? A classic definition was offered by the political scientist David Easton in 1953, who characterized politics as “the authoritative allocation of values for a society” (Easton, 1953, p. 128). But this elegantly simple definition leaves many questions unanswered: who constitutes the “society” (or community) for which values are being allocated? How do distinct (and often competing) objectives come to be understood as “values”? And who gets to participate in the process by which collective decisions are taken on what is to be authoritatively allocated? A more encompassing definition is offered by Mintz, Close, and Croce (2018, p. 4), who define politics as “activity related to influencing, making, and implementing collective decisions for a political community.” We take a broad view of “political community,” and note that politics is present in any group where members are required to take collective decisions on enduring issues. This, as we will see, applies to the world of sport in itself, as well as to the ways sport interacts with wider political actors and processes. Nevertheless, there are some political communities and issues (sporting and otherwise) that have greater implications for more people, and are more subject to public contestation and influence through public (taxpayer) funding, the legislation (laws) that shape responses to them, and processes of public accountability (requirements to appear before Parliamentary committees or public review boards, for example). Political scientists typically focus on these more formal types of political “arenas.”2 Our approach is also consistent with the field of political sociology, which emphasizes the exercise of power in relation to the society or state (the apparatus of government institutions ruling over a given territory), and the various social groups that seek to accumulate and use it (see Hall et al., 1991, pp. 77–79). 258

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Indeed, power is the principal currency of politics—the means through which collective decisions are arrived at. As the introduction to this book discusses, however, the ways in which power works are highly varied and often much more subtle than our common sense understanding suggests. Power is most obvious when there are visible conflicts of interest or objectives, with different actors lining up on different sides of a debate or issue, and when one side visibly “wins” by getting all or much of what it wants. This is what Steven Lukes (1974) viewed as the first dimension (or face) of power—sometimes described as “power over” someone or some group. For example, if a coalition of well-connected boosters mobilizes in support of large-scale public funding for a new arena to house a privately owned professional sports franchise, and a coalition of groups that view this as a misuse of scarce public funds mobilizes against it, the outcome can often be seen as a clear-cut “win” for one side or the other, and thus a clear demonstration of which side was (in this instance at least) more powerful. As discussed by Jay Scherer, such a power-laden struggle played out in the debate over the CAD $613.7 million enhancement of the downtown Edmonton entertainment core. A local grassroots coalition, Voices for Democracy (VFD), clashed unsuccessfully with larger “boosterish” groups in a highly unfavourable “political opportunity structure” on whether public funds were needed to build a new arena for the Edmonton Oilers in the downtown core of the city (Scherer, 2016, pp. 48–50). But a second face of power, according to Lukes, is the agenda-setting power to determine what becomes a focus of public discussion and decision-making—and conversely, what never makes it onto the political agenda in the first place. Here, to use the same example, we might ask ourselves why those advocating public support for new arenas or stadiums that only a minority of relatively well-off citizens are able to directly enjoy have no difficulty getting “their” issue onto the agenda of government decision makers. In contrast, the possibility of mobilizing the same level of public funding to build and maintain a network of first-class recreation facilities, deliberately concentrated in the most marginalized communities and neighbourhoods, is rarely discernible on this same agenda. Finally, Lukes identifies a third face of power which aligns with the concepts of  ideology and hegemony discussed in the introduction. This is a form of often-­ unacknowledged or invisible power through which many less privileged citizens come to see a social and political order that routinely benefits an elite minority as simply “the way things are,” and perhaps even good for the community as a whole. Sport has long been deeply implicated in this third face of power—for example, through its role in reinforcing racial identities and hierarchies, or naturalizing unequal gender roles. Importantly, however, sport has also often become an arena of struggle in which these taken-for-granted assumptions about unequal social roles as “just the way things are” are exposed and challenged politically. One of the best-known examples of this type of “counter-hegemonic” politics was the campaign against racially separated and deeply unequal apartheid sport in South Africa, which became the focus of persistent opposition and resistance from not only South African but transnational athletes and activists (see Booth, 1998). Under South Africa’s system of racial separation, which reached its peak with the formal legislation of apartheid (“apartness” in Afrikaans) and accompanying practices of white minority domination under the National Party government of South Africa from 1948 to 1990, racially segregated sport reinforced the “common sense” among white South Africans that racial separation was both natural and desirable. Thus, it reinforced what in Gramscian or critical race theory we would call a hegemonic racial Sport, Politics, and Policy

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order (see Chapter 2). The order was reflected not only in the fact that white and black South Africans were only allowed to participate in racially separate competitions and clubs, but that certain sports came to be associated with distinct racial identities. Thus, soccer was seen principally as an “African” sport, while cricket and especially rugby were identified as “white” sports—even though some South Africans of all races always played each of them, albeit in racially divided clubs and competitions. Beginning in the 1950s, however, athlete-activists in South Africa formed organizations to challenge racially segregated sport and to agitate for non-racial competition. The South African government attempted to suppress these challenges, forcing the founder of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC), Dennis Brutus, out of the country in 1966. However, SAN-ROC was soon operating in exile, and mobilizing support for non-racial sport transnationally. It became an integral part of the much broader anti-apartheid social movement. This transnational mobilization led to apartheid South Africa’s suspension from the Olympic Games in 1964 and its expulsion from the Olympic movement in 1970, as well as to a succession of mass protests against touring South African cricket and rugby teams. Over the course of several decades, South Africa’s official (white) sports teams, organizations, and athletes became increasingly isolated internationally, helping to de-legitimize South Africa’s racial order at home and abroad, and adding to the political pressure which eventually caused the white government to negotiate a transition to majority rule in 1994 (e.g., Black, 1999). Canadians, both in government and in civil society (including sport) were active participants in efforts to change the South African racial order (see Kidd, 1991). It is one thing to arrive at a collective decision through the exercise of power and politics; it is another to effectively implement it. The task of translating decisions into concrete measures—a “course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a given problem or interrelated set of problems” (Pal, 2006, p. 2) constitutes policy. In the case of sport in Canada, the overarching policy framework is the Canadian Sport Policy 2012 (Sport Canada, 2012), which establishes broad objectives introducing Canadians to sport, promoting and enabling each of recreational, competitive, and high performance sport, and supporting “sport for development” at home and abroad. This task of translating these broad aspirations into more specific action items may seem like a fairly straightforward, technical task: getting public authorities—typically bureaucrats—to define a set of specific alternatives and objectives, and then specify various intermediate organizational structures and steps by which those objectives will be achieved. Once again, however, the reality of policymaking and implementation is considerably more complicated, elusive, and indeed political than we might be inclined to believe. To return to an example used in the Introduction, to make both recreational and competitive hockey safe and accessible, government policymakers are increasingly called upon to adopt policies to address the mounting incidence of concussions. In doing so, however, they must address a series of difficult, value-laden questions: What should be the balance between actions by governments, national and provincial sports associations, leagues (both minor and major), commercial sponsors, and technical experts (for example, associations of medical professionals) in arriving at a policy? How do you build a broadly based consensus among key “stakeholders” concerning a set of actions, and what new rules and capacities do you need to ensure they are followed? What is the probability that an ill-advised or heavy-handed intervention by government will produce a backlash from fans, players, leagues, and 260

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sponsors alike? What unintended consequences of the actions taken (or not taken) can be anticipated, and how should they be addressed? Taken together, the intersections between sport, politics, and policy raise five fundamental questions: Who are the crucial actors? What are the objectives they seek to achieve? What critical issues are at stake? What are the governmental and nongovernmental structures through which collective decisions are taken and policies implemented? And finally, who benefits (in Latin, cui bono) from the resulting actions or inactions? These questions can be applied both to what political sociologists and political scientists think of as multiple levels of analysis, ranging from local or “grassroots” organizations and communities, to international and transnational actors, objectives, and processes.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 12.1

 ock Diplomacy? Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, S and the art of political communication

In efforts to achieve popular appeal as well as specific political objectives, sport has often been an attractive vehicle for politicians of all partisan brands. In Canada, political leaders have often turned their attention to hockey where they, like millions of Canadians, can celebrate and associate themselves with the sport that is

sometimes portrayed as synonymous with “Canadianness.” As authors Jay Scherer and Lisa McDermott (2011) note, hockey provides a means of “promotional politics” whereby politicians can “obscure their backgrounds” and become “ordinary” Canadians. Former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was able to

Sock Diplomacy? Justin Trudeau (right) meets with Toronto Mayor John Tory (left). Trudeau illustrates his Habs loyalty by donning a pair of Montreal Canadiens socks. Image from Maclean’s Magazine, June 27, 2017.

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“advance his domestic and foreign policy agenda” by supporting Team Canada during the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR (Macintosh & Hawes, 1994; also, Scherer & McDermott, 2011, p.  108). Moreover, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper used hockey as a means of molding and humanizing his own political identity. Instead of being seen as a political “elite,” Harper promoted himself as an “average” Dad, who like others, was a true hockey fan. Harper is quoted as saying, “No matter how tired I am, no matter how many things I have on my agenda, if I can find time, I can always get up and make it to the hockey rink” (“Stephen Harper”, 2006; also in Scherer & McDermott, p. 118).

Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also displayed his love for the great game—specifically showing his hockey allegiance through his penchant for designer socks. Trudeau has also exploited sport to enhance his personal and partisan political “brand.” In March of 2012, Trudeau—then simply the opposition Member of Parliament (MP) for Montreal’s Papineau riding—squared off in a televised boxing match against Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau. Although the match was formally to raise money for charity (more than $200,000 went to the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation), it also highlighted the persistent reality that sport and politics are routinely intertwined, with sport being deployed as an attractive means of political image making and communication.

WHERE AND HOW DO SPORT AND POLITICS INTERSECT? A first, basic distinction when thinking about the diverse forms of the sport-politics relationship is between politics in sport and sport in politics. With regard to the former, sporting practice is governed by a wide range of sport-specific organizations, structured hierarchically from global sports federations, through regional sporting bodies, to national, provincial, and local sports organizations and clubs. These organizations include both multi-sport federations (like the Canadian Olympic Committee or Commonwealth Games Canada) and single-sport federations (like Sail Canada or Athletics Canada). And they are all communities of interest within which politics are “played.” Although most sports organizations are formally nongovernmental (or civil society) bodies, they often work closely with government departments or agencies and receive public funding. These types of non-governmental sporting organizations are the places where many people learn what is involved in the practice of politics: how to determine preferences and lobby for your preferred cause, candidate, or outcome—and how to make collective decisions through both formal and informal processes of consultation and coalition-building. In this sense, sports organizations are (along with many other civil society organizations) seedbeds of citizenship. In fact, sports governance is in some ways more authoritative—more able to make enforceable decisions—than other forms of government. This is because of the institutionalized (and therefore more strictly enforceable) rules and practices by which most sports are played, and because of its hierarchical structure, in which eligibility to participate (or not) is firmly controlled by the governing authority for a particular competition. This could be a National Sports Organization (NSO) or, at the international level, the relevant international federation (for example, the International Association of Athletics Federations [IAAF] or the International Cricket Council [ICC]). As a consequence, it can be said that in their own domains, sport governing authorities are more powerful than, for example, city or provincial governments that have much greater difficulty negotiating and enforcing decisions. 262

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On the other hand, sport-based issues and actors have appeared regularly and sometimes prominently on the agenda of the wide array of political institutions and actors that we think of as the core of the political system. As noted above, both politics in sport and sport in politics can be tracked at different levels, from the global to the local.

Sport and International/Global Politics At the apex of international sports governance are the wealthiest and most influential sports federations—in particular, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Both are wealthy and powerful monopolies, in large measure because of their exclusive control of events and “brands”—the FIFA World Cup of soccer/football, the Olympic Games, and the related idea of “Olympism”—that have become highly desirable and lucrative. As Byron Peacock (2011) has argued, the IOC in particular is a peculiar international political actor—partly a non-state, voluntary, or “civil society” organization; partly (because of its exceptional profitability) akin to a multinational corporation; and partly (because of its periodic forays into inter-governmental diplomacy) a state-like organization, resembling the United Nations (UN) or the Organization for the Security and Co-operation of Europe (OSCE). For many years, these top international sports organizations (ISOs) accumulated, and often abused, wealth and power with very little accountability and oversight. Governments and corporate sponsors were so anxious to associate themselves with the Olympic and World Cup brands that they were prepared to overlook the dubious ways in which the growing power and wealth of these bodies was being used. For example, football powerhouses such as Spain/Portugal, Netherlands/ Belgium, and England, and wealthy sporting nations such as the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Australia mounted bids for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, despite growing evidence of the organization’s financial malfeasance— only to see the events awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively, in what many regarded as deeply flawed decision-making processes (see Peters, 2013). However, as the corruption and abuses of power by FIFA (and IOC) elites became more widely known, in large measure through critical scholarship and investigative journalism (e.g., Tomlinson, 2014; Jennings, 1996; Boykoff, 2016), the willingness of governments to acquiesce to their authority has declined, revealing the underlying fragility of their power. At the international level, sport has long been used as an instrument of foreign policy by national governments in their dealings with each other. Many prominent examples can be found in the long history of the Cold War (1947–1991), when the United States and the former Soviet Union (USSR)—the world’s two “superpowers”— were locked in a struggle for political, economic, and ideological superiority. Rather than risk a direct armed conflict that could have quickly escalated into a nuclear confrontation, however, this rivalry was pursued by a combination of “proxy wars” in remote parts of the world, and confrontations in the social and cultural realms, including sport. Both the US and USSR invested heavily in high performance sport—albeit in different ways—in order to signal to the world the superiority of “their” system (capitalism and liberal democracy on the one hand, communism on the other). Both also resorted to sport sanctions and boycotts—refusing to participate in events hosted by each other to protest against “objectionable” actions. For example, the United States and 65 other countries including Canada boycotted the Sport, Politics, and Policy

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1980 Moscow Olympics to signal their disapproval of the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. In retaliation, the Soviet Union and 13 allied countries boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. These boycotts were never really expected to change their rival’s behaviour—for example, forcing the USSR to withdraw from Afghanistan. However, they were a potent means of signalling disapproval, and inflicting the pain of wounded national pride on their opponent. Canada, of course, had its own Cold War sporting moment in the form of the 1972 Canada-Russia “Summit Series” in hockey—still one of the most celebrated events in Canadian popular culture and one that was freighted with Cold War political meaning (see Macintosh et al., 1994, pp. 21–36). Although the series was seen by diplomats and politicians as a means of building understanding between the two countries, the series itself became a focal point for competition between “our way of life and the Communist way of life,” which, in the words of Team Canada member Rod Gilbert, meant “we couldn’t lose this series. It was the most incredible pressure I’ve ever been under” (cited in Kobierecki, 2016, p. 27). With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, sport has become a favoured means of “branding” countries, with the aim of enhancing their attractiveness as a destination for tourism, investment, and other direct and indirect benefits in the context of an increasingly integrated and competitive world economy. As we will see in the next section, one of the most popular vehicles for branding has been the hosting of sports mega-events. International sports organizations (ISOs) like FIFA and the IOC get to decide which city and country are awarded the rights to host these events, thereby greatly enhancing their influence. This use of sport by host nations has often been thought of as the exercise of soft power (versus the hard power of trade sanctions and military coercion), or public diplomacy (using high profile public initiatives to create a conducive environment for advances in other domains (see Grix, 2016, p. 154–174). In addition, however, sport has been seen as an important means of breaking down or transcending national boundaries, by both reflecting and promoting the transnational process of globalization (see Chapter 14). Because of the unique reach and popularity of major sporting events, teams, and star athletes, amplified by television and social media, sport has become a focal point for processes of migration, advertising, and investment that transcend national boundaries and suggest the possibilities of a more truly integrated international political and economic system. One need only think of the unparalleled global popularity of sporting icons like Messi or Ovechkin, and clubs like Manchester United or Real Madrid, to get some sense of sport’s significance as a carrier of globalizing influences. Closely related to the role of sport in globalization has been its use by a diverse array of social movements—meaning loosely organized but resilient coalitions of actors linked by a shared commitment to popularize and advance broad social objectives on global, national, and local stages (see Harvey, Horne, Safai, Darnell, & Courchesne-O’Neill, 2013). Such groups, operating from local to global scales, have mobilized to highlight issues like homelessness, Indigenous rights, and environmental degradation in the context of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics (see Field, 2015); the oppressive occupation of Tibet and human rights violations by the Chinese government during the torch relay for the 2008 Beijing Olympics; or violations of the human and labour rights of vulnerable migrant workers building stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Social movement organizing in the case of the latter has been one of the key factors undermining Qatar’s efforts to use the 264

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World Cup to accumulate soft power—leading some scholars to argue that misplaced government efforts to exploit sport can actually lead to “soft disempowerment” (see Brannagan & Giulianotti, 2018, pp. 1153–54). While the efforts of social movements to advance an array of causes in and through sport-based mobilization have varied in impact, there can be no doubt that the high profile platform that sport provides can dramatically raise the visibility of the causes they seek to advance.

Sport and National/State-Level Politics At the level of national and sub-national (that is, state, provincial, and city) governments, sport intersects with politics in a number of prominent ways. Especially for relatively new or “fragile” states, investments in sport are often viewed as an important means of promoting a stronger sense of national identity and unity, and thus (in line with the structural functionalist theories discussed in Chapter 2) working to promote stability and solidarity within the social and political system. Through the powerful shared experiences and passionate attachments that sporting teams, events, and triumphs produce (think, for example, of Sidney Crosby’s “golden goal” at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics enabling the Canadian men’s hockey team to defeat their arch-rivals from the USA), sport is often seen to strengthen the social glue that holds otherwise “thin” political communities together. Given its massive size, sparse population, and deep regional and linguistic differences, Canadian governments have a long history of turning to sport as a way of trying to make this rather improbable country seem a little less so (see, for example, Macintosh, Bedecki, & Francks, 1987). But Canada is one of many countries that have attempted to use sport in this way. Many readers will have seen the movie Invictus (2009), for example, which portrays South African President Nelson Mandela’s deft exploitation of the 1995 Rugby World Cup in an effort to overcome the deep divide between black and white South Africans. Notwithstanding these efforts, however, sport alone cannot overcome deep divisions, of race, region, class, language, etc., as both the Canadian and South African cases illustrate. Sport is also a significant public policy issue, both in terms of the broader objectives it is used to promote, and the sport-based issues and controversies that demand a response from governments. On the former, participation in sport has long been understood to have public health benefits; hence adopting policies to enable and promote participation in sport—both recreational and high performance—remains a public health policy priority. As we will see, however, determining the balance to strike between public investments in recreational or “grassroots” sport on the one hand, and high performance sport on the other is a chronic source of controversy, contention, and ideological conflict. Sport has also long been seen (critically by conflict theorists, and positively by structural functionalists) as a means of socialization and social control for marginalized youth—typically males—that are seen as potential threats to public order. Finally, sport has been widely regarded as an important means of promoting military preparedness, and therefore figures prominently in the curricula of military academies around the world. In terms of sport-based issues that require political and policy responses, sport regularly generates controversies that become politicized and to which politicians and bureaucrats must respond. A recurring challenge is the strong relationship between sport events and fan-based violence. Specifically, fans have been notorious Sport, Politics, and Policy

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for routine expressions of racist and xenophobic identities, or outbursts of rioting triggered by both victories and defeats (Markovits & Rensmann, 2010; Young, 2011). Growing evidence of the high incidence of concussions in hockey and other contact sports has also become a matter of increasing concern for politicians and public health officials. And revelations of gender-based sexual exploitation and abuse, especially in youth sports from gymnastics to hockey, have led to a range of policy measures within and beyond sport itself.

Sport and “Deep Politics” We think of “deep politics” as the various ways in which individuals and groups develop, sustain, and adapt their political convictions, identities, and interests, often through “everyday” forms of socialization—and the ways in which these identities and interests shape political behaviours. In this sense, deep politics can be understood, in part, as manifestations of the “microsociology” emphasized theoretically by symbolic interactionism (see Chapter 2). These identities and interests include, but are not limited to, class, gender, race, and religion. For example, the potent mix of fully commercialized sport, its unique affinity with new and old forms of mass media, and the opportunities it provides for corporate as well as national “branding” have led to rapidly escalating levels of profitability, which in turn translate into growing political influence for those who benefit from these trends (see Grix, 2016, chs. 4 and 5). In cities all over North America, moreover, well-connected “booster coalitions” of local business elites and their supporters are often able to exploit their close connections with politicians to “tilt the playing field” in favour of urban regeneration schemes anchored by “state-of-the-art” stadiums and arenas that are portrayed by their supporters as good for the entire community, but often serve principally to further enrich these same elites while vital public services like public education are eroded (e.g., Delaney & Eckstein, 2006; Scherer, 2016). What has been striking, under the circumstances, is the degree to which many citizens have embraced the “common sense” belief that what was good for professional sports franchises and their wealthy owners was good for the community as a whole, thereby further entrenching class inequalities. Where does this ideology come from, how is it perpetuated, and what are its political consequences? Finally, also at the level of deep politics, we must ask how it is that certain patterns of political representation and marginalization come to be understood as natural and taken-for-granted. This takes us back to the issues of hegemony and ideology discussed earlier. How, for example, did sport help “normalize” a dominant gender order in which women were historically confined to marginal and supportive ­(“help-mate”) roles in the public domain of politics? How are we taught about what qualities to value and admire in political leaders? We may rightly think of these questions as fundamentally sociological in nature, and indeed they are discussed at length in other chapters of this book. But they have had significant political effects. Many years ago, for example, a former research director of the federal Liberal Party of Canada, Chaviva Hosek, suggested that one key reason why women found Parliamentary politics alienating was that the dynamics within federal party caucuses were very much like (men’s) locker room dynamics. As a matter of course, the old boys’ networks and masculinist cultures associated with men’s locker rooms serve to continuously reinforce the fundamentally gendered nature of the political process and women’s marginal role within it. While these roles and identities are changing, the 266

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process by which they are tackled within sport is also a fundamentally political one, with important systemic effects. Thus, we can see that the role of sport in politics and of politics in sport is indeed wide-ranging. But how important is it as an influence and issue in the political process? To help answer this question, we delve into two prominent and longstanding issue areas, in Canada and elsewhere: the politics of sports mega-events and the debate over how, and how much, to publicly support high performance sport.

THE POLITICS OF SPORTS MEGA-EVENTS IN CANADA Sports mega-events are “large scale . . . events, which have a dramatic character, mass popular appeal and international significance” (Roche, 2000, p. 1). They have become perhaps the most obvious manifestation of politics in sport and sport in politics, during both the Cold War (1947–91) and post-Cold War (1991 to the present) periods. Every SME is accompanied by multiple political “storylines.” Think, for example, of PyeongChang (2018), Rio (2016), Sochi (2014), or Qatar (2022), and ask yourself about the various political stories they have given rise to: the potential for a historic rapprochement between South and North Korea; the dramatic distortion of public funds in Brazil, in the midst of a protracted economic crisis; violations of LGBTQ rights and the rise of Russia’s new “oligarchs” in Sochi; the plight of migrant labourers in Qatar, etc. Canada has been a longstanding mega-event “user” (see Black, 2017). Leaving aside major single-sport events (e.g., the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup or the 2005 FINA World Aquatic Championships in Montréal), and prominent but smaller-scale multi-sport events like the Gay Games or les jeux de la francophonie, this country has hosted four Commonwealth Games (including the first, in 1930), three Pan American Games (including Toronto 2015), one summer Olympic Games (Montreal 1976), and two winter Olympic Games (Calgary 1988 and Vancouver 2010). As this chapter was being written, local, regional, and national “stakeholders” in government, business, and civil society were vigorously debating whether Calgary should bid for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, including the extent and share of public funding that should be provided by different levels of government in light of growing skepticism about the benefits that were once widely assumed to flow from these “hallmark events”. Interestingly, and in contrast to many previous Western Canadian bids, this one was ultimately rejected by voters in a November 2018 plebiscite and withdrawn by the city—raising new questions about the role of SMEs in the future development plans of Canadian governments. SMEs have always been inherently political: they have involved an array of actors with competing objectives; they have been seen as a means of addressing key issues and have been accompanied by multiple controversies; they have required sustained interaction between local, provincial, and national structures of governance, both state and non-state; and they have produced outcomes that have brought particular benefits to some, while displacing or marginalizing the priorities of others. The inherently political nature of SMEs was just as apparent with the 1930 British Empire Games in Hamilton as it was with the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto (see, for example, Gorman, 2010). Nevertheless, the range of actors and issues, the intensity of the politics, and the stakes of the outcomes have grown and changed over time, particularly since the 1976 summer Olympic Games in Montreal. As a result, the complexity of the governance arrangements Sport, Politics, and Policy

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and policy processes surrounding SMEs has also grown and changed. We will focus on these changing dynamics with particular reference to two prominent examples: the 1976 Montreal summer games, and the 2010 Vancouver winter Olympic Games.3 Every SME involves complex relationships between sports governing bodies, whether single-sport (like Hockey Canada and Swimming Canada) or multi-sport (like the Canadian Olympic Committee or Canadian Paralympic Committee); government agencies at federal, provincial, and municipal (or city) levels; and supporters, opponents, and other non-governmental “stakeholders” in the private sector and the wider community, who will be affected by the decisions and arrangements made. They also involve intense interaction with the international sports organizations that govern the event (e.g., the International Olympic Committee or Commonwealth Games Federation), as well as other participating governments and national sports organizations. Moreover, because SMEs are by definition both time bound and exceptional, they require exceptional governance arrangements, overseen by a special organizing committee (e.g., the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, or VANOC) that are given exceptional authority to ensure the success of these high-stakes events. In Canada, our relatively decentralized federal system of government, in which both tax-generated public revenues and important public policy responsibilities (e.g., for security, infrastructure, economic development, etc.) are divided between federal and provincial governments, makes the challenge of collective decision making and inter-governmental cooperation more demanding than in “unitary” systems of government like, for example, Italy, Korea, or Japan. In this sense, SMEs both illustrate and require collaboration among all elements of the “Canadian sport system” and the groups that orbit around it (see Box 12.2). Moreover, because we live in a large and geographically, socially, and linguistically diverse country, we experience intense forms of regional rivalry and resentment. For this reason, there is an accompanying emphasis on the need for policies aimed at overcoming these divisions and fostering stronger national unity. These have been important considerations in Canada’s SME hosting efforts. Increasingly, and belatedly, the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples that were displaced and marginalized in the course of Canadian settler “nation-building” has become a crucial issue in the politics and planning surrounding SMEs (e.g., O’Bonsawin, 2010). Beyond these considerations of national unity and disunity, SMEs provide an unrivalled opportunity to engage in promotional politics—that is, to define and present a particular image of the host city and country to its own citizens and to the world. A crucial change is that the forms and stakes of these promotional politics have been transformed by the proliferating array of broadcast and social media platforms, and the dramatically increased opportunities for private sponsorships and associated wealth generation associated with SMEs (Scherer & McDermott, 2011, p. 108). Finally, every SME provides a compelling justification for the planning and construction of expensive, large-scale, and often spectacular sporting venues and supporting infrastructure (urban transportation, international airports, tourist venues, housing for athletes and officials, etc.) in compressed time frames, but with longlasting community impacts (both positive and negative). For sporting venues in particular, there is a chronic risk of underutilized or even abandoned “white elephants” that cannot be sustained in the wake of the SME itself, and become monuments to 268

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 12.2

The Canadian Sport System

Like all political systems, the Canadian state encompasses a wide range of sub-systems in particular policy domains. The Canadian sport system is one such subsystem, playing a vital role in designing and implementing the many specific policies that flow from the overarching Canadian Sport Policy 2012 noted above, for example, regarding doping, sport for women and girls, sport for persons with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples’ participation in sport, or the hosting policy for SMEs (see https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/­services/ sport-policies-acts-regulations.html). At the federal (or national) level, the broad contours of the Canadian sport system are captured in Figure 12.1. Sport policy falls under the overarching authority of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the specific authority of Sport Canada, which has its own Minister in the federal cabinet (currently the Minister of Science and Sport). Sport Canada, in turn, relies on an array of multisport organizations (including but not limited to those in the figure: Own the Podium, the Canadian Olympic

Committee, Commonwealth Games Canada, and Right to Play), literally dozens of national sports organizations (ranging from Equestrian Canada to Hockey Canada), and regionally based high performance sports centres and institutes. Beyond these governmental and nongovernmental organizations are a range of private sector and civil society “stakeholders,” of which B2ten is a prominent example (see Box 12.3). Further complicating the Canadian sport system is that, because authority for sport and recreation is shared between the federal government and the 12 provincial and territorial governments, similar sport systems are reproduced provincially and territorially, and must be coordinated with the national structures sketched above in order for policies to be effectively implemented. Finally, when it comes to a variety of sporting issues— notably, but not only SME hosting—federal and provincial political and administrative structures and initiatives must be coordinated with city-based or municipal authorities.

Canadian Heritage

Sport Canada

National Multisport Service Organizations (MSOs) Own the Podium (OTP)

Canadian Olympic Committee (COC)

Commonwealth Games Canada

Right to Play

National Sport Organizations (NSOs)

Olympic and Paralympic Sport Centres and Institutes

B2ten

Figure 12.1 Canadian federal sport system Source: Based on Sports organizations. (2018). Government of Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/canadianheritage/services/sport-organizations.html.

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The Olympic Stadium in Montreal, on July 18, 2014. Built in the mid-1970s as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics, it is the largest by seating capacity (65,255) in Canada. Richard Cavalleri/Shutterstock

the misuse of public funds and the negative environmental impacts often associated with SMEs (see Chapter 15). In Canada, SME hosting has been marked by a combination of policy change, continuity, controversy, and adaptation. Public policies typically emerge from ongoing processes of learning, building on each other in an effort to correct previous gaps or failures, while adapting to the larger political and economic context in which they take place. This can be illustrated with reference to what (with apologies to Calgary) can be seen as the two most pivotal examples of SME hosting in this country’s history: the Montreal Summer Olympics and the Vancouver Winter Olympics. The 1976 Montreal Games have often been portrayed as “the perfect model of post-Olympic failure” (Roult & Lefebvre, 2010, pp. 2732–33). This is only partly true, but they did (and continue to) generate a great deal of controversy and became an important instigator for policy learning and adaptation. They also took place in a very different political era. Two crucial differences from more recent events were that they occurred at a time when amateurism was still a core commitment of the Olympic movement, and at a time when global politics was dominated by the Cold War and by confrontations between the post-colonial “Third World” and their former colonizers in “First World” countries of Europe and North America. Internationally, the Games become embroiled in two major controversies: over whether Taiwan (then still recognized by the United States and some others as the Republic of China, or ROC) and the People’s Republic of China could or would both 270

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participate; and over a boycott by 22 mostly African countries over the participation of New Zealand, whose rugby team had recently toured the white-minority ruled Republic of South Africa (see discussion of apartheid sport earlier in this chapter). For Canadian and other policymakers, these experiences taught them that whatever the “myth of autonomy” concerning sport and politics might suggest, there was no way of isolating the Olympics from the cross-currents of international relations, and that the federal government would have to anticipate these cross-currents if future SMEs were to be successful in the eyes of the world (see Macintosh et al., 1994, chs. 3 and 4). Domestically, and like other Canadian SMEs, the Games reflected an energetic brand of promotional politics by urban elites, led in this case by Montreal’s ambitious mayor, Jean Drapeau, who (amazingly) led the city from 1954–57 and from 1960–86. Local “booster coalitions” of business elites, construction companies, tourism professionals, media outlets, and pro-development city politicians are always key players in SME politics and policies—often opposed by social activists who argue that scarce public funds should be allocated to more urgent social needs than high profile sporting “circuses.” Montreal was no different. Unlike subsequent SMEs, however, the Games preparations were also bedeviled by a lack of coordination between different levels of government, with a three-year standoff between the federal and Quebec governments over how financial obligations would be shared (see Black, 2017). In this standoff, the federal government was particularly sensitive to charges from other parts of Canada that it was favouring Quebec—charges that are as old as Confederation and complicate the pursuit of national unity. Moreover, in the aftermath of the Games themselves, intergovernmental arrangements were further complicated by political rivalry between the newly elected, pro-sovereignty Parti Québécois provincial government, and the federalist Mayor Drapeau of Montreal. The organizing committee for the Games—COJO 1976—lacked the political authority and experience required to navigate these complicated inter-governmental politics. Two other closely related features of the Games were particularly controversial. The first was that Drapeau was determined to use the Games to signal to the world Montreal’s “world-class” status. To do this, he championed spectacular venues, including the iconic but architecturally improbable Stade Olympique. While some of  these sporting venues—like the Biodome, adapted from the Games’ cycling velodrome—were successfully converted to sustainable post-Olympic uses, the ­ Olympic Stadium, popularly known as the “Big Owe,” became one of the world’s most famous sporting “white elephants,” and has never been financially sustainable. Without any prospect of professional sport tenants, it remains a perennial drain on Quebec’s provincial coffers. This in turn related to the other enduring legacy of the Games: their monumental debt, which was not finally paid off by the city of Montreal until 30 years after the event, in 2006. This huge financial burden was a key factor in the IOC’s embrace of commercialism and professionalization, beginning with the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, a step which profoundly changed the trajectory of Olympic politics (see Hill, 1996). In fact, the IOC had little choice but to acquiesce in this process of commercialization, since Los Angeles was the only bidder for the 1984 Games and made it a condition of its candidacy to host the event. Despite the largely negative popular associations with the Montreal Olympics, however, the Games did not dampen the enthusiasm of Canadian governments—­ federal, provincial, and municipal—and well-organized booster coalitions for SME hosting. Quite the opposite: they encouraged governments to develop more comprehensive policies and practices to ensure that Canadian cities were better prepared to Sport, Politics, and Policy

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successfully host these events, with more predictable decision making and more reliable sources of funding. Moreover, in the wake of Canada’s failure to win a single gold medal during the 1976 Games—the first host nation to fail to do so—they also led governments to take further steps to ensure that Canadian athletes had the financial support and training they needed to succeed competitively. It is worth pausing to ask ourselves why, despite the burdens and controversies associated with the 1976 Games, SME hosting remained so popular in Canada. One of several contributing factors was undoubtedly the Pierre Trudeau-led federal Liberal government’s view that mega-event hosting could be very useful in promoting national unity at a time when it was under severe strain, with a pro-sovereignty government in Quebec as well as heightened regional tensions between oil-producing Western provinces and the federal government. Concretely, the Montreal Games strongly influenced Canada’s steadily-expanding support for elite, high performance sport, discussed in the next section (see Macintosh et al., 1987, pp. 104–7). They also set the stage for the development of Canada’s first Hosting Policy, adopted in 1983 to set some parameters, constraints, and guidelines on the escalating demands for federal support to SME bids. This policy has been steadily adapted in subsequent decades, but has remained a touchstone of federal support (Macintosh et al., 1987, pp. 137–8 and p. 166; Sport Canada, 2008).

Vancouver 2010 Fast forward to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and we can see many of the effects of these processes of policy development. Yet the question of “who benefits” from these Games remained as important as ever. A major change from the politics Olympic banners and logo at the main gate of the BC Place Stadium during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. AlexAranda/Shutterstock

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surrounding the Montreal Games was that by the time the initial planning for Vancouver was taking place in the late 1990s, SMEs in general and the Olympics in particular had become fully commercialized and professionalized, within a hypercompetitive international economic environment (see Horne & Whannel, 2016, chs. 3 and 4). Exclusive sponsorship schemes and lucrative broadcasting contracts had transformed the IOC into a much wealthier and more powerful organization, and corporate “partners,”4 media outlets, and major broadcasters into vital SME “stakeholders,” with a strong interest in securing and benefitting from the Games. As a result, the process of organizing the Games had become much more sophisticated and professionalized, with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) engaging many private sector professionals and adopting “best practices” from the private sector in its operations (see Black, 2017). A key part of this was a sophisticated and tightly controlled approach to image management and messaging, reflecting the latest phase of “promotional politics,” in which political dialogue is “subsumed by the language of contemporary marketing and image making spectacles” (Scherer & McDermott, 2011, p. 108). Backstopping VANOC was a carefully crafted “multi-party agreement” linking key agencies from the three levels of government (federal, provincial, and municipal) supporting the Games, thereby ensuring timely decisions and close collaboration—a far cry from the inter-governmental competition and fractiousness that marked the preparations for the Montreal Games (see Parent et al., p. 2011). In short, the Games (like SMEs everywhere) had been reshaped by neoliberalism—“a set of interrelated values put into practice as forms of governance established to achieve free-market globalization” (Vanwynsberghe, Suborg, & Wyly, 2013, p. 2077)—to become a coveted vehicle for competitive place promotion in an increasingly interwoven global economy. The Winter Olympics are a strange beast among SMEs. They clearly benefit from their association with the high-minded ideals of “Olympism,”5 and loom very large in the consciousness of winter sport-loving Canadians who revel in our competitive successes on this relatively exclusive international stage. Yet they are a much smaller event than either the Summer Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup (among others), and a matter of indifference to the majority of the world’s peoples who live in countries where winter as we know it does not exist. Indeed, the 2,566 athletes who competed in the Vancouver Games were far fewer than the more than 6,000 who participated in both the Montreal Olympics and, much more recently, the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto. But if the Vancouver Olympics were “sub-global” in size and appeal, the effort to maximize the marketing power and reach of the Vancouver Games was worldclass. Similarly, like SMEs everywhere, the Games provided the necessary political justification for a series of public infrastructural mega-projects, including the “Canada Line” skytrain linking downtown Vancouver to the international airport ($2.1 billion); the widening of the Sea-to-Sky highway between Vancouver and Whistler, where the alpine events were held ($600 million); the new harbourfront Convention Centre ($833 million); the Olympic Village, built on remediated industrial land on Southeast False Creek; and the iconic Richmond Speed Skating Oval, successfully converted (although still publicly subsidized) to a multi-purpose recreational facility after the Games. Still, while these projects were attractive additions to British Columbia’s lower mainland, in each case they principally benefited better-off citizens and visitors who had the time and resources to make use of them. It is, after all, relatively privileged citizens and visitors who are disproportionate consumers of airports, conventions, or the high-end recreational facilities of Whistler that the Seato-Sky highway upgrades made more accessible. Sport, Politics, and Policy

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Ideologically, Games organizers sought to project an inspiring core message of sustainability and inclusivity, along with “harmonious diversity” and multiculturalism. More broadly, and like previous Canadian SMEs, they sought to project Vancouver 2010 as “Canada’s Games”—a vital stimulus to heighten national unity (see Black, 2017). The fascinating paradox of such events, however, is that while they seek to project an image of unity and inclusion, they also seek to differentiate the host from other cities, and give it a global competitive advantage in terms of investment, tourism, and the like. Indeed, the Olympic Games Impact (OGI) Study undertaken by a team of University of British Columbia researchers concluded that the measurable benefits of the Games were concentrated almost entirely in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, with most of the funding provided by the provincial and federal governments (Hume, 2013). The benefits of publicly funded “promotional politics” were reaped mainly by private sector “boosters” associated with the construction, tourism and hospitality, real estate, and mass media sectors, among others. Games backers did work with local community organizations to carefully craft “inclusivity commitments” to civil liberties, housing, social services, and transparency in advance of the awarding of the Games in 2002. These commitments were important in securing broad public support for the bid to host the Games. Once hosting rights were secured from the IOC in 2003, however, most of these commitments were quietly dropped (see Edelson, 2011). Most strikingly, in a city where the most urgent social need is affordable housing, Games organizers largely abandoned the promised social housing legacy of the Games village, with most units being converted to high-end condominiums (Pentifallo, 2015). Moreover, the city’s most marginalized citizens, including homeless and street-involved youth on the Downtown East Side, not only drew no benefit from the Games’ ambitious “legacy” projects, but became a primary focus of the city’s heightened security and surveillance efforts, involving a subtle but extensive police presence. These “city cleansing strategies” (Kennelly, 2015, p. 15) aimed to burnish Vancouver’s image in order to take full advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime branding opportunity of the Games, to the neglect of its most in-need and at-risk citizens. As summarized by Kennelly, (2015, p. 18–19): This is the core issue: not their [homeless peoples’] manners, not their behaviour, not their visibility in tourist locations. The root dynamic of neoliberal governance and intensified security regimes in Olympic cities is that all of the resources are being poured into Olympic priorities, diverting attention, time, and money away from the social issues of the residents themselves.

In short, the question of “who benefits?” from the extraordinary public investments—some $7.8 billion in total—made in support of the Vancouver Games was answered in a way that heightened, rather than reduced, social and political inequalities, within and beyond Vancouver. Thus, the Vancouver Games and other SME hosting efforts should be understood not only as deeply political at each stage of the bidding, preparation, and hosting process, but as potentially reinforcing hegemonic orders within host communities and countries, as anticipated by the Gramscian theoretical approach discussed in Chapter 2. Since 2010, and the deep controversies surrounding (among others) the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 and the Rio Summer Games in 2016, enthusiasm for SME hosting in Canada and internationally has sharply declined. This may 274

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reflect a new chapter in sport politics, as the IOC and other key actors seek to revitalize and secure the future of the Olympic Movement through initiatives like Olympic Agenda 2020 (https://www.olympic.org/olympic-agenda-2020; see also McAloon, 2016). The other key policy legacy of the Montreal Games, however—the elaboration of Canada’s high performance sport system—has ­ retained consistent public and popular support, despite some deep controversies along the way.

THE CHANGING POLITICS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE SPORT AND ATHLETE ASSISTANCE As noted above, Canada’s high performance sport system has steadily expanded since the 1970s. Indeed, it reached an apex of success in the 1980s, with Canadian athletes reaching unprecedented heights in marquee sports like track and field. The dangers of unbridled pursuit of high performance success were brought jarringly into focus, however, by the scandal triggered when Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100-metre gold medal in 1988 (see Chapter 8). There followed a prolonged period of Canadian “unilateral disarmament” in the global “sporting arms race.” This was, however, a distinctively Canadian reaction to the trauma of the “Johnson affair” and the subsequent revelations of the Dubin Inquiry (Beamish, 2015). For the most part, other countries did not follow suit. Indeed, given the increased commercialization and heightened international profile of SMEs as well as individual sporting stars, it is no surprise that governments have become more actively involved in pushing an elite sport agenda (Grix & Carmichael, 2012).6 Moreover, due to a demand for Olympic (and Paralympic) success, the private sector has taken on a greater role in helping athletes reach the podium, in partnership with government (see Thibault & Babiak, 2005). Specifically, both corporate and governmental support grew sharply in order to develop successful high performance athletes. In Canada, this process gathered steam from the mid-2000s onwards, both prior to and following the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (see Thibault & Babiak, 2013). Besides ongoing government funding for high performance sport through the longstanding Athlete Assistance Program, there has been an increased presence from an array of actors, including an enhanced role for the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), Own the Podium (OTP), B2ten (a private Montreal-based initiative), and the Canadian Athletes Now Fund (see Thibault & Babiak, 2013). Of these, by far the largest and most significant has been OTP, which is the controversial architect of Canada’s “targeted excellence” approach to high performance sport (see Box 12.3). But the growing involvement of a range of new political actors once again raises the question touched upon above—“who benefits,” and what do both governmental and non-governmental organizations (corporate and voluntary) seek to gain from their association with elite sport? As we have mentioned above, governments in Canada and elsewhere have sought to use sport to not only shape a variety of policy agendas, but also to capitalize (sometimes more successfully than others) on the ideology and values that sport reinforces. In this sense, they have been drawn to a structural functionalist understanding of the work that sport can do for the state, as outlined in Chapter 2. Among other things, elite sport and “mass” or grassroot sport are often portrayed as being dependent upon each other—especially in regard to success and funding; that is, elite Sport, Politics, and Policy

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 12.3

Owning the Podium?

During the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, no athletes captured the attention of Canada — and the world — quite as much as gold medalist ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. The two had achieved great success in previous games, but their talent and popularity reached unprecedented levels in South Korea (Kelly, 2018). As with other elite Canadian athletes, they had benefited from targeted financial support from Own the Podium, initiated in 2004 with the bold objective of ensuring that Canada topped the medal table at the Vancouver Winter Games (in the end, Canada finished third). By concentrating support on sports like figure skating, which were seen as highly likely to “medal,” this nonprofit, government-initiated but arms-length organization aimed to maximize (as its name implies) Canada’s podium performances. While OTP has worked with an array of partners, including provincial governments and national sports organizations (NSOs) (see Box 12.2), the federal government is by far its largest funder, contributing almost $62 million in 2016–17 (www.ownthepodium.org). While Canadian athletes have enjoyed greater success at Games since OTP was established in 2004, controversy persists over the effects and effectiveness of the program, more specifically, over how its single-minded fixation on winning medals impairs broader processes of sport development (see Hall, 2016), and on the opportunity costs of focusing such a large share of sport funding on this objective. As Peter Donnelly (2009) notes, financial assistance in

Canada and elsewhere has created a “sporting arms race” in which the cost per medal has escalated, averaging $8.6  million for each Canadian medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio (Sport Canada, 2017). If there has been concern about the highly targeted approach adopted by OTP, however, Virtue and Moir’s Olympic success in 2018 involved an even more corporatized approach. As their ice dancing supremacy was challenged by the French pair of Gabrielle Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, Virue and Moir were among the small cluster of “super elite” athletes singled out for support from Montreal–based B2ten—a group of Canadian philanthropists, most of whom remain anonymous, who aim to “use a business based approach” to advance Canada’s standing on the podium. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Tessa Virtue highlighted the resources that B2ten had offered the pair. “They’ve taken our training and our lives to a completely different level. They’re just in it for sport, for the people” (Kelly, 2018). Besides the two ice dancers, B2ten currently also shadows five other athletes, providing them with services such as a nutritionist, an osteopath, or any additional help they may need. Denying personal motivations for why the group aids athletes, they continue to emphasize their involvement as patriotic, stating “this is all about Canadian pride and elevating the Canadian brand” (Kelly, 2018). It remains to be seen what the systemic effects of this approach will be.

sport success, enabled by public funding, has been widely believed to foster mass participation and the many benefits that flow from it. Whether this is valid or not is highly contested. Stewart et al. (2005, p. 55) note that the assumption of co-dependence between elite and mass participation sport is “difficult to substantiate but has gained widespread acceptance”—an example of an influential but unverified “common sense” assumption (see also in Grix & Carmichael, 2012, p. 77). However, the larger question remains: why do governments invest in elite sport? Jonathan Grix and Fiona Carmichael seek to answer this question, noting a variety of rationales. In addition to the more “obvious” examples of health promotion, community cohesion, and the positive impact of athletic role models, which are intuitively compelling but difficult to substantiate, the authors note the way sport can be used to illustrate Olympic standing and international image (Grix & Carmichael, 2012).7 Sport has been widely regarded as a social benefit, specifically in creating a “feel good factor” amongst the wider population while also boosting sport participation. In a report commissioned by Sport Canada, however, it was concluded that “there is 276

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little evidence to support the anecdotal claims that high performance sport leads to social benefits such as building national pride . . . [and] encouraging healthy behaviours” (Bloom et al., 2006, cited in Grix & Camichael, 2012). Although these imputed links continue to be debated amongst sport studies scholars, with much controversy concerning the extent and limits of what high performance sport can achieve, they also highlight an even more striking question concerning why there has been such rapid growth in the involvement of non-governmental (particularly corporate) actors in high performance sport. Recent research has highlighted the financial and technical support that is needed for athletic success (Ekos Research Associates, 2010). Quite simply, “it’s easy to make an athlete one of the top 20 or 25 competitors in the world, but to make them capable of reaching the podium requires a significant amount of time and money” (Gatehouse, 2004, p. 32). As noted in Box 12.3 above, corporate actors have increasingly responded to this challenge and driven the high performance sport agenda. In doing so, they have further reinforced the tilt in public policy toward elite sport, given the ideological emphasis in the neoliberal era on the virtues of the private sector and public-private partnerships. The question of whether, and why, support for elite athletes should be a political priority in a world of urgent policy demands remains a matter of ongoing contestation, but the degree to which corporate elites have accepted the usefulness of investments in high performance sport seems increasingly settled.

CONCLUSION The two policy domains explored above (SMEs and high performance sport) are, as noted earlier in this chapter, a very small if particularly prominent window on the much wider range of issues and places where sport, politics, and policy intersect. They serve to illustrate some of the reasons why politicians and governments often see sport as an extremely attractive target for political intervention—and also how these interventions can produce unintended and politically damaging effects. As sport grows in social, economic, and cultural prominence, it will doubtless continue to draw the attention of ambitious political elites seeking to capitalize on its extraordinary appeal to advance various objectives and gain advantages over rivals. But their ability to manage these political interventions will remain partial and contested. Not only is the power of sport difficult to “harness” politically, but the social arena of sport is populated by both elite (or “top-down”) governmental and corporate actors, and by grassroots (or “bottom-up”) social movements at local, national, and transnational levels, equally determined to use sport for counter-hegemonic purposes. At times, top-down and bottom-up actors and agendas overlap and reinforce each other in surprising ways—as in Nike’s “Believe in Something” campaign featuring controversial free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who led NFL players’ efforts to highlight and challenge ongoing racial oppression and police brutality in America. The historical, comparative, and critical sensitivities which the introduction to this book emphasizes as essential features of the sociological ­ imagination are vital in making sense of the multiple places and ways sport and politics intersect. Sport, Politics, and Policy

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Key Terms Civil society: The array of groups and organizations working in the interest of citizens but outside of government and for-profit sectors. Elite sport: High performance or elite sport refers to an emphasis on competitive and medal success, compared to mass sport that encourages broadly based participation. Globalization: “The expanding scale, growing magnitude, speeding up and deepening of transcontinental flows and patterns of interaction” (Held & McGrew, 2002, p. 1) in overlapping economic, political, social, and cultural domains. Policy: A course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a given problem or interrelated set of problems. Politics: Any activity related to influencing, making, and implementing collective decisions for a political community. Promotional politics: An increasingly prominent form of politics in capitalist democracies in which traditional forms of political dialogue are supplanted by the language and practices of contemporary marketing and image-making (see Scherer & McDermott, 2011, p. 108). Social movement: Collective actions and political formations concerned with creating social change. Soft power: Forms of power that seek to influence outcomes through non-coercive means, involving the “politics of persuasion” or the “politics of attraction.” Sports mega-events: Large-scale, high-profile international sporting events, with significant longterm social and economic consequences.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. How is sport used by political elites as a form of political communication? 2. Power is a central theme in the study of politics. In what ways does sport reflect power relations, and in what ways does it make some groups more or less powerful? 3. The use (and abuse) of athlete doping continues to be a prevalent concern in the realm of sports. Why has it proven so difficult to effectively police and punish? 4. What are the arguments in favour of bidding for and hosting SMEs, and what are the arguments against it? Why have so many governments competed to become SME hosts? 5. Should elite sporting success be an important public policy objective? Why or why not? 6. What makes sport such a potent means of fostering nationalism and promoting national unity? In what ways (if at all) can politicians gain from these links between sport and nationalism?

Suggested Readings Allison, L. (1998). Sport and civil society. Political Studies, XLVI, 709–726. Black, D. (1999). ‘Not cricket’: The effects and effectiveness of the sport boycott. In N. Crawford and A. Klotz (Eds.), How Sanctions Work: Lessons from South Africa, 213–231. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Grix, J. (2016). Sport politics: An introduction. London, UK: Palgrave. Murray, S. and G. Pigman. (2014). Mapping the relationship between international sport and diplomacy. Sport in Society, 17(9), 1098–1118. Scherer, J. (2016). Resisting the world-class city: Community opposition and the politics of a local arena development. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(1), 39–53. Thibault, L. & J. Harvey. (2013). Sport policy in Canada. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press.

Endnotes 1. Sport sociologists have been more attuned to the sport-politics interface, which raises the interesting (sociological) question of why some academic disciplines are more inclined to take sport seriously than others. In the case of political science, the relative neglect of sport can be seen, in part, to reflect a bias toward the study of formal political institutions and processes. 2. As you think about the relationship between sport and politics, it is useful to reflect on the many ways in which sporting images and metaphors are used to talk and write about politics, and in politicians’ own efforts to communicate with voters. See also Box 12.1. 3. For a fuller exploration of these cases, see Black, 2017. 4. For Vancouver, “worldwide partners” included Coca-Cola, Samsung, and Visa; “national partners” included Bell, RBC, and Rona; and “official supporters” included Air Canada, Teck, and BC Hydro. 5. On the origins of modern “Olympism,” see Hoberman, 1995. 6. For a discussion of the historical context in Canada, see Macintosh et al., 1987; Macintosh & Whitson, 1990. 7. However, debate continues on whether these claims can be substantiated. For further reading see Stewart et al., 2005; Sam, 2009.

References Allison, L. (1993). The changing context of sporting life. In L. Allison (Ed.), The changing politics of sport. Manchester UK: Manchester University Press. Beamish, R. (2015). The dialectic of modern, high-performance sport: Returning to the Dubin inquiry to move forward. In R. Field (Ed.). Playing for change: The continuing struggle for sport and recreation. Toronto ON: University of Toronto Press. Black, D. (1999). ‘Not Cricket’: The effects and effectiveness of the sport boycott. In Neta Crawford and Audie Klotz (Eds). How sanctions work: Lessons from South Africa. London UK: Macmillan. Black, D. (2017). Managing the mega-event ‘habit’: Canada as serial user. Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 9(2), 219–235. Booth, D. (1998). The race game: Sport and politics in South Africa. Routledge Press. Boykoff, J. (2016). Power games: A political history of the Olympics. London UK: Verso. Brannagan, P. M., & Giulianotti, R. (2018) The soft power–soft disempowerment nexus: The case of Qatar. International Affairs, 94(5), 1139–1157. Delaney, K., & Eckstein, R. (2006). “Local growth coalitions, publicly subsidized sports stadiums, and social inequality,” Humanity & Society, 30, 84–108.

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Donnelly, P. (2009, December 1). Own the podium or rent it? Canada’s involvement in the global sporting arms race. Policy Options. Retrieved from http://policyoptions.irpp. org/magazines/the-2010-olympics/own-the-podium-or-rent-it-canadas-involvement-in-the-­ global-sporting-arms-race/. Dubin, C. (1990). Commission of inquiry into the use of drugs and banned practices intended to increase athletic performance. Ottawa: Ministry of Supply & Services. Easton, D. (1953). The political system: An inquiry into the state of political science. Ethics. 65(3), 201–2015. Edelson, N. (2011). Inclusivity as an Olympic event at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Urban Geography, 32(6), 804–822. Ekos Research Associates (2010). 2009 Status of the high performance athlete. Final report. Ottawa, ON: Author. Retrieved from http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/sc/rpts/rpt-eng.pdf. Field, R. (2015). The new ‘Culture Wars’: The Vancouver 2010 Olympics, public protest, and the politics of resistance. In R. Field (Ed.). Playing for change: The continuing struggle for sport and recreation. Toronto ON: University of Toronto Press. Gatehouse, J. (2004, January 26). We would love to be no. 1. But athletes need support, the Canadian Olympic Committee boss says. Maclean’s, 117(4), 32–33. Gorman, D. (2010). Amateurism, imperialism, internationalism and the first British Empire Games. International Journal of the History of Sport, 27(4), 611–634. Grix, J. (2016). Sport politics: An introduction. London UK: Palgrave. Grix, J., & Carmichael, F. (2012). Why do governments invest in elite sport? A polemic. International journal of sport policy and politics, 4(1), 73–90. Hall, A., et al. (1991). Sport in Canadian society. Toronto ON: McClelland and Stewart. Hall, T. (2016 August 5). Why is the goal more medals? A Canadian medallist on why our Olympic strategy betrays the spirit of the Games. The Walrus. Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/the-wrong-track/. Harvey, J., Horne, J., Safai, P., Darnell, P., & Courchesne-O’Neill, S. (2003). Sport and social movements: From the local to the global. London UK: Bloomsbury Academic. Held, D., & McGrew, A. (2002). Globalization/antiglobalization. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Hill, C. (1996). Olympic politics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Hoberman, J. (1995). Towards a theory of Olympic internationalism. Journal of Sport History, 22(1), 1–37. Horne, J., & Whannel, G. (2016). Understanding the Olympics, (2nd ed.). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Hume, M. (2013 October 23). Vancouver Olympics worth the $7 billion price tag, study says. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/ vancouver-olympics-worth-the-7-billion-price-tag-study-says/article15036916/. Jennnings, A. (1996). The new lords of the rings. Transparency Books. Kelly, C. (2018 February 16). Montreal-based B2ten is giving Canadian Olympians a better run for their money. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/ olympics/montreal-based-b2ten-is-giving-canadian-olympians-a-better-run-for-their-money/ article38013877/. Kennelly, J. (2015). ‘You’re making our city look bad’: Olympic security, neoliberal urbanization, and homeless youth. Ethnography, 16(1), 3–24. Kidd, B. (1991). From quarantine to cure: The new phase of the struggle against apartheid sport. Sociology of Sport Journal 8, 33–46. Kobierecki, M. (2016). Canada-USSR hockey exchanges. Between positive and negative sports diplomacy. Historia i Polityika, 18(25), 19–32.

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Lukes, S. (1974). Power: a radical view. New York NY: Macmillan. Macintosh, D., Bedecki, T., & Franks, C. E. S. (1987). Sport and politics in Canada. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Macintosh, D., Hawes, M., Greenhorn, D. R., & Black, D. R. (1994). Sport and Canadian diplomacy. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Macintosh, D., & Whitson, D. (1990). The game planners: Transforming Canada’s sport system. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Markovits, A., & Rensmann, L. (2010). Gaming the world: How sports are reshaping global ­politics and culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McAloon, J. (2016). Agenda 2020 and the Olympic movement. Sport in Society, 19(6), 767–785. Mintz, E., Close, D., & Croce, O. (2018). Politics, power, and the common good: An introduction to political science, (5th ed.). Toronto: Pearson. O’Bonsawin, C. (2010). ‘No Olympics on stolen native land’: contesting Olympic narratives and asserting indigenous rights within the discourse of the 2010 Vancouver Games. Sport in Society, 13(1), 143–156. Own the Podium. (2018) Funding. Retrieved from http://www.ownthepodium.org/Partners/ Government. Pal, L. (2006). Beyond policy analysis: Public issue management in turbulent times. Toronto ON: Nelson. Parent, M., Rouillard, C., & Leopkey, B. (2011). Issues and strategies pertaining to the Canadian governments’ coordination efforts in relation to the 2010 Olympic Games. European Sport Management Quarterly, 11(4), 337–369. Peacock, B. (2011). ‘A secret instinct of social preservation’: Legitimacy and the dynamic (re) constitution of Olympic conceptions of the ‘good.’ Third World Quarterly, 32(3), 477–502. Pentifallo, C. (2015). “The city and the spectacle: Homelessness, social housing, and Vancouver 2010.” PhD Dissertation, University of British Columbia. Peters, J. (2013, October 1). How Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Bleacher Report. Retrieved from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1793593-how-qatar-won-theright-to-host-the-2022-fifa-world-cup. Roche, M. (2000). Mega-events and modernity. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Roult, R., & Lefebvre, S. (2010). Planning and reconversion of Olympic heritages: the Montreal Olympic Stadium. International Journal of the History of Sport 27(16–18), 2731–2747. Sam, M., 2009. The public management of sport. Wicked problems, challenges and dilemmas. Public management review, 11(4), 499–514. Scherer, J. (2016). Resisting the world-class city: Community opposition and the politics of a local arena development. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(1), 39–53. Scherer, J., & McDermott, L. (2011). Playing promotional politics: Mythologizing hockey and manufacturing “ordinary” Canadians. International Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue internationale d’études canadiennes, (43), 107–134. Sport Canada. (2017). Review of sport Canada’s targeted excellence approach: Final report. Retrieved from https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/2e9a24f2-d285-4717-9a2b-42abb5c9306a. Sport Canada. (2012). Canadian sport policy 2012. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/ canadian-heritage/services/sport-canada.html#a2. Sport Canada. (2008). Federal policy for hosting international sports events. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/sport-policies-acts-regulations/policyhosting-international-sport-events.html. “Stephen Harper Balances Job, Hockey Dad Duties.” (2006, March 1) CTV.ca. Retrieved from http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060228/harper_hky_dad_06022 8/20060228?hub=TopStories.

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Stewart, B., Nicholson, M., Westerbeek, H., Smith, A. (2005). Australian sport: better by design? The evolution of Australian sport policy. London, UK: Routledge. Thibault, L., & Babiak, K. (2005). Organizational changes in Canada’s sport system: Toward an athlete-centred approach. European Sport Management Quarterly, 5(2), 105–132. Thibault, L., & Babiak, K. (2013). Athlete Development and Support. In L. Thibault & J. Harvey, Sport policy in Canada. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Tomlinson, A. (2014). FIFA: the men, the myths, the money. London, UK: Routledge. Vanwynsberghe, R., Surborg, B., & Wyly, E. (2013). When the games come to town: Neoliberalism, mega-events and social inclusion in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(6), 2074–93. Wilson, D. (2004). “Cricket’s Shame: The Inside Story.” New Statesman, 17, 836. Young, K. (2011). Sport, violence, and society. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Chapter 13 

The Business of Sport Brad R. Humphreys and Brian P. Soebbing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Describe the economic structure of professional sport in Canada and throughout North America. 2 Critically examine the labour relations of major league sport and the main sources of conflict between the owners of professional sport franchises and professional players.

In 2018, the Toronto Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre saw the largest attendance drop in Major League Baseball. Design Pics Inc/Alamy Stock Photo

3 Discuss ownership patterns of major league sports franchises in relation to social class, gender, and race and ethnicity. 4 Critically examine the debates over the use of public funds to build new ­facilities for major league sports franchises. 5 Examine the arguments in favour and against cities hosting sports mega-events, like the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup.

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“Canadian sports teams and clubs from the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer account for 69.1% of total operating revenue for the spectator sports industry.” Statistics Canada, 2018

INTRODUCTION The quote above comes from a March 18, 2018, Statistics Canada report estimating the economic dimensions of the spectator sports industry (Statistics Canada, 2018). It underlines the social and economic significance and the unique nature of professional sport in the fabric of the lives of Canadians. Why do sports fans say “we won” when their team wins but “they lost” when their team loses? Fans typically do not place similar ideological emphasis on most other events and economic transactions in their lives. While capturing consumers’ attention through individual match outcomes and the quest for championships generates tangible and intangible consumer benefits and impacts other stakeholders, sport also encompasses issues of conflict, race, power, and agency. These issues include internal labour struggles such as the negotiation and bargaining between the players and wealthy team owners. It also includes broader political debates and struggles like the bidding by cities/regions for mega-events such as the Olympic Games. Drawing from conflict theory, this chapter provides a basic overview of the economic structure of sport in Canadian society, including the study of production, consumption, and economic transactions; the distribution of wealth and income in capitalist economies; and the relationship between these economic activities and law, government, and other social institutions. In doing so, we highlight several unique features of sports leagues in Canada while describing the incentive structure of these leagues, how they operate, and how they interact with fans in the pursuit of profit. In addition to describing sports leagues, the chapter highlights the social significance of two major sport mega-events and political debates associated with each: the Olympic Games and World Cup.

OVERVIEW OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS In Canada, and throughout North America, professional team sport leagues operate as closed leagues. Structurally, a closed league means that league executives control when new franchises can enter the league. In addition to controlling new franchise entry, leagues have the power to control who can own teams in the league and where franchises are located. Comparatively, this structure contrasts with an open league, common in Europe, in which new teams regularly enter and leave the league as a result of on-field performance (i.e., the promotion and relegation system). An example would be the English Premier League. Currently, professional sports leagues in Canada are stable and free from competing (i.e., rival) leagues. However, this lucrative economic structure—a structure that is widely taken-for-granted, and seldom questioned—was not always the case. As Winfree and Rosentraub (2012) note, three main factors led to the emergence of professional team sports in the early 1900s: 1) urbanization, and an increasing number 284

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of cities with populations large enough to support spectator sports teams; 2) workers, the main consumers of live spectator sporting events, saw an increase in income which could be spent on these events thanks to broader political conflicts and struggles over pay and working conditions; and, 3) a related increase in “free” leisure time, which could be used for leisure, sports, and entertainment. Throughout the 20th century, each of the professional sports leagues reviewed faced several challenges from rival leagues. In winning these challenges, these leagues cemented themselves as the premier sports leagues in North America for their respective sports and institutionalized preferred ways of playing to such an extent that these contests—and the leagues and various franchises—simply seem like a “natural” part of the fabric of social life, as opposed to being socially constructed entities. We focus on six major professional sports leagues that play in Canada and the United States. Table 13.1 shows these leagues. Following this, we offer some background on each league.

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL) formed in 1958. Historically, most of the franchises were located in Canada. In the mid-1990s, the league expanded to the United States, placing teams in Baltimore, Birmingham, Las Vegas, Memphis, Sacramento,

Table 13.1 League Overview

League

Year Began

# of Franchises (2018)

Current Canadian Franchises

Prior Canadian Franchises

Latest Average Franchise Values (USD)

9: Ottawa, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, British Columbia

Ottawa (2): 1958–1996, 2002–2005

Not Available

30

1: Toronto

Montreal: 1969–2004

1.65 billion

1996

23

3: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal

None

240 million

National Basketball Association

1946

30

1: Toronto

Toronto: 1947; Vancouver: 1996–2001

1.65 billion

National Football League

1920

32

None

None

2.6 billion

National Hockey League

1917

31

7: Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal

Winnipeg (1979–1996), Quebec City (1919–1920, 1979–1995), Hamilton (1920–1925), Montreal (1917–1918; 1924–1938), Ottawa (1917–1934)

630 million

Canadian Football League

1958

9

Major League Baseball

1903

Major League Soccer

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and Shreveport. By the mid-1990s, all these franchises folded except for Baltimore, which relocated to Montreal. As of the 2018 season, the league has nine franchises located throughout Canada. There is speculation about expanding the league to 10 teams with the addition of a franchise in Atlantic Canada (Heroux, 2018). The CFL grew in other ways over time. The league is currently in a television rights deal with TSN for a reported CA$ 40 million. This deal was signed prior to the 2014 season and lasts through the 2021 season (Rovell, 2016). The CFL has also seen an influx of new stadiums. At the beginning of the 2018 season, four franchises played in stadiums that were less than 10 years old and the BC Lions played in a completely renovated stadium that was completed for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. These facilities provide those clubs with additional revenue from ticket sales and other ancillary items that consumers purchase in the stadium.

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) was founded in 1903. It consists of two rival leagues that preceded its formation: the National League (NL), founded in 1876, and the American League (AL), founded in 1901. In the 2018 season, there were 30 franchises in 25 markets in the United States and one market in Canada (Toronto). There was another MLB franchise in Montreal from 1969 through 2004 that relocated to Washington, D.C. As of the 2018 season, the estimated value of an MLB franchise was US$ 1.65 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is the youngest league of the six. In 1994, la Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the world governing body for soccer (called football outside North America), forced the United States Soccer Federation to establish a top-level professional soccer league in exchange for awarding the rights to host the FIFA World Cup to the United States. In its early years, MLS enjoyed periods of economic prosperity along with economic hardship. As of the 2018 season, the league had 23 franchises in North America with Los Angeles FC having its inaugural season. Of these franchises, three are located in Canada (Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal). The league has already announced plans to expand into two additional markets in the next few seasons. However, expansion has not been continuous. The league was forced to contract two franchises following the 2001 season. The latest estimate for the average value of an MLS franchise is US$ 240 million, according to Forbes.

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) began in 1949 through a merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League, two rival leagues. As of the 2017–2018 season, the NBA had 30 franchises. Of these 30, one franchise was located in Canada (Toronto). There was another NBA franchise in Vancouver from 1996 through 2001, before it relocated to Memphis, Tennessee. Similar to the other leagues, the NBA has seen growth in revenues and franchise values over time. As of 2018, the average estimated NBA franchise value, according to Forbes, was US$ 1.65 billion. 286

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National Football League The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920 with 17 teams. In its history, the league faced many challenges from rival leagues for supremacy as the elite professional football league in North America. The league had 32 franchises for the 2018 season. None of these franchises was located in Canada. However, the Buffalo Bills played several home games in Toronto starting in 2008, through an agreement with Rogers Communications. While it had signed a new agreement in 2013 to continue playing home games in Toronto, the owners of the Bills negotiated with Rogers to terminate this agreement after one season (Associated Press, 2014). Starting in 2016, the NFL entered a period where several franchises relocated to other markets after failing to reach stadium agreements in their current cities. Both the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers relocated to Los Angeles, where a new stadium is being constructed in the suburbs. The Oakland Raiders reached an agreement to relocate to Las Vegas in 2020. From a business perspective, the NFL generates the largest amount of revenue compared to the other leagues, as shown on Table 13.1. This revenue comes mainly from the national broadcasting rights fees the league receives from several television networks. The average estimated NFL franchise value in 2018, according to Forbes, was US$ 2.6 billion.

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL) is the premier hockey league in the world. It was established in 1917. By 1942, the NHL established itself as the monopoly provider of professional hockey in North America. It was challenged by several rival leagues, the latest being the World Hockey Association that formed in the 1970s. In 2018, the league had 31 franchises, with seven located in Canada. The number of Canadian franchises has fluctuated substantially throughout the history of the league. This fluctuation, in particular the most recent changes, has a lot to do with the strength of the Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar. The mid-1990s, when the Canadian dollar depreciated against the US dollar, saw two franchises (Winnipeg and Quebec City) relocate to the United States. Winnipeg received a franchise back in 2011 when the Thrashers relocated from Atlanta. Quebec City has not received a replacement franchise, despite the fact that the city built a hockey arena in 2015 in the hopes of attracting an existing franchise or convincing the league to expand. When the NHL voted to expand beginning in the 2017 season, however, existing league members voted to add a team in Las Vegas. According to Forbes, the average estimated NHL franchise value in 2018 was US$ 630 million. Franchise valuations of Canadian teams show a story of growth over time in the “Big 4” professional sports leagues. Figure 13.1 tracks this valuation growth for franchises in MLB, NHL, and NBA over time. The figures below represent franchise values for that year converted into 2017 US dollars to allow for comparison over time. Note on the figure the growth over the last two decades. In 2000, most franchises were valued between $100 and $300 million. Since 2000, a slow and steady growth rate has taken place with more rapid growth occurring in the 2010s. There can be a couple of reasons for this valuation. First, the financial strength of the leagues has increased over time. Even though this time saw periods of instability as it relates to labour disputes and an economic recession, the leagues themselves The Business of Sport

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Value (in millions of 2017 USD)

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 2000

2002

2004

2006

2008 Year

2010

2012

2014

2016

Flames

Ollers

Jays

Leafs

Griz

Habs

Sens

Raps

Canucks

Jets

Figure 13.1 Canadian Franchise Values Source: Authors designed and created graph using publicly available data from assorted Forbes magazines and Rod Fort’s sports business webpages.

strengthened due to such policies as salary scales for rookies and salary caps. We will explain some of these policies later on. The second reason for the increasing valuation is the increasing amount of money the league collects due to their media contracts. These large, fixed sums of money are then equally shared with all the franchises, providing financial stability and increasing their valuation.

LEAGUE STRUCTURE AND POLICY Professional sports leagues all face a similar set of structural economic problems that must be negotiated prior to holding on-field contests. In particular, sports leagues face two unique issues: joint production and cooperative behaviour. A single team, obviously, cannot operate alone. A successful sports team requires competitors who can be relied on to provide reasonable competition. In other settings, firms can increase profits by eliminating competitors and gaining monopoly power. Professional sports leagues differ; while teams seek to defeat competitors in the field of play and are incentivized to make money, they also require competing teams. Sports teams, as a result, engage in joint production of a commonly produced good. Economist Walter Neale in 1964 used a heavyweight boxing champion to illustrate joint production, stating “[the champion boxer] wants to earn more money, to maximize his profits. What does he need in order to do so? Obviously, a contender, and the stronger the contender the larger the profits from fighting him” (Neale, 1964, pp. 1–2). Neale (1964) further emphasized two important structural elements in sports leagues: uncertainty of outcome, the core element of the professional sport product (Mason, 1999) and competitive balance. Uncertainty of outcome is defined as “a situation where a given contest within a league structure has a degree of unpredictability about the result and, by extension, that the competition as a whole does not have a predetermined winner at the outset of the competition” (Forrest & Simmons, 2002, p. 229). Competitive balance is defined as a league structure which has relatively equal playing strength between league members” (Forrest & Simmons, 2002, p. 229). 288

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Sports league members must also agree on rules to govern on- and off-field decisions and outcomes. Professional team sports leagues are run by a commissioner, who acts as a chief operating officer (COO) of the league (Noll, 2003). The commissioner is appointed by a vote of all existing league members. In addition to the commissioner, leagues have a board of governors. The board of governors is composed of one individual from each franchise in the league. They hold the real power in these leagues, as they enact rules that govern both on- and off-field behaviour. As discussed later in the chapter, the rules governing on- and off-field behaviour are generally done in an attempt to improve competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome, and to increase profit.

Cartels and Sports Leagues Structurally, sports leagues resemble cartels. A cartel is a group of two or more businesses that agree to coordinate economic decisions, for example, production and pricing, to maximize the total profits earned by all cartel members. By acting collusively as a cartel, multiple businesses gain monopoly power. How do teams in sports leagues act collectively to generate monopoly power in the pursuit of profit? Successful cartels must effectively prevent entry in the market by new competitors. All North American professional sports leagues have territorial agreements that explicitly divide up provinces and states into discrete areas in which each team acts as a monopolist. These agreements prevent new teams from marketing in that territory and owners from relocating franchises into their territory. As an example of monopoly power, in 2016, NBA owners voted to increase the radius around their home cities in which they have territorial rights from 75 miles/120km to 150 miles/241 km (Lombardo, 2016). Cartels are often lucrative economic structures because, as noted above, they restrict the quantity of output produced and increase output prices to generate monopoly “rents.” By this we mean any profit over and above what could be earned by a firm operating in a competitive market with free entry and exit. Sports leagues,

❯❯❭❯ BOX 13.1

Blocking NHL Dreams

No case in recent sports history illustrates a league’s territorial control and monopoly power more than the dispute between Jim Balsillie and the NHL over the location of the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes. Jim Balsillie was the co-founder of the Waterloo, Ontario-based company that developed the Blackberry. Prior to his attempt to buy the Coyotes, he tried to purchase several US NHL franchises with the intention of relocating the team to Canada. The NHL owners stopped Balsillie’s pursuit of these franchises over the course of several years (Mason, Soebbing, & Jiang, 2017). In 2009, Balsillie attempted to purchase the Coyotes from then-owner Jerry Moyes. Moyes had just filed for bankruptcy protection due to large financial losses asso-

ciated with real estate. Balsillie agreed to purchase the club in bankruptcy court and move it to Hamilton, Ontario, which is located in the market territory for the Toronto Maple Leafs and close to the Buffalo Sabres’ market territory. Acting on behalf of the Leafs and the Sabres, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman repeatedly claimed that Balsillie’s bid for the franchise was not valid because the league had sole control regarding where franchises could be located. A court ruled in favour of the NHL in terms of the league’s ability to determine the location of their franchises. The NHL was eventually granted ownership of the franchise, which still remains in Arizona, and Balsillie’s efforts to bring another NHL team to Canada were thwarted (Mason et al., 2017).

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in this respect, intentionally restrict the supply of franchises and the number of games played relative to the number that would be supplied in a competitive market. If leagues did not possess monopoly power, then they would contain far more teams and play more regular season and postseason games. Restricting supply allows leagues to raise prices. Cartels can only be formed by businesses producing a relatively homogeneous product. Sports leagues, for example, require all teams to play using identical rules, roster restrictions, equipment, and uniforms. Cartels must also agree on how to jointly exercise monopoly power to maximize profits. Exclusive territorial rights, revenue sharing arrangements, restrictions on player movement, salary caps, and competitive balance taxes represent mechanisms for joint exercise of monopoly power in sports leagues. Individual franchises exercise this power under the oversight of a league-wide governing body that enforces the terms of agreements and deters cartel members from cheating on the agreements. A cartel agreement holds together if all franchises follow the rules set forth by the league (under the guidance of the commissioner). In some instances, franchises may want to act in their own self-interest and circumvent league agreements regarding on- and off-field practices. These actions include intentional lack of on-field success by some teams in order to obtain higher amateur draft picks or off-field business practices where owners take league money given to them through central revenues for their own personal use and not reinvest these funds in the team. These conflicts are ones that commissioners cannot ignore or they risk losing power within the ownership group and with the players. Finally, professional sports leagues have won several important court cases that officially recognize leagues as a necessary monopoly or allow them to act as a monopoly for certain business practices like collectively negotiated national media contracts. The economic structure of major league sport, in other words, is unique.

The Reserve Clause, Free Agency, and Monopsony Power A monopoly is a market with only one firm supplying a product or service; a monopsony, on the other hand, is a market with only one firm demanding “labour” for production. The four major North American professional sports leagues, thus, represent the top leagues in the world in each of their respective sports. An athlete who wants to play his or her sport at the highest level must play in one of these leagues, generating monopsony power for teams in the major leagues, and to a lesser extent in the CFL and MLS. Leagues historically strengthened their monopsony power though specific policies and rules. These policies restricted player movement and reduced player salaries in powerful ways, and arguably alienated athletes from their labour, while providing owners with greater amounts of profit. One of the earliest examples of a policy restricting player mobility and bargaining power is the reserve clause. The reserve clause was initiated in 1879 by team owners in baseball’s National League, which formed in 1876. It was a standard part of every player’s contract and simply stated that the player would be an employee of the team up until the team traded his rights to another team or terminated the contract. Under the reserve clause, players were forced to accept the salary that the team was willing to pay with little negotiation. If a player did not like that salary, he could 290

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not offer his services to other teams. Instead, he could choose to leave the sport and pursue “other career opportunities.” Other professional sports leagues also adopted the reserve clause as soon as they formed as a way to control players’ salaries, further alienating players from their labour. It was not until MLB player Curt Flood challenged these unequal power relations and sued his team for the right to free agency. Flood’s case went to the Supreme Court of the United States in the early 1970s and even though he lost his case, subsequent arbitration cases between MLB owners and players eventually led the way to some form of free agency to occur. To this day, however, the reserve clause is still in effect throughout professional sports, albeit in a more limited fashion. For example, MLB players with less than three years of service are still subject to the reserve clause. Between three and six years of service, MLB players are “arbitration eligible,” where their salaries can be determined by an arbitration panel of judges. Only after six years of service is an MLB player eligible for genuine free agency and no longer subject to the reserve clause. The reserve clause generates substantial monopsony power for team owners. In response to these unequal class relations, athletes formed players’ unions, like the National Hockey League Players’ Association, to mitigate this monopsony power and to fight for various working conditions, including better pay, pensions, and mobility. Players’ unions now collectively bargain with leagues over all terms of employment, counteracting the monopsony power of the major leagues and the wealthy owners of franchises. The collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) reached between leagues and players’ unions guarantee minimum salaries, specify the exact conditions under which players can move between teams and freely negotiate with other teams, and define uniform safety standards, procedures for settling grievances, healthcare coverage, pensions, travel conditions, and other employment conditions.

Work Stoppages and Collective Bargaining Revenues earned by teams and leagues through broadcast rights fees increased dramatically over the last 40 years. This increase made labour relations in professional team sports much more contentious, since players’ unions and leagues/teams were bargaining over billions of dollars. All four major North American professional sports leagues experienced multiple work stoppages over the past 40 years, including extended recent work stoppages in the NBA (2011), NFL (2011), and NHL (2012). All of these work stoppages occurred when the current CBA expired. Lockouts and strikes describe different types of work stoppages and labour disputes. Lockouts occur when team owners prohibit players from working, even when players want to compete. Strikes occur when players refuse to work when owners want play to take place. Both events impose short-term costs on players through lost wages and teams/owners through lost revenues, and represent severe tests of strength and resolve. The length and resolution of any work stoppage, of course, reflects the winner of this battle of wills, or the unwillingness of one side to accept continuing economic losses. Lockouts represent an example of unequal power relations between owners and players. As Staudohar (2005) summarized, lockouts allow owners to apply pressure on players to agree to the team’s demands. One way this occurs is through timing of The Business of Sport

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CBA expiry. CBAs expire in the offseason and most lockouts occur prior to the start of the season, before players ordinarily receive their compensation. The timing of lockouts impacts players more than owners because players receive little in terms of compensation during lockouts, whereas many team owners have numerous businesses outside of sports generating revenue. Consequently, strikes generally occur within the season itself, when players have earned some money and owners still have much more revenue to earn due to the playoffs (Staudohar, 2005). Overall, leverage represents one of the key aspects of work stoppages. The NHL lockout that resulted in the loss of the entire 2004–2005 season represents the longest work stoppage in modern North American professional sports at 310 days. The biggest labour dispute was the imposition of a total team payroll cap through the CBA. The owners sought to force a total team payroll cap that was somehow tied to what would be determined as “hockey related revenue” on players. The specific components included in “hockey related revenue” come from negotiations between owners and players (Staudohar, 2005). In general, team owners and leagues prevail over players in negotiations and work stoppages. Simply put, they have power in these disputes, even in the face of opposition. The fact that three of the four major professional leagues have salary caps, which clearly reduce player salaries, and that these salary caps were imposed following work stoppages, reflects team owner/league dominance in collective bargaining and the importance of monopsony power. Furthermore, team owners in all four leagues have placed limits on the amount of money rookies can earn and further restrict these young players’ path to unrestricted free agency where they can earn more competitive wages. For the 2018 season, the Big 4 North American professional sports leagues are currently in the middle of their collective bargaining agreements. This period of stability will change in the near future. The CFL CBA concluded at the end of the 2018 season. The owners or the players in the NHL could opt out of their current agreement prior to the start of the 2019 regular season. The current NFL agreement ends in 2020, and MLB’s ends in 2021. The NBA CBA could end in 2021 if one party optsout. Fans of these leagues could see many hotly contested issues play out in the media and the public domain regarding issues related to on- and off-field practices of these leagues. Some of these issues revolve around salaries paid to players, years to unrestricted free agency, players’ health, and players’ workplace safety. We invite readers to consider the many links between these kinds of labour negotiations and the issues discussed in Chapter 12 on politics and sport. Not only are we talking here about power relations and decision-making as it pertains to corporate elites and others (in this case, players), but we are also considering how disagreements and issues are framed by different interest groups (e.g., players versus owners) as attempts to garner more favourable perceptions from the public, and when relevant, from those arbitrating conflicts. Indeed, the history of work on social movements that is alluded to in Chapter 12 is integrally related to labour negotiations.

Other League Policies Leagues strengthen their cartel position and monopsony power through the implementation of several other policies that have become institutionalized within professional sport and broader society. We outline two below that have been designed to further restrict the salaries and movement of professional athletes. 292

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Entry Drafts  One unique feature of labour markets in professional sports, compared to other industries, is the presence of an amateur draft, the mechanism used to allocate new incoming amateur talent (i.e., labour) to teams. All North American professional sports leagues employ some form of entry draft. In general, the entry draft awards the worst team in the previous season the exclusive rights to negotiate with the unsigned, incoming amateur player of its choosing. The second-worst team chooses from the remaining players and so on until the best team from the previous season selects a player. This format is called a reverse entry draft. Comparatively, professional sports leagues in Europe do not conduct entry drafts. Over the last three decades, some leagues have adjusted the draft format in order to not automatically reward the worst team in the league the first pick in the subsequent amateur draft. The NBA and the NHL employ a lottery format where the worst team in the league has the highest probability of earning the top overall pick, but the top pick is determined randomly among a group of poorly performing teams. This change was made because of a concern that teams were “tanking”—not putting forth maximum effort to win games—during the regular season. In terms of the allocation of amateur talent to teams, many leagues employ rules specifying a specific salary to a draft spot, or an overall fixed pool of money to be paid to all draft picks. This policy, along with the granting of exclusive negotiating rights to teams for the player of their choosing, further increases the monopsony power leagues hold. Leagues justify entry drafts on the grounds that they enhance competitive balance. If the worst teams get the best incoming talent, these teams will improve and provide a more competitive league, enhancing fan interest. Still, research finds little evidence that entry drafts enhance competitive balance. Rather, the entry draft is a mechanism for teams to exercise power in negotiations with these amateur players while crucially reducing their payroll expenses (Soebbing & Mason, 2009). Overall, the draft increases team profits particularly in the case of players such as Sidney Crosby or LeBron James, who generate much higher revenue for their clubs than the salary the team has to pay them. Salary Caps and Luxury Taxes  Competitive balance justifications also motivate why many leagues claim it is necessary to put a cap on the total wage bill of teams (i.e., salary cap). Some leagues, such as the NBA, also cap the total amount of money one individual player can earn in a season. The CFL, MLS, NFL, NHL, and NBA all employ some form of total payroll salary cap. However, there are usually exemptions built into the rules that allow clubs to exceed the total payroll cap and sign players who meet certain qualifications such as time spent in the league to larger contracts. In addition to salary caps, some leagues implement “luxury taxes.” A luxury tax is a penalty a team must pay to the league if it exceeds some specific total payroll threshold determined by collective bargaining and specified in the CBA. Both MLB and the NBA employ a luxury tax, with penalties based on the amount of salary over the luxury tax threshold and how many consecutive seasons the team spends over the tax threshold. There are two main reasons for salary caps and luxury taxes. First, the owners and the commissioner of the league claim that maintaining competitive balance represents the most important reason. The rationale is that without a cap on team payroll, large market clubs (e.g., clubs in Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles) would The Business of Sport

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 13.2

Paying Canadian Hockey League Players

The debates around amateurism and the payment of amateur players are by no means new in sport (see Chapter 3). In North America, the most prominent current example is the debate regarding paying NCAA Division I athletes, particularly men’s football and basketball players. At the core of these debates is the degree to  which amateur players—“student athletes”—are exploited by the sports teams and larger associations and receive little compensation in return for their labour. Consider the massive amount of revenue that the NCAA receives from sports like Division I basketball, as well as the size of salaries their coaches and athletic directors receive, while the athletes who labour on the court receive very little in comparison. For this to change, collective labour action would be required. There is currently a debate in Canada revolving around paying Canadian Hockey League Players. In 2014, a class action lawsuit was brought against the CHL arguing that players in the three leagues that comprise the CHL—the Western Hockey League (WHL), the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), and the Quebec Major Junior League (QMJHL)—were not paying players a minimum wage. Since then, the lawsuit has received additional public attention and scrutiny. For the players’ side, arguments are made that the players are not paid at least minimum wage for providing labour services for the owners of various franchises. Furthermore, they are not compensated for weekend, holiday, or overtime pay. Hourly workers in other areas of the sport industry would be eligible for this pay above and beyond the minimum wage rate of the province. As such, proponents for the players claim that these young athletes are being exploited by the owners of the hockey teams who make

money based on their labour (Joyce, n.d.). Alluding to the idea of alienation, a former CHL player at the heart of the initial suit stated, “Teams treat us like greyhounds . . . When they can use us, great, we’re all in the good graces, but we’re not getting paid. And then when they can’t use us, we’re just kicked to the side of the road” (CBC News, 2014, n.p.). Opponents of the lawsuit state that many CHL teams simply could not financially afford to pay all the players minimum wage. Furthermore, they state that players are already compensated above minimum wage as it relates to obtaining tuition toward an undergraduate degree once their CHL playing days are completed, in addition to the travel costs and other benefits they receive as players (Canadian Press, 2018; Joyce., n.d.). While the lawsuit was still ongoing at the beginning of 2019, several provincial governments provide protection for CHL clubs in the form of various rules that impact on sport-related labour relations. Most recently, for example, the province of Ontario passed legislation preventing current and future players from being regulated by the standard employment laws of the province. In discussing the legislation, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, drew from the mythology of hockey and a structural functionalist perspective when he defended the decision: “Hockey is central to so many childhoods, so many great family moments, part of all our communities. . . . Our government is proud to take action and cut red tape to provide clarity and help make sure the OHL is able to continue training players and showcase this great sport” (Canadian Press, 2018, n.p.). While Ontario is the most recent province to enact legislation, similar rules are already in place in many provinces throughout Canada (Canadian Press, 2018).

drastically outspend smaller market clubs (e.g., Edmonton, Green Bay, Carolina) giving the small market clubs no chance of success. If this occurred, fans would lose interest and the league would lose revenue and perhaps fail. The second, and perhaps more realistic, reason for these policies is to limit ­owners’ expenses simply to ensure greater levels of profit. Player salary expense is, of course, the largest category of expenses for professional sports teams. In setting a cap/tax on total payroll (as well as on individual players’ salaries in certain leagues), team owners further exercise power over the players in contract negotiations for

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player services and keep player salaries low. In turn, the owner keeps more team revenue. While there is some academic research that finds certain salary caps and luxury taxes improve competitive balance, there is unanimous agreement that the main benefit of these policies is to reduce the salaries of players in the league and, thus, increase the opportunity for a team to make a profit.

TEAM OUTCOMES Ownership Forms With few exceptions, North American professional sports teams are privately owned businesses that are owned by enormously wealthy conservative and decidedly white men: the 1% (see Chapter 4). Public share issues and stock exchange listings for professional teams do not currently exist in North America, in many cases because league rules prohibit this form of ownership (e.g., NFL), and publicly traded companies would have to release audited financial reports to the public. The principle business interests of the owners of major league sports franchises come from other industries, most notably media, entertainment, and real estate (Winfree & Rosentraub, 2012). Some North American teams are long-term, familyowned businesses: the Rooney family, for example, has owned and operated NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers for more than 80 years. A few teams are community owned. Examples of community ownership include the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Edmonton Eskimos. The Packers represent a clear exception, grandfathered in by the NFL. NFL rules prohibit other teams from community ownership. Professional sports teams are increasingly integrated into larger firms that focus on media, technology, and communications among other pursuits. Within business, there is horizontal integration and vertical integration. Horizontal integration occurs when owners are purchasing entities that are involved in the same industry. Vertical integration occurs when owners acquire other entities that are part of the supply chain. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) represents a “new age” ownership group with an expansive portfolio of businesses including sports, entertainment, and real estate. It also includes both horizontal and vertical integration. For example, MLSE owns four of the five major professional sports teams in Toronto: the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC, and the Toronto Argonauts. Acquiring these teams is an example of horizontal integration. In this case, the industry is the sport and entertainment industry and the purchasing of these teams represents the consolidation of business by a single owner. Besides these professional teams, MLSE also owns the developmental clubs for three of these teams (i.e., Toronto Marlies [hockey], Raptors 905 [basketball], and Toronto FC II [soccer]). The acquisition of the minor league teams by the parent organization constitutes an example of vertical integration, since minor league teams generally provide the major league teams with players. The landscape of current Canadian franchise owners represents a wide range of previous and current business interests. Besides MLSE, a quick survey of primary owners for the major Canadian professional sports franchises shows a variety of industries which the owners previously/currently still operate in. For example, Daryl Katz and Eugene Melnyk, the owners of the Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators

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respectively, made their fortunes by owning companies in the pharmaceutical industry. A look at the ownership group of the Calgary Flames shows a business background in banking and other financial services, oil and gas, and transportation.1

Revenue Streams The mix and importance of different revenue sources varies across leagues (and in some cases across teams) in North America. Professional sports teams generally earn revenues from five distinct sources: (1) game-day revenues (e.g., ticket sales, concessions, parking, personal seat licenses, and luxury box deals); (2) local television and radio broadcasting rights; (3) shared revenue sources (national broadcasting deals; licensing and merchandising) (4) local broadcasting, sponsorship, and advertising, including stadium naming rights and exclusivity agreements; and (5) revenues from postseason games.

Attendance  Traditionally, game-day revenues were the biggest source of revenues for professional sports teams. Figure 13.2 shows average league regular season attendance for all the professional sports leagues noted above from 1990 through 2017 (when they were in existence). One notices several trends when looking at the figure. First, the NFL has the highest average attendance due to a couple of reasons. The first reason is NFL teams play the smallest number of regular season games (16) compared to the other leagues. Second, NFL teams play in stadiums with the largest capacity. Thus, they are able to fill the stadium with more fans compared to the other leagues. The second trend is attendance over the past three decades is relatively stable within the leagues. While the trend for each league is generally positive, the growth in terms of average attendance is relatively small. The third trend is NBA and NHL attendance are pretty much the same. The biggest reason for this similarity is teams that share cities from these two leagues will generally play in the same arenas (e.g., Staples Center in Los Angeles). Furthermore, facilities do not have to radically change the seating arrangement between the two sports. As a result, one would anticipate similar attendance numbers.

Average Attendance

70000 60000 50000 40000 30000 20000 10000 19 90 19 92 19 94 19 96 19 98 20 00 20 02 20 04 20 06 20 08 20 10 20 12 20 14 20 16 20 18

0

Year CFL

MLB

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Figure 13.2 Average Attendance by League 296

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NBA

NFL

NHL

Pricing  As discussed in Chapter 4, attending professional sporting events is expensive and needs to be understood in relation to social class. Figure 13.3 shows the fan cost index (FCI) of attending a game in the four prominent North American leagues from 1991 through 2016 (where possible), controlling for inflation. The FCI, calculated annually by Team Marketing Report (www.teammarketing.com), reflects the total cost for a family of four to attend a game in these leagues. In 2016, it cost a family of four around US$ 200 to attend an MLB game while it would cost the same family of four over US$ 500 to attend an NFL game. In all four leagues, we see an increase in the cost of attending games throughout the time period, with periods of decline throughout. One noticeable decline is in the NHL between 2002 and 2006. During this time, the NHL lost a full season to work stoppage. Part of the reason for the decline could be that teams lowered prices in an attempt to attract fans who felt alienated back to watch a game at the arena. Attendance costs increased faster than the rate of inflation, as well as faster than the rate of increase in income, increasing the cost of attending a game for fans, especially for individuals with lower incomes.

500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 19 90 19 92 19 94 19 96 19 98 20 00 20 02 20 04 20 06 20 08 20 10 20 12 20 14 20 16

Fan Cost Index (2016 USD)

Tickets  All teams offer a variety of ticketing options. Fans can purchase single-game tickets and can purchase season-ticket packages for all home games in the season, all home games in half of a season, or a partial package of games generally revolving around a theme. For example, in 2018, MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals offered a five-game ticket package for all of the bobblehead souvenir giveaway games throughout the season. Some teams engage in price discrimination by charging different prices for tickets to identical seats through student/senior citizen discounts and other discounted pricing schemes. Primary market ticket pricing—the price paid for tickets purchased directly from teams—can be explained by a standard hedonic price model, which treats each seat as a distinct product. Seat characteristics include proximity to play, access to amenities in the facility, and other factors known at the time the team sets the price. Primary market prices reflect the value consumers place on these qualities.

Year MLB

NBA

NFL

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Figure 13.3 Average Cost of Attending Professional Sports Games The Business of Sport

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More recent developments in primary ticket markets include variable ticket pricing, in which teams change the price depending on the quality or popularity of the opposing team, the time of the season, the day of week, or even the strength of the home team. Another recent development is dynamic demand ticket pricing, where teams do not set a price prior to the season and let the market decide what the price is from game to game. Under dynamic ticket pricing, teams let ticket prices fluctuate throughout the day or week of a game. Along with the primary ticket market, the secondary market (or resale market) for sports events has seen dramatic changes over time. From the traditional “ticket scalping,” which was declared illegal in several jurisdictions, to a legitimate business model which attempts to match buyers with sellers through Internet platforms, secondary markets arose because of the uncertainty teams faced as to exact consumer demand that would be realized for an event that would occur in the future. Companies such as StubHub came to prominence as a secondary marketplace for individuals with tickets that they wanted to sell to be matched with consumers who wanted to attend matches and did not have tickets for. One of the problems businesses like StubHub faced was that some tickets being sold on its website were counterfeit. One way to eliminate this threat to the business was to reach agreements with professional sports leagues. In exchange for a portion of the revenue, StubHub was able to become the official marketplace for tickets for ­certain professional sports (e.g., MLB). As a result, they could place a guarantee that the tickets being sold were not counterfeit and attract additional sellers to their platform.

Media Revenues Local and national media rights revenues represent the largest source of revenue for many NHL, NBA, and MLB teams. Overall, media broadcast rights fees have grown substantially over time in all professional sports leagues (see Chapter 11). In addition to the revenue generated by agreements with sports networks such as Rogers and TSN, some leagues and individual franchises created their own broadcast networks (e.g., MLB Network, YES, and NESN networks) to eliminate the middleperson and capture more fully the advertising revenue generated from broadcasts. Each league has collectively negotiated these deals with a number of broadcast partners, who in turn sell advertising slots to companies looking to advertise during live sporting events. These agreements also give these networks access to postseason games (e.g., the Super Bowl) and other league events (e.g., the amateur draft), further connecting consumers to the product throughout the year. Sponsorship Revenues  Sponsorship revenues—including facility naming rights, exclusivity agreements (when a sponsor pays for the rights to be a team’s exclusive and official provider of some good or service), advertising from facility signage, and other similar revenue streams—increased substantially over time. Like media broadcast rights, these revenue streams are generally from multi-year agreements, providing fixed revenues for teams. The returns to sponsoring organizations are unclear; however, there are certainly risks involved for both parties. One example is the Houston Astros who were associated with the Enron Corporation when they played at Enron Field when the company was exposed for its financial scandal in 2001. In addition, CFL, MLS, and NBA franchises have gone further than the other leagues in selling off space on their uniforms to corporate sponsors.

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PUBLIC POLICY ON SPORTS LEAGUES Facility Construction Subsidies Since the early 1990s, there has been an increased turnover in professional sports facilities, and enormous debate over how to finance the construction of new facilities. The old facilities are neither structurally obsolete nor unsafe; rather, in the eyes of the owners of professional sports franchises, these buildings are simply commercially obsolete. As such, the costs of these new facilities—including the use of billions of dollars of public funds—have skyrocketed as team owners try to maximize revenue generating amenities like luxury boxes, restaurants, and swimming pools in facilities. Cities continue to provide public subsidies to offset part or the whole cost of new facility construction for several reasons. One reason is simply the threat of relocation by the professional sports team to another market. The viability of such threats comes from the monopoly power of sports leagues/teams and conditions of franchise scarcity. Recall from above that franchises possess exclusive territorial rights to their local market. This monopoly power is the key reason that leagues reduce the supply of teams in the league, providing opportunities for teams to pursue other cities that do not have a team that would like to have one. In order for cities to keep existing teams, they have to at least partially fund new facility construction. There are many common reasons cited for investing public money in sports facilities, and it is important to question who is providing ideological leadership in these debates: who are the main beneficiaries from the use of scarce public resources and how do they position a new publicly financed arena or stadium as “common sense”? The reason most often cited to justify the expenditure of public funds is economic impact, or the “net economic change in the incomes of host residents that results from spending attributed to tourists” (Crompton, 2006, p. 67). However, the claims of local economic impact generated by a new facility are tenuous at best. Academic research over the last three decades shows that sports facilities provide little or no new economic impact in the surrounding community. There are many reasons for that outcome, and generally, these fall under two broad categories: technical and financial. Crompton (1995) provides many examples of technical misapplication. Technical misapplication can result from applying incorrect and generally large multipliers, which account for the community-wide impact of visitor spending, incorrectly identifying visitors, and focusing on total economic benefits and not net benefits. Financial misapplications mainly refer to costs, which are frequently omitted from economic impact studies and are sometimes mistakenly labelled benefits (Crompton & Howard, 2013). Financial misapplications also include ignoring local substitution in consumer spending, when the opening of a new sports facility leads local residents to spend more entertainment dollars in the facility and fewer on other local entertainment goods and services like movie theatres or restaurants; this is sometimes called the “displacement effect.” One tends to think of costs as money used to build a facility. This type of cost is only one type; many other costs, including opportunity costs, must be considered, especially when using public funds. Opportunity costs are the value of the next best alternative. In other words, if a city government contributes $200 million to the cost of building a new sports facility, that is $200 million potentially not available to be spent on other public budget items such as infrastructure, health care, and education.

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Beyond an economic impact argument, we see other ideologies that are summoned by proponents as rationales for using public money to help build professional sports facilities. These arguments include an enhanced community image, psychic income (including the notion of civic pride), and economic (re-)development. Economic (re-)development seems to be increasingly more salient in public debates over new stadium and arena deals. Why is this rationale becoming more important? First, it’s easier to sell to a broad audience (i.e., locals) than other debunked arguments like economic impact. The idea that commercial and residential development around the facility can and will be used by individuals who may never attend a game is something that can be persuasive to the general public. Second, a  new stadium is politically beneficial to elected officials who wish to continue their careers. A facility and subsequent development is one potential way a politician can show a tangible outcome to their constituents. Third, a new facility can be one  way to connect parts of the existing social structure around a common cause (i.e., (re-)development). To pay the public share for these facilities, governments can use either debt or non-debt financing mechanisms. When providing public subsidies for construction projects, governments should keep some basic funding principles in mind. First, the financing mechanism should not cause lower income individuals to bear a disproportionate share of the funding burden. Second, individuals with similar incomes should contribute similar amounts of funding. Third, the individuals who benefit from the facility should be the ones paying for the facility. Traditional mechanisms for financing include general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, and sales taxes. However, in many instances, lower income individuals do pay a disproportionate share of the costs under these traditional funding mechanisms: a classic example of unequal class relations. Sales taxes are a good example. Generally, sales taxes are a large revenue source for funding sports facilities. However, sales taxes generally apply only within city boundaries but not to the suburbs. As such, inner-city taxpayers, who tend to be lower income than individuals who live in the suburbs, disproportionately pay a higher amount of tax for the facility and they are less likely to attend an event in the facility. More common mechanisms today include “sin” taxes (taxes on tobacco and alcohol), tourist taxes, ticket taxes, and tax increment financing districts, otherwise known as community revitalization levies. The reason for using these mechanisms is two-fold. First, these mechanisms generally receive a larger positive reaction from the local public. For example, a local resident would likely think that a tourist tax on hotel rooms or car rentals would not directly increase the tax that they pay. Second, these mechanisms generally force people who attend events in the facility to pay more, along with people who reside (or operate a business) in or near the facility. In other words, these mechanisms generate a perception that those who either cannot or will not attend an event in a facility, or patronize a business near the facility, will not directly pay for the facility. Ideologically, they work to obscure the use of public resources to build new sports facilities. In terms of who benefits, wealthy team owners typically benefit the most from new facility construction projects through increased revenue streams and through increases in the valuation of their franchises. This benefit will be further increased if the team owner can profit from local real estate development outside of a new facility. This profit can come from owning the land around the arena or controlling the rights to develop the land and the associated revenue generated through development. 300

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Local residents certainly can receive some benefit. Professional sports teams and facilities generate some public benefits for local residents such as the aforementioned civic pride. However, research shows that the size of the public benefit is less than the value of public subsidies (and opportunity cost) provided in almost all cases. There will also be residents who are negatively affected by the building of a new facility. For example, lower income individuals are generally burdened with displacement due to new facility construction. However, factors other than income can dictate displacement. Friedman and Andrews (2010) outline how new facility projects in Washington, D. C., over the decades, including the construction of Nationals Park when the local baseball team relocated from Montreal, ignored the needs of many communities, including the African American and the LGBT communities. Chapter 12 pursues additional questions about the political issues underlying public subsidies and sport—and the relevance of terms like hegemony and ideology for understanding how consent is generated for particular decisions that may only benefits particular (more powerful) interests.

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES: THE OLYMPIC GAMES AND WORLD CUP Similar debates occur over the use of public funds to host mega-events. Muller (2015) defines mega-events as “ambulatory occasions of a fixed duration that attract a large number of visitors, have a large mediated reach, come with large costs and have large impacts on the built environment and the population” (p. 638). The Olympics and football’s World Cup are the biggest sports mega-events in the world. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), an extra-governmental organization with no oversight, monopolized excellence in amateur sport long ago. The IOC claims to promote ethics and good governance in sport. The IOC also has the power to award the rights to organize and host the quadrennial Summer and Winter Olympic Games to cities or regions that compete to host these events. The modern Olympic Games focuses on economic gains and maintaining the prestige of the IOC. IOC decision-making appears to focus on maximizing returns from the rights to host Olympic Games, broadcast these events around the world, and generate maximum exposure from its symbols. Broadcasting rights represent the largest source of IOC revenues. The IOC generally sells exclusive broadcast rights to one network in each country (currently CBC in Canada and NBC in the United States). This approach maximizes broadcast rights revenue. Television networks in every country compete with each other to acquire the domestic Olympic broadcast rights and spend vast amounts for them because of the large viewing audiences that the Games attract. In return, some networks, such as NBC, have a say in when key events are scheduled during the Games in order to maximize viewing audience size. Because the potential for monopoly profits exists at every step of the process, incentives for corruption also exist in the process. Most of the Olympic Games held since 2000 have later been found to involve some form of corruption. While the IOC has taken steps to address these various forms of vote rigging and bribes, the potential access to billions of dollars in profits continues to be too attractive to resist temptation. This temptation comes as no surprise. As Mason, Thibault, and Misener (2006) observe, the same individuals who manage the bidding process also control The Business of Sport

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the decision-making in terms of which area is awarded the rights to host the Games. Also, IOC members have little incentive to police themselves during the bid process as there is no competition from an outside group to rival the IOC. Similar to the Olympics and IOC, FIFA has faced similar challenges and issues in awarding the rights to host the World Cup. The World Cup, like the Winter or Summer Olympic Games, is an event held every four years. The location for the World Cup changes each time. The World Cup, by many measures, is the mostwatched sporting event in the world and companies compete to broadcast the games but also advertise during the contest. In 2011, FIFA announced that it secured US$ 1.85 billion to broadcast the 2018 and 2022 World Cups from networks in North America. This total amount includes the fee that Bell Media (TSN, CTV) paid to have the rights in Canada (Canadian Press, 2011).

Mega-Event Bidding and Costs Cities and regions compete vigorously to host both these mega-events. Once a city/ region decides it would like to potentially host a mega-event, it generally establishes a bid committee. This committee consists of influential politicians, local business leaders, and other key stakeholders who are often able to rally public support for the potential hosting of a sports mega-event by exerting ideological leadership. The committee puts together a bid which is then sent to the IOC or FIFA, depending on the event. The bid itself may cost tens of millions of public dollars. For example, the city of Calgary’s bid for the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games was itself estimated to cost CA$ 30 million. While bidding has become expensive, hosting these events is extremely expensive and can saddle a city—and other levels of government—with significant costs and long-term debt. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver cost over CA$ 7 billion (Hume, 2013). The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was estimated to have cost US$ 15 billion. Much of the costs for putting on these events comes from two areas: facility construction and security, the cost of the latter having increased significantly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While some facility construction may be repurposed for later use—often to the benefit of local professional franchises (e.g., the Olympic Stadium in Atlanta was repurposed for MLB’s Atlanta Braves) or for the benefit of elite athletes—many of these structures are simply torn down or left to decay over time after the event is over as costly “white elephants” (see Chapter 15’s discussion of environmental issues and sport). From a public funding perspective, many of the same funding mechanisms used to finance new sports facilities also apply to the financing of the Olympic Games and facilities built for these events. One difference, though, is the magnitude of the costs for hosting the Olympics compared to building a single new sports facility. For example, revised cost estimates for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo are over US$ 7 billion (Lee, 2018) whereas the initial budget for hosting the games that was presented to the general public was seven times less. A second difference is that the IOC provides very little funding to areas hosting the Games. As part of the IOC bidding process, and as a monopoly itself, the IOC forces all prospective host cities or regions to obtain a signed guarantee from the local or regional government taxing authority that all costs associated with hosting the games, including overruns, will be paid by the local taxing authority. Most of the important issues associated with the financing of new sports facilities appear when assessing problems associated with funding mega-events. 302

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 13.3

Calgary 2026 Olympic Bid

A quick look at Olympic history shows that only a few cities in the world have hosted multiple Winter and/or Summer Olympic games: London, Paris, Los Angeles, Innsbruck, Athens, St. Moritz, and Lake Placid. Over the next decade, Tokyo (2020) and Beijing (2022) will be added to the list. The city of Calgary explored a bid to host the 2026 Olympic Games in 2018. The 2026 Winter Games would have been the second Olympic Games for Calgary, after it hosted the 1988 Winter Games. According to the city’s report, the cost of hosting the games was estimated at CA$ 5.1 billion, which would have been split between public and private funding. Public funds would have come from the City of Calgary and the City of Canmore, along with significant amounts of provincial and federal money. While the initial bidding plans were to renovate and reuse some of the infrastructure from the 1988 Games, a successful bid for the Olympic Games, it was argued by proponents, would also lead to new infrastructure for all residents of the cities that could be used long after the games concluded. One example of this infrastructure would be a new fieldhouse for community sport and recreation. The powerful proponents of the bid touted not only the infrastructure improvements but also nostalgia and the reminder of the good feeling the residents of the city

had in 1988 when hosting the games. In their attempts to exert ideological leadership, they also discussed some of the positive economic benefits the city would see, including gains in tourism and other types of economic impacts. However, those economic numbers can be skewed one way or another (Dawson, 2018). Indeed, critics of the plan underlined not only the large stated hosting cost, but they also noted that the Olympics Games generally always come in well over budget, and that citizens would be on the hook for cost overruns. Furthermore, they underlined the opportunity costs of the use of hundreds of millions of public dollars at a time of financial recession, and took issue with the ethical reputation of the International Olympic Committee (Rumbolt, 2018). On November 13, 2018, the City held a referendum on whether it should pursue a bid for the Olympics. Fifty-six percent of voters said the city should not. Roughly one week later, the city officially ended the bid. While the vote marked an end to the bid for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, and highlighted the importance of providing citizens with a democratic mechanism to influence the debate, it does not mean that the discussions over hosting another Olympics in the future are over for the residents of Calgary.

Low-income individuals tend to pay a larger share of the tax revenues needed to pay for a  mega-event. Members of disadvantaged groups tend to suffer more displacement because of land needed to build new venues, media centres, and athlete housing. The social problems generated by hosting mega-events are larger, and tend to last longer, than the social problems generated by building a new sports facility for the local club.

Mega-Event Legacy Effects Legacies are generally long-term impacts, both tangible and intangible, following the hosting of mega-events. Legacy effects can come from infrastructure (transportation system upgrades, facility construction projects, hotel construction or renovation), advertising effects on the international profile of the host area, and improved local security. Hosting mega-events is extremely expensive. What remains when the games are over and the fans and participants leave? First, much of the infrastructure and tourism spending for mega-events might be shifted forward in time; in other words, many of these developments would have occurred even without a mega-event. The construction of Vancouver’s SkyTrain system was moved up in the capital building process due to winning the bid for The Business of Sport

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the  2010 Winter Olympics. The tangible transportation benefits from this system provide longer lasting benefits to both residents and visitors to the city. Second, local organizing committees often overstate the direct economic impact of tourism from mega-events. Many hosts are already major tourist destinations before winning the bid to host a mega-event. London, Sydney, Beijing, Vancouver, and other former hosts already attracted large numbers of tourists prior to hosting the Games. Fans travelling to watch mega-events may replace other tourists who would have visited absent a mega-event. In this case visitor spending during a megaevent should be offset by alternative tourist spending that would have occurred absent the event. This substantially reduces the total economic impact of megaevents. Also, many locals leave town during mega-events to avoid the crowds, traffic, security, and increased prices charged by local businesses, further reducing the actual economic impact of mega-events. Third, legacy benefits highlighted before mega-events, like increases in human capital, increased international visibility, and urban redevelopment, can easily be overstated. Do major cities like Vancouver, Montreal, Sydney, or London really gain stature and reputation from hosting mega-events? How many people remember Cortina or Lillehammer? If they do, how many plan vacations based on memories of sports mega-events from long ago? The economic benefits and costs might not be the deciding factor when assessing mega-events. Similar to professional sports facilities, civic pride and increased awareness are reasons put forth by cities and regions for hosting sports mega-events. The hosting of these events can provide intangible benefits for residents of host communities, regardless of whether or not they attended any games. However, these benefits are difficult to measure and may not accrue to all members of the community. For example, Minnaert’s (2012) study of multiple Olympic Games found that socially excluded groups rarely received any targeted benefits, while they may experience the greatest displacement generated by the construction of facilities and infrastructure for the Games. The points made here are also pertinent to the chapters in this book on social stratification (Chapter 4), politics (Chapter 12), globalization and international development (Chapter 14), and the environment (Chapter 15), since the arguments for the idea that mega-events will have positive and long-lasting legacies tend to be made by: (a) more powerful groups in host cities who benefit the most from hosting a megaevent, and (b) powerful international sport organizations (like the IOC) that also benefit when their product (i.e., the sport mega-event) is considered to be economically, socially, and environmentally valuable for countries and governments around the world. The counter-arguments to some of the more prevalent justifications for holding mega-events we’ve offered above can be understood as counter-hegemonic to the extent that they begin to unsettle some of the long-held and taken-for-granted assumptions about the benefits of hosting mega-events, while offering insight into how, from the perspective of many profit-focused businesses, it would make sense to highlight certain benefits, and deemphasize problems and inequities. This is again where conflict and critical theories are relevant, as they help us see how dominant economic incentive systems influence the activities of organizations and people—and how, in turn, social hierarchies are reflected in and perpetuated through relations between powerful groups and individuals that make and influence key decisions, and those who must negotiate the sometimes difficult conditions that are the result of such decisions. 304

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CONCLUSION This is no public enterprise. Why should we think of hockey as a national possession? Why should we think of the Montreal Canadiens as ours? If we buy a car, we don’t think of General Motors as ours. So why is hockey any different? But it does seem different. The Canadiens do seem ours. We cheer them as if they are ours, and boo them the same way. Before every game—“Accueillons. Let’s welcome. Nos Canadiens! Our Canadiens!” And we want to believe it. And we do believe it until something happens that reminds us that they aren’t, that they really belong to Molson’s. (Dryden, 1983, pp. 230–231)

This quote by Hockey Hall of Famer and former MP Ken Dryden summarizes the ideological role that sport plays in the fabric of lives for people around the world. Dryden’s quote brings up discussions regarding why people live vicariously through their teams, how teams can powerfully symbolize the identity of a town/region as a representational collective, and how some players receive hero or “god-like” status in a community, even if they only play for a team for a few seasons. Furthermore, the quote highlight fans “ownership” of successes (e.g., wins), while potentially cutting off “ownership” when failure occurs (e.g., losses). At the same time, this chapter speaks to the strategies adopted by powerful businesses (e.g., team owners, leagues) to secure profits—often by capitalizing on the emotional appeal of representational sports. They do this by translating the support offered by many fans into profit for relatively few. For those who uncritically adopt a perspective on sport whereby relationships between owners who provide a product and fans who choose (or do not choose) to consume it, the questions to be addressed are really just about how to create and promote sport-related products (including events and teams) and ways to make good decisions as consumers. Of course, from a sociological perspective, such relationships become more complicated. This is especially the case when questions (from a critical perspective) are raised about the ethics of claiming that sport events have positive social and environmental impacts and when such claims are both questionable and presented in simplistic and onesided ways—and when the actual benefits that are accrued are unequally distributed. Regardless of one’s stance on these issues, what is clear is that the business of professional sports has increasingly become an important part of the economic landscape in Canada and around the world. The chapter broadly highlights some of the major economic concepts associated with the structural aspects of professional sports and sports mega-events. In this chapter, notions of power and agency are highlighted to provide links to broader societal issues and political debates such as the public funding of facilities and mega-events. Drawing from conflict theory, it also highlights internal struggles of these businesses with issues such as collective bargaining and league policies restricting movement and payment of individuals.

Key Terms Cartel: A group of two or more businesses that agree to coordinate economic decisions to maximize the total profits earned by all cartel members. Collective bargaining agreements: Agreements reached between the league’s owners and players associations governing on- and off-field conditions regarding a player’s employment within the league entity.

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Commissioner: The appointed head of a professional sports league who acts as the Chief Operating Officer for the league and its member clubs. Competitive balance: A relatively equal playing strength among members of a league. Horizontal integration: An action where an owner of a business purchases other business entities that are in the same industry. Legacies: Long-term tangible and intangible impacts that a city, region, province, or country may receive following the hosting of a mega-event. Lockouts: A specific labour situation where employers prohibit employees from working when employees want to work. Luxury tax: A penalty a team must pay if its total team payroll exceeds the threshold set by the league office. Mega-events: Specific large events that attract large audiences, have a large reach, and have a large impact. Monopoly: Market with only one firm supplying output. Monopsony: A market with only one firm demanding inputs to production. Reverse entry draft: A format for allocating amateur talent in professional sports leagues in which the team with the worst regular season winning percentage makes the first selection, followed by the second worst winning percentage team, and continues until all teams make a selection. Salary cap: A limit on the amount of money a team can spend on all of its players or the total amount a team could spend on one player. Strikes: A specific labour situation where employees refuse to work when employers want work to occur. Uncertainty of outcome: The degree of unpredictability regarding an individual match as well as the collection of matches that determine a league champion. Vertical integration: An action where an owner of a business purchases other businesses within the firm’s supply chain.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. If the city of Calgary looks to bid for a future Olympic Games, what do you believe will be the key issues of the debate? Would hosting the Games raise its international prestige? Will it damage its international (or domestic) reputation if it doesn’t? 2. For a professional sports organization, why is it beneficial for media revenue to be a larger source of revenue compared to gate revenue? 3. As advancements in technology allow fans to consume sports from anywhere in the world through a multitude of devices, what challenges does this pose for the professional sports leagues outlined in this chapter? 4. Why are cities interested in hosting professional sports teams? Is this interest purely economic, or are there other non-economic benefits to hosting teams? What specific costs are associated with hosting a professional sports team?

Suggested Readings Humphreys, B. R. (2013). Economics of professional sports. Morgantown, WV: BRH Publishing. Scully, G. W. (1995). The market structure of sports. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Zhang, J. J., Huang, R. H., & Nauright, J. (Eds.). (2017). Sport business in leading economies. Bingley, UK: Emerald. Zimbalist, A. (2006). The bottom line: Observations and arguments on the sports business. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Endnote 1. See https://www.nhl.com/flames/team/owners.

References Associated Press (2014, December 3). Buffalo Bills to cease playing home games in Toronto. CBC Sports. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/buffalo-bills-to-ceaseplaying-home-games-in-toronto-1.2858780. Canadian Press (2011, October 27). Bell Media wins World Cup TV rights for 2018, 2022. CTV News. Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/bell-media-wins-world-cup-tv-rightsfor-2018-2022-1.717687. Canadian Press (2018, November 16). Ontario excludes OHL players from provincial employment standards. CBC.ca. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ ohl-employment-laws-1.4908492. CBC News (2014, October 20). Canada’s junior hockey teams violate minimum wage laws: lawsuit. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canada-s-junior-hockeyteams-violate-minimum-wage-laws-lawsuit-1.2806008. Crompton, J. L. (1995). Economic impact analysis of sporting facilities and events: Eleven sources of misapplication. Journal of Sport Management, 9, 14–35. Crompton, J. L. (2006). Economic impact studies: Instruments for political shenanigans? Journal of Travel Research, 45, 67–82. Crompton, J. L., & Howard, D. R. (2013). Costs: The rest of the economic impact story. Journal of Sport Management, 27, 379–392. Dawson, T. (2018, November 12). Calgary Olympics 2026: The city is about to vote on whether to host the Games again—but should it? National Post. Retrieved from https:// nationalpost.com/news/canada/alberta-ski-resort-requires-60-million-in-upgrades-to-host2026-olympics. Dryden, K. (1983). The game (10th Anniversary ed.). Toronto: Macmillan Publishers. Forrest, D., & Simmons, R. (2002). Outcome uncertainty and attendance demand in sport: The case of English soccer. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series D (The Statistician), 51, 229–241. Friedman, M. T., & Andrews, D. L. (2010). The built sport spectacle and the opacity of democracy. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 46, 181–204. Heroux, D. (2018, July 17). CFL expansion to Halifax reaches crucial crossroad. CBC Sports. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/cfl-expansion-to-halifax-reaches-­ crucial-crossroad-1.4750278. Hume, M. (2013, October 23). Vancouver Olympics worth the $7-billion price tag, study says. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/ british-columbia/vancouver-olympics-worth-the-7-billion-price-tag-study-says/ article15036916/. Joyce, G. (n.d.). Answering the question at the heart of a pending lawsuit could reshape major junior hockey in Canada. Sportsnet.ca. Retrieved from https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/ juniors/big-read-can-chl-afford-pay-players/.

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Lee, Y. N. (2018, October 5). Tokyo Olympics cost for national government now reportedly estimated at 7 times budget. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc. com/2018/10/05/2020-tokyo-olympics-estimated-to-cost-7-times-over-budget-report.html. Lombardo, J. (2016, February 22). NBA teams get more territory: Big opportunities after league increases size of local markets. Sports Business Journal. Retrieved from https://www. sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2016/02/22/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/NBAterritory.aspx. Mason, D., Soebbing, B. P., & Jiang, L. (2017). Managing team and league brands: Diverging interests in the National Hockey League. In C.L. Campbell (Ed.), The customer is NOT always right? Marketing orientations in a dynamic business world: Proceedings of the 2011 World Marketing Congress (pp. 49–57). New York, NY: Springer. Mason, D. S. (1999). What is the sports product and who buys it? The marketing of professional sports leagues. European Journal of Marketing, 33, 402–418. Mason, D. S., Thibault, L., & Misener, L. (2006). An agency-theory perspective on corruption in sport: The case of the International Olympic Committee. Journal of Sport Management, 20, 52–73. Minnaert, L. (2012). An Olympic legacy for all? The non-infrastructural outcomes of the Olympic Games for socially excluded groups (Atlanta 1996–Beijing 2008). Tourism Management, 33, 361–370. Muller, M. (2015). What makes an event a mega-event? Definitions and sizes. Leisure Sciences, 34, 627–642. Neale, W. C. (1964). The peculiar economics of professional sports. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 78, 1–14. Noll, R. G. (2003). The organization of sports leagues. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 19, 530–551. Rovell, D. (2016, June 24). Thanks to TV revenue, CFL is flourishing on business side. ESPN.com. Retrieved from http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/16454871/cfl-flourishingbusiness-side. Rumbolt, R. (2018, November 10). Calgary Olympic bid’s no-side rallies support ahead of public vote. Calgary Herald. Retrieved from https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/ calgary-olympic-bids-no-side-rallies-support-ahead-of-public-vote. Soebbing, B. P., & Mason, D. S. (2009). Managing legitimacy and uncertainty in professional team sport: The NBA’s draft lottery. Team Performance Management, 15, 141–157. Statistics Canada (2018, March 2). Spectator sports, event promoters, artists and related industries, 2016. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/180302/ dq180302e-eng.htm. Staudohar, P. D. (2005). The hockey lockout of 2004–05. Monthly Labor Review, 128, 23–29. Winfree, J. A., & Rosentraub, M. S. (2012). Sports finance and management: Real estate, entertainment, and the remaking of the business. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

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Chapter 14

Globalization, Sport, and International Development Simon C. Darnell and Lyndsay M.C. Hayhurst

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Explain what is meant by globalization and uneven development. 2 Discuss examples of the globalization of sport and physical culture. 3 Describe the history of international development and the emergence of Sport for Development and Peace.

Previously known as the Skydome, this Toronto multi-purpose stadium was recently renamed as the Rogers Centre. Ian Trower/AWL Images/Getty Images

4 Reflect on the positives and negatives of sport for development and peace ­initiatives, using critical approaches like postcolonialism. 5 Explain how people assert agency in response to globalization, through ­glocalization, hybridity, and social activism. Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing . . . you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn’t affect two-thirds of the people of the world. President Jimmy Carter, United States (1977–1981), as cited in Jaffe, 2006, p. 1.

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INTRODUCTION Over 15 years ago, the Canadian sociologist Augie Fleras predicted that citizens across the globe would need to be prepared to “confront the challenge of a shifting and increasingly borderless life that is likely to be our lot in the twenty-first century” (2001, p. 346). Fleras was, of course, referring to the types of unprecedented connections and interactions that were already occurring with greater frequency and ease between people around the world. This shift toward a “borderless life” was only made possible thanks to a number of developments that occurred in the latter part of the 20th century, including: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

■■

the creation of global transportation networks, supported by the availability of fossil fuels; the implementation of free trade policies and global banking systems that allow financial and business activity to cross borders more easily; the growth of neoliberalism, and neoliberal policies, that prioritized economics, and competitive capitalism, and aimed to reduce the influence of governments; the increased scope and reach of transnational corporations and brands, as well as international bodies like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund; and the rapid growth of Internet technology and social media.

Each of these changes has radically transformed fundamental aspects of human life around the world in uneven ways, including: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

how wealth and resources are created and distributed; the manner in which the global food supply is organized, and food security maintained; the ways in which people approach their jobs and work, within an increasingly global division of labour; the extent to which global climate change and environmental sustainability have become issues of concern; the processes through which local cultures and identities are formed; and the ways in which, and reasons why, people form social organizations, movements, and engage in political activism.

All of these developments make up the phenomenon known as: “the spread of worldwide practices, relations, consciousness, and organization of social life” (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2014, p. 571). For many sociologists, globalization and its uneven impacts have become key areas of analysis; indeed, as Ritzer and Stepnisky (2014, p. 571) contend: “it is likely that no single topic has received as much popular and academic attention in recent years as globalization.” In this chapter, we explore the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of globalization and its connections to sport, physical culture, and international development. These connections make up important elements of social and cultural life and therefore call for sustained critical, sociological analysis. Indeed, more than 15 years since Fleras’s statement, the challenges, benefits, and opportunities of a “borderless life” remain, with more significance, complexity, and nuance than ever before. 310

Chapter 14

CONNECTING GLOBALIZATION TO SPORT Many aspects of contemporary sport and physical culture are themselves primary examples of “global culture,” and sport therefore helps to illuminate the scope and contradictions of globalization. Athletes like LeBron James, brands like Nike, and professional sports teams like Manchester United are all internationally known. Indeed, many sporting forms, most notably soccer (or football as it is called in most parts of the world) are played and recognized by people in nearly every corner of the globe. It is for this reason that soccer is often referred to as the “global game,” and that FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, is recognized for having more member countries than the United Nations. Without question, the global recognition and value of these athletes and brands—or these athletes as brands unto themselves—could not have occurred without the creation of new global consumer identities. That said, the globalization of sport has not occurred evenly or equally. The popularity of global sports, like soccer, and of famous athletes like LeBron or David Beckham, has sometimes occurred at the expense of local sporting identities and cultures that can sometimes be deemed less significant or important when compared to global brands. As well, many local sports clubs have suffered, as their inability to compete financially on a global scale has meant that their best players regularly migrate to wealthier clubs and leagues in richer countries. In a related manner, talented athletes from relatively poor countries are increasingly recruited by the world’s top leagues and clubs, like Major League Baseball and the English Premier League, but often wind up poor, far from home, and jobless if they cannot capitalize on the small window of sporting success available to them (see Box 14.3). In addition, there are other examples of globalization and sport that may not be as widely recognized but are equally as important. For example, sport is now regularly used by international bodies such as the United Nations and major sports organizations like the International Olympic Committee as a political solution to overcome international and global inequalities. Notably, these inequalities are often the same ones that critics argue are exacerbated by the economic structures, relations, and effects of globalization. A good example of this, and one which is discussed further below, is the recent institutionalization of the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector, in which individuals and organizations work to position and implement sport in order to support various objectives of international development. These objectives include the empowerment of girls and women, education and prevention around HIV/AIDS, and peace and reconciliation in post-conflict zones or divided societies (Darnell, 2012; Hayhurst, 2009). The concept and practice of SDP has enjoyed support from some of the world’s premier global institutions and stakeholders, like the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the International Olympic Committee. Still, while the SDP sector and its programs have grown tremendously in recent years and made important contributions to international development, it has also been the subject of various critiques from sociologists of sport. We discuss these issues in more detail below. It is also worth recognizing that globalization has an enormous impact on sport and physical culture within Canada. Canadian sports fans regularly “consume” sports from around the world, such as the National Football League, English Premiership Football, Formula 1 Racing, and Indian Premier League Cricket. They do so by watching broadcasts of these events or buying products associated with or

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licensed by these global leagues. In this respect, while Canadian sports fans regularly cheer for their “local” teams, they are often just as likely to have strong affiliations with sports and teams located across the globe. Conversely, cities like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, all of which have strong traditions of immigration as well as multicultural and multiethnic populations, are home to many different physical cultural practices, which often have their historical and cultural roots outside of Canada (see Joseph, 2017). This chapter, then, represents an opportunity to acknowledge and critically reflect upon the myriad ways in which sport and physical culture remain intimately tied to globalization in the 21st century. While we do not suggest that the connections between sport and globalization are inherently negative or harmful, we do consider and discuss the ways in which globalization, and its connections to sport and physical culture, often constructs, solidifies, and exacerbates systems and structures of oppression and inequality. Following Whitson (2015, p. 305), for example, we concur that sociologists need to recognize that “increases in wealth and poverty invite critics to ask who benefits (and who loses) from globalization, and whether more cannot be done to mitigate some of its harmful effects.”

THEORIES OF GLOBALIZATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND INEQUALITY Even though globalization is a key concept in sociology, it remains a somewhat contentious topic, and scholars and analysts often differ as to how best to approach or conceptualize it. These differences are due, at least in part, to the shifting and contradictory nature of globalization itself. On the one hand, there is a plethora of evidence that documents the existence of globalization, as well as its impacts on people, communities, and cultures. For example, social media and Internet technology are more available and widespread than ever before; economic and finance practices are more globally integrated than at any other time in human history; and the spread of popular and celebrity culture extends into all corners of the globe. That said, there are also indicators that borders and divisions along geographic, national, economic, social, political, and ethnic lines remain noticeably intact, and that powerful interest groups are promoting a return to an older era and social structure. In 2016, for example, Britain voted to leave the European Union, and there is no shortage of calls in the United States to build various walls to prevent immigration, or to re-establish tariffs and trade barriers. US President Donald Trump’s vision and approach to politics have signaled for many a renewed sense of, and support for, white ethnic nationalism rather than globalization, with his populist and protectionist policies designed primarily to benefit the wealthy, and in the US only. This has occurred at a time when similar far right nationalist agendas have gained prominence across Western Europe (de Matas, 2017). These nationalist movements, crucially, claim to be in opposition to the forces of globalization, and seek to protect national borders, citizens and “their” cultures by restricting migration and immigration, and by encouraging domestic economic activity. Such policies are hard to enact, however, given that many countries, and their national economies, have been reliant on the benefits of immigration and a system of global trade for decades. The significance of globalization is evident in the fact that changing or undoing of well-established social structures is no easy chore, despite populist political rhetoric to the contrary.

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GLOBALIZATION AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES In a related (though distinct) manner, there have been similar concerns about the economic and cultural impact of globalization on particular groups, notably Indigenous peoples. Some of these groups see the forces of globalization, such as global finance and free trade, as ways for powerful, global corporations to extract resources and make profits without having to ensure benefits for local people or to protect the natural environment (Gardham, Giles, & Hayhurst in press). These criticisms, coupled with the rise and availability of social media and global networking, have led to the creation of new forms of social movements as examples of counter-hegemony. An example of this is the Idle No More (INM) movement, which launched in December 2012 as a political protest campaign originating among the Indigenous peoples of Canada, and organized alongside Indigenous communities from across the globe as well as their nonAboriginal supporters. In its work, INM promoted the following vision: INM has and will continue to help build sovereignty and resurgence of nationhood. INM will continue to pressure government and industry to protect the environment. INM will continue to build allies in order to reframe the nation to nation relationship, this will be done by including grassroots perspectives, issues, and concern. (INM, 2014, italics added for emphasis)

The organization of INM illustrates many of the key tensions around globalization and its uneven impacts. On the one hand, INM is itself global, connected by Internet technologies, and bringing together groups of Indigenous peoples and allies from around the world. On the other hand, it proceeds from an explicitly national perspective (albeit one that tends to recognize traditional Indigenous nations, rather than European or settler colonial nations like Canada). In this way, INM also illustrates an opposition to globalization through the agency of various Indigenous groups.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.1

Anti-sweatshop Movements and Nike

For many years, activists have been concerned with the practices of sweatshop labour, used by transnational corporations in the production of sporting goods that are then marketed and sold on a global scale. For some critical analysts, sweatshop labour became “the symbol of the perverse effects of neoliberal globalization” and antisweatshop activism represented “the struggle for social justice in the global economy” (Rodriguez-Garavito, 2005, p. 64). In the 1990s, Nike became a key target of global anti-sweatshop activism, as its practice of using low-wage labour in Latin America and Asia was increasingly documented, and as its brand continued to enjoy global recognition and enormous profits. In line with conflict theory, Nike became the centre of struggles between relatively powerful corporate interests and the labour interests of workers—especially young teenage girls— around the world seeking safety, security, and fair wages.

Through their efforts and agency, anti-sweatshop activists were able to document and communicate through the media Nike’s various exploitative and abusive labour practices (Greenberg & Knight, 2004). This led to better public awareness around the issue of sweatshop labour, and in some cases forced Nike to adopt better monitoring of its factories and the rights of their workers. At the same time, however, these campaigns also encouraged consumers to simply boycott Nike products, rather than putting additional pressure on the company to change its production practices or alter its business model in any fundamental ways (Greenberg & Knight, 2004). As a result, many activists continue to call for Nike to change its global labour practices in ways that would ensure the safety, rights, and fair wages for workers (Zager et al., 2017).

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The above examples show that globalization, and its critics and supporters, can be hard to categorize; it is these kinds of tensions that make globalization such an important topic and one ripe for sociological analysis. They also demonstrate that key questions in the study of globalization often come to rest on how and why individuals, citizens, or groups with varying resources understand or identify themselves amidst globalization—i.e., their practical consciousness—and whether they see themselves as members of a (local) community, a country, or a (global) society. Indeed, there are significant social and political tensions in the choices that people make in regard to such issues. For example, Choudry (2007, p. 103) contends that “anti-globalization” actors—most often based in “Western” countries of Europe, North America, and Australia—tend to support campaigns and causes of people in the Global South. At the same time, though, they may be hesitant to support the claims of Indigenous peoples experiencing poverty or inequalities within their own national borders, or to call for broader structural and political changes to remedy these issues. In this way, globalization might actually make it easier and more comfortable for Canadians to recognize and support the struggles of people in other parts of the world, but not necessarily to recognize inequality and unequal power relations locally, or at “home.”

GLOBALIZATION AND CAPITALISM In response to such criticisms, many of the key issues surrounding globalization are best studied locally or domestically; the forces of globalization extend far and wide, but their impacts are always felt by particular people in particular places. It is also imperative to be attentive to the issue of scale in relation to globalization—particularly when considering how globalization is deeply enmeshed with capitalism. Capitalism is: a system of social relations of production and reproduction nourished by uneven development across a range of spatial scales, from the local or regional to the national or supranational, the ambitions of which have always been global—since its birth in Europe more than five centuries ago. (Katz, 2001, p. 1213; italics added for emphasis)

Through this historical lens, the study of globalization asks critical questions about which particular people, countries, and regions most benefit from a capitalist mode of production, a global economy, and an international division of labour. In this division of labour, research and marketing tends to occur in more economically developed countries, while the actual production of goods relies on the availability of workers who are less skilled and low paid, and mostly takes place in relatively poor countries. In turn, and just like the Nike example noted above, while globalization allows for resources to be exchanged more easily and for wealth to be created, it does not necessarily include mechanisms for the equitable distribution of this wealth. Thus, while it is true that “affluent countries of the ‘North’ have been net beneficiaries of globalization, as are many societies in Asia where urban standards of living are increasingly rapidly,” it is also the case that “both Asia and North America have significant areas of rural poverty alongside their booming cities” (Whitson, 2015, p. 304). In addition, the inequality between the world’s richest and poorest continues to grow, suggesting that the growth of the global economy does not mean that everyone benefits from such growth. The uneven impacts of globalization call into question whether economic growth strategies, and economic globalization in general, are appropriate or sufficient for supporting the world’s poor and “lifting” them out of poverty. According to Mosse (2005, p. 5), “international aid policy frameworks continue to endorse globalization 314

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as a process of economic and political freedom (democracy) and poverty reduction.” Yet, it is clear that this approach has historically failed to eradicate poverty and has actually exacerbated economic inequalities. Such approaches expose the effects and limits of neoliberalism, which is intimately tied to economic globalization and the current forms of capitalism. As noted in Chapter 4, neoliberalism is a way of seeing and organizing the world, economically, socially, and politically, that is based on the following principles: unregulated support of free trade and markets; the promotion of individualism and competition; and reduced social security and government influence in favour of capitalist markets. Support for neoliberalism has been central to the spread of economic globalization, because it helps to support and justify an increasingly global economy, despite the unequal benefits and harmful effects that economic globalization has produced (Smith, 2008). In this way, and despite global inequality, neoliberalism remains hegemonic, and is still often viewed as a commonsense approach to organizing the global economy.

APPROACHING AND STUDYING GLOBALIZATION With these tensions in mind, a key question is what, specifically, is to be thought about or studied when approaching globalization and its varied social and cultural impacts? First and foremost, it is important to note that globalization can be studied in cultural, economic, political and/or institutional terms (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2014). Within each of these subfields, a key concern for sociologists is whether globalization leads to increasing homogeneity (or similarities), versus heterogeneity (or differences); that is, does globalization support or lead to more similarity or more diversity amongst the people of the world (or is it perhaps a combination of the two)? Some scholars of globalization, particularly those who are more critical of its impact, have argued that one of its effects has been that powerful businesses and brands have used the opportunities provided by globalization to expand their international recognition and presence. This has led to the homogenization of an increasingly global culture. For example, franchise-based, internationally focused corporations like McDonalds, Walmart, and Starbucks now have outlets in countries all across the globe, a business model that has increased in prominence but has arguably had a negative impact on workers and the diversity of local cultures. The popular sociological term for this phenomenon is McDonaldization, in recognition of the impact the fast food chain has had in these global processes. As a sociological concept, McDonaldization draws attention to the ways in which globalization homogenizes cultural choices and experiences for many people, and particularly for those who live in countries that are relatively poor, all the while leading to profits for corporations that are most often based in North America and Europe (see Ritzer, 2007). Again, it is important to acknowledge that the effects and impact of these processes are uneven and unequal. The shareholders of corporations like Walmart and Amazon accrue huge profits, while their lowest level workers are paid low hourly wages, with few benefits and little to no job security. In turn, the dominant presence of these franchises around the world, and within Canada, has meant that many local businesses can no longer compete and are often forced out of business, which furthers the culturally homogenizing effects of economic globalization. Such assessments of globalization’s homogenizing impact tend to be opposed by those who argue that globalization can, and in many cases does, lead to cultural differences. This approach suggests that as much as globalization is a powerful process in contemporary social life, local cultures remain primarily insulated from Globalization, Sport, and International Development

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each other and largely unaffected by global forces. Proponents of this approach tend to cite ethnic clashes, the politics of national identity, and even global terrorism as evidence that significant cultural differences and oppositions remain firmly in place, suggesting that the forces of globalization have not, and perhaps cannot, overrun personal and local notions of culture and identity (see Huntington, 1996). The problem with this approach is that it tends to view people and cultures as if they have essential characteristics, as opposed to seeing them as dynamic, shifting, and changing depending on the broader social context. In the face of the either/or approach implied by these two viewpoints stands the notion of hybridity (see Nederveen Pieterse, 2004). This approach, we would submit, offers a more nuanced, insightful, and accurate framework through which to understand the impact of globalization. In this approach, global processes have an impact on local people, but only in so far as they are interpreted and integrated into local cultural practices. The result is neither fully homogenizing nor culturally insulated, but rather results in new, hybrid forms of cultural practice and identity. The sociological term (and neologism) that is regularly used to describe this form of hybridity is glocalization (Robertson, 2001). Proponents of glocalization tend to highlight key elements of globalizing processes. They are: ■■ ■■ ■■

pluralistic, in that many different groups and stakeholders are involved; innovative, in that local people adapt and innovate in response to global forces; and powerful, in that products, brands, and the media have an impact, but also offer materials and opportunities for local people to define and assert their particular cultural identities (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2014).

The notion of glocalization has been used extensively in the sociological study of sport, particularly as a way for scholars to assess how global sporting forms (like football) are interpreted and even challenged and re-made at local levels (see Giulianotti & Robertson, 2012; Cho, Leary & Jackson, 2012; Kobayashi, 2012; Jijon, 2017). These Diasporic cultural pride and affiliation is seen among Toronto fans in a cricket game between the Toronto Nationals and the Vancouver Knights in King City, Ontario, June 28, 2018. GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.2

Local Interpretations of Global Sport

One of the goals of sport sociology is to explore and make sense of the various ways in which sport contributes to social experiences, meanings, and identities. Janelle Joseph (2017) studied the experiences of male cricket players from across the Caribbean diaspora. In her use of the term, diaspora refers to “the racial, ethnic, local and national (imagined) communities and cultures that span borders as a result of historic and contemporary migrations” (Joseph, 2017, p. 8). Based on her ethnographic research with cricket players, Joseph shows that cricket featured prominently in their experiences of migration, including that of coming to a country like

Canada and a city like Toronto, and helped them in settling into neighbourhoods, finding jobs, and establishing their place in Canadian society. At the same time, cricket as a cultural form and practice offered Caribbean men a way to maintain their Caribbean-ness, to celebrate their homeland, and also to confront the threat and pain of racism and xenophobia. In this sense, Joseph shows that sports like cricket can be used to establish both sameness as well as difference, and that sport is often a key repository for people navigating their own forms of movement around the world.

types of assessments tend to conclude that when people (e.g., local sports fans or customers of sporting goods) consume global sporting forms (like English Premiership football or brands like Adidas or Nike) they often use their own local cultural sensibilities, norms, or behaviours—or look to cultural intermediaries—to make sense of the sports they consume. In this way, local cultures become ascribed to global sporting forms (Kobayashi, 2012), suggesting that there is nearly always an interpretive element to the process of globalization.

GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Overall, then, and despite the tensions within the sociological study of globalization, we can conclude that the forces of globalization are real and profound, but also open to various forms of local agency and interpretation. In addition, the forces of globalization can be seen to interact with social, economic, and political processes on an international scale. It is in this way that globalization connects to international development, a term which, in its most basic form, refers to “the use of resources to relieve poverty and improve the standard of living of a nation” (McEwan, 2009, p. 12). Historically, support for international development was deemed necessary because different countries (and regions and communities) were seen to be healthier and more prosperous than others. When World War II ended in the mid-20th century, and with memories of the Great Depression still fresh, global leaders took it upon themselves to lend support to those areas and people of the world who they deemed to be in need. One of the earliest and most influential examples of this occurred in 1949, when Harry Truman became president of the United States and used his inauguration speech to state that:  . . . we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a

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threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve suffering of these people. The United States is pre-eminent among nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques. (as quoted in Rist, 2009, p. 71)

In this approach, Truman suggested that it was the responsibility of relatively powerful countries (like the United States) to help the world’s poor and underresourced in achieving modern development standards. These ideas remain an important hallmark of some international development agendas, approaches, and policies today, although much has changed in the geo-political landscape since Truman’s remarks. Indeed, both globalization and neoliberalism have only made the landscape and practice of international development more complicated. And, while it is true that some improvements to global health, peace, and prosperity have occurred amidst—or perhaps despite—globalization, there is still widespread global inequality into the 21st century; the divides between the world’s rich and poor, for example, remain profound within and between nations. Some powerful statistics help to make this case. Below are statistics from the United Nations Human Development Index, which measures key indicators of health and wellbeing such as life expectancy, education, and wealth, compares them by Table 14.1 United Nations Human Development Index Country

Human Development Index

Life expectancy at birth

Expected years of schooling

Gross national income per capita

Norway

0.949

81.7

17.7

67,614

Australia

0.939

82.5

20.4

42,822

Switzerland

0.939

83.1

16.0

56,364

Germany

0.926

81.1

17.1

45,000

Denmark

0.925

80.4

19.2

44,519

Singapore

0.925

83.2

15.4

78,162

Netherlands

0.924

81.7

18.1

46,326

Ireland

0.923

81.1

18.6

43,326

Canada

0.920

82.2

16.3

42,582

United States

0.920

79.2

16.5

53,245

Eritrea

0.420

64.2

 5.0

 1,490

Sierra Leone

0.420

51.3

 9.5

 1,529

Mozambique

0.418

55.5

 9.1

 1,098

South Sudan

0.418

56.1

 4.9

 1,882

Guinea

0.414

59.2

 8.8

 1,058

Burundi

0.404

57.1

10.6

   691

Burkino Faso

0.402

59.0

 7.7

 1,537

Chad

0.396

51.9

 7.3

 1,991

Niger

0.353

61.9

 5.4

   889

Central African Republic

0.352

51.5

 7.1

   587

Source: Statistics from the Human Development Report 2016 (see Jāhāna, 2016).

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c­ ountry, and then ranks them by average. While there are limits to the ways in which health and wellbeing can be measured statistically, these kinds of numbers do help to illustrate the vast differences—and inequalities—in these categories around the world. The challenges of international development, thus, clearly remain. Below we discuss some of the ways in which sport and physical culture are now used in response to these ongoing development-related inequalities. Before that, however, we discuss the importance of a postcolonial approach to understanding international development.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND POSTCOLONIALISM For some critics, as well as social and political activists, a primary response to international development has been to challenge its very notion. Many of these criticisms proceed from, or employ the notion of, postcolonialism, which is, in its most basic form, the critical study of colonialism and its effects. The prefix “post” in postcolonialism is meant to illustrate that while many of the world’s formal colonial policies and practices have now ended, they left an indelible mark, particularly on a global scale. Historically, colonialism was the process by which imperial nations, primarily from Europe, built empires across the world. These powerful countries established colonies and settler communities outside their national borders in order to support their own cultural, military and economic dominance. In so doing, they enslaved people of colour, and regularly displaced or even destroyed Indigenous lifestyles and cultures. Such practices were often based on the belief that non-European cultures were unsophisticated, pre-modern, or even savage and therefore in need of civilizing, or developing. Thus, when Truman made his speech in 1949 claiming that the United States should bring its expertise to the “primitive and stagnant” people of the world, it raised the spectre of colonialism. Postcolonialism not only brings focus to the effects of colonialism, but it also heightens the ways in which people interpret and critique colonial practices and effects—and helps analysts see how the activities of sport for development organizations may be associated with ideologies that are reminiscent of colonialism (McEwan, 2009). For example, Darnell (2007) used a postcolonial lens to understand the experiences and testimonials of international volunteers with Right to Play, one of the world’s largest Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) organizations. He found that it was relatively easy for white volunteers to embrace colonial ideologies, and to see themselves as authority figures, particularly when they were tasked with using sport to “help” racialized people in distant countries. In this way, Darnell (2007) argued that some SDP programs perpetuate the idea that people of European descent should help those who are less fortunate, particularly if those less fortunate people are racialized, a notion that was central to colonialism, but that also had largely negative effects on colonized people. Postcolonial approaches help to illuminate these kinds of tensions. It demonstrates how important it is to think critically about the assumptions that underlie Truman’s vision of development. This means, for example, focusing on the intended and unintended consequences of development efforts, and considering who actually benefits (and who does not) from such efforts—and how people decide what “counts” as a benefit. In upcoming sections, we discuss some of these tensions and complexities in relation to sport.

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.3

 igration, Human Rights, and Child Trafficking M in Global Football



While the popularity of football (soccer) is often cited as a positive example of sport and globalization, in recent years scholars have noted the increase in football players migrating out of the continent of Africa (e.g., Darby, 2010). These young athletes are often recruited, but they can also be illegally sold and trafficked into countries, primarily in Europe, to pursue professional football opportunities. Here, young footballers are “traded” through “false paperwork, including fake passports, and age fraud,” (McGee, 2012, p. 77). Much of this is organized through “football academies,” which have become widely established in countries throughout Africa and South America. These academies are often unaffiliated, and therefore pay little heed to the legal or administrative safeguards that govern football clubs or federations. Darragh McGee (2015, 2018) conducted an ethnographic study of Right To Dream, an internationally acclaimed non-profit football academy located in Accra, Ghana. The academy is ostensibly focused on youth development through education, football, and “character development.” His research explored the journeys of male youth in their quest to migrate out of Africa by becoming professional footballers. McGee (2018) found that while Right to Dream claimed to assist and “develop” players, the academy’s relationship with youth was fundamentally exploitative since Right to Dream focused mostly on the gifted young players, and taught them to

identify as part of a global middle-class African diaspora, at the expense of personal ties to their local communities, families, and cultural traditions. In his work, McGee questions some of the underlying assumptions about global “connectedness,” particularly in the context of postcolonial Ghana and West Africa, by questioning “what . . . it mean[s] to be ever more connected across this uneven and unequal global landscape” (McGee, 2015, p. 22). One answer is that globalization and sport are (re)shaping development efforts in countries like Ghana, and shifting focus away from community development to individual development. In turn, McGee advocates for thinking beyond the supposed benefits of globalization (such as connectedness)— and focusing as well on who is excluded, immobilized, and ultimately manipulated when football is seen as a “global” game. While there may be a select few African youths whose dreams are realized through their global mobility into the commercial spectacle of professional football in Europe, the dangers of this exploitive system call for ongoing analysis and critical assessment. Overall, for young aspiring footballers, trying to “make it” in the global game is one of the ways they respond to the hegemony of neoliberal globalization, or how they strive to succeed within a failing economic system that has, in many ways, left countries like Ghana with little to offer in terms of employment opportunities for youth.

SPORT IN GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Recently, sport has increasingly been used in response to international development goals such as gender empowerment, health promotion, education, and peace building and conflict resolution. The result has been the institutionalization of the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector, made up of four main types of stakeholders (Giulianotti, 2011): ■■ ■■

320

private/commercial institutions, such as corporations like Nike that sponsor sport for development programs; mainstream non-governmental and community-based organizations, like Right to Play, which delivers sport programs in underserved communities around the world;

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■■

■■

national governments and inter-governmental agencies, like the government of Canada, which lists sport for development as one of the pillars of the Canadian Sport Policy, or the United Nations, which recognizes sport as a way to meet its Sustainable Development Goals; and new social movements and radical non-governmental organizations, like Surfers Against Sewage—a group that organizes public awareness and activist campaigns around sport in order to call attention to the need for environmental protection and sustainability.

These different kinds of organizations tend to share a belief in, and support for, sport-based programs that are designed to meet non-sport goals. In this way, SDP programs and policies are often characterized as employing a plus sport model, in which broader development goals are seen as paramount and sport is used in support of meeting such goals (Coalter, 2007). This is connected to, but distinct from, a sport plus approach, in which sport is the focus and positive development outcomes are presumed to follow.

THE EMERGENCE OF SDP A number of social, political, and policy factors were necessary for the SDP sector to emerge and cohere in the ways that it did. One was that at the end of the 20th century, some of the popular thinking in international development began to change, and researchers, politicians, and policymakers started to consider notions of development beyond economics. This opened up space for different approaches that focussed on improving people’s social resources and connections to others and increasing their choices and abilities to live as they see fit. Given its popularity and global visibility, sport was increasingly seen as a way to do this. It was also around this time that unprecedented global health challenges began to emerge, most notably the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa (see Lewis, 2006). As a result, there was more money and there were additional opportunities available for sport organizations that could offer innovative approaches to health promotion and education, particularly focused on HIV/AIDS. The funding available to SDP as a response to a global problem like HIV/AIDS was illustrative of emerging neoliberalism. Whereas it was governments that had traditionally responded to these kinds of health crises, in a neoliberal framework, it was charities, corporations, and other non-governmental actors that were increasingly expected to deliver such services. In this way, from its outset, the contemporary SDP sector was compatible with neoliberalism. The actions and agency of famous athletes also helped to support the emergence of the SDP sector. For example, Norwegian speed-skating champion Johann Olav Koss used his gold-medal–winning performance at the 1994 Olympics to raise money for organizations like UNICEF and Save the Children. Koss then went on to start an organization called Olympic Aid, which continued to raise funds and also started to deliver sport programs to young people living in refugee camps. Olympic Aid eventually became Right to Play, now headquartered in Toronto. It is one of the largest SDP organizations in the world. In this way, the efforts of athletes like Koss were important for the growth and institutionalization of SDP (Kidd, 2008).

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Finally, the SDP sector received significant political support from the world’s leaders, and from major organizations responsible for international development, such as the United Nations (UN). In 2001, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan created a new position of Special Advisor on Sport for Development and Peace. Annan became an important champion of SDP; in 2004, he delivered a speech proclaiming sport’s ability to change the world in a positive and inherently functionalist manner: Sport is a universal language. At its best, it can bring people together, no matter what their origin, background, religious beliefs or economic status. And when young people participate in sports or have access to physical education, they can experience real exhilaration even as they learn the ideals of teamwork and tolerance. That is why the United Nations is turning more and more to the world of sport for help in our work for peace and our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. (UN, 2004)

Former Swiss president Adolf Ogi was the first to hold the position of Special Advisor and oversaw a series of important developments, including ■■ ■■ ■■

■■

the creation of the UN’s Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace, tasked with investigating how to integrate SDP within the UN system; the hosting of the first International Conference on Sport and Development in Magglingen, Switzerland in 2003; the creation of the International Working Group on SDP (SDP-IWG) at the end of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, to lobby national governments in support of SDP; and the UN’s naming, in 2013, of April 6 as the annual International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, stating that: “The adoption of this day signifies the increasing recognition by the United Nations of the positive influence that sport can have on the advancement of human rights, and social and economic development” (UN, 2013).

SPORT AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS All of these events and decisions helped to set the stage for a more recent and even more significant milestone in the institutionalization of SDP: sport’s specific inclusion within the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, announced in 2015. Article 37 of the SDGs states: Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. We recognize the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and respect and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and of young people, individuals and communities as well as to health, education and social inclusion objectives. (UN, 2015)

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On the one hand, the naming of sport as a means by which to achieve the SDGs was an important acknowledgment for the SDP sector and its proponents. On the other hand, it occurred just before the UN closed its Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP), stating that it was turning over such responsibilities to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (Wickstrom, 2017), a controversial move given that the IOC and the Olympic Games have a rather dubious track record when it comes to supporting sustainable and equitable development. For some critics, the closing of the UNOSDP in favour of a new leadership role for the IOC signalled the SDP’s move away from a more democratic, transparent, and development-focused approach, led by the UN, toward a less transparent and more corporate and e­ lite-sports–focused vision, as laid out by the IOC.

RESEARCH IN SDP With all of that said, the recognition and popularity of the SDP sector cannot be denied. In response to this institutionalization and popularity of the SDP sector, a key question for sociologists of sport has emerged: does SDP “work”? That is, does the explicit organization of sport to meet the goals of international development (in a plus sport model) lead to positive development outcomes? There are several ways in which to approach this question. One is to consider the relationship(s) between sport and globalization—or the influence of globalization on sport itself—and to think critically about what this means for SDP, in both theory and practice. On the one hand, sport might offer an opportunity for interaction and understanding in and between different countries, communities, and cultures in ways that can lead to reducing inequality and promoting peace. For example, Appadurai (1996, p. 110) claims that sport and play provide a framework for diverse cultures to interact, through “the profound links between the ideas of play in human life, (and) of organized sport in mobilizing simultaneously powerful sentiments of both nation and humanity.” At the same time, and given the issues discussed in this chapter, the notion that sport is a universal language, an idea that is central to many SDP programs and initiatives, suggests a functionalist approach to sport. From this perspective, sport’s global appeal is inherent, natural, and benign. Critics of functionalism would argue, however, that sport’s universality is political and contestable, because while a sport like football may indeed be globally popular, that is due to the ability of powerful stakeholders (sport organizations, corporations, media, sponsors, etc.) to spread it around the world. Thus, if sport is a universal language in the ways that Annan and others have proclaimed it to be, this illustrates the globalization or “McDonaldization” of sport in and of itself, or even a process of social control whereby local people and cultures are sometimes forced to conform to a globalized vision of what sport should be. These tensions can extend to the very notion of development within SDP as well. In his assessment of Olympic Aid’s programs in Angola in the early 2000s, Guest (2009) found significant frictions and even misalignment between the ­ideological values that Olympic Aid was trying to disseminate and the interests or demands of the local people participating in their programs. For example, based on largely functionalist notions of sport, Olympic Aid wanted to create a culture of

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.4

Parkour and Youth Agency

A recent example of critical issues in youth sport and SDP comes from the sport of parkour, or free-running. Thorpe and Ahmad (2015) worked with youth, particularly young men, in the Middle East who engaged in parkour. They found that these young people engaged with other parkour communities around the world, particularly through the use of social media—learning about and growing the sport. These exposures to parkour led also to the development of their own local parkour styles and cultural identities. They did so by re-appropriating dangerous local spaces and even resisting cultural and familial expectations.

In this way, local youth asserted their own agency in producing glocalized parkour forms. Thorpe and Ahmad (2015) conclude that the activities of these young people have important lessons for SDP, namely, that young people should be active participants in the ways that SDP is conceptualized and organized, not passive targets of top-down sport programs that are deemed by others to be good for them. In Thorpe and Ahmad’s words (2015, p. 699), “respectful collaborations with young, grassroots sporting participants have the potential to make a valuable contribution to the sustainability and success of future youth-focused SDP projects.”

volunteering, in which local residents in Pena, Angola, would give their time freely to sport. However, local people, mostly living in relatively poverty, expected—and needed—to be paid for their time and efforts. Similarly, where Olympic Aid saw sport as a way to promote and teach life skills, local people viewed sport primarily as amusement, or as a pastime for children. The resulting conflicts show that presumptions about the universality of development (and sport) may not be easily or successfully transferred into the actual practices of SDP, and can easily lead to mistrust and program failure. In fact, not even the notion of universal human rights can supersede the significance of local cultures or the agency of local communities when it comes to deciding what development (through sport) means to them. For instance, Hayhurst, Sundstrom, and Arksey (2018) studied a global SDP program distributed by an international women’s rights organization—which focused on gender-based, domestic, and sexual violence prevention and sexual and reproductive health rights promotion in a number of Global South countries, including Nicaragua. Through research in Nicaragua, they found that the program did not always resonate because local community members did not accept the “global” sexual and reproductive health norms being upheld by the international (Western-based) NGO. This was, in part, due to strong cultures of patriarchy and “machismo” in Nicaragua. As a result, simply “importing” the global feminist norms and ideologies encompassed by the curriculum did not fundamentally support local people or create sustainable change. Today, the SDP program staff continue to try and address the prevalence of gender-based, domestic, and sexual violence in their community, but are working to modify the global curriculum in an effort to better address the local context. In this way, even global feminism is subject to local knowledge and resistance by people who live in a globalized world.

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.5

The “Global” Girl Effect?

“Invest in a girl, and she will do the rest!” So goes the tagline of the Girl Effect, a global campaign initiated by the Nike Foundation in 2005 that positions girls and young women as agents of social change and poverty alleviation (Nike, 2017). The Girl Effect campaign ambitiously promises to “raise 50 million girls out of poverty by 2030” through its support of various developmentrelated projects targeting the education, health, sport, economic vitality, and ultimately the “potential” of girls and young women, mostly across the Global South (Nike, 2017). The Girl Effect movement emerged alongside other trends in international development, including those initiatives focused on SDP, as well as corporate social responsibility (CSR) (McSweeney et al., in press). CSR refers to a “commitment to acting ethically and socially responsibly as a business or organization” (McSweeney et al., in press). As a movement grounded in Nike’s CSR strategies, the Girl Effect has drawn positive attention to the fact that girls and young women were traditionally ignored in development narratives, policies, and programming. However, there are important challenges and concerns with the movement as well.

First, the majority of efforts within Nike’s Girl Effect movement tend to focus on the individual experiences of young women and girls residing in Western and Global North nations, while describing their powerful, confident, “can-do” attitudes (Harris, 2004). This can lead to gendered expectations and understandings about how all girls should participate in global society, expectations that can homogenize the diversity of girls’ experiences without considering differences of race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. In turn, this individualized “can-do” approach—which asks girls to be competitive and productive but not dependent on government—means that the Girl Effect is largely compatible with neoliberalism. That is, it is primarily a functionalist approach that aims to transform and modernize “at-risk” girls into successful global girl citizens by encouraging them to simply participate in global capitalism (Hayhurst, 2013). Overall, SDP research studies that employ critical theory to explore the Girl Effect have demonstrated the need to first attend to structural inequalities (e.g., poverty, unequal division of power and resources between women and men, etc.) in order for young women to possibly benefit from any Girl Effect-infused sportrelated development program.

CONCLUSION Sociologist C. Wright Mills famously suggested that the task of the social scientist is to “translate personal troubles into public issues.” Indeed, Mills advocated for the importance of using one’s sociological imagination in order to assess how day-to-day lives, social positions, and biographies may be deeply enmeshed within historical and contemporary relations of power that “play out” in a wider social context. As we have discussed in this chapter, globalization is an important element of the current social context, and while it provides many with benefits due to their social positions or locations, it also perpetuates deep inequalities. We also discussed the ways in which globalization may be understood in relation to physical culture and sport. From the globalization of the sports industry to the institutionalization of Sport for Development and Peace, sport’s connections to broader processes of globalization have created both benefits and challenges for many people, while raising crucial questions about social (in)justice, (in)equality, migration, and human rights. Given this complexity, it is important to continue to assess the social, cultural, and material implications of globalization in relation to sport, physical culture, and development, and to question whether and how sport might better contribute to the (global) society, ignite social change, or even enhance the lives of those that have experienced globalization and its discontents. Globalization, Sport, and International Development

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Key Terms Capitalism: The world’s dominant system of economic exchange, intimately tied to social relations of production and reproduction. Corporate social responsibility: The commitments and actions taken by businesses and corporations in order to behave ethically and in a socially responsible manner. Diaspora: The communities and cultures—often based on race and ethnicity—that span borders as a result of migration, both historical and contemporary. Glocalization: The new, hybrid, and often contested forms of cultural practice and identity that emerge from processes of globalization. Globalization: The increasing organization of social life based on worldwide interactions, relations, practices, and consciousness. International development: Resources, policies, and programs organized in attempts to improve living standards and reduce poverty in countries around the world. International division of labour: The international structure of labour within globalization. Due to the rise and influence of transnational corporations, research and marketing increasingly occurs in more economically developed countries, while production, through cheaper and less-skilled labour, tends to take place in relatively poor countries. McDonaldization: The process by which globalization homogenizes people’s cultural choices and experiences. Neoliberalism: A way of seeing and organizing the world, economically, socially, and politically, based on unregulated support of free trade and markets; promotion of individualism and competition; and reduced social security and government influence in favour of capitalist markets. Postcolonialism: The critical study of colonialism and its effects, both historically and contemporarily.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What are the most notable aspects and effects of globalization? 2. Who benefits most from globalization? 3. What has been done in response to globalization’s impact, particularly in relation to international development? 4. What is the place of sport and physical culture in relation to all of these processes? 5. Is the globalization of sport a positive force? Why or why not? And who is most likely to benefit from globalized sporting forms? 6. Does sport offer a reasonable or effective means by which to pursue international development? Why or why not?

Suggested Readings Bairner, A. (2001). Sport, nationalism, and globalization: European and North American perspectives. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Collison, H. (2016). Youth and sport for development: The seduction of football in Liberia. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan. Foer, F. (2004). How soccer explains the world: An unlikely theory of globalization. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

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Joseph, J. (2017). Sport in the black Atlantic: Cricket, Canada and the Caribbean diaspora. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Kobayashi, K. (2012). Corporate nationalism and glocalization of Nike advertising in “Asia”: Production and representation practices of cultural intermediaries. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(1), 42–61. Scherer, J., & Jackson, S. J. (2010). Globalization, sport and corporate nationalism: The new cultural economy of the New Zealand All Blacks. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang.

References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Cho, Y., Leary, C., & Jackson, S. J. (2012). Glocalization and sports in Asia. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(4), 421–432. Choudry, A. (2007). Transnational activist coalition politics and the de/colonization of pedagogies of mobilization: Learning from anti-neoliberal indigenous movement articulations. International Education, 37(1), 6. Coalter, F. (2007). A wider social role for sport: Who’s keeping the score? London, UK: Routledge. Coalter, F. (2013). Sport for development: What game are we playing? London, UK: Routledge. Darby, P. (2010). ‘Go outside’: The history, economics and geography of Ghanaian football labour migration. African Historical Review, 42(1), 19–41. Darnell, S. (2012). Sport for development and peace: A critical sociology. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. Darnell, S. C. (2007). Playing with race: Right to play and the production of whiteness in ‘development through sport’. Sport in society, 10(4), 560–579. De Matas, J. (2017). Making the national great again: Trumpism, Euro-scepticism and the surge of populist nationalism. Journal of Comparative Politics, 10(2), 19–36. Fleras, A. (2001). Social problems in Canada: Conditions, constructions and challenges. Toronto, ON: Prentice Hall. Gardam, K., Giles, A. R., & Hayhurst, L. M. C. (in press). Understanding the privatization of funding for sport for development in the Northwest Territories, Canada: A Foucauldian analysis. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. Giulianotti, R. (2011). The sport, development and peace sector: A model of four social policy domains. Journal of Social Policy, 40(04), 757–776. Giulianotti, R., & Robertson, R. (2012). Glocalization and sport in Asia: Diverse perspectives and future possibilities. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(4), 433–454. Greenberg, J., & Knight, G. (2004). Framing sweatshops: Nike, global production, and the American news media. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 1(2), 151–175. Guest, A. M. (2009). The diffusion of development-through-sport: Analysing the history and practice of the Olympic movement’s grassroots outreach to Africa. Sport in Society, 12(10), 1336–1352. Harris, A. (2004) Future girl: Young women in the Twenty-First Century. London, UK: Routledge. Hayhurst, L. M. (2009). The power to shape policy: Charting sport for development and peace policy discourses. International Journal of Sport Policy, 1(2), 203–227. Hayhurst, L. M. (2013). Girls as the ‘new’ agents of social change? Exploring the ‘girl effect’ through sport, gender and development programs in Uganda. Sociological Research Online, 18(2), 1–12. Hayhurst, L., Sundstrom, L., & Arksey, E. (2018). Navigating norms: Charting gender-based violence prevention and sexual health rights through global-local sport for development and peace relations in nicaragua. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(3) 277–288.

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Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon and Schuster. INM (Idle No More). (2014). The vision. Retrieved from http://www.idlenomore.ca/vision. Used with Permission. Jaffe, E. D. (2006). Globalization and development. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House Publishers. Jāhāna, S. (2016). Human development report 2016: Human development for everyone. New York: United Nations Publications. Jijon, I. (2017). The moral glocalization of sport: Local meanings of football in Chota valley, Ecuador. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(1), 82–96. Joseph, J. (2017). Sport in the black Atlantic: Cricket, Canada and the Caribbean diaspora. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Katz, C. (2001). On the grounds of globalization: A topography for feminist political engagement. Signs, 26(4), 1213–1234. Kidd, B. (2008). A new social movement: Sport for development and peace. Sport in Society, 11(4), 370–380. Kobayashi, K. (2012). Corporate nationalism and glocalization of Nike advertising in “Asia”: Production and representation practices of cultural intermediaries. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(1), 42–61. Lewis, S. (2006). Race against time: Searching for hope in AIDS-ravaged Africa. Berkeley, CA: House of Anansi Press. McEwan, C. (2009). Postcolonialism and development. London, UK: Routledge. McGee, D. (2012). Displacing childhood: Labour exploitation and child trafficking in sport. In A. Quayson, & A. Arhin (Eds.), Labour migration, human trafficking and multinational corporations : The commodification of iillicit flows (pp. 71–90). New York: Routledge. McGee, D. (2015). Navigating bodies, borders and the global game: An ethnography of youth, football and the politics of privation in Ghana, West Africa (Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto). McGee, D. (2018). Youth, reinventive institutions and the moral politics of future-making in postcolonial Africa. Sociology. Advance online publication. doi: 0038038518772773. McSweeney, M., Hayhurst, L. M. C., & Kidd, B (in press). Corporate social responsibility, sport and development. In M. Li, E. Macintosh, & G. Bravo (Eds.), International sport management (2nd ed.) Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Mills, C.W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press Mosse, D. (2005). Global governance and the ethnography of international aid. In D. Mosse & D. Lewis (Eds.), The aid effect: giving and governing in international development (pp. 1–6). London, UK: Pluto Press. Nederveen Pieterse, J. P. (2004). Globalization and culture: Global mélange. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nike. (2017). The girl effect. Retrieved from http://about.nike.com/pages/girl-effect. Rist, G. (2009). The history of development: From western origins to global faith (3rd ed.). London UK: Zed Books. Ritzer, G. (2007). The McDonaldization of society. London, UK: Sage. Ritzer, G., & Stepnisky, J. (2014). Sociological theory (9th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. Robertson, R. (2001). Globalization theory 2000: Major problematics. In G. Ritzer & B. Smart (Eds.), Handbook of social theory (pp. 458–471). London, UK: Sage. Rodríguez-Garavito, C. A. (2005). Nike’s law: The anti-sweatshop movement, transnational corporations, and the struggle over international labor rights in the Americas. In Santos & Rodriguez-Caravito (Eds.), Law and globalization from below: Towards a cosmopolitan legality (pp. 64–91). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Smith J. (2008). Social movements for global democracy. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Thorpe, H., & Ahmad, N. (2015). Youth, action sports and political agency in the Middle East: Lessons from a grassroots parkour group in Gaza. International review for the sociology of sport, 50(6), 678–704. UN (United Nations). (2004). Universal language of sport brings people together, teaches teamwork, tolerance, secretary-general says at Launch of International Year. SG/SM/9579. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/press/en/2004/sgsm9579.doc.htm. UN (United Nations). (2013). International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. A/ RES/67/296. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/ RES/67/296. UN (United Nations). (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Develolpment. Retrieved from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld. Whitson, D. (2015). Globalization and sport. In J. Crossman & J. Scherer (Eds.), Social Dimensions of Canadian Sport and Physical Activity (pp. 300–319). North York, ON: Pearson Canada. Wickstrom, M. (2017). UN secretary-general closes UNOSDP. Play the Game. Retrieved from http://www.playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2017/0309_un-secretary-general-closesunosdp/. Zager, D., Solis, A., & Adjroud, S. (2017). These Georgetown students fought Nike—and won. The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/these-georgetownstudents-fought-nike-and-won/.

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Sport and the Environment Brian Wilson and Brad Millington

LEARNING OBJECTIVES Floods caused by rising waters is only one of many environmental issues affecting sports and physical culture in Canada. Jason Salmon/123RF

After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Identify ways that environmental issues are known to impact sport and physical culture. 2 Identify ways that particular sport and physical cultural activities are associated with negative environmental outcomes. 3 Identify ways that sport organizations have responded to concerns about sportrelated environmental problems. 4 Define sustainability and ecological modernization, and relate these terms to ways that sport organizations and others respond to environmental issues. 5 Identify differences between a critical approach and functionalist approach to understanding and responding to environmental issues.

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“We’re on track for a 4°C warmer world [by century’s end] marked by extreme heat waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life threatening sea level rise. . . . A 4°C world is likely to be one in which communities, cities and countries would experience severe disruptions, damage, and dislocation, with many of these risks spread unequally. It is likely that the poor will suffer most and the global community could become more fractured, and unequal than today. The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed to occur—the heat must be turned down.” Schellnhuber et al., 2012, p. viii

INTRODUCTION Climate change, and related issues like pollution, water shortages, and ecosystem disruption, are among the most pressing political and sociological (and, of course, environmental) issues of the contemporary moment, and will be for the foreseeable future. Consider, for example, that according to a 2014 report from the World Health Organization, “climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38,000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48,000 due to diarrhoea, 60,000 due to malaria, and 95,000 due to childhood undernutrition” (WHO Factsheet, no date; see WHO, 2014). Rising water levels from melting glaciers, natural disasters associated with a higher number of extreme storms, and food shortages due to variable rain and rising temperatures are some of the problems that climate scientists expect to account for these deaths—with a projected rise of 2°C in global temperature being the tipping point for many of these trends (Romm, 2016). Although questions remain about the extent to which and precise nature in which problems of this kind will manifest, few credible scientists deny the dangerous effects of carbon emissions associated with human activity, or that we should respond with urgency (see Box 15.3). At the same time, there is also widespread agreement that there is still time to reduce global warming trends such that many devastating and irreversible impacts might be avoided—if (and only if) strong measures are taken to reduce carbon-emitting activity (Romm, 2016). Attempts to respond to this incentive have been at the core of recent meetings and agreements among the world’s governments and form the basis of several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, as outlined in the UN document Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015). Still, and even with these important attempts to counter environment-related risks, many who study environmental issues from a range of fields agree that better strategies for addressing these issues—and much more accountability from ­stakeholders—are needed (Foster & Ferre, 2017). There are, of course, no easy solutions to the problems at hand, but, as many environmental sociologists and others suggest, if we put as much time into thinking about alternative solutions as we do into executing the solutions that are commonly privileged at present—neoliberal solutions that many see as being more “business-friendly” than environment-friendly— new possibilities for creating change would undoubtedly emerge through these acts of agency (Rice, 2016). Sport and the Environment

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In this chapter, we consider what environmental issues—and responses to these issues—have to do with sport and physical culture. We focus especially on how these issues have been addressed in the field of environmental sociology, and by sociologists of sport. Our hope is to provoke thinking and discussion about status quo responses to sport-related environmental issues, and to consider what it would mean to respond to environmental concerns in new and alternative ways. We begin our analysis by outlining the range of concerns that have been raised about sport’s relationship with the environment in Canada and beyond. Specifically, we will consider, on the one hand, how sport has been (and could be) impacted by climate change and related concerns noted above. On the other hand, we will look at how sport itself (e.g., hosting sport events, stadium and arena construction for professional sports franchises, plane travel, golf course development) is thought to be environmentally impactful. In this latter task, we will also describe some of the ways that sport managers and mega-event organizers have responded to environment-related issues. We then consider some of the assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses underlying two of the main approaches to dealing with environmental issues, sustainability and ecological modernization (or EM). From there, we delve into a discussion of environmental politics as they relate to sport and to critical theory. Here, we will consider how sociological questions around power and power relations are relevant to thinking about why sustainability and EM are, in fact, the main approaches to sport-related environmental problems. At this time, we also describe forms of resistance to and alternatives to the usual strategies for addressing environmental issues related to sport. We also consider how a sociological imagination might help us develop more inclusive plans for addressing these issues. We conclude by focusing on ways that further progress might be made on sportrelated environmental issues, and the kinds of questions that sociologists of sport are especially well-positioned to ask about these issues.

SPORT AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? As noted above, there are two main ways to think about sport’s relationship with the environment. The first relates to how environmental changes impact sport and the second relates to how sport itself can be environmentally impactful. In both cases, the overriding problem is that the earth is currently being treated in an unsustainable way—something that can be construed as a matter of (in)equity. First, environmental issues are relevant to ethical questions of intergenerational inequity—meaning that future generations will be negatively impacted by the environment-related activities of current generations. For example, the problems noted in the introduction to this chapter are ones that will be felt most by those living in the middle and latter part of this century. The generations we are referring to here will, of course, have had no input into the decisions that were made in the past that have contributed to global warming and other environmental and structural issues; nor will they necessarily have had input into the types of political solutions that are currently being proposed to address these problems. There is the also the matter of transfrontier inequity, meaning that environmentrelated activities taking place in one part of the world often have negative impacts on those living elsewhere. We can think in this case about how those living in certain regions of the world are more at risk for losing land that can be used for growing food, as unfertile desert areas become more expansive over time due to global warming 332

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(Romm, 2016). Others will be more at risk for losing coastal areas to rising sea levels. In each of these cases, the problems will emerge partly because of the carbon-­emitting activities of many people who do not live in the most-affected areas. Intra-generational inequity is a consideration too, meaning that the negative impacts of (for example) climate change can be unevenly distributed across populations (e.g., wealthier and more mobile people may be better able to cope with weather extremes and some of the other issues noted above). In this sense, environment-based inequity is tied together with other inequities (e.g., those related to social class differences). There is the matter of interspecies inequity too—since the environmental impacts of the activities of humans also have implications for plants and non-human animals as well. In all, the issue is not that sport alone is a driving force for these problems; rather, the fate of sport and the fate of the environment are in many ways intertwined. It is also notable how the historical and comparative aspects of Mills’s sociological imagination are pertinent here, helping us “see” the variable and inequitable impacts of environmental problems.

How Environmental Changes Impact Sport The cover story of a March 2007 issue of Sports Illustrated, entitled “Sports and Global Warming: As the World Changes, So Do the Games We Play,” included a stark image of then-Florida Marlins Major League Baseball pitcher Dontrelle Willis standing kneedeep in water in a flooded Dolphin Stadium in Miami (since renamed Hard Rock Stadium). While the image was of course manipulated to depict the stadium deluge, the point of both the image and the story was to highlight how environmental issues such as rising water levels due to climate change may inhibit or negatively alter sport in the future. With respect to sport stadiums and rising water levels, the story notes the likelihood that 13 major stadiums in the United States (not to mention stadiums and other sport venues in other parts of the world) will be under water by the year 2100. The story highlights other environmental impacts, too, such as shortened ski seasons due to global warming and the expansion of the ash borer beetle’s habitat (which could threaten baseball bat production) (Wolff, 2007; also see Perkins, Mincyte, & Cole, 2010). These are potential futures, but sport is dealing with more immediate concerns as well, especially in the context of sport mega-events such as the Olympic Games. Particularly notable in this context are the effects of polluted air and water on competing athletes. There were, for example, significant concerns about the health of athletes in the build-up to the Rio 2016 Olympics, especially for those taking part in the sailing competition in Guanabara Bay and in the rowing, canoeing, and kayaking events in Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas—both highly polluted bodies of water. Sport scholars Jules Boykoff and Gilmar Mascarenhas (2016), drawing on a 2015 report by Brooks and Barchfield, offer a poignant description of the issues at hand: Approximately a year before the Olympics were to commence, Associated Press published a blockbuster investigative report revealing every single Olympic water venue [for the Rio Games] to be unsafe. The waterways gurgled with human sewage that conveyed “dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria.” This was not only a health threat for Olympic athletes, but for everyday Rio residents. Whoever swam in the water was at risk to “explosive diarrhea, violent vomiting, respiratory trouble and other illnesses.” Ingesting only three teaspoons of the polluted water afforded a 99 percent chance of infection by virus (though that did not mean that individual would automatically fall ill). Even contracting Hepatitis A was possible. (Boykoff & Mascarenhas, 2016, p. 6).

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Similar concerns arose prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, compelling Chinese officials to devise an emergency plan to temporarily address the problem of air pollution in the lead up to the Games. The plan included shutting down factories in and around Beijing and restricting car usage. Other longer-term measures adopted by the 2008 Games’ organizing committee included, “replacing coal with natural gas; closing cement, lime, and brick plants; implementing vehicle emission standards; reforestation; sweeping and sprinkling roads; and, moving factories away from the city” (McLeod et al., 2018, p. 29). Although there was some evidence that these actions at least partially mitigated some negative aspects of the pollution in Beijing (in the short term at least), some athletes were still affected. The renowned Ethiopian distance runner Haile Gebrselassie, an asthmatic, reportedly pulled out of the marathon due to fear for his health, while the US triathlete Jarrod Shoemaker trained using a pollution-mitigating mask in preparation for the Games—a dystopic image if there ever was. The underlying problem was that Beijing and surrounding areas of northeastern China had “the world’s worst nitrogen dioxide levels, according to satellite images taken by the European Space Agency in 2005”—and that high levels of nitrogen dioxide “can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, and may cause impaired lung function and increased respiratory infections” (as reported in Vause, 2008). Of course, the issues raised here pertain to many cities around the world, and to non-elite athletes who enjoy exercising outdoors as much as elite athletes involved in major competitions. For example, in recent summers, the city of Vancouver has been put on high alert as smoke from forest fires across the province drifted into the Lower Mainland. University of British Columbia physiologist Michael Koehle has commented in local and national media on whether it is safe to exercise outdoors in such conditions (e.g., Hutchison, 2017), basing his opinion on studies to which he has contributed on exposure to pollution and exercise performance (e.g., Giles & Koehle, 2014). This research raises significant questions about the day-to-day impacts In 2015, heavy smog in Vancouver caused by forest fires in the province was affecting athletes’ performances. David Nunuk/All Canada Photos/Alamy Stock Photo

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of cycling or running, for example, in higher pollution areas in cities like Vancouver— findings suggest that exercisers should be especially wary of where they are exercising (with some parts of cities being more polluted than others), and the time of day they choose to be active. Indeed, in the summer of 2018, as forest fires burned across the province of British Columbia, two triathlons were cancelled by officials in Penticton and in Kelowna as a result of poor air quality, while residents as far away as Edmonton were cautioned to avoid exercising outdoors over this time. Other scholars, like University of Waterloo geographer Dan Scott and his colleagues (Scott et al., 2018), focus more on the viability of particular sports at the Winter Olympics in the future, with sports like skiing especially being threatened by global warming (e.g., due to decreases in snow levels). See Box 15.1 for more on this topic.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 15.1

 nvironmental Issues and the Future of the Winter E Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games

The future of the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games is one of the topics that has received attention in conversations about sport-related environmental issues. Recently, major publications like the New York Times have paid particular attention to research on the topic by Dan Scott, a geographer at the University of Waterloo, and his colleagues. Scott and his colleagues’ work rings alarm bells for those considering whether cities that have hosted these Games in the past will be in a position to host them in the future. To this question, Scott et al. (2018) found that in a low-emission scenario, only 13 of 21 locations remain climate reliable for the OWG [Olympic Winter Games] in the 2050s and 12 in the 2080s, whereas only 10 are reliable for the PWG [Paralympic Winter Games] (both in the 2050s and 2080s). The impact of a business-as-usual high-emission scenario is far greater, reducing the number of locations reliable for the OWG to 10 in the 2050s and 8 in the 2080s, with even fewer reliable for PWG (8 in the 2050s and only 4 in the 2080s) (p. 1).

It is perhaps unsurprising that Vancouver is on the list of cities considered “climate unreliable” for a mid-21st century Games—alongside cities like Sochi, GarmischPartenkirchen (Germany), Grenoble and Chamonix (France), and Squaw Valley (USA). Scott et al. also highlight that every city that has hosted the Games is currently warmer in February than it was at the time of hosting—and that these warmer temperatures would impact the effectiveness of snowmaking machines as well as the likelihood of n ­ aturally occurring snow, since snow-cannon based snowmaking is impossible in many of the projected scenarios because of the higher ­temperatures.

Even when it is possible, concerns have also been raised in recent years about energy usage and emissions associated with snowmaking machines, as well as the potential environmental impacts of extracting large amounts of water from nearby sources to produce the snow in this way (Plourde, 2017; Schlosberg & Carruthers, 2010). This includes concerns about the large amounts of water needed for snowmaking, the impacts of withdrawing water from convenient water sources (e.g., from streams of lakes) on topsoils, and with respect to water runoff issues. This is not to mention the fact that treated wastewater is sometimes used for snowmaking—a practice that has some unknown consequences, with some expressing concern that “[even the treated] water may contain chemical inputs from pharmaceuticals and other potentially hazardous hard-to-trace sources” (O’Connor, 2012)—although debates about these impacts are highly contentious. Later in this chapter, we refer to the precautionary approach, a term that refers to the idea that “not knowing” the impacts of potentially hazardous environmental practices—especially for non-essential activities—is not a reason to continue with such practices in a “business as usual” way. This example not only highlights a situation where we can see both “the impacts of environmental issues on sport” and “the impacts of sport on the environment,” it also highlights a structural functionalist response to an environmental issue (i.e., that snowmaking can possibly “fix” the lack of snow issue, and tourism and event hosting can continue as always). It also implies that a critical response to the issue would be to question whether and why certain sports should continue at all in certain contexts.

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How Sport Impacts the (Natural) Environment In all, the manner in which environmental changes impact on sport and physical culture is an increasingly salient concern, especially for those tasked with managing sport now and into the future. That said, sociologists of sport tend to focus more on ways that playing sports and hosting sport events have environmental impacts.

The Environmental Impacts of Sport Mega-Events—A Focus on the Olympics and Paralympics  Concerns about the environmental impacts of hosting sport megaevents like the Olympic and Paralympic Games have understandably received the most attention in this area of study and practice, as the impacts are so widespread and complex. To assess the impacts of such events requires attending to ■■

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the impacts of all the sports involved (e.g., the impacts of all skiing events on mountain areas, paddling events on water areas, and the range of impacts of developing/maintaining a golf course); the additional impacts of building new facilities, long-distance transportation by athletes and spectators, and in some cases alterations to and destruction of sensitive ecosystems; and the complex and massive impacts of various forms of spectator consumption (e.g., food waste) (see Dolf, 2017).

Assessing all of these elements independently or in combination is a tall order. It is also controversial, especially if we consider what is at stake with such an evaluation for event organizers and other stakeholders (VanWynsberghe, 2015). One point is not debatable though: The Olympic and Paralympic Games have immense environmental impacts. For this reason, the leading players and beneficiaries in the mega-event industry have been critiqued over the years for both their environmental impacts and their environmental management strategies—though in some cases they have earned praise as well. A damaged bobsled run from the 1984 Winter Olympics sits abandoned in the mountains above Sarajevo. D Guest Smith/Alamy Stock Photo

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On the negative side, the IOC and local organizing committees have been disparaged by activists and critics when publicly funded “white elephant” facilities—e.g., bobsleigh and luge runs—are built with enormous environmental costs, only to be left largely unused after events are done. A recent article in Business Insider, entitled “What abandoned Olympic venues from around the world look like today” (Davis, 2018), is laden with bleak images of abandoned venues in former host cities (focusing on Rio, Beijing, Athens, and Sarajevo, in particular). Although many Games organizers have made immense progress in this area, significant problems remain. A 2017 report from a federal prosecutor who assessed the Rio de Janeiro Olympics included the claim that “lack of planning” is the reason that Olympic facilities in Rio remain underused and abandoned—despite pre-Olympics promises of sustainable infrastructure, including a planned park and swimming facilitates for low-income people in the northern part of the city (Associated Press, 2017). Games organizers have also been critiqued by environmentalists and concerned citizens for the damage that various Olympics-related developments have had on sensitive ecosystems. Leading up to Vancouver 2010, the expansion of the Sea to Sky Highway (Hwy. 99) that connects Vancouver and Whistler generated controversy, specifically regarding the environmental impacts of this expansion on an area known as the Eagleridge Bluffs. Whitson (2012) describes these impacts: The Eagleridge Bluffs . . . were the site of a 500-year-old dry arbutus forest, the last old growth arbutus forest on the North Shore. This coastal forest has provided nesting sites, every spring, for bald eagles and over 20 other species of migratory birds, as well as for a number of rare native plants. The adjacent Larsen Creek watershed/wetlands also provided critical habitat for several additional species of endangered flora and fauna. (p. 220)

Similar concerns about the destruction of sensitive ecosystems were highlighted around the recent 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games (e.g., the razing of an ancient forest to build a ski venue; see Yoon, 2017) and around the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, which took place inside the Sochi National Park, “a region that contains the greatest species diversity of anywhere in Russia and is encompassed by a UNESCO World Heritage area” (Chestin, 2014). These concerns, though, rarely triumph over the economic interests associated with holding mega-events like the Olympic Games and their associated development opportunities. A broader question was underlined by Igor Chestin, director of the Russian World Wildlife Fund, who noted that, “the most symbolic failure of the 2014 Winter Olympics came before even a brick was laid, when the government decided to host the games inside the Sochi National Park” in the first place. Chestin’s point foreshadows upcoming sections in this chapter, where we speak to the role of politics in environmental decision-making and the ability of certain groups to exercise moral and intellectual leadership (i.e., hegemony) in these debates. That said, on the positive side of things, there are many examples of how the Olympic movement has led to different forms of environmental progress. In 1994, the IOC declared “the environment” the third pillar of the Olympic movement. Since then, organizing committees have sought not only to mitigate environmental impacts, but to highlight and advertise their pro-environment legacies (Cantelon & Letters, 2000; Chappelet, 2008). Indeed, according to the IOC’s rules, bid cities are required to do as much, and are investing significant resources in doing so. Sport and the Environment

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In Vancouver, for example, the construction of the now widely used Skytrain transportation line from Vancouver’s airport to the downtown sector is thought to be a positive legacy of the 2010 Games, as well as the newly built convention centre and the Richmond Olympic Oval, which was subsequently converted into a community sports facility. Many were also positive about the widening of the Sea-toSky Highway (thought to improve safety and capacity), despite the controversy described above and later. According to Ann Duffy (2011), corporate sustainability officer with the organizing committee for the Vancouver Games, all venues constructed for Vancouver 2010, “incorporated practices and technologies that minimize environmental impacts: conserving biodiversity, energy and water using low carbon and/or renewable energy, reducing waste and pollution, improving indoor light and air quality; and taking advantage of local resources, innovation and business” (p. 95). Similar claims of environmental progress were made around the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, with the Olympic Stadium for the 2012 Games using large amounts of recycled materials, less steel than usual for such a project, and materials that were transported by boat or train. Stadium architect Rod Sheard enthusiastically claimed that, “it is the lowest carbon footprint stadium that has ever been built for an Olympic Games, or for any major stadium of that scale” (Olympic.org, 2012). London 2012 is also associated with the development of a set of internationally focused voluntary standards on environmental performance (known as ISO 20121)—put together through consultations with various eventrelated industries and experts on sustainability and assessment. It is notable here— as an example of the sport industry helping to design the regulation system that it will then need to (­ voluntarily) abide by—that leadership in the development of the standards was provided by the London Olympic Games Organizing Committee (LOCOG), and especially David Stubbs, head of sustainability for LOCOG (Pelham, 2011). In response to ongoing scrutiny and criticism about Olympics-related environmental issues, the IOC itself has also recently attempted to amend its own event hosting guidelines with environmental issues in mind, specifically with the passing of “Agenda 2020.” The IOC describes Agenda 2020 as a set of recommendations and a strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement. It includes stated commitments to a more rigorous evaluation of whether bid cities can, in fact, keep their environment-related promises—and to encourage the sharing of venues within host countries, and with neighbouring countries. It is worth noting here to close this section that none of these recommendations is tied to tangible or meaningful penalties for the IOC itself, or local organizing committees or cities.

Other Sport-Driven Environmental Impacts—and Responses by Sport Organizations  Although there is much that one can learn about the impacts of sport on the environment by looking at sport mega-events, there is a range of more sport-specific environmental impacts—also positive and negative—that have attracted attention over time: ■■ ■■ ■■

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the alteration or reduction of wetland areas due to modifications of rivers and lakes for water sports like paddling and canoeing; the destruction of natural vegetation and soil erosion due to alpine skiing; the impacts of golf course construction on natural habitats and risks to the health of wildlife and humans from chemicals commonly used to maintain golf courses;

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the impacts of spectator sports generally (e.g., carbon emissions associated with arenas with ice rinks and spectator attendance at hockey and skating events); and the waste produced in the making of (and failure to recycle) sports apparel/ equipment.

Moreover, and just as the IOC and organizing committees have responded to concerns about the environmental impacts of the Olympics with pro-environment public relations campaigns and activities, so have others in the sports industry done much the same. In our own research on corporate environmentalism and golf, for example, we found that in recent years the golf industry in North America promoted their own pro-environment practices—particularly their introduction of educational resources for golf course superintendents about “responsible” water and chemical usage in course maintenance—as a way of signaling the golf industry’s green sensibilities (Millington & Wilson, 2016). As another example, the Green Sports Alliance is a self-described “burgeoning movement to make sports more sustainable”—one that has grown in recent years to include “nearly 600 sports teams and venues from 15 different sports leagues and 14 countries” (Green Sports Alliance, 2018). A visit to the Alliance’s website reveals an abundance of information about pro-environment activities related to major players in the spectator/corporate sport arena from the top sports leagues around the world—for instance, the installation of a solar farm at Pocono Raceway (an auto racing site). Linking back to the key theoretical perspectives of this text, it is not hard to see how these sorts of industry-friendly strategies for addressing environmental issues—strategies that require generally minor alterations to otherwise “business as usual” approaches to delivering services and products to sport consumers—could be seen as structural functionalist. That is to say, there is nothing about these responses that would lead one to question the important role (i.e., the function) that sport is thought to play in maintaining a stable society, nor is there a reason to question the idea that environmental issues that are often linked to the production- and consumption-focused activities of businesses can’t be dealt with through only moderately revised business practices. In rare instances, one might find examples of sport industry members pursuing what could be described as radical pro-environment initiatives. One example we came across in our research on the golf industry was of “organic” (i.e., free of synthetic pesticides) golf courses (Millington & Wilson, 2016). We call this “radical” because to be an organic golf course means potentially undermining the long-standing financial relationship between the golf and pesticide industries. In this sense, organic golf represents a within-industry culture shift, where broader structural concerns about water shortages and the potential health and environmental impacts of pesticide use are prioritized (it would appear) over profits. As we will see, this approach is highly unusual, as it seems that owners of such courses are willing to take economic risks—and exercise their agency within broader structural constraints—in order to achieve more extreme environmental gains.

SOCIOLOGY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND SPORT What we know to this point is: 1) the environmental problems examined in this chapter are associated with the unsustainability of “business as usual” approaches to life in consumer societies, which is why efforts have been made to address the Sport and the Environment

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s­ ubstantial environmental costs associated with sport-related events, activities, and products; 2) while sport is environmentally impactful itself, it is also, to an extent, at the whims of the environment; 3) there are a range of inequities that follow from environmental problems; and 4) although initiatives have been undertaken to mitigate the environmental impacts of sport, concerns remain as to whether enough is being done. What we have yet to consider are the ideas that drive contemporary thinking about sport and the environment, meaning the competing assumptions and political claims that underlie and inform various environmental strategies. This is where a sociological lens comes in handy. In the following sections, we describe the dominant approach to dealing with sport-related environmental problems—known popularly as the “sustainability” approach—followed by a discussion of the more developed and nuanced “sociological version” of sustainability, known as ecological modernization, discussed earlier.

Sustainability and Sport So, what is sustainability and what does it have to do with sport organizations and their responses to environmental issues? The term sustainable, or sustainability, was developed as a response to the view that modern life had become unsustainable from an environmental perspective. Specifically, sustainability was devised as an integrated strategy for addressing economic, social, and environmental issues—what is commonly known as the “triple bottom line” (Chernushenko, Van der Kamp, & Stubbs 2001, p. 10). The classic definition of sustainability, offered in the 1986 report Our Common Future (produced for the World Commission on Environment and Development), refers to a society’s capacity to “[meet the] needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (see Brundtland, 1987). Chernushenko et al. (2001) adapt this broader understanding of sustainability into the following definition of sustainable sport: Sport is sustainable when it meets the needs of today’s sporting communities while contributing to the improvement of future sport opportunities for all and the improvement of the integrity of the natural and social environment on which it depends. (p. 10)

Sustainability carries with it three assumptions that are worth highlighting for these purposes. The first assumption is that economic growth and progress on environmental issues are compatible. The classic Venn diagram representing sustainability has “economic,” “social,” and “environmental” circles overlapping in the middle, the idea being not only that all three elements of sustainability are interrelated, but also that one needs to pursue progress in all three areas to be truly sustainable. The second and related assumption, as highlighted by Chernushenko et al. (2001) in their classic book on sport and sustainability, is that being sustainable can be “good for business,” since being sustainable can mean more efficient and less wasteful sport events and sport products of all kinds. This market-based solution also implies that people will prefer to buy sustainable products or attend sustainable events. This

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logically leads to a third assumption, one that is at the core of the work done by ­pro-sustainability sport managers, sport organizers, and apparel producers: that you can hold sport mega-events and continue the production and consumption of new sport-related commodities, and still be sustainable. An important point to consider here is how these assumptions lend themselves to a very optimistic view of the role of business, consumption practices, and high profile sport in the environmental movement. It is not hard to see why this “have it all” perspective is so appealing to those working in sport-related industries in particular.

Ecological Modernization and Sport: A More Nuanced Version of Sustainability While the definition of sustainability provided above nicely summarizes many features of the environment-related activities and perspectives associated with the IOC, local organizing committees, and a litany of other organizations that are members of the Green Sport Alliance, it does not fully explain the work of these sorts of groups. Ecological modernization (EM) is a related concept—one that has utility in helping sociologists understand the relationship between sport and the environment in further detail.

So What Is Ecological Modernization? At the core of ecological modernization is that idea that industrial activity will progress in a positive direction over time, moving from practices that are more environmentally damaging to practices that are more sustainable. German sociologist Joseph Huber (1985), an early supporter of EM, offered a succinct narrative of how this would happen, suggesting that, “processes of industrialization in modern societies progress from: (a) an initial industrial breakthrough; to (b) the construction of an industrial society; to (c) the development of a super-industrial society characterized by the development of environment-friendly technologies” (Wilson, 2012a, p. 164; see also Hannigan, 2006, p. 27). While there is general agreement amongst EM advocates about this progress narrative, there are different versions of the EM approach. One version, known as “strong” EM, includes a basic recognition of the need for public consultation around environment-impacting developments, and “for ongoing reflections on the intended and unintended consequences of the new and greener technologies—the technologies that will [apparently] help us advance to a super-industrial society” (Wilson, 2012a, p. 164). This “stronger” strand also recognizes that some monitoring and support from government and (non-industry based) regulators is needed to keep industry activity on track—which is to say, strong EM has less faith that industries will adhere to pro-environment principles on their own. “Weaker” versions of EM are based on the idea that positive environmental changes will emerge through market mechanisms. Put another way, “weak EM” (or a less interventionist and consultation-oriented version of EM) has more faith in the idea that if pro-environment changes are demanded by consumers, then industry will find a way to respond—for example, through the innovative development of greener products and services, and through voluntary and industry-led regulations (Christoff, 1996). This weaker

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­ ersion of EM aligns especially with neoliberal ideologies and policies referred to v elsewhere in this text, as the need for regulation of business activity is considered largely unnecessary from this perspective (i.e., from the perspective that market mechanisms associated with consumer demand will take care of environmental problems). We consider some of the problems with both versions of EM a little later in this chapter.

Ecological Modernization and Sport Management  In previous research, we noted the various ways that the viewpoints and activities of many sport managers—what we have called “sport management environmentalists,” or SMEs—align with EM principles. When we refer to a SME we are referring to a corporate or corporate-linked environmentalist—a manager, organizer, promoter or other that is often (though not always) affiliated with a sport mega-event. SMEs can also be major sport organizations (i.e., those hosting mega-events such as the International Olympic Committee or local organizing committees), corporations (e.g., Mizuno or General Electric), environmental NGOs (e.g., Greenpeace), or members of governments lobbying to host a sport mega-event. (Wilson & Millington, 2015, p. 366).

In other words, our definition of SMEs, following a classic definition of sport management itself, encompasses the practices “of all people, activities, businesses, or organizations involved in producing, facilitating, promoting, or organizing any sportrelated business or product” (Pitts & Stotlar, 2007, p. 4). So, how are SMEs intentionally or unintentionally following EM principles? The first way is simply by acknowledging that sport-related activities might have a damaging impact on the natural environment. By highlighting this, SMEs are then positioned to contribute to, or even lead, a response to sport-related environmental problems. As noted above, this position is different than that taken by some industries in and outside sport in the past, where denial of environmental impacts was common (Millington & Wilson, 2013). The second way SMEs are known to adopt EM principles is by committing to work with other stakeholders who are also concerned with environment-related issues. This might mean working with NGOs that “certify” that SMEs are, in fact, doing certain kinds of environmental work, or inviting collaborations with and input from environmental NGOs (like Greenpeace) when holding a sport event. Until recently, a biennial pre-Olympic event known as the World Conference on Sport and the Environment brought together environmental NGOs (e.g., Greenpeace), governments, corporations, and sport mega-event organizers/managers. As the home website for the most recent conference in Sochi indicated, the “biennial World Conference on Sport and the Environment is one of the IOC’s key advocacy initiatives in the field of the environment, and gathers together representatives from the Olympic family, governments, the UN system, academic institutions and NGOs” (Olympic.org, 2013). Third, the SME sees innovation and technology-oriented solutions as crucial to dealing with environmental problems. Not only does this belief align with the ecological modernist “progress narrative” outlined earlier, it also aligns with the assumption shared by EM and sustainability advocates that economic progress and progress on environmental issues should be tied together, unfailingly. For sport

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managers, the aim is to draw on a range of resources to support (for example) holding the most sustainable sport events they can, or to maintain the most sustainable facility possible. Fourth and finally, SMEs sometimes advocate for voluntary and gradual forms of environment-related regulation—regulation that industry agrees will support environmental progress without compromising economic prosperity. In other cases, SMEs argue that strict regulation is not necessary, as it would “get in the way” of environmental progress that comes through technology-driven innovation and market driven advances. Elsewhere we explain the rationale for this voluntary and minimal regulation position: This stance is directly related to the SME’s position that sport mega-events, when run by responsible and environmentally-sensitive sport managers/promoters (i.e., SMEs!), can be leveraged for the good of the environment more generally (and do much more than simply minimize the impacts of mega-events themselves). For example, the leveraging of sport mega-events for improved transportation systems and infrastructure in Vancouver was a major part of their Olympic bid process . . . The idea here is that politicians in host cities/countries will in many cases do pro-environment work because of sport mega-events, not in spite of them. (Wilson & Millington, 2015, p. 370)

It is fairly obvious here why for-profit industries, as well as governments mandated to promote economic growth while also being (or appearing to be) environmentally friendly, would be in favour of EM and sustainability-driven approaches to dealing with environmental issues. Not only does EM do little, if anything, to compromise economic growth and the pursuit of “bigger and better” sport-related business opportunities (e.g., event hosting, equipment production), it is also based around an ethic of collaboration. What’s not to like? Yet, as we discuss below, there are good sociological reasons to be concerned about aspects of EM.

What’s Wrong with Ecological Modernization? Despite the compelling rationale for adopting an EM approach, there are reasons to be “open to but critical of” EM’s value. Indeed, there are important problems with how an EM-driven approach is sometimes carried out—and especially risks with adhering uncritically to the principles of EM—in response to the range of environmental problems that now loom (see Box 15.2). The first problem concerns EM’s claims that better strategies for being environmentally friendly can be attained through collaboration between different stakeholders on environmental issues. For one, it is important to consider questions of power, and at what stage the input of environmental groups is sought and the extent to which the input of these groups is valued and integrated. Consider here Neo’s (2010) study of stakeholder negotiations around the construction of an environmentally friendly golf course in Singapore. Neo found that government facilitated discussions between environmentalists and developers about the most responsible strategy for designing and building a golf course. The catch here was that construction in some form was a forgone conclusion. The biggest and most contentious decision—building the golf course in the first place and its environmental impacts—was never up for discussion or debate.

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 15.2

 cological Modernization and The National Hockey E League (NHL)

The 2014 NHL Sustainability Report provides an illustrative example of the growing role of EM in sport. The report was analyzed by researchers jay johnson and Adam Ehsan Ali (2018), who were interested in what the Report says about the League’s approach to sustainability, and also how it helped position the NHL as an environmental leader. What the sustainability report does in the first instance is acknowledge that environmental concerns are indeed worthy concerns. To even produce a sustainability analysis is to acknowledge that this is a subject worth addressing— remembering that acknowledging (rather than denying) that the environment is at risk is a core element of the EM mindset. What is significant from there is how exactly the NHL conceptualizes environmental stewardship. “Good business” and environmental sustainability are, for the NHL, interlinked and deemed compatible. For example, having noted that professional sports, in their nature, require extensive travel, the sustainability report notes that, in 2012, 584 metric tons of carbon offsets were purchased as a way of counter-balancing emissions incurred during the NHL playoffs. Elsewhere, technological innovation and industry partnerships are championed in the report as avenues to sound environmental practices. Responsibility for the environment is also dispersed in that fans, players, and hockey arena managers are presented as good environmental citizens, and are called on to behave as such. In analyzing the report, johnson and Ali are clear that the NHL’s efforts are in many ways laudable. But there

is cause for critique as well. For instance, johnson and Ali question the very premise of the idea that carbon offsets “avoid” carbon emissions (since emissions actually still occur), and the assumption that offsetting perfectly compensates for emissions generated through (for example) travel (see Wilson, 2012b). The “bigger picture” point, however, is that the 2014 NHL Sustainability Report reveals a focus on peripheral adjustments. These are solutions that lie at the “edges” of the league’s business practices, and that effectively allow the NHL to present itself as environmentally responsible without having to reckon, in a more radical way, with the core nature of its businesses and its environmental impacts. The bigger questions about whether having fewer overall games would be the most sustainable solution, or whether the energy costs of arenas in particular climates are “too much,” are seldom asked in an EM framework, as the economic case is not balanced against the ­environmental one with such solutions. It’s worth considering the limits of EM for addressing environmental issues here when “fewer games,” and/or “fewer teams” might be by far the most environmentally friendly response. EM ­critics would certainly suggest that some economic and mass entertainment compromises might be necessary at this point. All told, the point is not that the 2014 NHL Sustainability Report is “bad.” As we have argued in this chapter, the point is that it forwards a limited approach to environmentalism—one that might constrain even greener (if less business-friendly) initiatives.

In a similar vein, research by Kearins and Pavlovich (2002) on negotiations between stakeholders in the greening of the Sydney Olympics showed that environmental groups sometimes felt as though they were the less powerful members of the collaboration and that they needed to make compromises they were not always happy with (see also Lenskyj, 1998). Kearins and Pavlovich (2002) also note that consultation with environmental groups seemed to be “more for show than for ­eliciting and acting on the views, information and expertise that these groups could provide” (p. 166). What these and similar findings highlight are reasons why adopting an ecological modernist perspective—and therefore emphasizing the need for public consultation 344

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and stakeholder collaboration—does not necessarily mean that the most environmentally friendly responses will emerge when differently positioned groups get together. What a sociological perspective allows researchers to see in these cases is how more powerful groups were able to secure consent for a project that would not necessarily benefit all groups (e.g., create the illusion of collaboration around key issues). In this case, the incentive system would be to avoid the possibility of not moving ahead with a sport event or venue because of public perceptions of environmental issues—and avoid compliance to what might seem like harsh environmental regulations. We return here to two key definitions from Chapter 1: hegemony, referring to generating of consent for a set of ideas that benefits more powerful groups; and ideology, referring to ideas and incentives that are “disguised” by what would seem to be somewhat superficial claims of collaboration and of concern for environmental issues. Clearly, both of these concepts are relevant in these cases. The overarching critical theoretical approaches referred to in Chapter 2 are also therefore relevant here, as the questions that critics of EM ask focus on, like how “business as usual approaches” to modifying (but not radically altering) a status quo is beneficial for some but oppressive for many others—are at the core of the issue here. Another EM-related assumption that sociologists and others have questioned is the idea that humans will be able to effectively respond to and/or reverse the environmental impacts of industry activity through the development of innovative proenvironment practices and technologies. To hold this assumption is to place immense faith in the power of new technologies and the ability of humans to come up with innovative and useful ideas fast enough to deal with often unforeseeable ­environmental issues (Homer-Dixon, 2000). There are reasons to question this assumption in light of some environmental disasters—for example, the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where there were several failed attempts to plug the oil leak. These issues and uncertainties are relevant to sport as well. For example, the long-term consequences of using certain chemicals on golf courses (i.e., on the health of humans and non-humans, and on sensitive ecosystems) remain largely unknown (Millington & Wilson, 2016)—much like the long-term and unintended consequences of holding environment-impacting mega-events (Wilson & Millington, 2013). As discussed in Box 15.3, those concerned with long-term environmental impacts and health consequences, and who see short-term economic issues as important but not as important as broader social and environmental issues, tend to take a precautionary approach to deciding how to respond to such issues. Finally, there is the question of whether economic and environmental sustainability can indeed be made compatible, or whether environmental concerns are destined to be overshadowed or even deemed expendable by those incentivized first and foremost by economic concerns. A common concern in the literature and among environmentalists is “greenwashing,” meaning the appearance (in this case, among sport organizations) of environmental sustainability rather than an actual deep commitment to environmentalism (see Lubbers, 2002; Miller, 2017). In this vein, scholars who have studied the Olympics have juxtaposed environmental claims (e.g., around the “the greenest Games ever”) against practices regarded as environmentally damaging. We referred to some of these cases earlier in our discussions of the Vancouver 2010 Games and the Eagleridge Bluffs controversy, the PyeongChang Olympics and the razing of an ancient forest on Mount Gariwang, and the ongoing water issues around Rio 2016. Sport and the Environment

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❯❯❭❯ BOX 15.3

Dealing with Uncertainty: A Precautionary Approach

Although there is general agreement that climate change is linked to human activity, and that the negative consequences of global warming will be evident in the future, there are still many uncertainties. The “precautionary approach” or “precautionary principle” refers to the view that in the face of such uncertainties (e.g., uncertainties about human impacts on global warming, or the effects of chemical use on human health), the default response should be to “act preventively” and shift the burden of proof for doing an activity (e.g., an activity that may exacerbate global warming) to the proponents of an activity. This would mean asking those who are doing the seemingly risky activity (e.g., running a sport mega-event; using pesticides to maintain golf course grass) to “show why it is safe”—and not to place the burden on those who may be impacted by the activity to “show why it is dangerous,” as is often the case in such circumstances. The aim is to offer the “best chances” for a preferred future—and to act to avoid possible future harms. This is the perspective offered by many who are concerned with the potential, but uncertain, impacts of environmental problems on human health and wellbeing of non-humans (i.e. flora, fauna, and ecosystems). In some respects, the approach is self-explanatory— meaning, that it is important, from this perspective, to take well-supported predictions seriously if we don’t know exactly what is happening, or have precise explanations for what is happening. A 1998 consensus statement includes the following description of how and when the term applies to environment- and health-related activity especially

“when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically” (Raffensperger & Tickner, 1999, quoted in Kriebel et al., 2001, p. 871). The precautionary measures described in the statement include “taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty; shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity; exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions; and increasing public participation in decision making” (Kriebel et al., 2001, p. 871). Recognized in this approach are the devastating ­consequences for future generations of not taking likely scenarios seriously. One of the inequities described ­earlier in this chapter, intergenerational inequity, is central to this way of thinking, since those living in the future, when the potential negative consequences of not acting would be felt, will not have the same opportunities that we have now to respond. By not acting on the scenarios outlined by climate scientists, given the likelihood of negative outcomes, it is as though current generations would be gambling with the future in order to maintain current-day ways of living. It would be too late—as the changes noted above are generally irreversible and contribute to positive feedback cycles, leading to worse and worse situations. This is one of the many reasons that the issues dealt with in this chapter are considered among the most pressing of our time. Of course, we are not even accounting here for the other negative impacts that would still be felt by current generations in the short term.

Boykoff and Mascarenhas (2016) offer a take on greenwashing in relation to the 2008 Beijing Games: The 2008 Beijing Olympics were notable for both their big green promises—one bid slogan was “Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics, the People’s Olympics”— and their mixed record in regards to follow-through. To its credit, the Chinese government built numerous wastewater treatment plants, constructed new public transportation lines, ramped up vehicle emission standards, and instituted water conservation measures. It undertook drastic measures to improve air quality the month before the Olympics began, shuttering factories, forcing power plants to employ alternative fuels, placing cars on an every-other-day schedule, and banning heavy-polluting vehicles from Beijing. Yet these measures were rescinded in the

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wake of the Games, with some pollutant levels (e.g. NO2) rising to their previous levels, giving critics grist for claims of ecological Potemkinism. (p. 4, italics added; see also Witte et al., 2009)

Carbon offsetting—a common practice around sport mega-events—can also be construed in a similar way. Offsetting refers to the process of using donations from individuals and companies to help fund a carbon-saving project, like building a wind farm or a hydroelectric facility. The donation is generally made to an offsetting company, which redirects donations to the carbon saving projects—projects that could be in a range of locations around the world. The idea is that by donating money to such projects, the emissions that were produced (e.g., when travelling to a sports event) are “balanced” against the emissions that were “saved” through the project. This was the philosophy that underlay Offsetters.ca, the official offsetting programme for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympics. One issue here, among others, is that offsets are far from perfect trade-offs for the environmental impacts they are designed to counter-balance. For example, a destroyed ecosystem is by no means the same as money contributed to a carbonsaving initiative in another part of the world (e.g., a faraway windfarm). Even claims of equivalence around “carbon emitted and carbon savings” are highly controversial: there are no guarantees that funded “carbon savings” projects will actually be effective, or that donations made through an offset program were actually relevant to the success of the offsetting project in question (e.g., the windfarm might have happened anyway, without the donation) (Wilson, 2012a; 2012b). The main concern here as it relates to greenwashing is when offset donations are used to rationalize the negative environmental impacts of sport events and activities—without any acknowledgement of the concerns or complexities of offsetting (see Wilson, 2012a; 2012b). The point is that even though offsets are generally helpful in “balancing the scales” when it comes to carbon emissions around sport events, they are still problematic in the sense that they aren’t always as useful as they seem, or necessarily useful at all. This is green washing in the sense that these environmental initiatives (and the promotion of them by sport mega-event organizers, for example) can be deceptive, as environmental problems (like destroyed ecosystems) that cannot truly be offset are deemphasized, as are concerns about the inefficiencies of offsetting itself. Of course, and as we will see below, not all groups are passive in the face of such concerns.

Reflections on Environmental Politics: Maintaining and Resisting the Status Quo So, why and how did EM and sustainability come to be the dominant approaches to addressing environmental problems, inside and outside of sport? In many respects, we have already addressed this question. Powerful groups— like major sport organizations, sport venue managers, apparel producers and sponsors—all benefit financially from the taken-for-granted belief that there is no need to slow down the sport industry if we can simply make it more efficient. Fans who like sport the way it is benefit from this too. The fact also that other stakeholders, including some environmental groups, are “on board” with this approach—even if they sometimes have limited capacity to change things, as described above—makes EM a natural approach as well. Governments, as representatives of the public and of Sport and the Environment

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public interests, should presumably adopt a critical eye and long-term view in considering whether greener outcomes—in general or in sport in particular—are in fact materializing. As the sociologist John Hannigan (2006) contends, however, governments are generally motivated to address environmental concerns without affecting the engine of economic growth. Governments stand to gain from EM’s “everyone benefits” narrative as well. That said, even if (in our view, at least) EM has come to define the relationship between sport and the environment, the rich history of environmental social movements suggests there will always be pushback and resistance. Indeed, sociologists of sport have identified a range of sport-related environmental movements that have attempted to achieve political changes of various kinds, from raising awareness around particular issues, to developing an environmental community, to “saving” a particular environmental landmark (for Canadian examples, see Pitter, 2009 and Stoddart & MacDonald, 2011). Recent anti-Olympics movements have certainly included activists who have focused on environmental issues. One of the compelling studies along these lines comes from O’Bonswanin (2014), who considered the Eagleridge Bluffs Protests around the Vancouver Olympics (referred to earlier) alongside the IOC’s mandate on sustainability and the politics of indigenous land rights. Her study focused on the symbolism around the death of the Pacheedaht (Nuu-­chah-nulth) elder, Harriet Nahanee (Tseybayoti), following her incarceration for attempting to block the construction upgrades on the ecologically sensitive land around Eagleridge Bluffs. Her findings speak to a number of key themes related to environmental politics, resistance, and the Olympic movement: The events at Eagleridge Bluffs demonstrate how the Olympic movement continues to prioritize the interests of government and industry, as well as how Olympic initiatives, including Agenda 21, fail to acknowledge the legal and human rights of Indigenous populations.  .  .  .  Despite the countless sustainability initiatives launched over the last two decades, however, the Olympic Games continue to cause significant environmental harm throughout the globe. Accordingly, it is maintained that Olympic sustainability priorities serve as a “smokescreen” to justify the movement’s “business as usual” approach. . . . Notably, the arrival of the Olympic and Paralympic Games on non-surrendered Indigenous territories meant that during the Olympic interlude, British Columbia’s economy and, thus, Indigenous lands and resources, were reopened for business. Nevertheless, alterations to the landscape have everlasting effects, and the rights of countless Indigenous groups in British Columbia have been permanently, and negatively, altered as a result of the Olympic presence on non-surrendered Indigenous territories. The death of elder Harriet Nahanee was certainly untimely, yet it was not in vain. Since her passing, Nahanee’s name has become a rallying cry for the justice of Indigenous peoples as she has inspired a new generation to defend the land, environment, and Aboriginal rights, thereby standing up against the powerful interests of government, industry, and influential partnering entities, such as the Olympic movement. O’Bonswanin, 2014, p. 86, italics added)

The italicized portion of this passage emphasizes the important roles that less formal resistance (i.e., agency) can play in cases like this one. Outside of Canada, relevant studies on environment-related movements have been conducted as well on topics like the Surfer’s Against Sewage movement

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(Wheaton, 2007). Studies on more localized environmental movements related to golf have emerged in different parts of the world over time (Stolle-McAllister, 2004)—as well as on the overarching Global Anti-Golf Movement (Horne, 1998; Millington & Wilson, 2016). Our own research in this vein focused on the political maneuverings between Donald Trump (before he was US president) and a resistance group known as Tripping Up Trump. This study focused especially on how Trump’s team was able to win the favour of local politicians to allow golf course construction on a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (a rare dynamic sand dune system) and the tactics used by the resistance group to mitigate the damage on the environment and the local people—some living in houses on the proposed golf course site (Millington & Wilson, 2017). In essence, what most of these studies on environmental politics demonstrate are: (a) how inequities are relevant to stakeholder negotiations on environmental issues; and (b) that effective negotiating is associated with generating consent for a particular position. They are indicative of how political struggles and unequal power relations play out around the cultural space of sport.

CONCLUSION We’ve seen throughout this chapter that the environmental issues that loom in and around sport have inspired a range of different responses. We’ve also seen that these responses come from both within and outside industry—with some responses being very industry-friendly (i.e., sustainability- and EM-oriented ones), and others being more critical or “radical” as they look to transform various social structures and power relations. Through all of this, we have seen the relevance of various sociological concepts and theories. Especially relevant is critical theory and the notion of hegemony as a term that highlights how various forms of cultural persuasion—the moral and intellectual leadership of groups that hold power and resources—have helped generate consent for particular responses to sport-related environmental issues, such that sustainability and EM have become the status quo. We can also see here the relevance of critical perspectives, as they are embodied in arguments that have been made about how environmental destruction is the inevitable result of a system where economic growth through sport-related mega-events, equipment production, and so on is prioritized and unquestioned. The sociological imagination is an important tool at our disposal here. For example, the historical and comparative sensitivities that Mills (1961) espoused in writing about the sociological imagination should inspire us to think critically about claims regarding what pro-environment activities “look like,” and should look like—and who is best positioned to lead responses to environmental issues. Research that highlights how industries in the past have brushed aside criticisms of their environmental impacts, only to later switch course and acknowledge environmental problems, is important for helping us think historically about how profit motives seemed to outweigh responsible stances on the environment, and how such stances changed only when they became untenable from a public relations perspective (Hoffman, 2001; Millington & Wilson, 2016). History might thus lead us to be skeptical of the types of business-lead solutions that are put forward in the present neoliberal moment, too.

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Indeed, and as is discussed in the conclusion to this book (Chapter 16), there is a range of concrete strategies for making a difference. In an interview with Juan Cruz Ferre, John Bellamy Foster speaks to strategies that are of particular pertinence to environmental issues: Unless we change ourselves as individuals and our culture—the way we relate to the earth—we can’t expect to make the overall changes in society that our necessary. . . . [But] a normal consumption-based strategy that is simply rooted in individual action is incapable of solving the problem or moving fast enough. . . . It can all be done with the means we have available, including alternative energies, socialstructural change, and conservation, but it would require a vast movement of humanity and we would have to oppose the logic of not only the fossil fuel economy, but of capitalism itself. As Kevin Anderson of Tyndall Institute for Climate Change in the UK tells us, we would have to go against “the political-economic hegemony.” In such situations optimism or pessimism are not the point. What we need is courage and determination . . . . a quoted in Foster & Ferre, 2017.

Foster’s arguments speak to so many issues that are key to this chapter and book— referring as he does to the need to rethink status quo models for addressing perpetual inequities (i.e., a need to rethink structural functionalist responses), and the need to “imagine” the role of the individual in relation to society. At the same time, we are challenged with environmental sociology to consider also interrelationships between human societies, non-humans, and the natural ecosystems that exist together on Earth. In sum, our hope from this chapter is that with attention to the problems and range of solutions offered for environmental issues in and around sport, we might consider our position on how to respond to large scale and pressing environmental issues, on how sociology might be useful for reconsidering taken-for-granted approaches to dealing with these issues, and finally, for considering what it would look like, following Foster’s suggestion, to be courageous and determined enough to pursue more effective pathways to a much more environmentally friendly world.

Key Terms Corporate environmentalist: Industry-led techniques and strategies for dealing with environmental issues. Ecological modernization: A theoretical approach to understanding the relationship between humans and environmental issues that is focused on ways that humans can continue to “progress” (e.g., economically) without long-term negative impacts on the environment because humans will also progress in their development of “green” or “superindustrial” technologies that will minimize or eliminate these impacts. Greenwashing: The term used to describe disingenuous attempts to promote pro-environment work and attitudes—disingenuous in that the practices in question are not actually eco-friendly, or in that they arguably serve to mask practices that are damaging to the environment. It also refers to situations where the eco-friendliness of pro-environment work is overstated, such that “appearing green” is prioritized over “being green.” Intergenerational inequity: The ways that future generations may be negatively impacted by the environment-related activities of current generations—and recognizing that future generations have no “say” about the decisions that may impact them. Interspecies inequity: The ways that the activities of humans also have implications for plants and (non-human) animals—and that humans may disregard or deemphasize these implications.

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Intra-generational inequity: The need to account for existing social inequalities of all kinds (e.g., around class, gender, ethnicity, and “race”) when devising sustainability projects and considering the impacts of environmentally damaging behaviours. Precautionary approach or precautionary principle: The view that in the face of uncertainty (e.g., about human impacts of global warming, or the effects of chemical use on human health) the default response should be to act preventively and shift the burden of proof for doing an ­activity to the proponents of an activity. Sustainability: An integrated strategy for addressing economic, social, and environmental issues, what is commonly known as the “triple bottom line.” The classic definition for sustainability, offered in the 1986 report Our Common Future (produced for the World Commission on Environment and Development), refers to our society’s capacity to “[meet the needs] needs of the present without compromising ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (see Brundtland, 1987). Transfrontier inequity: The ways that environment-related activities taking place in “local” contexts may have a negative impact on those living in other places.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What are the most environmentally friendly sports, and sport events, that you can think of? What makes them environmentally friendly? 2. Are you aware of environmentally friendly measures that have been adopted at your school or by a sport organization you are involved with? If so, what are the features of these measures, and do they line-up with an EM perspective? 3. Can you think of examples of greenwashing around sport? Describe them, and explain why they are examples of greenwashing. 4. What strategies for raising awareness around environmental issues are most effective in your view? 5. When you are aware of an environmental problem, does it necessarily mean that you will try to do something about it? Why, or why not?

Suggested Readings Bunds, K. (2017). Sport, politics and the charity industry: Running for water. London, UK: Routledge. McCullough, B. P., & Kellison, T. B. (Eds.). (2017). Routledge handbook of sport and the ­environment. New York: Routledge. Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2016). The greening of golf: Sport, globalization and the environment. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Special issue on sport, physical culture, and the environment. (2018). Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(1). Stoddart, M. C. (2012). Making meaning out of mountains: The political ecology of skiing. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Young, N. (2015). Environmental sociology for the twenty-first century. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.

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Chapter 16

Sport and the Future Brian Wilson and Jay Scherer

LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students will be able to: 1 Connect trends in sport, physical culture, and society to a set of predictions about what sport, physical culture, and society might look like in the future. 2 Identify ways that particular sport and physical cultural activities are associated with negative environmental outcomes.

Will ongoing tensions about societal inequalities lead to more intense protests at global sport mega-events? Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/ AP Images

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INTRODUCTION Underlying the various chapters in  this book—and indeed the sociology of sport field more generally—is the idea that sport is a cultural form and social practice that is rife with contradictions. Sport unites and divides people. It is healthy and injurious. It reflects and reproduces social inequalities and societal inequities, and it is a forum where social justice-oriented issues and changes are promoted. Put simply, sport is a contested terrain. To identify these contradictions and explore this contested terrain, sociologists study how particular views on, and features of, sport and physical culture came to be taken for granted and inspect the mechanisms through which they continue to be taken for granted. In critically examining the roles that sport and physical culture play in contemporary Canadian society—and how they came to play these roles— we will be better positioned to make recommendations for changing sport and physical culture (and society) for the better. The argument that underlies this chapter is that a final analytic step is necessary to give ourselves the best chance of making recommendations for changes that are both desirable and effective. Specifically, we suggest that to respond in an informed manner to sport and physical culture–related social problems we must use the information we have acquired about the processes and structures of sport and society to help us consider what the future holds—and to envision what a preferred future would look like. Drawing upon our sociological imaginations, the task of looking to the future, and of anticipating the directions that sport and physical culture are going, requires us to look to the past with the aim of being sensitive to how historical events and trajectories are related to current trends. It also requires thinking critically and comparatively about these trends, and how they are influenced by (and are influencing) drivers of social change in the broader Canadian society, including all of the social institutions outlined in this book (the media, various levels of government, the economy, etc.). When we are sensitive to the history of sport and physical culture, as well as to the current trajectories and factors that influence them, we are also in a better position to assess whether aspects of sport and physical culture are getting better and whether related social problems seem to be intensifying. Of course, to do this type of reflection also means asking ourselves what a “better” and “worse” sport system, sport culture, and broader society look like. This is not a straightforward task simply because views on what counts as a preferred future will vary greatly and are inevitably deeply politicized. It is well known that attempts to pursue major utopian visions of society have led to some of the worst human rights violations imaginable (Winter, 2006). For example, the ideological vision that guided Adolph Hitler’s work in Nazi Germany leading up to and during World War II was guided by a particular understanding of an ideal society. So, the question always remains, whose preferred future is being pursued? There is agreement in the sociology of sport community that it is preferable for sport to be, for example, “more equitable and inclusive,” “more democratic,” “less violent,” and “more environmentally friendly.” Still, deciding on how to achieve these versions of sport is not always straightforward, and decisions often result in a host of unintended consequences. Considering what sport, physical culture, and society will look like in the future requires sensitivity not only to current trends in sport and society, but also to the political mechanisms and power relations that drive social change and the processes that  preserve the status quo. This task requires an ability and desire to imagine what sport, physical culture, and society could be, and an acceptance of the fact that one can

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never know for sure how things will turn out. Finally, it means choosing to believe that we can use our sociological imaginations to help us improve sport and society. In the remainder of this chapter, we attempt to provoke this sort of thinking about sport, physical culture, and the future. We do this against the backdrop of four interrelated and overarching categories that have been associated with major social changes: governance, globalization, technology and media, and the environment. In so doing, we offer a series of 10 “predictions” based on this information. Finally, we outline ways that those hoping to influence the trajectories of sport and society might use existing research and theory to inform intervention.

GOVERNANCE In recent decades—and especially with the rise of conservative governments in Britain, Canada, and the United States in the 1980s—many social and political commentators and others observed and considered the implications of the development and implementation of what is known as neoliberal forms of governance (Harvey, 2005). While issues associated with neoliberalism in Canada are embedded in various chapters of this book, we will offer a brief synopsis of the term and what it means for governance—and consider what the future might look like in light of trends associated with neoliberalism noted in other chapters. Neoliberalism, which refers to government policies as well as the ideologies that guide decisions to make these policies, is based on a belief that a “market rationality” can be used to effectively deal with social, economic, and environmental problems. To use a market rationality means being guided by the principles that private businesses use in their attempts to secure profit in the competitive corporate sector. The main incentive for businesses in this context is, of course, to secure profit—which in most cases means responding to the demands of consumers. The ideology underlying this approach is that economic interests can be served alongside social and environmental interests—and that this competition-based model will lead to the most efficient and effective overall outcomes. Governments that are guided by neoliberal principles are, therefore, known to reduce funding for programs intended to deal with societal problems, justifying such moves by indicating that market mechanisms will lead to: (a) the best service provision and (b) prosperity for businesses or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide the best services. Government-offered services have been treated similarly in the sense that reduced funding for public provisions like a municipal recreation centre requires staff to be especially entrepreneurial in their attempts to stay afloat, including implementing user fees that subsequently serve as insurmountable barriers for many families. This neoliberal-influenced approach to funding these sorts of government services is known as “new public management” (Aucoin, 1995). The idea here is that rational consumers will be able to use their purchasing power to implicitly and explicitly support prosocial societal changes by choosing the best services—decisions that, theoretically speaking, should lead to financial success and sustainability for the most effective and efficient private and public providers. Also at neoliberalism’s core is the belief that individuals/consumers are responsible for their own wellbeing and that external social and economic barriers can be overcome by those who are appropriately entrepreneurial. The idea is that neoliberal governments prioritize consumer choice, and therefore if one makes the wrong choices, then the consequences of these choices should not be the responsibility of the state.

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Since many scholars have observed that there is a link between neoliberal forms of governance and increased inequality, it is perhaps unsurprising that critiques of neoliberalism are abundant. Health sociologist David Coburn (2004), for example, illuminates this link in an oft-quoted study he published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, where he concludes that: global and national socio-political-economic trends have increased the power of business classes and lowered that of working classes. The neo-liberal policies accompanying these trends led to increased income inequality but also poverty and unequal access to many other health-relevant resources.  .  .  .   Furthermore, countries with Social Democratic forms of welfare regimes (i.e., those that are less neo-liberal) have better health than do those that are more neo-liberal. (p. 21)

Sociologists of sport have also been highly interested in these issues and have produced a wealth of research and commentary in recent years that identifies flaws with neoliberal and new public management forms of governance. Frisby and Millar (2002), for example, describe how as new public management measures have been implemented and the focus on service provision in the recreation and sport sector has shifted to efficiency and cost effectiveness in Canada, “the needs of the poor are being overlooked” (p. 217). You will have undoubtedly noted that some of these arguments are embedded, in different ways, in various chapters of this book. For example, drawing upon conflict theory, in Chapter 4 Rob Beamish examines the links between neoliberalism and various forms of stratification in Canadian sport, including the growing gap between the rich and poor. Using critical theories, Parissa Safai, in Chapter 10, considers how tenets of neoliberalism are evident in the ways that health and sporting bodies are often understood—and how responsibility for our bodies is commonly individualized, despite evidence that there are a range of structural, cultural, and environmental factors that determine health-related outcomes.

Prediction #1 In upcoming years, access to conventional forms of participatory sport, recreation, and physical activity will continue to be unequal in Canada  Neoliberal principles have been and are continuing to influence policymaking in Canada, and it appears that these principles will increasingly find their way into government policy until an ideological shift or “evening out” takes place. At the same time, sociologists of sport have linked neoliberal policies or the new public management approaches with unequal access to sport, leisure, and physical activity in Canada—and of course Coburn (2004) has noted (see above) that the implementation of neoliberal policies is linked with unequal access to many health-relevant resources. With these interconnected observations in mind, it is not a stretch to suggest that access to conventional (i.e., organized, often government funded) forms of participatory sport, recreation, and physical activity will become more unequal as levels of economic and social inequality are anticipated to continue to grow across the country. There will be health implications for many Canadians as a result of these developments, especially for less affluent Canadians and their families and, increasingly, for middle-class families who will continue to be left behind in the years to come. This prediction is intended to account for other populations as well, especially older adults. That is to say, although it would make sense to anticipate that programs 358

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in the future will cater more to older populations, and especially the large, demographically significant, aging baby boomer cohort, such a response would not necessarily reduce inequalities between those with more resources and those with fewer resources. And within a neoliberal model that promotes consumer-driven responses to social concerns, the target market for new and existing programs will still largely be those who can most readily afford user fees and thus do not need to “prove poverty” to gain reduced-fee access. Still, as the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow in Canada, and as the boomers continue to age, even more pressure will be placed on the public healthcare system in the years to come. How will these public costs be paid for? One answer to this question, as we shall see shortly in our discussion on globalization, lies with immigration. Having said this, there are other responses to these public issues of social ­structures—issues that are the result of neoliberal policies. One of these responses is outlined in the next prediction. As above, though, the response outlined below may help deal with some aspects of inequality while exacerbating others.

Prediction #2 The private sector and nongovernmental organizations that use sport for development purposes will continue to—and perhaps increasingly—work to fill the gaps left by governments  In recent years, both the private sector and various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have worked to fill the gaps left by governments that have reduced their financial investment in accessible forms of physical activity, sport, and recreation programming. Students will be well aware, for example, of the number of companies that offer charitable solutions—like Canadian Tire’s Jumpstart charity—to help families participate in sport. But these market-based solutions, despite their good intentions, have decisive limits, and they fail to address the broader structural dynamics associated with economic inequality that will require far more substantive political solutions. At worst, they represent little more than exercises in corporate branding. NGOs, meanwhile, often face challenges to remain sustainable and serve their target populations, a point confirmed in a study by Wilson and Hayhurst (2009) on the experiences and challenges faced by Canadian NGOs. They found, for example, that organizations like Vancouver-based MoreSports—a not-for-profit group mandated to provide “sustainable sport and physical activity opportunities for children and families living in Vancouver” (Wilson & Hayhurst, 2009, p. 164)—are in many cases forced to compete for resources with organizations that may also offer valuable context-specific services. These same NGOs may also be forced into partnerships that may, at times, result in compromised service provision. Of course, a shift in policymaking practices at the local, provincial, or federal levels of government away from the neoliberal practices would alter this scenario somewhat, but this is certainly not the current trend. So, what will be the ongoing implications of these dynamics? To answer this question, it is important to consider that such programs receive competitive government funding along with philanthropic and corporate support. This form of funding is notable here because it aligns well with a neoliberal approach to service provision where programs must appear to be a good investment to receive funding. The idea is that competition among those attempting to secure funding will lead to better programming than would be provided by organizations with ongoing and noncompetitive government funding. Predictably, critics of neoliberal forms of service provision disagree. Instead, these critics argue that by putting these sorts of competitive pressures on

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organizations, an incentive system is created where those providing such services must appear to be a good investment. Such appearances are especially important for funders who, in many cases, are also looking to enhance their image through philanthropic work. A problematic consequence of this situation is that such organizations must consistently demonstrate the “successful” outcomes of their programs— instead, perhaps, of doing rigorous and balanced (and publicly reported) assessments that would be designed to improve programming. For example, highlighting select feel-good success stories and counting the number of people exposed to a program is quite different from assessing the quality and longer-term outcomes of a program. Organizations may also be more likely to target participants who are most likely to succeed in their program, leaving those in more difficult circumstances on the margins again. Moreover, in a competitive funding market situation, NGOs that will thrive are those that are most entrepreneurial and, perhaps unsurprisingly, are often the largest organizations, with the most resources. Smaller, community-based, and grassroots organizations that are known to cater to the context-specific needs of those in need of particular services, meanwhile, will continue to be at risk of closing down in the absence of securing competing funding. In sum, then, while this trend may in some ways offset the inequality problem identified in Prediction #1, there are reasons to be concerned about the quality of these programs and the unintended and intended consequences of neoliberal forms of NGO-led intervention and private sector solutions. We would also suggest that various levels of government that are responsible for sport and public health for all Canadians should primarily be leading responses to the problems of unequal access to physical activity and recreational sport, problems that are themselves the public issues of social structure referred to by Mills (1959). We say this because, in theory at least, those in government are incentivized to pursue the public’s best interest. This is unlike private businesses that are mandated ultimately to pursue profit, and NGOs that often need to focus on the survival of their organization.

Prediction #3 For some young people, alternative forms of leisure and physical activity will continue to be adopted as a creative response to problems of access and ambivalence about current physical activity and sport options in formal and structured settings. Such forms of participation will become more prominent as exposure to these cultural options becomes increasingly available and prominent through the Internet  Although concerns about the more formal provision of resources that support sport, physical activity, and recreation-related practices are understandably central to many discussions about sport and society, it is also important to keep in mind—as Couture and Laurendeau note in Chapter 7—that forms of physical activity also take place outside more formalized structures, especially as more and more young people are excluded from costly mainstream sporting practices. This kind of sport is sometimes associated with subcultural s­port-related activities (Atkinson & Young, 2008), what some refer to as lifestyle sports (Wheaton, 2004). What is being referred to here are activities such as skateboarding, windsurfing, BASE jumping, surfing, parkour, and Ultimate, which are ­commonly more participant-driven activities—activities that are, in some respects and contexts, intentionally oppositional to dominant aspects of mainstream (sport) culture. 360

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We can think of this opposition in two related ways. On the one hand, this can mean opposition to the values and practices associated with mainstream, (hyper)competitive, (overly) structured/time-consuming, expensive, and adult-controlled sport— the prolympic model of sport that was discussed in Chapter 7. Beal (1995), for example, described how in skateboarding culture, “competitors” often actively cheer for each other to complete impressive tricks and jumps. On the other hand, opposition refers here to the underlying ethos and ideologies of particular sport subcultural groups that are critical of many dominant nonsport-related aspects of societies. Atkinson found this form of opposition in his research on the parkour subculture in Toronto, where he described how parkour practitioners (known as traceurs) equate their acrobatic movements over, through, and around various features of the urban environment as symbolic and embodied commentary on the disciplining, corporatized, and “environmentally pathological” aspects of contemporary cities (Atkinson, 2009, p. 175). Likewise, Wheaton (2008), in her work on windsurfing and related lifestyle sports, refers to the activities of groups like Surfers Against Sewage that are also, in their own way, environmentalist and anticonsumerist. Referring back to Chapter 2, the perspectives of these identity-based groups—and their cultural forms of expression—would conventionally be assessed using critical theories. While it is difficult to know if more young people will be attracted to these subcultural options in the future because of feelings of disillusionment and alienation with mainstream sport and society, it seems reasonable to suggest that as more and more young people are exposed to these cultural forms—something that the dissemination of these activities through the Internet and associated new media allows—participation will also increase in Canada and globally. This final argument seems especially apropos in light of research on the emergence and meaning of parkour in the Middle East (in Gaza especially), a cultural phenomenon that the authors found to be attributable to parkour’s circulation through the Internet and social media (Thorpe & Ahmad, 2013). A caveat here is that these alternative subcultures are often fairly homogenous in terms of demographic makeup and are also known at times to reflect some of the broader classed, gendered, race and ethnicity, and ability-related exclusionary practices of the broader society. For example, while those involved in parkour include middle- and lower-class participants—and in some instances (but not others) there is an interethnic mix—young males are the usual participants (Thorpe & Ahmad, 2013). It is also well documented that such subcultures are inevitably incorporated into the mainstream culture to some degree (e.g., mass-mediated “extreme” sports) when the profits associated with marketing alternative cultures are pursued (Atkinson, 2009). Still, we should not completely dismiss the subversive potential of these groups as alternatives to mainstream sport and as conveyors of countermainstream ideologies. These types of alternatives can help generate new understandings of “what is possible” for participants and others (Wilson, 2012), revealing opportunities for counterhegemonic activity. It is also known that involvement in such movements may in some cases predict future participation in more conventional politics (Staggenborg, 2008). We conclude here by noting how this prediction is also informed by data showing declining rates of participation in hockey in Canada. Although reasons for these declines are also attributable to, among other factors, concerns about injuries and concussions, as well as greater interest in less expensive sports like soccer and ­basketball, it is not a stretch to see how the adoption of alternative and lifestyle Sport and the Future

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Parkour and other alternative/lifestyle sport activities may increase in popularity in response to problems with mainstream sport and physical activity structures. Jacob Lund/Fotolia

sports might be a subcultural response to some of the mainstream values that are commonly associated with organized hockey too.

Prediction #4 Until concerns about growing inequality are more fully addressed, we will see more social unrest from voters and organized resistance groups alike. This unrest will be reflected and reproduced in and around sport  Along with many others, sociologists of sport have tried to make sense of the reasons for and consequences of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Although there are a range of explanations for why Trump—with his track record of misogynist and racist behaviours and stances—was elected, renowned Canadian social commentator and author Naomi Klein offered one reason that aligns well with some of the ideas and predictions noted so far about inequality and governance: Here is what we need to understand: a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present. . . . Trump’s message was: “All is hell.” Clinton answered: “All is well.” But it’s not well—far from it . . . (Klein, 2016)

Klein (2016) goes on to offer suggestions for change that might help satisfy those who support Trump as a form of protest against the neoliberal status quo: A good chunk of Trump’s support could be peeled away if there were a genuine redistributive agenda on the table. . . . Such a plan could create a tidal wave of 362

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well-paying unionised jobs, bring badly needed resources and opportunities to communities of colour, and insist that polluters should pay for workers  to be retrained and fully included in this future. It could fashion policies that fight ­institutionalized racism, economic inequality and climate change at the  same time. It could take on bad trade deals and police violence, and honour indigenous people as the original protectors of the land, water and air. (Klein, 2016)

There are a number of sport-related topics that pertain to these developments and suggested responses. The first is to simply point out that many political leaders, including Trump himself, will continue to promote their populist platforms and political images through associations with sport, championship sports teams, and popular sporting figures. These strategies, it can be suggested, are especially important for conservative leaders like Trump, who aspire to cultivate an image as an “ordinary” guy, all while promoting policies that arguably work against the class interests of his supporters (e.g., tax cuts for the rich). Sport, as ever, remains implicated in processes of hegemony. At the same time, of course, various high profile athletes have responded to the range of controversial policies Trump has pushed forward and his political viewpoints. Some professional sports teams and individual players on those teams either refused to visit the White House after winning a championship or were subsequently “uninvited” because of their comments about Trump-driven policies or about Trump himself, thus subverting a long-standing convention (although these are far from the first White House protests by athletes; see Bembry, 2008). In a similar vein, students will be well aware of the on-field protests of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick over police brutality and racism in the US, and his subsequent blacklisting by the predominantly white owners of NFL franchises. There are several things to consider here as we look to the future, with Trump’s presidency and sport-related responses to it in mind. The first has to do with how major political ruptures are relevant to sport, and how athletes, teams, owners, and others in sport respond to such ruptures. One might use a sociological imagination to help one see how responses might be different across different contexts and sport cultures, and how athletes are differently positioned socially, politically, and geographically. One might also consider what protests in the past, and their impacts, might tell us about how these protests may make a difference—and how they might be remembered. Major political ruptures, from a sociological perspective, can also at times reveal underlying tensions around issues that are sometimes less obvious, and exacerbate more overt ones. Trump’s mediated feud with NBA star LeBron James, for example, led to heightened discussions around race, including about historical stereotypes related to African-Americans and sport. This was especially the case after some insulting comments from Trump, directly at James, pertaining to James’s i­ntelligence—as well as a comment from Fox News journalist Laura Ingraham about the role that athletes like James (and fellow NBA star Kevin Durant) should be playing (she i­ndicated that James should “shut up and dribble”—Sullivan, 2018). Despite the claims of various dominant interest groups that sports and politics don’t mix—a political claim in itself—sport will continue to be, as it always has, a place where broader political debates play out, and where athletes sometimes respond—or are uncomfortably quiet.

GLOBALIZATION This brings us to globalization, the second main driver of social change we’ve chosen to feature. Globalization, as noted in Chapter 14, refers to the increasing political, economic, and cultural interconnectedness of the world, and the process of uneven Sport and the Future

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development, which has been at work for a long time (consider world exploration, trade, and colonization). Many of the issues noted above—as well as questions about unequal race relations and immigration—have been both accelerated and amplified over the course of the past three decades in the neoliberal era. Indeed, students will be well aware that there have been powerful challenges recently to globalization, including Trump’s aspiration to build a wall along the southern border of the US, and events like the Brexit vote in the UK in support of withdrawal from the European Union. Despite these developments, Canadians remain more interconnected than ever before to broader global structures and to the global economy. We consume the products of transnational corporations like Nike that are connected to a complex international division of labour without second thought, and largely without thought to the working conditions of those who make these goods. Many Canadians now passionately follow sports teams and leagues from around the world as global consumers instead of simply cheering for the “home team,” and will continue to do so in the years to come. And, with respect to the North American major leagues, Canadian sports fans are the beneficiaries of watching the best athletes from around the world who migrate to North America to play at the highest levels of professional sport, even if this means depleting the professional leagues of other countries.

Prediction #5 Debates over immigration will intensify, but Canadian society and our sporting cultures will continue to expand, albeit unevenly  Canada is, without a doubt, far more diverse than it was even 10 years ago, although there remain stark differences between many urban and rural contexts. Still, the country will continue to welcome newcomers to settle across the nation, a development that will benefit Canada in innumerable ways. Certainly, questions around immigration and globalization will remain politicized, especially in times of recession, and there will continue to be calls to close our borders by various individuals and far-right groups. Despite this, there is little doubt that Canada has benefitted enormously from immigration over the years, and that welcoming newcomers has immense benefits. In fact, the journalist Doug Saunders (2017) has made a provocative case for the need for Canada to radically increase its population to 100 million by the year 2100. Saunders offers a range of “future looking” reasons to support this position. First, as noted earlier, the baby boomers are aging, and Canada has a low birth rate. Welcoming greater numbers of newcomers to urban centres across the country can be a central way to ensure both continued growth and a sufficient national tax base to pay for social institutions and public services. Saunders also points to the potential environmental benefits of his suggestion, arguing that: “[l]arger and denser urban centres are vastly less ecologically damaging than small, looser ones” (Saunders, 2017, p. 174). For example, a substantial amount of research shows that the expansion of urban populations reduces the emission of carbon per capita. However, and as discussed in Chapter 15, claims that increases in environmental efficiency will accompany various forms of growth are not always as straightforward as they seem. For example, there is also evidence that gains through effective policy change and accompanying culture and behaviour change on smaller scales are also possible when there is simply enough political will (Beaujot & Patterson, 2018). Using our sociological imaginations, then, we can both think critically 364

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about Saunders’s arguments while at the same time remaining necessarily open to the range of options for pro-environment change, and to consider the possible unintended consequences of various political positions. It would seem on this topic, that “the future” requires such openness. Saunders also argues that as newcomers to Canada continue to populate our urban centres—especially medium-sized urban centres with more affordable housing markets than Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, which have traditionally been the main “arrival cities” (Saunders, 2010)—social structures across the country will ­continue to expand to accommodate a more diverse and sizeable population. This position could be seen to align with broader calls for increased support for ­newcomers to Canada through well-funded social service programs that offer g­ enuine opportunities to access good jobs, education, childcare programs, and the housing market (and, hence, the opportunity to develop equity). In this vein, there is a similar need to provide various networks of support, including sporting and leisure ­opportunities, to ensure that newcomers do not simply become concentrated in areas of racialized poverty at disconnected edges of urban centres. Many of these opportunities, for the reasons noted earlier, will be provided by nonprofit organizations like the YMCA as well as other NGOs, like Free Footie Edmonton—a free soccer program for inner city children who would otherwise be unable to participate in sport due to economic or other barriers. We should, of course, avoid glamourizing the very limited potential of sport to provide genuine future career or education opportunities for most young people. Still, it is also worth recognizing remarkable stories, like that that of Alphonso Davies, whose family arrived in Canada as refugees who had been displaced as a result of the Liberian Civil War when he was five years old. Davies grew up in Edmonton and is an alumnus of the Free Footie program, and after ascending through the amateur and professional ranks in Edmonton and Vancouver, he now plays for the giant German Bundesliga club, Bayern Munich, which paid a multi-million dollar transfer fee to the Vancouver Whitecaps to secure his labour. Returning to the ideas noted above, Davies is now also a sporting-migrant, who like countless other professional soccer players, has moved from domestic leagues to the more powerful and richest European leagues— a development that starkly underlines the uneven patterns of migration in the global sports labour market. There has been a noticeable change in Canada’s immigration policies in recent years, which now increasingly favour welcoming prospective middle-class immigrants with job offers in hand, with advanced degrees, and with fluency in an official language. This represents a stark contrast from earlier eras during which Canada accepted significant numbers of refugees fleeing political persecution and warfare. But recent data from Statistics Canada show that there have also been benefits to these types of changes in terms of assisting integration, and gradually narrowing the employment gap between new immigrants and individuals who were born in Canada. To be clear, though, the middle-class aspirations of immigrants are still often not realized in the first generation, and almost a third of immigrants live below the poverty line (compared to one in eight among Canadians in general). However, in targeting more affluent newcomers along more “entrepreneurial” lines, sporting participation rates and levels of physical activity of immigrants may, in fact, slowly increase in the next decade, albeit unevenly along the lines of social class and gender. Finally, in light of all of these developments, Canadian sports culture will continue to diversify, and specific sports like cricket and soccer will grow in the years ahead, for economic as well as cultural reasons. Sport and the Future

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Prediction #6 The influence of international nongovernmental sport for ­ development and peace (SDP) organizations will remain strong and likely increase in upcoming years  This prediction is akin to Prediction #2 in the sense that it is based on the argument that in the neoliberal era, NGOs (in this case international NGOs) are increasingly being relied upon to lead prosocial work in various regions of the world, especially in areas that are experiencing high levels of poverty and are, in some cases, war-torn and in postconflict situations. It is worth noting here (as background information for this prediction) that a rapid rise in the number of international SDP organizations since 2000 is well documented and unprecedented. The increase has been associated with the United Nations recognition of 2005 as the International Year of Sport and Physical Education and with the rise to prominence of international SDP leader Right to Play. Although it remains to be seen whether the problems associated with having an SDP sector that is embedded in a funding culture that includes some of the perverse incentives outlined in Prediction #2, the involvement of those with knowledge of the enabling and constraining aspects of sport and international development could lead to some noticeable advances. This more optimistic view of the SDP movement aligns with arguments made by sociologists of sport who recognize the problems with the SDP sector while also documenting how the interventions they are involved with are thought to, in some circumstances and for some people, support reconciliation efforts or other prosocial outcomes. It is also worth noting in this context that the IOC, a recognized “super-NGO” in its own right, has for years been publicizing its efforts to promote development. However— and as bids to host the Olympics are becoming more scarce—it seems that there is increasing skepticism about such benefits, and growing opposition to hosting the Games, and as noted in Chapters 12 and 13, this skepticism is well justified. Put simply, and as many sociologists have argued for years, the idea that holding a sport mega-event is the best avenue toward development for all citizens (including more marginalized groups) is highly controversial. Despite these debates, it is clear that the IOC continues to proclaim leadership on these issues and that this leadership has been recognized by the key player in international development, the United Nations. We are referring here to the fact that in 2009 the IOC was given “observer status” at the United Nations—a highly significant endorsement of the IOC’s work, considering that this status is generally reserved for countries or for NGOs that are undisputed leaders in peace, development, and humanitarian aid (e.g., the International Red Cross/Red Crescent has this status).

TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA We have alluded already to some ways that new technologies and media are associated with aspects of contemporary governance and globalization. Building on these arguments, in this section we outline two technology-focused predictions pertaining to the future of sport, physical activity, and society.

Prediction #7 New technologies will continue to lead to new opportunities for enjoyable recreational participation in sport for some populations. The impacts of using technologies on health and wellbeing will be mixed  New technologies designed to improve the performance of competitive athletes and to enhance the experience of 366

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everyday recreational athletes have been in development and on the market for years, and have clearly expanded the opportunities and experiences of individuals who can afford to take advantage of them. Research by Millington (2012; 2013) alludes to some of the benefits for recreational athletes and those interested in being physically active who may benefit from fitness-oriented video games—as well as the problems with being overly reliant on consumer items for health promotion purposes. Couture and Laurendeau’s discussion (in Chapter 7) of issues around digital health technologies, and especially activity-tracking devices designed for young people, speaks to this as well. Still, the development of lighter golf clubs and tennis rackets with larger “sweet spots” are straightforward examples of ways to attract some people to enjoyable activities who would have been less likely to get involved in the past. There are of course numerous other examples where new technologies have been helpful for those with disabilities, especially high performance athletes (e.g., the blades used by Paralympic runners). Of course, some of the same types of concerns that have been raised in previous predictions about unequal access, as well as the incentive system that underlies the development of prosocial innovations apply here as well. Marks and Michael refer to some of these issues in a 2001 British Medical Journal article entitled “Science, Medicine, and the Future: Artificial Limbs.” Although the neoliberal environment is not explicitly referred to by these authors, they are clear in their suggestion that the future development of prostheses will be driven by demand from those with resources (especially the demands of amputees with private funding, like highly competitive athletes)—despite the fact that prosthetics are needed by many with fewer resources, like some amputees in countries of the Global South. As they state, “one of the greatest challenges for the new millennium will be to find the will and the way to fund widespread application of prosthetic innovations” (Marks & Michael, 2001, p. 735). Perhaps the best way to frame a prediction like this one, which speaks to the way that innovations will offer many prosocial benefits and that these benefits will be distributed unequally as long as the current incentive system remains in place, is to suggest that the future holds promise and tensions as battles over the social issues of prosocial new technologies would seem to be inevitable. Also worth considering here are recent findings, again highlighted in Chapter 7, showing that the use of devices and associated apps to promote health and fitness has a dark side. Goodyear et al. (2017) and Depper and Howe (2017) have underlined how the use of such devices is often associated with negative feelings post-use, and an increased focus on individual weight management and slenderness instead of broader understandings of “health” and wellbeing. Layer this with Sherry Turkle’s (2011) classic argument that with the increased use of such online and often depersonalized technologies, we are living in a world where we are increasingly “alone together.” Clearly, looking ahead, there are good reasons to be attentive to and concerned about apparent links between loneliness, mental health, and technology that follow from Turkle’s thesis and are the focus of ongoing research and discussion (Nauert, 2018).

Prediction #8 Innovations in the field of biotechnology will lead to new ethical dilemmas in competitive sport  Many analysts—and certainly the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)—see “gene doping” as a main issue to be dealt with in upcoming years, as Sport and the Future

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researchers begin to understand not only how particular genes may be related to athletic performance, but also how a person’s genetic makeup might be altered to enhance performance. Leslie Pray (2008) describes this process as follows: [I]nstead of injecting DNA into a person’s body for the purpose of restoring some function related to a damaged or missing gene, as in gene therapy, gene doping involves inserting DNA for the purpose of enhancing athletic performance. (p. 77)

Andy Miah, author of the 2004 book Genetically Modified Athletes, is a leading scholar who has weighed in on this issue and offered his own “vision of the future” on genes, sport, and society: I envisage a future for humanity where gene transfer—and many other forms of human enhancement—is sufficiently safe for its widespread use and where it becomes an integral part of our pursuit of good health. Indeed, undertaking such modifications would be considered as normal as body piercing or cosmetic surgery. Such attempts to promote our health will become increasingly important in an evermore toxic world and will create a scenario where the population is, as a whole, more capable of performing in extreme conditions—such as elite sports competition. (Miah, 2010)

Miah’s optimistic understanding is at odds with the near-alarmist position taken by those focused on the implications of gene doping for elite sport. It is an excellent reminder that developments that may appear to be problematic for competitive sport may, in fact, be seen as quite hopeful and enabling for the broader society. Of course, Miah is aware of the lingering implications of gene doping for sport as well: The challenge for the sports world is not just that gene transfer would be used to break the rules, but that the therapeutic use of gene transfer may create athletes who are even more capable than the so-called healthy athlete. Intimations of this shift are occurring in the context of Paralympic sport, where the prosthetically enhanced athlete is beginning to surpass the so-called able-bodied athlete, as in the case of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius. One of the big challenges that will determine whether WADA’s gene doping problem can be solved is their ability to detect it. Yet, the [current] absence of detection methods, coupled with shifting social values on the morality of enhancement challenges the integrity and relevance of an anti-enhancement movement like anti-doping. (Miah, 2010)

It is obviously difficult to envision precisely how gene-doping technologies will impact competitive sport—or how gene doping and other technologies that target noncompetitive athletes and citizens might be taken up in enabling and constraining ways. What is for sure is that these and related bioethical and biotechnology issues will need to be dealt with for years to come, against the backdrop of debates of what constitutes cheating and “fair play” in sport. And until the broader structure of prolympic sport is transformed, athletes will only continue to push the limits of their bodies through various performance enhancing substances in the pursuit of victory, medals, and paycheques, despite unprecedented testing and the prospect of public shame and other punitive consequences. 368

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Prediction #9 The experiences of sport media audiences will become i­ncreasingly interactive, mobile, and privatized as sport and the various forms of digital media become even more intertwined. However, the evolution of media forms will not necessarily be accompanied by radical changes in the types of social messages that are embedded in and imparted through media content  With the range of digital media technologies that have emerged in recent years, including new habits of prosumption, the  conventional television viewing experience has been radically transformed—a point discussed in some detail by Jay Scherer and Mark Norman in Chapter 11. It is also safe to say that the traditional broadcasting model—one in which the public sector once played a significant role—has also undergone significant transformation, and that live sport may be the final link to this older broadcasting era. Indeed, as new digital entrants with significant amounts of capital—like Facebook, Amazon, and Google—look to acquire a greater share of sports media rights, and as the baby boomers get older, we will see even greater levels of privatized, “on-demand,” and interactive consumption experiences. It is worth noting here that these developments may not necessarily be accompanied by wholesale changes in the types of ideological messages about gender, race, and ethnicity that appear in and are reinforced through the sports–media complex, at least until the male audience commodity is substantially broadened. A particularly provocative study that speaks to this issue is Davis and Duncan’s (2006) study of fantasy sports participation. The researchers found that in the online leagues they examined, fantasy sport appeared to “reinforce hegemonic ideologies in sport spectatorship, emphasizing authority, sports knowledge, competition, male-bonding, and traditional gender roles” (p. 244). Likewise, a review of literature on ways that themes of war, violence, and inequality are covered in the media confirmed that trends in coverage of topics do not appear to have changed in tone in recent years (Wilson, 2012). So, while new forms of media are empowering some consumers who can now pursue sport media viewing and consumption options outside of the “old” television model, thus allowing for some novel forms of sport fan communities to emerge (Norman, 2012), some “old” social problems would appear to remain unchanged, as the content of the media continues to reflect broader societal issues. That said, there are also greater opportunities than ever—through various blogs and podcast series—for more critical and oppositional perspectives to be circulated that will increasingly challenge more traditional ideological viewpoints in years to come (Forde & Wilson, 2018).

ENVIRONMENT As environmental issues continue to be recognized as being among the most pressing issues of the current moment and into the future, sport managers and organizers are responding, as Wilson and Millington point out in Chapter 15. As those working in the sociology of sport continue to engage these questions and recognize the progress that some organizations are making on environmental issues, a number of concerns have been raised about what these responses look like. Although some of these will be revealed through the prediction offered below, when organizations are left to make decisions about their environmental behaviours in

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Debates about sport’s potential links with environmental and public health–related issues will undoubtedly continue into the future. Matt Gibson

response to market mechanisms, it would make sense in some cases to prioritize “appearing green” over “being green” instead of responding to stringent environmental regulations imposed from those external to the industry (i.e., those who do not have a vested interest in sport events being held or cancelled). Researchers have also expressed concern that for governments mandated to both lead environmental protection work on behalf of constituents and at the same time to facilitate economic growth, compromises are commonly made that favour economic interests. We can see here a clear example of how environmental issues are inseparable from issues of governance. None of these arguments is intended to disregard or dismiss the fact that major improvements in sport and environment-related behaviour are taking place. It does seem, however, that as long as an incentive system is in place where sport managers and organizers who are making decisions about their environment-related behaviours are mandated ultimately to make profits for their organizations or to make sure that sport events are viewed positively, there will be compelling reasons to be concerned about how their leadership will, in the long run, impact public and environmental health. It is worth emphasizing here that this exercise of looking into the future is perhaps most important for this topic because the influences of current environment-impacting behaviours will in some cases only become evident in the future when problems related to the impacts of climate change and ecosystem destruction perhaps become more obvious. This is why environmental issues are associated with a form of inequality that is rarely discussed, but is central to thinking about sport, the environment, and the future. As noted in Chapter 15, this form of inequality is ­intergenerational, which refers to the inequality that exists between future generations that have no control over how current generations treat the natural environments that they will inherit. 370

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Prediction #10 Debates about best strategies for “greening” sport will be invigorated as existing critiques begin to take hold  In recent years, high-profile sport organizations that collectively promote the idea that sports leaders are also ­taking leadership on environmental issues have emerged. These networks include members of the Global Forum for Sport and Environment (www.g-forse.com) and Green Sports Alliance (http://greensportsalliance.org). The emergence of these alliances and their conferences should be unsurprising considering the attention that sport-related environmental issues have begun to receive in recent years. We should anticipate that sport leaders will continue to demonstrate proactivity on environmental issues through public relations campaigns highlighting leadership on these issues, as concerns about the environment remain in public consciousness. The fact that the IOC made the environment a third pillar of the Olympic movement, alongside sport and culture, speaks volumes to the importance that is being placed on appearing green. It is also likely that environmental performance will continue to improve as greener technologies are ­developed over time and as those bidding for the Olympics and other sport mega-events are required to include environmental performance strategies and measures into their bids. Despite this apparent progress on environmental issues, though, there are also reasons to be skeptical about current responses to environmental issues. For example, and despite the immense technology-driven progressions that have led to more sustainable sport events in recent years, sport managers ultimately have a vested interest in running the most sustainable sport event—a mandate that does not include the option of cancelling an event if it is deemed to be too unsustainable. Put another way, when sport managers are leading the regulation of their own industry’s behaviours, it is unlikely that a decision to not hold a highly unsustainable event would ever be made, noting that sustainable sport management means balancing economic as well as environmental (and social) concerns. However, and perhaps more optimistically, we suggest that debates about sportrelated environmental issues will be much richer and more nuanced in the future as people become more educated about some of the issues raised above (and perhaps as the urgency of these issues becomes more evident). Some of this education will take place because the global social movements mentioned earlier (including sport-related environmental movements) will have more impact because of the power of the Internet and other new media technologies to support connections and informationsharing between people. Debates will also be more likely as sociologists are increasingly taking their important research and arguments to blogs. Put simply, we are at a moment when there is unprecedented potential for informed sociological critique to be widely disseminated (Forde & Wilson, 2018).

AN INVITATION TO CONSIDER OTHER QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF SPORT AND PHYSICAL CULTURE Our aim in developing the set of predictions offered above was to remind students of some of the broad themes that they have come across in the book so far, to identify some issues that have not been dealt with in as much depth, and ultimately to provoke thinking about how these themes and issues may matter in the future. Sport and the Future

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Of course, this is only a small selection of the range of predictions that could have been proposed, and, as always, the “answers” to these social trends and patterns can never be guaranteed. In hedging our bets, though, the predictions that we’ve offered are based on historically informed and comparative observations and critical analysis. Put another way, these predictions are based on sociological evidence, both contemporary and historical. We conclude this section by recognizing some of the many other developments in and around sport and physical culture that could have inspired questions about what the future holds, and what we hope it holds. For example, a prominent question for many has to do with the future of professional gridiron football in a moment when concerns about head injury in the sport have never been so prevalent (see Chapters 9 and 10 on sport’s relationship with health and violence for material related to this). Certainly, it would be easy to predict that fewer and fewer young people will participate in gridiron football in light of mounting evidence about the impacts of concussions. But not all people will turn away from the sport. Girls and women who were traditionally denied the opportunity to play football may continue to participate in the sport in greater numbers. Likewise, boys and young men from less affluent families and from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds will continue to aspire to play football in the pursuit of various educational opportunities, and in the pursuit of careers in professional sport, even in the face of overwhelmingly slim odds. Questions about the viability of the Olympics were also raised in chapters on politics, business, and the environment (Chapters 12, 13, and 15). Although we have predicted that the IOC and FIFA will remain both popular and profitable in the years to come, clearly more and more cities, like Calgary, are turning away from hosting sport mega-events for a variety of reasons. It seems reasonable to conclude, on this front, that both the IOC and FIFA will continue to grant hosting opportunities to countries where the challenges of democracy are minimal. The prospect of enormous financial gain will, as it always has, lead to continued accusations of corruption in each of these organizations. Certainly, as noted in Chapter 5,  one of the most pressing issues in Canada relates to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 87 to 91, which each address sport-related issues. How will the profile of sport and physical culture in Canada change into the future, as responses to these Calls continue? Who will lead these responses and who will control resources: dominant groups or Indigenous peoples? How will these issues play out against broader questions about sovereignty, and the redistribution of political power and various resources, especially land. Thanks to sustained protest, the use of Indigenous mascots and logos for various sports teams will eventually come to an end, but this is “low-hanging fruit” compared to the broader questions noted above, as well as the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma associated with colonialism and, in particular, the residential school system. All of these enduring racialized “structures of indifference” (McCallum & Perry, 2018)—structures that are literally matters of life or death—will continue to be challenged by many Indigenous peoples and others, although wider levels of social change and a redistribution of resources and power will be slower to take hold. Finally, as noted earlier, dire concerns have been expressed about not only the future of some sports and events, but also about the health and wellbeing of humans and non-humans more generally, due to the impacts of climate change. Building on one of our previous predictions about sport and the environment, we might ask 372

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whether status quo responses to environment-related issues in the sport community will continue, or if more radical responses will take place as climate scientists continue to highlight the urgency of our planet’s, and therefore our own, predicament. We might also ask whether more radical responses, unless they are adopted now, will be “too late,” as some sociologists and climate scientists suggest.

HOW SOCIOLOGISTS AND OTHERS CAN DRIVE SOCIAL CHANGE This last point offers a nice segue to thinking about how sociologists and others might attempt to incite social changes and thus work toward a preferred future—one that is hopefully informed by some of the information and theories encountered in this text. We will do this first by identifying some key approaches to inciting change and linking them to some of the theoretical perspectives you have encountered in this book. Second, we will ask you to engage in an exercise of “future thinking” as a way of beginning to envision the sports and society you would like to see.

Strategies for Change One of the more comprehensive lists of strategies for achieving sport-related social change was offered by Coakley and Donnelly (2009), who discussed some key ways that social change might be instigated. One of these strategies is to work within the existing system in an attempt to create prosocial reforms. This more functionalist approach presumes that the existing system can be tweaked or altered in ways that will lead to desirable outcomes without a radical overhaul of the system. It also presumes that there is enough flexibility working within the established system to deal with the issues of concern. Another strategy is to join a social movement that lobbies for change. Such groups can be reformist if they work closely and collaboratively with government or other decision-making entities. These groups can also be more oppositional and overtly protest-oriented with their arguments and positions. In this sense, the goals of social movements can be functionalist—if the aim is to be a cooperative stakeholder in discussions for change (e.g., the environmental group Greenpeace has been known to play this role when consulting with Olympic Games organizers). Other groups might be viewed as taking a critical stance because their goal is to challenge and undermine some of the basic assumptions that underlie the current system (i.e., if they are a counterhegemonic movement). For example, the anti-golf environmental movement is not interested in trying to convince members of the golf industry to improve environmental performance. Instead, they prefer to challenge the very assumption that such large tracts of land dedicated to golf—requiring maintenance through pesticide use and major water ­consumption—should even exist. Other critically oriented groups may not completely reject the existing system but will attempt to transform cultures and social relations by striving to change the core values of particular organizations. This might include challenging the longstanding acceptance of fighting in hockey, the reverence for those who play when injured in many sports, or challenging sport media producers that offer objectified portrayals of women and stereotypical portrayals of race and ethnicity. The public sociologists mentioned previously commonly make contributions here through engagements with media, government, or in discussions at civic forums. Sport and the Future

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Yet another strategy is to create or join an alternative sport group that rejects the dominant power structures that underlie highly organized, competitive, and corporate forms of sport (Coakley & Donnelly, 2009). Although the activities of these groups are not always directly confrontational, the idea is that by providing cultural/symbolic alternatives to the mainstream, social and cultural change may take place (eventually) through more indirect pathways—and by promoting a personalization of politics for participants. This attempt to deal with and respond to problems with dominant power structures through participation in a cultural movement aligns well with the critical theoretical approach referred to in Chapter 2.

CONCLUSION Ask yourself the following question: “What would an ideal sporting world look like?” The reason that a sociological imagination is useful for this sort of thinking is that it helps us hold up even the most taken-for-granted aspects of sport, physical culture, and Canadian society for critical reflection—and allows us to genuinely consider the prospect of social change. For example, could an incentive system be created that prioritizes the physical activity needs of society’s marginalized groups, or could the Olympics be rethought so that environmental and social concerns take precedence over economic concerns? With the latter question in mind, sociologists of sport like Coakley and Donnelly (2009) have envisioned a situation where existing athletic facilities in different countries are used as Olympic venues (i.e., where new venues are not constructed for every Olympics) and where the Games would take place across various countries and venues (i.e., there would be multiple hosts). In fact, this vision aligns with a fairly new IOC policy known as Agenda 2020, that promotes the usage of existing facilities instead of building new ones, and allows event hosting across two countries. Sociologist Harry Edwards, meanwhile, has suggested that one venue (e.g., in Greece, site of the Ancient Olympics) could be chosen as “the venue” for all future Games and that different countries could bid to organize and be the featured host of the Games in this one venue (Wilson, 2012). This solution would reduce the environmental impacts of building new facilities while allowing for some of the tourismrelated promotional and economic benefits. Using a sociological imagination can also remind us of positive social changes that have taken place—changes that people would have considered to be unlikely at other points in time (e.g., pertaining to the integration of major sports). This is the value of using sociology as a tool to help us move in some new and preferable directions.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What is your vision for an ideal sporting world? What are the characteristics of sport in this vision of a preferred future? 2. What aspects of the present sporting world remain unchanged in your vision of this ideal world? Why do these remain unchanged? What aspects of sport and society are taken for granted in your preferred future? What aspects of the present would you like to keep into the future? 3. What barriers do you see to some of the desirable social changes you would like to see? Why are they barriers?

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4. How do sociological theories help us think about the types of changes we would like to see in the future? What theories do you find most useful for thinking about ways to change sport and society? 5. Are there strategies for social change that you find preferable to others? Explain. 6. Are there predictions offered in this chapter that you find especially compelling? Are there predictions that you take issue with? Explain your positions.

Suggested Readings Giroux, H. (2004). When hope is subversive. Tikkun, 19(6), 38–39. Gore, A. (2013). The future: Six drivers of global change. New York, NY: Random House. Miah, A. (2017). Sport 2.0: Transforming sports for a digital world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Millington, B. (2017). Fitness, technology and society: Amusing ourselves to life. New York: Routledge. Moylan, T., & Baccolini, R. (Eds.). (2009). Utopia method vision: The use value of social dreaming. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

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Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Klein, N. (2016). It was the Democrats’ embrace of neoliberalism that won it for Trump. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/riseof-the-davos-class-sealed-americas-fate. Used with permission. Marks, L. J., & Michael, J. W. (2001). Science, medicine, and the future: Artificial limbs. British Medical Journal, 323(7315), 732–735. McCallum, M., & Perry, A. (2018). Structures of indifference: An Indigenous life and death in a Canadian city. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Miah, A. (2004). Genetically modified athletes: Biomedical ethics, gene doping and sport. New York, NY: Routledge. Miah, A. (2010, February 5). Gene doping: A reality, but not a threat [Weblog post]. Professor Andy Miah. Retrieved from http://www.andymiah.net/2010/02/05/is-gene-doping-a-threatto-sport/. Used with permission. Millington, B. (2012). Amusing ourselves to life: Fitness consumerism and the birth of biogames. Journal of Sport and Social Issues. doi:10.1177/0193723512458932. Millington, B. (2013). Aging in the information age: An ethnographic study of video gaming in Canadian retirement centres. Paper presented at the Sport Canada Research Initiative Conference, Ottawa, ON. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. London, UK: Oxford. Nauert, R. (2018, August 8). Survey: Heavy Smartphone Use Tied to Anxiety, Loneliness, Depression. PsychCentral. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/04/12/ survey-heavy-smartphone-use-tied-to-anxiety-loneliness-depression/134590.html. Norman, M. (2012). Saturday night’s alright for tweeting: Cultural citizenship, collective discussion, and the new media consumption/production of Hockey Day in Canada. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(3), 306–324. Pray, L. (2008) Sports, gene doping, and WADA. Nature Education, 1(1), 77. Saunders, D. (2010). Arrival city: The final migration and our next world. Toronto, ON: Knopf Canada. Saunders, D. (2017). Maximum Canada: Why 35 million Canadians are not enough. Toronto: Knopf Canada. Staggenborg, S. (2008). Social movements. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Sullivan, E. (2018, February 19). Laura Ingraham told LeBron James to shut up and dribble; He went to the hoop. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ 2018/02/19/587097707/laura-ingraham-told-lebron-james-to-shutup-and-dribble-he-wentto-the-hoop. Thorpe, H., & Ahmad, N. (2013). Youth, action sports and political agency in the Middle East: Lessons from a grassroots parkour group in Gaza. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. doi: 10.1177/1012690213490521. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together. New York, NY: Basic Books. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London, UK: Routledge. Wheaton, B. (2008). From the pavement to the beach: Politics and identity in “Surfers Against Sewage.” In M. Atkinson & K. Young (Eds.), Tribal play: Subcultural journeys through sport (pp. 113–134). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing. Wilson, B. (2012). Sport & peace: A sociological perspective. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Wilson, B., & Hayhurst, L. (2009). Digital activism: Neo-liberalism, the internet, and “sport for development.” Sociology of Sport Journal, 26(1), 155–181. Winter, J. (2006). Dreams of peace and freedom: Utopian moments in the 20th century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Index 1867 Canada Act, 97 1930 British Empire Games, 267 1968 Summer Olympic Games, 8 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, 52, 247, 270 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, 264 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, 247 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 98 1988 Official Languages Act, 97 1996 Paralympic Games, 172 1998 Tour de France, 178 2001 British Medical Journal, 367 2001 Edmonton World Championships, 52 2006 Winter Olympics, 52 2007–2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey, 152 2008 Beijing Games, 346 2010 General Social Survey data, 105 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, 2, 10, 18, 32, 130, 180, 247, 272, 302 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, 10, 19, 274 2014 World Cup, 302 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report, 98 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, 173 2016 Rio Summer Games, 274 2017 North American Indigenous Games, 3 2017 Toronto Waterfront Marathon, 3 2018 Gay Games, 3 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, 32, 67, 276 2018 Winter Olympic Games, 9, 178 2022 World Cup, 264 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, 302 2026 Winter Olympic Games, 42, 267

A

Ableist belief systems, 172 Aboriginal peoples, 98 Active Healthy Kids Report Card, 153 Active play, 154

Adams, C., 51, 148 Adams, Jeff, 52, 53 Adams, Mary Louise, 121–139 Agency, 17 Aggression, 189, 191 Ahluwalia, Gurdeep, 248 Ahmad, N., 324 Albanese, P., 147 Ali, Adam, 100 Alienation, 34, 214, 223 Allen, Damon, 52 Alternative sport, 158 The Amateur Hockey Association of the United States (AHAUS), 63 Amateurism, 62 Amateur Soccer, 110 Amber, David, 247 Ambiguous ambivalence, 100 Anderson, S., 224 Andrews, D. L., 301 Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, 223 Anti-apartheid social ­movement, 260 Anti-sweatshop movements, 313 Appadurai, A., 323 Arctic Winter Games, 112 Arsenault, Michael, 160 Art of political communication, 261–262 The Assassin, 200 Assimilation, 111 Atkinson, Michael, 28, 361 Atlantic telegraph cable, 58 Audience commodity, 369 Austin, Rodney, 180 Autor, D., 80

B

Baker, Mary, 52 Bannerji, Himani, 45 BASE ethics, 174 Barnes, S., 121 Beal, B., 158, 361 Beamish, R., 73, 81, 176 Beckham, David, 311 Beers, G., 101

Belak, Wade, 197 Bell Canada wireless and wired ­networks, 2–3 Bertuzzi, Todd, 196 Bettman, Gary, 16, 196 Big Owe, 271 Billig, Michael, 247 Black, David, 257 Blackhawk property, 63 Boogaard, Derek, 197, 224 Boosting, 173 Borderline violence, 190 Bourdieu, Pierre, 84–87 Boxing, 188 Boykoff, J., 42, 333, 346 Boynton, Nick, 201 Brashear, Donald, 195–196 Broncos, Humboldt, 56, 99 Brudar, Silvia, 220 Brunswick, New, 58 Brutal body contact, 190 Bryshun, J., 204 B2ten, 275

C

CAHA. See Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) Calls to Action, 113–114, 372 Calvin, John, 35 Canada Games, 114 Canada Sports Hall of Fame (CSHoF), 52 Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA), 63, 64 Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Girls in Sport (CAAWS), 134 Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS), 243 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada, 8 Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), 132–134 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA), 133 Canadian federal sport system, 269

403

Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute (CFLRI), 150 Canadian Football League (CFL), 86, 168, 285–286 Canadian Heritage, 3, 88 Canadian Hockey Association (CHA), 61 Canadian Human Rights Act, 133, 134 Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), 4 Canadianness, 45 Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines, 87–88 Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), 235 Canadian society, 8, 356 Canadian Sport Policy 2012, 260 The Canadian Sport System, 269 Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL), 243 “Can-do” attitudes, 325 CANPLAY (CFLRI) study, 153 Cantelon, Hart, 38 Capital, 85 Capital (1867), 34 Capitalism, 314–315 Carcillo, Daniel, 204 Card, D., 80 Carlos, John, 8 Carmichael, Fiona, 276 Carnegie, Herb, 247 Cartel, 289–290 Catharsis, 191 Chand, D. 44 Channon, Alex, 131 Charlesworth, H., 202 Chen, X., 147 Cherry, Don, 197 Child, Wilton Little, 52 Choudry, A., 314 Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), 196, 198 Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, 42 Cisgender, 123 City of Champions, 15 Clarkson, Adrienne, 60 Clay, Bryan, 11 Coakley, J., 175, 219, 373 Coakley, V. A., 156, 158 Coburn, D., 358

404

Index

Co-ed Recreational Sport Settings for Adults, 131 Cold War, 178, 264, 267 Collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), 291–292 Colleges and universities, Canadian, 3 Colonialism, 113 Common sense, 19, 26–27, 170 The Communist Manifesto, 34 Comparative sensitivity, 15 Competitive balance, 288 Concussion crisis, 16 Conflict theory, 36–38, 147, 198, 214, 223 Connell, R. A., 19 Connell, R. W., 126 Constitution Act, 111 Contemporary sporting violence, 195–198 Contemporary theory, 84–87 Contested terrain, 13 Corporate social responsibility (CSR), 325 Corsaro, W., 150 Cosentino, F., 61, 101 Coursier, Isobel, 66–67 Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), 44 Couture, Jesse, 145, 156 Crawford, Chandra, 52, 53 Crescents, Alexandria, 194 Criminal violence, 190 Critical race theory, 105 Critical sensitivity, 15–16 Critical social theory, 55, 216 Critical sociological theory critical race studies, 45–46 gender relations and sexuality, 43–44 Crompton, J. L., 299 Crosby, Sidney, 60 Crossman, Jane, 1 CTE. See chronic traumatic ­encephalopathy (CTE) Culbert, A., 224 Cultural capital, 85 Culture, 12 Culture of risk, 219 Curtis, James, 32 Cyborg athletes, 173

D

Dallaire, Christine, 106 Darnell, Simon C., 309

Daspher, Katherine, 131 Davies, Alphonso, 365 Davis, N. W., 369 Deaflympics, 172 De Coubertin, Pierre, 27, 126 Deep politics, 266–267 Democratic revolutions, 28 Democratization, 3 Denis, Claude, 100 Depper, A., 156, 367 Deviance, 168. See also Sport bodies, 171–174 bodies and embodiments, 171–174 conceptualization, 169–170 dance, 168 embodiments, 171–174 on the field of play, 175–179 off the field of play, 179–181 social control, 174 sports and sporting identities, 181–182 Diaspora, 317 Digital health technologies, 155–156, 367, 369 Digital media, 234, 244, 245 Digital technologies, 235 Discrimination, 101 Dodd, Mike, 11 Doherty, A., 149 Dominant, 97 Donnelly, M., 137, 146, 147 Donnelly, P., 3, 27, 38, 98, 99, 102, 103, 137, 138, 157, 160, 373 Doran, P. J., 61 Downey, Allan, 59 Drapeau, Mayor, 271 Drugs, 176–178 policing performance-enhancing, 178–179 in sport, 175–176 Dryden, K., 16, 192 Dubin Inquiry, 171 Duncan, Carlisle, 128 Duncan, M. C. 128, 369 Durkheim, Émile, 30–31

E

Easton, David, 258 Ecological modernization (EM), 332 definition, 341–342 and sport management, 342–343 wrong with, 343–347 Economic capital, 85 Economic inequality, 79–81 Edmonton Grads, 15

Education, 2, 3 Einstein, Albert, 26 Elite athletes, 81 Elite sport agenda, 275 Embodiment, 171–174, 212 Engels, F., 82 Entry drafts, 293 Environment, 369–371 changes impact, 333–339 ecological modernization, 341–347 issues, 332–333 reflections on politics, 347–349 sociology, 339–340 sustainability, 340–341 Equality of condition, 75 Equality of opportunity, 75 Ermineskin Cree Nation, 52 Erythropoietin (EPO), 176 Eskimo, 112 Ethnicity, 96. See also Race media, 247–248 relations, 98–101 structure, 97–101 theory, 104–105 Ethnic-structured sport systems, 101–104 Euro-Canadian sports, 111

F

Facility construction subsidies, 299–301 Fan cost index (FCI), 297 Father of Medicine, 211 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), 232, 263 Felicien, Perdita, 172 Female athletes, 128–129 Feminism, 136–137 Feminist studies, 43 Field, 85 FIFA World Cup, 9 Fight in hockey, 195–196 for inclusion, 66–68 First Nations Elite Bantam AAA, 68 Fleras, Augie, 310 Fletcher, Thomas, 131 Fluid drug, 177 Forced labour, 34 Forsyth, J., 68, 69, 95, 96 Fortin, N., 80 Francophones, 105–106 Franklin, Jermain, 247 Free Footie Edmonton, 365 Frideres, J., 110

Friedman, H., 89 Friedman, M. T., 301 Frustration–aggression hypothesis, 191 Functionalism, 30

G

Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador and the Future of Hockey, 16 Gamification, 155 Gary Roberts High Performance Training, 89 Gay, 135–136 Gemar, E., 86 Gemeinschaft, 83, 84 Gender, 123, 243–245 binary system, 122–123 inclusion, 133–134 performances, 199 and sex differences, 129–130 social construction, 124–125 Genetically Modified Athletes, 368 Gesellschaft, 83 Giddens, Anthony, 6 Gilbert, R., 250 Giles, Audrey R., 95, 96 Gilliam, Joe, 109 Gillmor, D., 88 Gini index, 77, 78 The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada (2016), 43 Girl effect, 325 Girls’ hockey, 157 Gladwell, M., 221 Gleaves, J., 177 Global Forum for Sport and Environment, 371 Globalization, 264, 363–364 approach and study, 315–317 and capitalism, 314–315 and indigenous peoples, 313–314 and international development, 317–321 postcolonialism, 319 to sport, 311–312 sustainable development goals, 322–323 theories, 312 Goal-rational action, 36, 213 Goffman, Erving, 181 GoFundMe campaign, 100 Golob, M., 95, 96 Goodyear, V. A., 156, 367

Governance, 357–358 Gramsci, Antonio, 19, 41 Greater Toronto Area (GTA), 102 Greater Toronto Hockey League AAA, 88 Greaves, Lorraine, 138 Greek Olympic program, 188 Green Sports Alliance, 371 Green-washing, 345 Gretzky, Wayne, 60 Grix, Jonathan, 276 Gruneau, R., 10, 18, 57, 59, 61, 81, 156 Guest, A. M., 323

H

Habitus, 85 Hall, A., 4, 15, 43 Hall, Rob, 182 Hankivsky, Olena, 138 Hannigan, John, 348 Hargreaves, Alison, 182 Hargreaves, J. E., 12 Harper, Stephen, 261–262 Harris, James, 109 Harvey, J., 3, 106 Hayhurst, Lyndsay M. C., 309, 359 Health culture of risk, 218–224 implications of conceptualizing, 211–214 neoliberal era, 217–218 sport, 215–217 Healthism, 217–218 Hegemonic masculinity, 19, 126, 193, 201 Hegemony, 19, 41, 259, 345 Henrrich, Taylor, 66 Heteronormativity, 124 Hibbeln, Maya, 257 Historical sensitivity, 14–15, 54–55 Humboldt tragedy, 56–57 HIV, 181 Hobbes, Thomas, 212 Hockey cost of, 88 fighting in, 195–196 for girls and women, 63–65 minor hockey for boys, 61–63 National Hockey League, 60–61 Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC), 10, 64, 100, 234, 248–249 Hofmann, A., 54 Holman, Margery, 204 Homophobia, 124

Index

405

Howe, Gordie, 60 Howe, P. D., 156, 214, 367 Huber, Joseph, 341 Hughes, R., 175, 219 Human growth hormone (HGH), 176 Humboldt tragedy, 56–57 Humphreys, Brad R., 283 The Hunger Games, 203 Hylton, K., 105

I

Ice hockey, 66 Ideology, 19, 259, 345 Idle No More (INM), 18, 313 Income inequality, 77 Indian Act, 68, 111 Indian Horse, 69 Indigenous peoples, 68–69, 98, 111–112 globalization and, 313–314 Industrial Revolution, 29, 57 Ingham, Alan, 31, 35, 147 Injury talk strategies, 214 Instinct theory, 191 Institutionalization, 10, 61 Intergenerational inequity, 332, 370 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), 44 International development globalization and, 317–319 and postcolonialism, 319 sport in, 320–321 International division of labour, 314 International Ice Hockey federation (IIHF), 63 International nongovernmental sport, 366 International Olympic Committee (IOC), 4, 44, 66, 67, 125–126, 263, 301, 323 International Ski Federation, 18, 67, 130, 220 International sports organizations (ISOs), 263 International Year of Sport and Physical Education (IYSPE), 216 Intersectionality, 123 Interspecies inequity, 333 Intra-generational inequity, 333 Invictus (2009), 265 ITunes, 233

J

Jacobs, Jeremy, 74 James, G., 160, 205

406

Index

James, LeBron, 311 Jelinek, Otto, 32 Jenkins, S., 219 Jerome, Harry, 247 Jette, S., 54 Jeux de la francophonie canadienne (JFC), 106 Jock clique, 199 John, Saint, 58 Johnson, Ben, 32, 171 Johnson, Magic, 181 Jumpstart charity, 359

K

Kadri, Nazem, 74 Kaepernick, Colin, 179, 180 Karim, Nabil, 248 Karkazis, Katrina, 132 Karnilowicz, Wally, 32 Kasper, Gian Franco, 67 Kearins, K., 344 Kennedy, Sheldon, 160 Kenyon, G., 81 Keon, Dave, 52 Kerner, C., 156 Kerr, Gretchen, 138 Kidd, Bruce, 27, 60, 61 Kimmel, Michael, 193 King, C. R., 112 King, S., 177 Kirby, Sandra, 52, 53, 138 Klein, Naomi, 362 Koss, Johann Olav, 321 Kuper, Simon, 32 Kyle, Donald, 188

L

Labour conflict, 37 Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA), 63–64 Lake, Robert, 131 Lalji, Farhan, 247 Lance Armstrong, 176 Laumann, Silken, 173 Laurendeau, Jason, 145, 148, 167, 182 Laurin, Alcide, 194 LeClair, Catherine, 131 Lefkowitz, Bernard, 199 Legacies, 303–304 Legitimacy, 190 Legitimate sport, 108 Lemieux, T., 78, 80 Leonard, David, 106 Leonard, M., 158 Lesbian, 135–136

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ), 244–245 Liberian Civil War, 365 Liodakis, N., 107 Livingston, L. A., 102 Llewellyn, M., 177 Lockouts, 291 London Olympic Games Organizing Committee (LOCOG), 338 Loney, Allan, 194 Longboat, Tom, 247 Lorber, Judith, 129 Lorenz, Konrad, 191 Lorenz, Stacy L., 187 Love of the Game, 159 Lowes, Mark, 249–250 Loy, John, 32 Lu, John, 247 Lukes, Steven, 259 Lundby, Maren, 67 Lupton, Deborah, 148, 182 Luxury taxes, 293–295 Lynch, Zoya, 67

M

MacGregor, Roy, 233 Macrosociology, 38 Maese, R., 219 Major League Baseball (MLB), 86, 286 Major League Soccer (MLS), 286 Male athlete violence, 198–200 Manning, A., 80 Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), 232 Marginality theory, 104 Marner, Mitch, 74 Marx, Karl, 17, 33–34, 76, 82–83 Mascarenhas, G., 333, 346 Masculinity hegemonic, 193, 201 violence, 193–194 Mason, D., 301 Mass media, 233 Matthews, Auston, 74 McDavid, Connor, 60 McDermott, L., 261 McDonaldization, 315 McLaren report, 178 McRobbie, A., 13 McSorley, Marty, 195–196 McTeer, J., 214 Mead, George Herbert, 38–40 Media, the continuity and change in, 236–237 costs of rights, 232

CTV Era, 237–238 ethnicity, 247–248 ideological role, 241–243 militarism, 245–247 nationalism, 245–247 new sport broadcasting order, 238–240 race, 247–248 sport journalism, 249–251 technology and, 366–369 viewing rights, 240–241 Mega-events, 301. See also Sport Men and women separate events, 130 Men at Play: A Working Understanding of Professional Hockey, 40 Men’s hockey, 63–65 Meritocracy, 74 Messner, Michael, 188, 198–199 #MeToo, 138 Miah, Andy, 368 Microsociology, 38, 40 Milbury, Mike, 196 Militarism, 245–247 Miller, A. J., 102 Miller, Damian, 180 Miller, Roy, 180 Milliat, Alice, 43 Mills, C. W., 13, 14, 26, 125, 146, 168, 360 Millington, Brad, 330, 367, 369 Mind, Self, and Society, 38 Minimum wage, 80 Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport, 32 Minor hockey for boys, 61–63 Minority, 97 Misener, L., 301 Mixed martial arts (MMA), 188 Modernization, 57 Modern Olympic Games, 301 “Modern” sport, 57 Modes of production, 34 Monopoly, 290 Monopsony, 290 Montgomery, Jon, 181 Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, 60 The Montreal Canadiens, 61 Montreal Pedestrian Club, 101 Moon, Warren, 108, 109 Moore, Steve, 196 Moral codes, 181 Moral panic, 148, 175 Morin, Marie-Pierre, 67 Moroz, S., 182

Morrow, D., 59 Mosse, D., 314 Muller, M., 301 Multiculturalism, 100 Munro, John, 75 Myth of meritocracy, 157

N

Nahanee, Harriet, 348 Nakamura, Y., 102, 103 Nassar, Larry, 160 National Basketball Association (NBA), 86, 181, 286 National Football League (NFL), 86, 112, 219, 221, 287 The National Game, 59 The National Hockey Association (NHA), 61 National Hockey League (NHL), 2, 37, 60–61, 74, 86, 109, 168, 179, 287–288, 344 Nationalism, 245–247 Banal nationalism, 247 Canadian Nationalism, 58–65 National Sport Organizations (NSOs), 138, 160 National Sports Act, 59 National Sports Organization (NSO), 262 National/state-level politics, 265–266 National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), 243 Neo, H., 343 Neoliberalism, 153, 315 Neoliberal policies, 310 Neoliberal principles, 358 Netflix, 233 New York Times, 335 Niagara Turf Club, 101 Nike, 313 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 359–360 Non-whitestream race, 101–104 Norman, Mark, 8, 137, 231, 369 The North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball ­tournament, 102–103 North American Indigenous Games (NAIG), 45, 53, 103 Northern Games Society, 108 Nylander, William, 74

O

O’Brien, M. J., 61 Ogi, Adolf, 322

“Old-time” hockey, 197 Oligopoly, 235 Olympic(s), 18. See also London Olympic Games Organizing Committee (LOCOG) Athens Olympic Games, 172 Beijing Olympic Games, 132, 346 bids, and Calgary Olympics, 2026 bids, 303 Calgary Winter Olympics, 247 Special Olympics, 172 Winter Olympics, 9, 42, 52, 168, 178, 273, 267, 302 Olympic Games Impact (OGI) Study, 274 Olympic Television Rights, US Network Payments for, 232 Ontario Hockey League (OHL), 294 Opposition, 361 O’Ree, Willie, 109–110 Organization for the Security and Co-operation of Europe (OSCE), 263 Orwell, George, 245 Osaka, Naomi, 107 Osborn, Duffield, 193 The Ottawa Senators, 61 Our Guys, 199 Out of Bounds: Women, Sport & Sexuality, 43 Ownership forms, 295–296 Own the Podium (OTP), 275

P

Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), 61 Pain, 173 Pankration, 188 Paradigm Sports, 159 Paralympic Games, 172 Paraschak, Victoria, 95, 96 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth, 152 Participatory sport, 358–359 Patriarchy, 123 Pavlovich, K., 344 Peacock, Byron, 263 Peers, Danielle, 167 Perks, Thomas, 149 Petherick, L., 157 Physical activity, 358–362 Physical culture, 216 definition, 12–13 future of, 371–373

Index

407

Physical literacy, 155–156 Pitter, Robert, 109–110 The Players’ Tribune, 201 Policy definition, 258–261 professional sports leagues, 288–289 Political community, 258 Politics, 258 athlete assistance, 275–277 counter-hegemonic, 259 deep politics, 266–267 definition, 258–261 of high performance sport, 275–277 international/global, 263–265 national/state-level, 265–266 principal currency, 259 and sport intersect, 262–263 of sports mega-events, 267–272 Pollard, Fritz, 109 Positive deviance, 175, 219 The Poverty of Philosophy, 82 Power, 83, 259 sociology, 17–19 sport and, 10–12 Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics, 42 Practical consciousness, 7–8, 97, 212 Pray, Leslie, 368 Precautionary approach, 335, 346 Predestination, 35 Preston Rivulettes, 65 Private sector, 359–360 Professionalism, 62 Professional Sports Broadcasting Rights, Network Payments for, 233 Professional sports leagues, 284–285 attendance, 296 Canadian Football League, 285–286 cartel, 289–290 collective bargaining, 291–292 entry drafts, 293 Free Agency, 290–291 international issues, 301–302 Major League Baseball, 286 Major League Soccer, 286 media revenues, 298 mega-event bidding and costs, 302–303 mega-event legacy effects, 303–304 Monopsony Power, 290–291 National Basketball Association, 286 National Football League, 287

408

Index

National Hockey League, 287–288 public policy, 299–301 Reserve Clause, 290–291 salary caps and luxury taxes, 293–295 sponsorship revenues, 298 structure and policy, 288–289 team outcomes, 295–298 tickets pricing, 297–298 work stoppages, 291–292 Prolympism, 146–147, 361 Promotional politics, 268 Pronger, B., 213 Prosumption, 235 The Protestant Ethic, 35 Provincial Sport Organizations (PSOs), 160

Q

Quasi-criminal violence, 190 Quebec Major Junior League (QMJHL), 294 Quennerstedt, M., 156

R

Raby, R., 147 Race, 96 media, 247–248 patterns, 108–111 relations, 98–101 sport, 106–108 structure, 97–101 theory, 104–105 Racism, 68–69, 107 Rebagliati, Ross, 168 Recolonialism, 113 Recreational facilities, 154 Redmen, 113 Reductionist paradigm, 212 Renold, Emma, 126 Residential schools, 69, 149 Retrosi, Samantha, 203 Revenue streams, 296–298 Reverse racism, 103 Richard, Maurice, 60 Richards, Cabral, 248 Rickey, Branch, 108 Riddell, C., 80 Riddell, W., 78 Ridge, Glen, 199 Rielly, Morgan, 74 Risk society, 182 Ritchie, Ian, 25, 104, 176 Ritzer, G., 310 Robidoux, Michael, 40

Robinson, Jackie, 108 Robinson, Laura, 205, 245 Rogers Communications Incorporated (RCI), 74 Rooney Rule, 99 Rosentraub, M. S., 284 Rowing World Championships, 58 Roxborough, Henry, 41 Rubin, Gayle, 123, 125 Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), 74, 178 Rypien, Rick, 197

S

Safai, Parissa, 210 Salary caps, 293–295 Sanderson, Don, 196 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL), 58, 99–100 Saturday Night, 194 Satzewich, V., 107 Saunders, Doug, 364, 365 Scherer, Jay, 1, 8, 231, 261, 355, 369 Scott, Dan, 335 Self, 39 Semenya, Caster, 44 Sex binary system, 122–123 and gender differences, 129–130 tests, 44, 132–133 Sex-segregated Sport, 154 Sexual assault, 160 Sexuality, 243–245 Seymena, Caster, 132 Shanahan, S., 147 Shan, Zhang, 130 Shoemaker, Jarrod, 334 Ski cross, 220 Ski jumping, 66, 130 Slack, T., 4 Smith, C., 80 Smith, G., 4 Smith, M. D., 189, 190, 192 Smith, Tommie, 8 Soccer, 32 Soccernomics (2009), 32 Sochi Games, 137 Social change, 55 Social class, 81 Social conflict, 34 Social construction, 124–125 Social control, deviance, 174 Social determinants of health (SDOH), 217, 218 Social facts, 31

Social gradient, 218 Social integration, 31 Socialization, 148–150 and sport, 40 Social learning theory, 191, 192 Social science, 5 Social stratification, 74–76 early theories, 82–87 financial burden, 87–89 fundamental equalities, 75 social inequality, 75–81 unequal class relations, 87–89 Social structure, 17 resource category, 17 rule category, 17 Sociological imagination, 13–17, 54–55, 168, 189, 193–194 Sociological theory conflict theory, 36–38 critical, 41–46 criticisms of functionalism, 33 everyday experiences, 38–40 functions of sport, 31–33 historical context, 28–29 putting theories, 30 social facts, 31 social integration, 31 structural-functionalism, 30 theory vs. common sense, 26–27 Sociologists activities, 6–7 change strategies, 373–374 roles of, 6 Sociology agency, 17 hegemony, 19 ideology, 19 issues, 29 power, 17–19 social structure, 17 of sport, 6–10 Sock Diplomacy, 261–262 Soebbing, Brian P., 283 South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC), 260 Spanish Indian Residential School, 111 The Spirit of Capitalism, 35 Spoiled identity, 181 Sport brain trauma, 221 conflict theory and, 36–38 culture, 200–202 death in, 220 deep politics, 266–267

definition, 10–12 development in Canada, 56–58 deviance, 169 drugs in, 175–176 ecological modernization, 341–347 emergence of, 6 female athletes, 128–129 formal vs. informal, 11 francophones, 105–106 functions of, 31–33 future of, 371–373 hazing in, 204–205 income and involvement in, 3 inequalities in, 3 international/global politics, 263–265 journalism, 249–251 meaning of, 6 mental health, 215 microsociology, 40 mirror, 5 national/state-level politics, 265–266 non-Anglophones in, 3 opportunities and pleasurable ­experiences, 4 participation, 87–89 and physical activity, 3, 4 and physical culture, 104–105 politics intersect and, 262–263 popularity and visibility of, 10 power and performance model of, 7–8 questions and political issues, 5 race, 106–108 and sexual assault, 160 social construction of, 11 social issues in, 7 social stratification, 74–76 social world and, 5 society and, 5–6 sociological analysis of, 4 sociological variables in, 4 sociology, 5–10 stratification of, 6 sustainability and, 340–341 violence, 192 (see also Violence) women in, 3 Sport and Social Clubs of Canada (SSCC), 130 Sport-driven environmental impacts, 338–339 Sport ethic, 175 Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) concept and practice, 311

emergence, 321–322 research, 323–324 Sport mega-event (SME), 258, 267–272 environmental impacts, 336–338 politics, 267–272 Sports and Global Warming, 333 SportsCenter, 128 SportsCentre, 248 Sports crowd violence, 189 Sports–media complex, 235 Sports-related violence (SRV), 189–190, 203 Sport typing, 129 Stade Olympique, 271 Standard sociological variables, 4 Stände, 83, 84 Stanley Cup, 60 Stanley, Frederick Arthur, 60 Staudohar, P. D., 291 Stepnisky, J., 310 Steroids, 176 Stigma, 181 Stockholm Consensus, 133 Strikes, 291 Structural-functionalism, 30 Subban, P. K., 110, 247 Subcultures, 40 Suicide, 32 Suicide: A Study in Sociology, 30 Summit Series, 264 Supercrip, 174 2005 Supreme Court, 124 Sustainability, 332 Symbolic capital, 85 Symbolic interactionism, 39 Szto, Courtney, 100 Szymanski, Stefan, 32

T

Tavares, John, 74 Taylor, T., 149 Televised sports manhood formula, 244 Terminology, 97 Thibault, L., 301 Thompson, Shona, 43 Thorpe, H., 324 Tirone, S., 102 Tolerable deviance, 169 Toronto Blue Jays, 250 Toronto Daily Star, 64 Toronto FC, 232 Toronto Maple Leafs, 74, 232, 250 Toronto Raptors, 232

Index

409

Total income, 79 Tough-guy masculinity, 127 Traceurs, 361 Transfrontier inequity, 332 Transgender, 123, 133–134 Transsexuals, 123 Travers, Ann, 133 Tripping Up Trump, 349 Trudeau, Justin, 32, 261–262 Trudeau, Pierre, 32, 46, 261 Truman, Harry, 317–318 Trump, Donald, 312, 362 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 69, 113–114 Turkle, S., 367

U

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), 188 Uncertainty of outcome, 288 Union wage, 80 United Nations Human Development Index, 318 United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace, 216 US Open Golf Championships, 9

V

Vancouver 2010, 272–275 Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), 18, 273 Van, Lindsey, 130 Ventresca, Matt, 198 Vertinsky, P., 12, 54 Vick, Michael, 180 Vietnam War, 8 Vincent, John, 174 Violence borderline, 190 classification, 189–191

410

Index

contemporary sport, 195–198 costs and consequences, 196–197 criminal, 190 critical framework, 198–202 historical sensitivity, 193–194 injury and sport culture, 200–202 institutionalization, 193 male athlete violence, 198–200 masculinity, 193–194 quasi-criminal, 190 sociological imagination, 193–194 sports-related, 202–205 theories, 191–192 Vívofit® jr., 155 Voices for Democracy (VFD), 259 Vision of the future, 368

W

Wagamese, Richard, 69 Walvin, James, 126 Wamsley, K. G., 59 War minus the shooting, 245 Weak at the Knees, 223 Weber, Max, 35–36, 76, 83–84 Weekes, Kevin, 247 Weir, Johnny, 245 Western Hockey League (WHL), 294 Wheaton, B., 361 White, P. G., 214, 223 Whitestream society, 100 Whitestream sport system, 102, 110 Whitson, D., 4, 10, 59, 61 Willis, Katie, 67 Wilson, Brian, 1, 330, 355, 359, 369 Wimbledon, 9 Winfree, J. A., 284 Winter X Games, 159 Women’s hockey, 63–65 Women’s sport transformation, 137–139 Women’s Sport Network (WTSN), 243

Workers’ Sports Association of Canada, 41 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), 74, 168, 178–179, 367 World Chess Boxing Organization, 10 World Cup, 264, 302 World Indigenous Games, 53 World Rock Paper Scissors Society, 10 World Track and Field Championships, 32 World War I, 61 World War II, 317, 356

X

X Games, 159

Y

Young, K., 189, 202, 204, 214, 222, 223 Youth agency, 324 Youth sport alternative, 158–159 digital health technologies, 155–156 disability, 151 dropout, 156–158 parents, coaches, ethics, and fair play, 159–161 participation, 150–152 physical literacy, 155–156 policies, recommendations, and guidelines, 152–154 prolympism, 146–148 socialization, 148–150 withdrawal, 156–158

Z

Zimbalist, Andrew, 42 Zoricic, Nik, 220