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

Contents

Preface ix Understanding Everyday Experiences: George Herbert

Acknowledgments xiii Mead and Symbolic Interactionism 38
George Herbert Mead 38
Contributors xiv
Microsociology and Sport 40
1 Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Critical Social Theories 41
Critical Theories 41
Society 1
Gender Relations and Sexuality 43
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1 Critical Race Studies 45
Introduction 2 Conclusion 46
Sociology as a Social Science 5 Key Terms 47
Origins of the Sociology of Sport 8 Critical Thinking Questions 48
Defining Sport: Power at Play 10 Suggested Readings 48
Defining Physical Culture 12 References 49
The Sociological Imagination 13
Key Sociological Concepts 17 3 Sport and Physical Culture in Historical
Social Structure and Agency 17
Power 17
Perspective 51
Hegemony and Ideology 19 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 51

Conclusion 20 Introduction 52
Key Terms 21 The Sociological Imagination and its Historical
Critical Thinking Questions 22 Sensitivity 54
Suggested Readings 22 Applying a Historical Sensitivity 54
Endnote 22 The Humboldt Tragedy, Canadian Hockey, and the
References 23 History of Organized Sport in Canada 56
The Development of Organized Sport
in Canada 56
2 Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical
Hockey and Canadian Nationalism 58
Culture, and Critical Theory 25 The Fight for Inclusion 66
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 25 Indigenous Peoples, Racism,
Introduction 26 and Hockey 68
Understanding Sociological Theory: General Themes Conclusion 69
and Historical Contexts 26 Key Terms 70
Theory versus “Common Sense” 26 Critical Thinking Questions 70
Historical Context 28 Suggested Readings 71
Putting Theories in Context 30 References 71
Social Facts: Émile Durkheim and Structural
Functionalism 30 4 Sport and Social Stratification 73
Émile Durkheim 30
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 73
The Functions of Sport 31
Criticisms of Functionalism 33 Introduction 74
Class and Goal-Rational Action: Karl Marx, Max Weber, Sport and Social Stratification: Some
and Conflict Theory 33 Preliminary Terms 74
Karl Marx 33 Social Inequality: The Canadian Profile 76
Max Weber 35 Factors Contributing to Economic
Conflict Theory and Sport 36 Inequality 79

v
 Early Theories of Class 82 Transgender Athletes in Sex-Segregated
Karl Marx 82 Sport 133
Max Weber 83 Lesbian and Gay Issues 135
Bourdieu’s Contemporary Theory 84 Feminism and Women’s Sport 136
Unequal Class Relations and the Financial Burden of The Transformation of Women’s Sport 137
Sport Participation 87
Conclusion 139
Conclusion 90 Key Terms 140
Key Terms 91 Critical Thinking Questions 140
Critical Thinking Questions 91 Suggested Readings 141
Suggested Readings 92 References 141
References 92
7 Youth Sport and Physical Culture 145
5 Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race LEARNING OBJECTIVES 145
in Canada 95 Introduction 146
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 95 Prolympism and Defining “The Child” 146
Introduction 96 Youth Sport and Socialization 148
Terminology 97 Youth Sport Participation: How Many, Who, and in
The Ethnic and Racial Structuring of Canada 97 What Ways? 150
Race and Ethnic Relations 98 Policies, Recommendations, and Guidelines about
Non-Whitestream Race- and Ethnic-Structured Sport Young People 152
Systems 101 Physical Literacy and Digital Health
Using Theory to Make Sense of Ethnicity and Race in Technologies 155
Sport and Physical Culture 104 Dropout and Withdrawal in Youth Sport 156
Francophones and Sport in Canada 105 “Alternative” Youth Sport 158
Race and Sport 106 Parents, Coaches, Ethics, and Fair Play 159
Racial Patterns in Canadian Sport: The Persistence of Conclusion 161
Whitestream Sport 108 Key Terms 162
Indigenous Peoples and Sport 111 Critical Thinking Questions 162
Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action: Suggested Readings 163
Challenging Whitestream Sport 113 References 163

Conclusion 115 8 Deviance, Sport, and Physical

Key Terms 115
Culture 167
Critical Thinking Questions 116
Suggested Readings 116 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 167
References 117 Introduction 168
Conceptualizing Deviance 169
6 Sex, Gender, and Sexuality 121 Deviance and Otherness 170
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 121 Deviantized Bodies and Embodiments 171
Introduction 122 Social Control 174
Clarifying Our Terms 122 Deviance on the “Field of Play” 175
Social Construction: A Framework for Thinking Drugs in Sport 175
Which Drugs? 176
about Gender Norms 124
Policing Performance-Enhancing Drugs 178
Is Sport Really a Male Thing? 125
Deviance off the Field of Play 179
Female Athletes in Sport Media 128
Deviantized Sports and Sporting Identities 181
Sex and Gender Differences in Sport 129
Separate Events for Men and Women 130 Conclusion 183
Sex Testing in Sport 132 Key Terms 183

vi Contents
 Critical Thinking Questions 184 Continuity and Change in the Canadian Sports–Media
Suggested Readings 184 Complex 236
References 184 The CTV Era 237
A New Sport Broadcasting Order? 238
9 Violence and Sport 187 The End of “Viewing Rights” for
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 187 Canadians? 240
The Ideological Role of the Media 241
Introduction 188
(Re)presenting Sport 241
Describing and Classifying Forms of Violence 189 Gender and Sexuality 243
Theories of Violence 191 Militarism and Nationalism 245
Violence, Masculinity, and the Sociological Imagination: Race and Ethnicity 247
Historical Sensitivity 193 Sports Journalism: Critical Thinking? 249
Contemporary Sporting Violence 195
Conclusion 251
Thinking Sociologically about Fighting in Hockey
Key Terms 253
and “The Code” 195
Critical Thinking Questions 253
The Costs and Consequences of Violence 196
Suggested Readings 253
A Critical Framework for Understanding Violence
Endnotes 254
in Sport 198
References 254
Three Forms of Male Athlete Violence 198
Injury, Violence, and Sport Culture 200
12 Sport, Politics, and Policy 257
Sports-Related Violence: A Wider View 202
Hazing in Sport 204 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 257
Introduction 258
Conclusion 205
Defining and Understanding Politics and Policy 258
Key Terms 206
Critical Thinking Questions 207 Where and How Do Sport and Politics Intersect? 262
Suggested Readings 207 Sport and International/Global Politics 263
References 207 Sport and National/State-Level Politics 265
Sport and “Deep Politics” 266
The Politics of Sports Mega-Events in Canada 267
10 Sport and Health 210
Vancouver 2010 272
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 210 The Changing Politics of High Performance Sport
Introduction 211 and Athlete Assistance 275
The Health Implications of Conceptualizing the
Conclusion 277
Body as Machine 211
Key Terms 278
Sport as Panacea? 215 Critical Thinking Questions 278
Healthism and the Neoliberal Era 217 Suggested Readings 278
The Darkest Side of the Culture of Risk 219 Endnotes 279
Conclusion 224 References 279
Key Terms 225
Critical Thinking Questions 225
13 The Business of Sport 283
Suggested Readings 226 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 283
Endnote 226 Introduction 284
References 226 Overview of Professional Sports 284
Canadian Football League 285
11 Sport, Media, and Ideology 231 Major League Baseball 286
Major League Soccer 286
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 231
National Basketball Association 286
Introduction 232 National Football League 287
The Sports–Media Complex 235 National Hockey League 287

Contents vii
 League Structure and Policy 288 Sport and Environmental Issues: What’s the
Cartels and Sports Leagues 289 Problem? 332
The Reserve Clause, Free Agency, and How Environmental Changes Impact
Monopsony Power 290 Sport 333
Work Stoppages and Collective Bargaining 291 How Sport Impacts the (Natural)
Other League Policies 292 Environment 336
Team Outcomes 295 Sociology, the Environment, and Sport 339
Ownership Forms 295 Sustainability and Sport 340
Revenue Streams 296 Ecological Modernization and Sport: A More
Public Policy on Sports Leagues 299 Nuanced Version of Sustainability 341
Facility Construction Subsidies 299 Reflections on Environmental Politics:
International Issues: The Olympic Games and Maintaining and Resisting the Status Quo 347
World Cup 301 Conclusion 349
Mega-Event Bidding and Costs 302 Key Terms 350
Mega-Event Legacy Effects 303 Critical Thinking Questions 351
Conclusion 305 Suggested Readings 351
Key Terms 305 References 351
Critical Thinking Questions 306
Suggested Readings 306
16 Sport and the Future 355
Endnote 307
References 307 LEARNING OBJECTIVES 355
Introduction 356
14 Globalization, Sport, and International Governance 357
Development 309 Prediction #1 358
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 309 Prediction #2 359
Prediction #3 360
Introduction 310
Prediction #4 362
Connecting Globalization to Sport 311
Globalization 363
Theories of Globalization, Development, and
Prediction #5 364
Inequality 312 Prediction #6 366
Globalization and Indigenous Peoples 313 Technology and Media 366
Globalization and Capitalism 314 Prediction #7 366
Approaching and Studying Globalization 315 Prediction #8 367
Globalization and International Development 317 Prediction #9 369
International Development and Postcolonialism 319 Environment 369
Sport in Globalization and International Development 320 Prediction #10 371
The Emergence of SDP 321 An Invitation to Consider Other Questions about the
Sport and the Sustainable Development Goals 322 Future of Sport and Physical Culture 371
Research in SDP 323 How Sociologists and Others Can Drive Social
Change 373
Conclusion 325
Strategies for Change 373
Key Terms 326
Critical Thinking Questions 326 Conclusion 374
Suggested Readings 326 Critical Thinking Questions 374
References 327 Suggested Readings 375
References 375
15 Sport and the Environment 330
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 330 References 377
Introduction 331 Index 403

viii Contents
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 gov-
erned, 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 experi-
ences 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, rela-
tionships 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 par-
ticipate in various sports in Canada are by no means equitable, and that significant
and enduring issues and problems remain in contemporary sport and physical cul-
ture. More importantly, they learn that the personal troubles that individuals experi-
ence 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 bor-
ders 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 immi-
grants 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 chap-
ter 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 contribu-
tions. 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 socio-
logically 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 under-
stand sport and physical culture. Since it is impossible to provide a complete inven-
tory 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 lead-
ership in institutionalizing various sports and “preferred ways of playing” that have
set powerful limits and pressures on the sporting opportunities of Canadians, espe-
cially 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 par-
ticular 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 embed-
ded. 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 performance-
enhancing 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-for-
granted 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 con-
cludes 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 consumer-
ism, nationalism, and militarism, as well as other gender and racial/ethnic ideolo-
gies. 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 hun-
dreds of millions of dollars of public funds to host sport mega-events, or the invest-
ment 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 xi
 major league sports franchises in relation to social class, gender, and race and ethnic-
ity. 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 develop-
ment, 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 well-
intentioned ­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 activi-
ties impact (and may impact) the environment. Their chapter focuses especially on
how sport organizations have responded to concerns about sport-related environ-
mental 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

xii Preface
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 experi-
ences. 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 guid-
ance 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 encour-
agement. This book is dedicated to them.
Jay Scherer and Brian Wilson

xiii
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 contempo-
rary 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 his-
tory 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 embodi-
ment, walking, and digital fitness tracking.

xiv
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, technol-
ogy, science, and culture. She recently defended her dissertation, a project that exam-
ined 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 pub-
lished 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 poli-
tics and development—notably, the politics of sport mega-events and sport for devel-
opment. 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 inter-
ests include digital health technologies, urban running cultures, social and discur-
sive 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 xv
 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 sustainabil-
ity 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 spe-
cial 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 investiga-
tor 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, poli-
tics, 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 com-
munities 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, multi-
culturalism, 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 gov-
ernance, 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

xvi Contributors
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 eco-
nomics 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 pur-
suits, 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, sociocul-
tural 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 rela-
tionship 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).

Contributors xvii
 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 pro-
duction 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 recre-
ation. 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 work-
ing with others to enhance Wikipedia entries on elite Indigenous athletes, now number-
ing 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, recre-
ation, 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 sociol-
ogy of the modern Olympic Games. Ian’s research interests include performance-
enhancing 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 organiza-
tion 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 ethnocul-
tural 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 pub-
lished over 50 peer-reviewed articles in the research areas of sport management,
economics, gambling studies, and urban studies. He currently serves on eight edito-
rial boards and is the associate editor for Sport & Entertainment Review and the
International Journal of Sport Finance.

Contributors xix
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: The Canadian team wins at
the Women’s Football Bronze
1 Explain the social significance of sport and physical culture in Canada. Medal match between Brazil
and Canada, 2016.
2 Discuss the differences between sociology and other disciplines in the social
Robert Cianflone - FIFA/FIFA/Getty
sciences. Images

3 Explain and define key sociological concepts.

4 Discuss the importance of having a “sociological imagination.”

1
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 per-
vasive 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 experi-
ences 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 perfor-
mance 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 per-
centage 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 Chapter 1
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 avail-
able to Canadians have increased over the past 50 years, sport and leisure is democra-
tizing 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 oppor-
tunities 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 empha-
sized 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 experi-
ences 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 immi-
grants participate in sport less than recent immigrants do.

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 3

 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 socio-
logical 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 perpetu-
ates unequal class relations and unequal access to sport participation? Why do older
Canadians continue to struggle to gain access to various sports facilities? These ques-
tions 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 inves-
tigation, 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 experi-

ences, 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, orga-
nized, 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 solu-
tions to problems identified in sport” (Hall et al., 1991, pp. 11–12). For example:
■■ 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 “world-
class” sports arenas and stadiums?

4 Chapter 1
■■ 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 contradic-
tions” (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 sim-
ply “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 phe-
nomena. 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 cul-
tural 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, espe-
cially the investigation of the origins, classifications, institutions, and development of

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 5

 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 subdisci-
plines, 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:
■■ 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 perform-
ers, officials, spectators, workers, or consumers;
■■ to examine the way in which sport responds to social changes in the larger soci-
ety; 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 Chapter 1
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 intrin-
sic 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 high-
performance and professional sport in relation to values of competition and the sig-
nificant 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 associ-
ated 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 soci-
ology 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 with-
out, 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 7

 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 under-
stood 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, press-
ing political debates, and social movements. The sociology of sport, then, is a sub-
discipline 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 conti-
nental and, indeed, global patterns and forms of social organization. The organiza-
tion 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 provi-
sion 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

8 Chapter 1
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 mean-
ings 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

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 9

 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 activi-
ties that bring together more groups of Canadians than other aspects of culture sug-
gest 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 pur-
poses of this textbook, sport is defined as any formally organized, competitive activ-
ity 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 play-
ing 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 bil-
lion dollar industry of eSports? Also consider the made-for-TV coverage of the

10 Chapter 1
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 ath-
letes 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 asso-
ciated 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 associ-
ated 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 fea-
tures 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 inter-
ested 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 popu-
lar 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 under-
stood as simply “natural” and “normal,” and, in turn, underscores that society and
all of its institutions—including sport—are always in process and “under construc-
tion,” 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 con-
sidered 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 11

 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 con-
nections 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 cen-
trality 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 under-
standing 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 rep-
resentation, performance enhancement, violence, technology, surveillance, coloniza-
tion, 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 experi-
ences, 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 dif-
ferent 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 materi-
als that we might refer to when describing how a group or society operates day-to-day.

12 Chapter 1
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 con-
test. 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 fea-
tured 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 soci-
ologists 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 ordi-
nary 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 fail-
ures to their own personal initiatives and abilities, and to their immediate life circum-
stances. “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 pri-
vate 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 oppor-
tunities 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 expe-
rience from two approaches: “personal troubles of milieu” and “public issues of

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 13

 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 per-
sonal 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 associ-
ated 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 struc-
ture of minor hockey itself; and, at a larger level, the structure of unequal class rela-
tions 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 imagi-
nation (1959, pp. 10–11).

In pursuit of this intellectual journey, we want to emphasize three kinds of sen-

sitivities 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 chang-
ing 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 chang-
ing? . . . . [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 Chapter 1
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 cul-
tural 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 nick-
name, the teams that they likely think of are the city’s professional sports fran-
chises—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 expe-
rience 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 compe-
tition 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 relation-
ships 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 15

 e­ xamine sport from a critical and analytical perspective, and to make connections
between personal biography, history, and public issues of social structure. One con-
temporary 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 on the ice for the duration of the contest. The game was
imagination can be found in Ken Dryden’s (2017) book: slower for another reason: like the sport of rugby, no
Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador and forward passes were permitted.
the Future of Hockey. Having won five Stanley Cups as a In thinking of solutions that could address the concus-
goaltender with the Montreal Canadiens, Dryden is no sion crisis in hockey, however, Dryden cautions against
stranger to the issues facing the game of hockey or to the the promotion of implausible and unrealistic options,
NHL for that matter. Indeed, after his celebrated playing including simply returning to the original version of the
career ended, Dryden began another stage in his life: first game. Likewise, he also recognizes that the concussion
as a celebrated author; then as an executive for Maple crisis will not be solved through individual solutions, by
Leaf Sports and Entertainment (the owner of the Toronto changes to individual behaviour, or in reference to the
Maple Leafs); and later as a federal MP. character of individual hockey players. Instead, he offers
In Game Change, Dryden traces the life of Steve two concrete recommendations and rule changes that
Montador, who played over 500 NHL hockey games, but could immediately make the game safer for all of today’s
died at the age of 35 after a number of debilitating con- players and for future athletes: no finishing checks and no
cussions and other injuries. However, instead of focusing hits to the head whatsoever, including an end to fighting.
on this personal tragedy as simply individual trouble, In anticipation of ideological opposition to his proposed
Dryden offers an analysis of the concussion crisis as a changes, especially by traditionalists who would decry any
public issue of social structure. In so doing, he paints a change that made the game less masculine, Dryden
much broader picture of the social, historical, and eco- reminds readers that the game has been changing since
nomic forces that have transformed the game of hockey its inception; that it is played differently in other contexts,
and have impacted the lives of many players who have cultures, and settings; and, finally, that the safety of
either subsequently died as a result of, or continue to live players—including young ­
­ children—must always trump
with, the devastating but often unseen injuries associated invented traditions. In so doing, Dryden also invites read-
with the work world of professional hockey. ers to consider the social pressures around gender and
In particular, Dryden examines how the sport of masculinity, as well as broader power relations in the work
hockey and its rules have been both institutionalized and world of hockey that discourage players from reporting
changed over the course of its history to become a faster concussions; despite having “agency.” For example,
and more entertaining commercial product—a develop- many athletes decide to simply play through pain—and
ment that has increased the number and the force of often self-medicate—for a variety of reasons: to retain a
collisions between players and, hence, the severity of spot on the team; to keep earning a paycheque; to be a
brain injuries for innumerable players, including men like good teammate; and to not show weakness.
Steve Montador. Since the game was invented over In summing up, Dryden underlines the need to think
140 years ago in Montreal, for example, the quality of the critically about how power and resources operate in these
ice has radically improved; equipment and skates are types of debates. Indeed, for Dryden, the main individual
better; professional athletes are fitter, faster, and more with the power and resources to address the concussion
specialized than ever before; and, shifts are far shorter crisis and to change the rules of how hockey is played is
than they used to be. Indeed, as Dryden reminds us, the the NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman: “Those who have
original version of the game of hockey was considerably power understand power. The rest of the hockey world
slower: the game was played in two 30-minute halves, understands that on any issue, if they disagree with the
and player substitutions were not allowed to re-enter the NHL, it is at their peril. They are all beholden to Bettman.
game. Players were required, in other words, to remain They know it, and Bettman knows it” (p. 331).

16 Chapter 1
 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 indi-
viduals 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 17

 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 domi-
nant 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 estab-
lished 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 ath-
letes 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 account-
able. Moreover, the decision acknowledged that because the IOC exists as an

18 Chapter 1
international nongovernmental organization, it was not subject to the constitu-
tional 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 domi-
nant 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 consensu-
ally 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 rational-
ize ideological systems of meanings and values as “common sense”—thus smooth-
ing 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’ aspira-
tions 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 femi-
ninity. 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).

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 19

 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 Afro-
Trinidadian 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 cul-
ture 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 imag-
ination, 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 contempo-
rary 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-for-
granted 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 cer-
tainly 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 imbal-
ances and injustices, Canadians from across the country are involved daily in a com-
plex 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 chap-
ters in book.

20 Chapter 1
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 under-
stood) 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 out-
comes 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 ori-
gins, 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.

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 21

 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 jump-
ing 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 pub-
lished 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 cul-
ture.” 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

22 Chapter 1
 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 mascu-
linity. 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 develop-
ment. 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.

Sport and Physical Culture in Canadian Society 23

 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 develop-
ment. 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 intersec-
tion. 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].

24 Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Thinking Sociologically: Sport,
Physical Culture, and Critical Theory
Ian Ritchie

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: A young girl working in a
cotton mill in the early
1 Recognize the historical and social foundations of the discipline of sociology. 20th century in the United
2 Identify the major theoretical paradigms in sociology and their most important States. Child labour was one
theorists. of many hardships the first
sociologists attempted to
3 Identify how the major theories in sociology are applied to sport and physical understand during the early
culture. days of the Industrial
Revolution.
4 Recognize the important relationship between individual lives and social structure.
Library of Congress Prints and
5 Recognize how the relationship between individual life and social structure Photographs Division Washington,
D.C. 20540 USA
impacts the experience of sport and physical culture.
[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 incul-
cated, 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, sym-
bolic 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

26 Chapter 2
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 individ-
ual 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 participa-
tion 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 coun-
tries 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 them-
selves “I liked soccer because . . .” or “I liked hockey because . . .”; those
thoughts are typically filled with individual explanations and personal motiva-
tions. Less often do people consider that class inequality impacted their participa-
tion 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 evi-
dence, 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.

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 27

❯❯❭❯ BOX 2.1 Using Social Theory
While this chapter provides historical and social context in some way, shame them, embarrass them in front of
to the development of sociological theory, it is important others.” But sociologically, he continued, “it clearly
to recognize that sociologists of sport apply their research establishes power in hierarchies in a group, and it estab-
in multiple contexts and often engage publicly by con- lishes a place for people within the group.”
tributing to public policy or commenting in media reports But why, the report continued, wouldn’t victims resist
pertaining to various public issues. such attacks and report them more often, especially
For example, in late 2018 and early 2019, a major given the greater social visibility of sexual assault? First,
story broke through several media outlets, documenting Atkinson responded, “It fits in with the idea of power. . . . If
a range of hazing incidents at St. Michael’s College I say no, I’m done. They’ll ostracize me. . . . I will be a
School a private boys’ school in Toronto. Following an pariah on the team.” But, Atkinson added one more
incident where it was alleged that members of the boys’ crucial factor in the explanation, reflecting a major point
football team sexually assaulted another student, subse- from the sociology of sport: “The mentality is, especially
quent reports revealed that practice to be all too common in sport, that it’s only sport. . . . That’s how it’s repro-
in the school. Disturbingly, one incident was recorded duced over the course of time.”
and shared on social media. Eventually, seven charges Throughout this text, authors will repeat in many ways
were laid by police. These incidents, unfortunately, have the idea that sport reflects the social and cultural envi-
a long history in sport and speak to their enduring sig- ronment. But one of the enduring myths of sport is that
nificance as a public issue. it is as “old as the hills” – unchanged over time and unaf-
One of the experts sought out in the media reports fected by “political interference.” In the case of the
was University of Toronto sociology of sport professor St. Michael’s College incidents, and the almost countless
Michael Atkinson. His insights into the St. Michael’s case other such hazing rituals that have occurred in schools
were derived from his expertise in studying hazing and and other institutions for decades, that myth, as Atkinson
from his theoretical knowledge of the sociology of devi- recognized, has been detrimental to truly understanding
ance and the social construction of masculinity in sport. the causes and consequences of such incidents, in addi-
Atkinson stated in one CBC report that such incidents tion to being one of the main reasons they have been so
are psychologically “meant to intimidate, degrade people 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 pre-
destined, 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

28 Chapter 2
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 demo-
cratic 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 inequal-
ity; 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 soci-
ologists 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 estab-
lished? What was the role of individual citizens in relation to newly emerging state-
run 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 glo-
balization (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 immi-
gration 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 experi-
enced 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 popula-
tion fall ill and seven people die because of E. coli contamination in the town’s
water supply.

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 29

 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 theo-
ries 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 inven-
tory. 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 cur-
rently, 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 oper-
ates 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, pub-
lished 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 Chapter 2
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 prin-
ciple 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: indi-
vidual 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 sui-
cide rates across Europe. After collecting his data, he observed that suicide rates fol-
lowed 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 soci-
ety 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, pat-
terns 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 commu-
nity, and to integrate people into society’s dominant values. Sport also acts as a sig-
nificant 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 seri-
alized 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 31

❯❯❭❯ BOX 2.2 Soccer and Suicide
The social experience of one crucially important global feelings of “belongingness,” often with attendant strong
sport—soccer (or, internationally, football) gives us nationalistic associations, enhance social cohesion and
insight into how functionalism and Durkheim’s theories the strong common bonds necessary for social life.
can be used to understand events in the world today. Kuper and Szymanski also point out that winning is not a
The World Cup in soccer clearly brings people within necessary outcome for suicide rates to improve; win or
competing countries together. For Croatians, for exam- lose, it’s the way the intense feelings generated in rooting
ple, the excitement of reaching the final game in 2018 for the team “pulls people together” that matters (2009,
was palpable, and newspapers like the important Novi pp. 253–266).
List were plastered with photographs of celebrating fans. In a similar vein, sociologists of sport James Curtis,
In one of the more intriguing applications of function- John Loy, and Wally Karnilowicz (1986) found that there
alism to sport, authors Simon Kuper and Stefan was a “suicide-dip” effect—reduced suicide rates—in
Szymanski claim in their book Soccernomics (2009) that the US just before and during two important sport cere-
the integrative power of soccer helps curb suicide rates. monial events: the Super Bowl and the last games of the
Building directly on Durkheim’s Suicide, the authors cite World Series. In short, while Durkheim’s Suicide was
statistics from several countries to demonstrate that dur- published well over a century ago, his “ghost” lives on in
ing periods of intense international competitions, national continued evidence as to the integrative power sport has
suicide rates drop. The authors surmise that intense 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 head-
lines 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 retro-
spect, 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 inter-
national 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 Chapter 2
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 sys-
tems 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 sociolo-
gists 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 sociol-
ogy 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 33

 The unique characteristics of Marx’s analysis of society and what lay at the foun-
dation 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 docu-
ments 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 opposi-
tion 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, pub-
lished in 1867, Marx attempted to explain in scientific terms the way the capital-
ist 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 Chapter 2
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 under-
standing 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 domi-
nant, 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 sys-
tem 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 sys-
tem, 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 demon-
strated their acceptance into God’s grace by leading lives of duty, hard work, and
abstaining from worldly pleasures such as alcohol consumption, gambling, “plea-
sures 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.

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 35

 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 empha-
sis 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 understand-
ing 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 any-
one 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 move-
ment and workout is carefully calculated in relation to other ones to achieve ulti-
mate, 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 “unin-
hibited” 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 capital-
ists 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 his-
tory 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, maxi-
mize profits for owners, and, importantly, to control player wages. The cartel struc-
ture and the control owners sought over players’ labour resulted in a long history of
players fighting back against powerful owner groups.

36 Chapter 2
 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 environ-
ment in which Canadians could become more physically active and to build a high-
performance 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 emerg-
ing 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.

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 37

 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: author-
itarian 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 con-
flict 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 interac-
tionism 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 consid-
ered 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 Chapter 2
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 compo-
nents 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 repre-
sents 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 gener-
ates 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 39

 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 meth-
ods 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 socializa-
tion 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, sociolo-
gists 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 under-
stand 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 under-
stand 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.

❯❯❭❯ BOX 2.3 Subcultural Studies

In his book Men at Play: A Working Understanding of of the player’s transformation on entering professional
Professional Hockey, Michael Robidoux demonstrates hockey, they are also a means of divesting the young
how hockey reproduces dominant notions of “manli- player of undesirable (that is, unmanly) qualities so as
ness” or of what it means to be “properly” masculine to ensure his new status within the group” (Robidoux,
through everyday interactions with other players and 2001, p. 189).
coaches, alongside the rough and sometimes violent Robidoux’s work is relevant to one of the most public
aspects of the game. Far from what many consider to issues related to the health of athletes today: concus-
be the common sense idea that masculinity emerges sions. It is well known that for years the impact of con-
from within players, that it is just “how they are,” cussions was hidden because injury in men’s sport in
Robidoux points out that social factors such as day-to- general was hidden—it was considered “unmanly” to
day rituals play important roles in producing masculinity: reveal one’s injury or pain; it was considered a sign of
“initiation rituals are not only symbolic representations weakness.

40 Chapter 2
CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORIES
Critical Theories
Critical social theories are a number of theories that have more recently been devel-
oped 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 con-
cede 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 orga-
nizations 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,

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 41

 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 inter-
ested in trivial matters remote from true concerns . . . The brain-numbing nar-
cotic 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 “regu-
lar” Olympics, attracting thousands of spectators and participants while simultane-
ously 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).

❯❯❭❯ BOX 2.4 Resisting the Olympics

Today, resistance movements to major global sporting recent example, during the Sochi Winter Games in
events like the Olympic Games serve as an example of Russia, there were several protests by athletes them-
critical theorists’ work at play. More and more protest selves and groups such as All Out and Athlete Ally
groups have become involved in resisting the hegemony of against repressive anti-gay legislation signed into law by
the Olympic movement, and academics have played direct Russian President Vladimir Putin leading up to the
roles. Critical analyses of global mega-events have come games (Boykoff, 2016).
from the likes of economist Andrew Zimbalist or political Indeed, we can see today that the hegemony of the
scientist Jules Boykoff, both of whom have been very pub- Olympic movement, combined with political resistance to
lic in their critiques. Zimbalist, author of Circus Maximus: the Games and the increasing realization that the eco-
The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and nomic benefits of the Games are limited, has put the
the World Cup, has demonstrated that historically very few Olympics in a state of tension. Fewer and fewer cities are
Olympic Games have led to long-term financial benefits, willing to bid to host the Games. In late 2018, the city of
making hosting the Games, as his title suggests, a gamble, Calgary held a plebiscite on whether to bid for the 2026
usually at taxpayers’ expense (Zimbalist, 2015). Winter Games, and the ‘NO’ side won. And, in 2017 the
Boykoff, author of several books including Power International Olympic Committee announced that Paris
Games: A Political History of the Olympics, points out would host the 2024 Summer Games and Los Angeles
that political resistance to the Olympics has in fact been the 2028 Games, in the first-ever dual confirmation of
part-and-parcel of the Olympic movement throughout its Olympic sites. The reason was simple: no other cities in
entire history. Boykoff recounts the Workers’ Olympic the world wanted to bid for the Games. While it is the
movement (discussed earlier), the Women’s Olympic case that the International Olympic Committee during the
movement (discussed in the next section), and the last 30 to 40 years has generated extremely lucrative
famous black power salute protest by John Carlos and revenues for the Olympic movement, overcoming its cur-
Tommie Smith at the 1968 Mexico Summer Olympic rent political and economic tensions will be vital to the
Games as important historical examples. To take a more future success of the Games.

42 Chapter 2
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 coun-
try’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 his-
torically, Hall recounts in her text the various ways in which women—and some-
times 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 contin-
ued the women’s Olympic movement. The second Games in 1926 included partici-
pants 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

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 43

 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 would be applied once again, but in certain events only,
Semenya held a press conference with her lawyer, stating including the 800- and 1500-metres; significantly, both
that she would be taking the International Association of are events in which Semenya competes. This was the
Athletics Federations (IAAF) to court. “I am Mokgadi reason for her and her legal team’s challenge in the
Caster Semenya. I am a woman and I am fast” she stated summer of 2018. In May 2019, the CAS—the ruling
to the press (cited in Longman, 2018). What was body that Semenya and her team appealed to—upheld
Semenya talking about and why was she taking the the IAAF’s decision. Again, this means that Semenya will
IAAF to court? In a word, hyperandrogenism. be required to artificially suppress testosterone in her
Hyperandrogenism refers to women who have higher body if she wants to compete in these events.
than “normal” quantities of naturally producing testoster- While Semenya’s and Chand’s cases are important,
one. In 2011 and 2012, the IAAF and the International they reflect something much more widespread in mod-
Olympic Committee (IOC) created policies regulating ern sport: Female athletes at high levels of competition
women who had levels of testosterone above 10 nano- have had to undergo some form of “sex test” or “gender
moles per litre of blood serum. The policies were created verification” procedure, literally since the start of mod-
because of a scandal involving Semenya at the 2009 ern sport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In
World Athletic Championships. After she won the fact, for the last half of the 20th century, almost all
800-metres race, certain competitors, coaches, and a female athletes in major competitions, including the
few journalists accused Semenya of not being properly Olympic Games, had to undergo a physical chromo-
“feminine.” The IAAF forced Semenya to undergo a some inspection to “prove” they were women. The
series of tests to “prove” her femininity in the ensuing reason for this goes to the core of modern sport: the
months, and she received—extremely intrusively—­ dominant forms of sport and the organization of major
widespread attention in international media. She had her competitions were created by men, for men. As
“female status” reinstated, but the IAAF (and IOC) created women entered the arena of competition, they were
their hyperandrogenism polices because of her case. treated with distrust, and, now in the second decade of
Then, after also being accused of being hyperandro- the 21st century, hyperandrogenism policy is the latest
genic, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand took her case to iteration of this distrust. For understanding feminist
court and won, in a landmark 2015 decision by sport’s scholarship, this example is revealing: feminists recog-
highest legal authority, the Court of Arbitration for Sport nize that many assumptions we have today about sex
(CAS). CAS determined that the IAAF had two years to and gender in sport have been historically constructed.
prove that hyperandrogenism confers an advantage in Based on that knowledge, feminists have been at the
track or field events, or else the policy would be annulled. forefront of both educating the public and challenging
In early 2018 the IAAF announced that, based on stud- sex testing policies at the highest levels of sport’s admin-
ies conducted the previous year, hyperandrogenism istration, including CAS (Pieper, 2016).

44 Chapter 2
 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 con-
tinue 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 oth-
ers; 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 privi-
leged in the development of the image while others have been erased from the pic-
ture. 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. . . .

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 45

 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 oth-
ers . . . 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 histori-
cal 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 acces-
sible, 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 rec-
ognition 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 pre-
sented is the ultimate political goals of sociological theory and, in turn, the develop-
ing 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 Chapter 2
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 goal-
rational 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 struc-
tural processes as a way of understanding society and people’s roles in society. Structural-
functionlism 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 soci-
eties historically, upon which social systems emerge. While Marx studied many modes of pro-
duction 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 predeter-
mines 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.

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 47

 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 struc-
ture 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.)

48 Chapter 2
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.

Thinking Sociologically: Sport, Physical Culture, and Critical Theory 49

 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/caster-
semenya-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-prime-
minister-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.

50 Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Sport and Physical Culture
in Historical Perspective
Carly Adams

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame
introduces the Class of 2018:
1 Identify the social structures and ideologies that have shaped the institutional- Jeff Adams, Damon Allen,
ization and growth of modern sport in Canada. Mary Baker, Chandra
Crawford, Alexandre Despatie,
2 Discuss the importance of having a historical sensitivity for the sociological Dave Keon, Sandra Kirby, and
analysis of modern sport. Wilton Littlechild at the Metro
Toronto Convention Centre.
3 Examine and historically situate taken-for-granted assumptions in Canadian
Carly Adams
sport and the uneven power relations that have shaped sport.
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.

51
 “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 equi-
table 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 competi-
tions. 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

52 Chapter 3
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

Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective 53

 challenges or defeat, and empowerment, and are making a difference in local, grass-
roots, 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 under-
stand 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 trans-
formed, 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 intersec-
tions of biography, history, and social structure(s) to fully understand its complexi-
ties 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 eco-
nomic 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 Chapter 3
speak to people who witnessed or were a part of events of the past and we can con-
duct 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 ideologi-
cal 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 con-
sider 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 rela-
tions. 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 55

 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, volun-
teer 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

56 Chapter 3
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-indus-
trial 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 mod-
ern 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 transpor-
tation, communication, and technology. These changes greatly impacted the develop-
ment 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 equip-
ment 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 57

 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 fur-
ther 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 broad-
casts 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 broad-
casts 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 embed-
ded (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 recog-
nized 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 com-
petition, sport helped shape community identities (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993,
p. 154). As a community practice, commercial product, and source of entertain-
ment, sport has emerged as a representational collective for urban and rural com-
munities and works to create a sense of an imagined community among players and
enthusiasts.

58 Chapter 3
❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.1 Two National Sports?
In 1994, the Canadian government passed the National which he promoted the merits of lacrosse, albeit only for
Sports Act, formally recognizing lacrosse as our national certain groups. He also claimed that lacrosse was con-
summer sport and hockey as our national winter sport. firmed as Canada’s national sport by an Act of
Although hockey has long been connected to stories of Parliament, a claim that was widely believed but
Canadian nationalism and identity, the enduring heritage unfounded (Morrow and Wamsley, 2017). By 1901,
of lacrosse has received less sustained consideration, lacrosse was a popular team sport in Canada with
despite its long history (see Fisher, 2002; Morrow and leagues, playoffs, and a national championship. Intent
Wamsley, 2017). on establishing a cultural hegemony through lacrosse,
The game of lacrosse has been a physical cultural organizers such as Beers promoted the game as part of
practice in many Indigenous communities for centuries Canada’s national identity, limiting Indigenous players’
(Downey, 2018). Dakelh scholar Allan Downey (2018, opportunities to participate and ignoring the Indigenous
p. 11), reminds us that “the Creator’s game” was not origins of the game. By 1880, Canadian organizations
invented by Indigenous peoples but was established completely prohibited Indigenous athletes from compe-
“here on Earth, as a way to settle disputes.” The word titions (Downey, 2018).
“lacrosse” first appeared in missionaries’ accounts in the It wasn’t until the 1980s, after decades of Indigenous
mid-17th century, creating our first non-Indigenous activism and agency, that Indigenous teams reclaimed
accounts of the game. Non-Indigenous enthusiasts their rightful place in elite lacrosse. The Iroquois
appropriated lacrosse by the mid-1850s with the first Nationals, a field lacrosse team founded in 1983, is the
white elite lacrosse club, the Montreal Lacrosse Club, only Indigenous team allowed to play sport internation-
formed in 1856. Morrow and Wamsley (2017) suggest ally. The International Lacrosse Federation accepted the
that the institutionalization and expansion of lacrosse as Iroquois Confederacy as a member nation in 1987 and
an elite white men’s sport can be attributed to one man: they participated in their first international competition in
George Beers. 1990. The Iroquois Nationals are currently ranked third
In 1865, Beers wrote numerous articles in Montreal in the world after winning bronze at the 2018 World
newspapers under the headline “The National Game,” in Lacrosse Championships in Netanya, Israel.

However, this connection between Canadian hockey and Canadian national-

ism, 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 physi-
cal, 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 bod-
ies, 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

Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective 59

 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 unprecedented press coverage and fan support for the
firmly to the history of the NHL. This myth, however, is sport (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). In 1894, the Montreal
just that, a Canadian hockey story that has been told over Amateur Athletic Association team was the first to win the
and over by hockey enthusiasts. Myths, according to coveted Cup. The Stanley Cup quickly became a highly
Barthes, are a form of cultural discourse, “a fixed set of sought after symbol of men’s hockey hegemony in
relations without a history” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, Canada. Since 1926, the Cup has been solely awarded
p. 132). The myth of the Stanley Cup as the coveted to NHL teams, making it the de facto trophy of the NHL.
trophy of the NHL championship has helped to “subtly It was not until 1947 that the NHL reached an agreement
[naturalize] the existence of the NHL’s dominance over with the Cup trustees granting the NHL control of the
the game” (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993, p. 133). However, Cup, an agreement that formally recognized the organi-
if we apply a historical sensitivity, we see that the Stanley zation’s monopoly.
Cup has a much more complex history, one that was not The Stanley Cup was not awarded for the 2004–2005
originally tied to the NHL. season due to the NHL lockout. During this labour dis-
In 1893, Frederick Arthur Stanley, Governor General pute, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson challenged
of Canada, donated a silver cup, the Stanley Cup, to be the stewardship of the Cup. Clarkson proposed that if the
challenged for by the top men’s amateur hockey teams Cup was not going to be used that season, it should be
in Canada. Inspired by his sons, Arthur and Algernon, awarded to the top women’s hockey teams (CBC sports,
and his daughter, Isobel, who were hockey enthusiasts 2005). She suggested that given the original intent of the
and players on Ottawa area teams, Lord Stanley agreed Cup as a challenge cup to determine the top amateur
to donate the Cup. In doing so, he also set up a group of team in Canada, it should not be tied solely to the NHL
trustees who were entrusted with determining the condi- and to men’s professional hockey. The history of the
tions for the challenges and settling any disputes that Stanley Cup reminds us that we must call into question
arose. The Cup created the first national championship our taken-for-granted assumptions about myths associ-
for men’s hockey in Canada and helped to generate ated with Canadian sport.

60 Chapter 3
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 profes-
sional 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 prom-
inent 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 industri-
alization 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 61

❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.3 Amateurism and Professionalism
By the 1880s, amateurism had become the prevailing 3. Received any bonus or payment in lieu of loss of
ideological code of Canadian sport. Athletes were time while playing as a member of any club, or any
expected to play the game for the joy, pleasure, and consideration whatever for any services as an ath-
honour of competition, for the game’s sake—not to win, lete, except actual travelling or hotel expenses.
and certainly not for money. The first definition of an 4. Sold or pledged his prizes.
amateur, adopted in Canada in 1884, reflected the 5. Promoted an athletic competition for personal gain.
prevalent class and gender prejudices of Canadian soci- (AAU of C, 1926 Handbook, p. 9–10).
ety, as it was a class-based definition that sought to keep
the working classes off the field and mark sport as a The code also prohibited athletes from competing as
middle- and upper-class social space (Metcalfe, 1995). amateurs if they participated with or against a profes-
The definition explicitly explained who was excluded sional for a prize or if they competed in a setting where
from sport and it was “defined as the absence of profes- gate receipts were charged. A somewhat ambiguous
sionalism” (Hall et al., 1991, p. 58). description outlining the behaviours and actions that an
By the turn-of-the-century, however, this class-based amateur should not undertake, the code provided a
definition was replaced by one that spoke more directly benchmark to control sport—how sport should be played
to the tensions between amateur and professional ideolo- and who should play it—often resulting in the exclusion
gies, as well as to racial prejudices. The code stated: “An of certain groups of athletes due to its restrictive terms
amateur is one who has never competed in any open (Metcalfe, 1987).
competition or for public money, or for admission money, While based on men’s sport, the widespread, socially
or with professionals for a prize, public money or admis- entrenched sporting ideal also permeated newly orga-
sion money, nor has ever, at any period of his life taught nized women’s sport organizations of the 20th century—
or assisted in the pursuit of Athletic exercises as a means organizations that often patterned their constitutions and
of livelihood or as a labourer or Indian” (Morrow, 1986, structural format on the men’s model (such as the
p. 174). Sport leaders during this time worked to pre- Women’s Amateur Athletic Federation). Consequently,
serve sport as a social and physical space for a small by the 1920s, governing bodies were sanctioning and
number of elite white men. They did not tolerate athletes charging men and women athletes with professionalism
who wanted to treat sport as work and who wanted to as they attempted to strictly enforce the amateur code
earn a living from their athletic skills. and the prevailing power relations. There were serious
This definition of an amateur, one staunchly upheld implications to these charges, as once an athlete turned
by national governing bodies for decades, speaks to the professional or was deemed a professional by a govern-
types of “common sense” social structures of the era, ing body, there was no going back. They were banned
and it is a powerful example of the racist, classist, and from amateur competitions.
sexist discrimination that was a part of Canadian sport in All amateur athletes were required to carry an ama-
the 19th and early 20th centuries. By the 1920s, the teur card issued each year by the AAU of C or the WAAF
Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU of C) became of C. If they did not have this card, or if they had it
the self-proclaimed national enforcer of these dominant revoked, they could not compete in amateur competi-
sports values (see Metcalfe, 1987; 1995; and Jones, tions. But, this debate between amateur and profession
1975). By 1926, the code proclaimed that an amateur sport was not an easily defined dichotomy. Historian Alan
was one who had never: Metcalfe suggests that the perceived difference between
amateur and professional athletes, in some cases,
1. Entered or competed in any athletic competition for existed only in theory.
a staked bet, moneys, private or public, or gate There are many examples of men and women
receipts. receiving various degrees of compensation, including
2. Taught or assisted in the pursuit of any athletic exer- money, employment opportunities, education, and in
cise or sport as a means of livelihood. the case of women athletes, jewellery and gifts, in

62 Chapter 3
 exchange for their skills on the field. For example, same year Dorothy moved to London, Ontario to work as
Dorothy Robins, a player for the Brucefield Bombers in a live-in domestic, making only 13 dollars per month.
a southwestern Ontario rural church softball league, These types of exchange relationships speak to how
recounts receiving 14 dollars in 1928 to play for the sport in Canada was beginning to reflect the capitalist,
Seaforth team during an important championship industrialist society by the early 20th century. As noted
series. The Bombers wanted to win the series, so they earlier, with the rise of commercialization and mass
recruited exceptional players from other teams in the sport, the values of professionalism were eventually
area. Fourteen dollars was a lot of money in 1928—that 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 profes-
sional 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 profes-
sional teams through sponsorships for the duration of their playing careers
(Kidd & McFarlane, 1972). By the late 1940s, these power relations had been insti-
tutionalized, 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 fur-
ther strengthened the NHL’s hegemony over elite amateur hockey. In Canada, this
meant that when players signed registration cards with the CAHA, they were agree-
ing 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 commercial-
ization 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

Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective 63

 became more widely available across the country. In the 1920s and ’30s, local, pro-
vincial, 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 pro-
moted 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 boundar-
ies 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.

64 Chapter 3
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 dis-
cussions 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.

 he Preston Rivulettes and the Gendering

T
❯❯❭❯ BOX 3.4 of Canadian Sport
What is the most successful hockey team in Canadian and championship contests in Ontario and across the
history? On December 22, 2017, the Government of country. For the small town of Preston, with a population
Canada recognized the national historical significance of of just over 6,000 in the 1930s, the Rivulettes put the
the Preston Rivulettes women’s hockey team. From 1931 town on the map, with their games a “form of popular
until 1940, the Rivulettes, a women’s hockey team from civic ritual” during the Depression era (Adams, 2008,
Preston, Ontario (now Cambridge) dominated women’s p. 3). For many Canadians it is impossible to imagine a
hockey in Canada, claiming 10 provincial and four contemporary women’s sports team (like the Preston
national championships (Adams, 2008). They won over Rivulettes) that could have levels of visibility, recognition,
95% of their games, a win/loss record in the history of and support on par with men’s professional teams.
Canadian sport that has only been matched by the But if we bring a historical sensitivity to this topic, we
Edmonton Graduates women’s basketball team that can see that in the 1920s and ’30s, women’s sports
competed from 1915 to 1940. teams received a lot of news coverage; they had their
The Rivulettes were skillful, aggressive, and powerful own sport organizations, and they attracted large audi-
athletes who embraced hockey and who were actively ences, often larger than men’s teams. Historian Bruce
shaping their own sport experiences during a time when Kidd suggests that this changed by the late 1930s when
hockey was perceived as too physical and aggressive for manufacturers started to use men’s sport to sell their
women. They were active agents shaping their own sport products to men, thus resulting in less media coverage of
experiences. In 1930, softball teammates and friends women’s sport (Kidd, 1996). Instead of taking for
Hilda and Nellie Ranscombe and Marm and Helen granted that the current structure of professional sport is
Schmuck were searching for a winter sport to play. distinctly gendered, we need to understand that it was
Hockey was the logical choice, given that they had grown not always this way. We also need to question why sport
up skating on the Grand River and playing pick-up has developed like this over time—and how and why
games with their brothers and friends. have the social, cultural, and political practices of sport
Throughout the 1930s, the Rivulettes perfected their welcomed and recognized certain bodies while excluding
skills practising and playing dozens of league, exhibition, others?

Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective 65

 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 contem-
porary 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 partici-
pants (Vertinsky, Jette, & Hofmann, 2009). These unequal power relations, how-
ever, 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

66 Chapter 3
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 com-
pletely 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 discrimina-
tion 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 67

 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 tourna-
ment 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 tradi-
tional 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 ide-
ologies (Downey & Neylan, 2015, p. 443; see also Forsyth, 2013). Indigenous cultural
practices and traditions have long been subjected to regulation, control, and prohibi-
tion 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 Chapter 3
peoples in the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada) and Sundance ceremonies (a cer-
emony that involved the community coming together to pray for healing) with Euro-
Canadian 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 fea-
ture 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 histori-
cal 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 69

 current events through an underlying set of assumptions about linear notions of his-
tory. 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 contro-
versy, and the incident at the Quebec City Coupe Challenge AAA hockey tourna-
ment 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 sociologi-
cal 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 physi-
cal activity? Why does this have serious implications for Indigenous sport practices today?

70 Chapter 3
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.

Sport and Physical Culture in Historical Perspective 71

 Gruneau, R. (1988). Modernization or hegemony: Two views on sport and social develop-
ment. 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 apo-
theosis 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 interpreta-
tion 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.

72 Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Sport and Social Stratification
Rob Beamish

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: A forgotten and abandoned
hockey net
1 Identify and explain the terms “meritocracy,” “equality of opportunity,” and
Brett Holmes/Shutterstock
“equality of condition.”
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) recom-
mended 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: tele-
communications; 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 appropri-
ate 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 every-
one follows the same rules and competes on a “level playing field.” Those who make

74 Chapter 4
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 merito-
cratic, 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 inequi-
ties 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 prevail-
ing conditions of Canadian social inequality and draw upon the major theoretical

Sport and Social Stratification 75

 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 prime-
time 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

76 Chapter 4
 0.50

0.45

0.40
Gini coefficient

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 retire-
ment 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 eco-
nomic 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 77

 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 vari-
ous 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

120
Percent

100

80

60

40

20

0
Average 0 to 90 90 to 95 95 to 99 99 to 99.5 to 99.9 to Top 0.01
99.5 99.9 99.99

Figure 4.2 Total Market Income Growth by Fractile, 1982–2010

Source: Lemieux & Riddell, 2017, p. 111

78 Chapter 4
 20%

18%

16%

14%

12%

10%

8%

6%
1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Year

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 aver-
age income in the bottom decile is only $24,011 while the top decile’s average, after-
tax, 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 79

 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 comput-
ers and specialized knowledge skills pushed up the wages for high-demand, well-
educated 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 middle-
income jobs as technology reduced them to routine tasks that do not require sophis-
ticated 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 post-
secondary 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 tem-
porary 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, educa-
tion, 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 Chapter 4
 The impact of technological change, outsourcing of production, declining union-
ization, 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 federal government support for high-performance
Canadians have not been studied as extensively as one sport and different programs to create greater equality
might think. Nevertheless, several studies have exam- of opportunity and condition, close to half of Canada’s
ined the relationship between athletes’ socioeconomic national team athletes (44%) came from families in
status (SES—a composite indicator of family income, the top 20% of Canadian income earners; only 10%
education, and occupation in the paid labour force) and were from the bottom 20% of income earners. The
the types and level of sport participation. Each shows the data on Blishen scores show that Canada’s national
same pattern of inequitable involvement despite govern- teams had become more exclusive—68% of the
ment attempts to eliminate economic inequality as a ­athletes came from families in the top three Blishen
major barrier to sport participation. ­categories.
Gruneau’s (1972) groundbreaking study of Canada On behalf of Sport Canada, EKOS Research
Games athletes shows that the competitors were drawn Associates (1992) performed a comprehensive study of
heavily from families with parents in professional and Canada’s high-performance athletes. The results were
well-paid, white-collar positions with supervisory respon- the same as the earlier studies. Forty-one % of the ath-
sibilities, while those from blue-collar and primary indus- letes’ fathers and 30% of their mothers had university-
trial occupations were significantly under-represented. level educations (compared to 14% in the Canadian
Using Blishen scores, which are numerical indicators population as a whole). Like Beamish, EKOS found that
that combine education and income to group and rank athletes came disproportionately from families with par-
individuals, as indicators of SES, Gruneau found that ents employed in professional, managerial, or adminis-
37% of the athletes came from the top three Blishen trative positions. Most importantly, EKOS concluded
categories, while only 17% of the Canadian labour force that the various funding and support programs in
ranked there. Only 29% of the athletes came from the Canada’s high-performance sport system had not
two lowest Blishen categories, although 63% of the reduced or eliminated SES as a major factor in deter-
Canadian labour force fell into those categories. mining who would rise to the top of the Canadian high-
Kenyon’s (1977) study of elite track and field athletes performance sport pyramid.
and McPherson’s (1977) study of hockey players found None of these results are particularly surprising. All of
similar patterns. Kenyon’s data show that 63% of the the empirical studies before, during, and after this early
track and field athletes came from families ranking in the work have shown that location within Canada’s stratifica-
top three Blishen categories and only 29% came from tion system significantly influences sport involvement.
families in the bottom two. McPherson’s data on elite Drawing from more than a dozen studies between 1973
hockey players show a similar pattern. and his own, Wilson (2002) concludes that research has
Beamish’s (1990) study of national team athletes in “repeatedly shown that indicators of social class are
1986 demonstrates that despite more than 15 years of positive predictors of sport involvement” (p. 5).

Sport and Social Stratification 81

 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 struc-
ture 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 con-
sciousness 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 circum-
stances 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 circum-
stances, 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 exis-
tence 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 Chapter 4
 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 indi-
viduals’ 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 distribu-
tion 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 differ-
ences 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 83

 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 commu-
nity 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 influ-
ence 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 precondi-
tions” (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 cre-
ation 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 fac-
tors 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 con-
ception of social inequality, but he also frames his analysis within the context of the
complexity of contemporary society.

84 Chapter 4
 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 hierar-
chy. 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 posi-
tions 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 simulta-
neously 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 condi-
tions 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 “communi-
ties” 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 85

❯❯❭❯ BOX 4.2 Bourdieu and Sports Fandom
Gemar’s (2018) study of Canadians’ patterns of profes- Gemar’s findings invite thinking about other ways that
sional sport consumption within the broader context of spectatorship can be understood in relation to Bourdieu’s
leisure lifestyles shows how Bourdieu’s theory can provide work. Consider, for example, how Bourdieu’s ideas might
important insight into the relationships among class, cul- help us explain where spectators from various classes
tural capital, lifestyle, and sport consumption. Asking “[w] are located in a stadium or arena (e.g., in luxury suites or
hat are the wider cultural consumption profiles of those in the “cheap seats”); how they get access to tickets;
who follow professional sports in Canada,” Gemar (2018, what they wear, eat, and drink at sport events; the kinds
p. 3) analyses data gathered in the Project Canada Survey of relationships that are fostered as part of spectating;
of 2005. He focuses on the questions related to the fre- and how differently positioned spectators perceive
quency of involvement with cultural and leisure activities each other.
including questions directly related to how closely those Most obviously, economic capital would be useful for
surveyed followed the National Hockey League (NHL), the explaining whether one can afford preferred seating at an
Canadian Football League (CFL), Major League Baseball event (assuming they can afford to go at all). More than
(MLB), the National Football League (NFL), and the this though, one’s access to luxury suites in particular
National Basketball Association (NBA). venues would be relevant as well to the social connec-
Gemar finds that there is “a distinct omnivorous pat- tions one has through their personal and employment
tern of participation [of cultural consumption] in networks (i.e., examples of social capital). One’s cultural
Canada,” which means that Canadians enjoy a wide tastes—related to preferred attire at events, even pre-
range of cultural forms, including the fine arts, popular ferred drinks and foods, and perhaps favourite players—
culture, and folk culture. Because cultural omnivores are associated with both symbolic capital and cultural
tend to have high levels of cultural capital, there is a capital, as these reflect the ways that group members
positive relationship between a broad range of cultural intentionally and unintentionally signal their cultural
consumption and elevated SES. With regard to sport group membership, and perhaps reflect the kinds of
consumption, Gemar (2018) finds that with the excep- cultural items they’ve been exposed to over their lives.
tion of MLB, “those who follow professional sports in Finally, as Bourdieu notes, the choices one makes will
Canada are most likely to be generally omnivorous” often seem (but not actually be) natural, as such choices
(p. 15). The intensity with which higher SES Canadians are associated with one’s habitus, an embodied set of
follow professional sport makes sense, Gemar argues, social and cultural dispositions that are developed,
because one needs both the economic capital and the fostered, and become solidified over time and within
­
time to follow sports closely. 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 con-
temporary 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 com-
plexity 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 Chapter 4
 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 world-
view 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 condi-
tions facilitate. His framework recognizes the central role that class plays in shap-
ing 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 87

 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 equip-
ment, 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 Chapter 4
 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 univer-
sity 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 ath-
letes 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 rang-
ing 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 year-
round hockey to everyone—there is equality of opportunity—inequality of condi-
tion 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 89

 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 sym-
bolic 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.

90 Chapter 4
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?

Sport and Social Stratification 91

 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-expensive-
kids-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 compara-
tive 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-maple-
leafs/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.

92 Chapter 4
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/the-
great-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.

Sport and Social Stratification 93

 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 reinstat-
ing 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 individu-
als, 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/tables-
tableaux/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 activ-
ity, 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 capital-
ism.” 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.

94 Chapter 4
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: Jocelyne Larocque, of Métis
heritage and a member of the
1 Distinguish between race and ethnicity and explain what it means to be a Canadian Women’s Olympic
­member of a minority group. gold medal team at the 2014
Sochi Olympics was the
2 Apply concepts of racism, discrimination, multiculturalism, and assimilation in
female recipient of the 2018
examining and explaining the sport participation patterns of Canadian minorities. Tom Longboat Award.
3 Identify and analyze opportunities for sport and leisure created by and for Julio Cortez/AP/Shutterstock
racial/ethnic groups outside mainstream society.
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 oth-
ers. 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 soci-
ety. 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 physi-
cal 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

96 Chapter 5
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 inter-
est in afterschool athletics. Day after day, these students continue to know them-
selves 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 struc-
tured 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.

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 97

 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 dis-
placed 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 non-
European 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 bilin-
gual, multicultural country fails to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have
inhabited the land since time immemorial. Indigenous peoples’ struggles for self-
determination 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 popu-
lation (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 prac-
tices 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 Chapter 5
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 differ-
ent 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 impor-
tant 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 mea-
sure, 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 under-
representation is seen as a legacy of the broader societal racial ideology that saw
people of colour considered unfit for leadership and thinking positions. For exam-
ple, 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 underrepre-
sentation 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 99

 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 ques-
tions. 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 accep-
tance 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, Anglo-
Canadian 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 . . . bring-
ing 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,’ experi-
ence, 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 Chapter 5
have been primarily shaped by individuals of white European heritage in ways that
privilege their traditions, practices, meanings, and sport structures. This is an exam-
ple 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 universi-
ties across Canada (Danford & Donnelly, 2018). The researchers found that interuni-
versity 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 entertain-
ing . . . [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 cre-
ate 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 RACE-
AND 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 101

 ­ 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 inclu-
sive 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 hav-
ing 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 inter-
action 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 neighbour-
hoods. 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, bar-
riers to sport participation based on ethnic identity are often compounded by rac-
ism. 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 immi-
grants 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 Chapter 5
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 orga-
nizations. 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 participa-
tion 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 prac-
tices, 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 nor-
mally 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 103

 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 inclu-
sive, 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 tradi-
tions 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 primar-
ily 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 participa-
tion 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

104 Chapter 5
ethnic minority people to the leisure experiences of dominant group members.
Problematic here is that the behaviours of the white, Eurocentric majority are nor-
malized 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 schol-
ars 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 regard-
less 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 pat-
terns 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 teenag-
ers 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 popula-
tion ranged between 25% and 30% between 1908 and 1980, yet the percentage of franco-
phones 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 105

 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 recom-
mendations 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 iden-
tities 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 segre-
gated 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 intel-
ligent 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, wide-
spread debates about role models, values, morality, and punishment. The same

106 Chapter 5
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

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 107

 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 individu-
als 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 tradi-
tional 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 bar-
rier 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

108 Chapter 5
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 quarter-
back, 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 rac-
ism 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 partici-
pants 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

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 109

 Pitter’s argument about a racist hockey subculture in North America is sup-
ported 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 develop-
ment 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 dem-
onstrate 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 mean-
ing in Canadian sport. Such meanings are indicative of broader societal race rela-
tions. 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

 estructuring the Whitestream Sport Structure:

R
❯❯❭❯ BOX 5.1 Amateur Soccer in Canada
In Canadian amateur soccer, a controversy arose when suspended the Quebec Federation for refusing to overturn
the Quebec Soccer Federation banned youth from wear- this decision. The suspension demonstrated an effort by
ing turbans because they were deemed to be “unsafe.” the national organization to bring about social change
The director general of the provincial organization, when within the Quebec Soccer Federation. The Fédération
asked about its decision, commented that Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) then
addressed the issue. In its ruling, FIFA specifically
if Sikh kids want to play soccer while wearing a turban
there’s an easy solution: they can play in their own
addressed Canada and said that men’s head coverings
yard . . . the reason to maintain the ban is for player safety were permitted as long as they met safety standards and
reasons . . . When asked how many injuries have been complied with rules such as being the same colour as
linked to turbans [the director general] said there are none. uniforms. The rule applied “in all areas and on all levels of
(Associated Press, 2013, para. 5) the Canadian football community,” FIFA said (Peritz, 2013,
para. 7). The Quebec Soccer Federation subsequently
This comment points to both situational racism and to
revoked its decision to align with the FIFA rule clarification.
its contribution toward systemic racism. The administra-
This is one example wherein competing understandings of
tor felt comfortable arguing that turbans threaten player
what is seen as “legitimate” arose within sport organizations,
safety even though he had no data to back up his claim.
and where the ability or power of national and international
His whitestream-informed perspective, which did not see
organizations to exercise their interpretation of rules relative to
turbans belonging in sport, led to his enforcement of this
their provincial members led to actual change, which was
rule based on a limited interpretation of player safety.
embedded structurally through the ruling taken. This outcome
Outrage was expressed across the country, including
enabled participants wearing turbans in amateur soccer to
protests by soccer players on one team whose members all
feel welcomed wherever they competed in Canada.
donned turbans to play. The Canadian Soccer Association

110 Chapter 5
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 administra-
tors 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 chal-
lenges 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 redistribu-
tion 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 incul-
cate 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 com-
plete 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 fur-
nace, to clearing land for farming, to carrying out the building and repairing of facili-
ties, 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 111

 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 sup-
portive 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 whites-
tream 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 prac-
tices 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 impor-
tant way that Indigenous participants, through their physical cultural activities, chal-
lenge stereotypes that have been and remain an integral part of whitestream sport.

 liminating Stereotypes of Indigenous People

E
❯❯❭❯ BOX 5.2 in Sport Mascots and Team Names
Researchers have been identifying “the historical and effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social
contemporary ramifications of racialized representations identity development and self-esteem of American Indian
in sport” since the 1990s (NASSH, 2017, p. 2). Examples young people”; “educational institutions and national
of current team names linked to Indigenous peoples in sports franchises [should be directed] to cease their use
of such race-based Native logos, mascots, and names, in
professional sports include the CFL Edmonton Eskimos,
the effort to remove these stereotypes and raise the self-
the NFL Washington Redskins, and the MLB Atlanta
esteem of Native students so they have the same oppor-
Braves and Cleveland Indians. C. R. King (2016), for tunity as their non-Native peers to achieve academically
example, critiques the history of the Washington without discrimination”; and “a case was brought before
Redskins—a term he notes is a racial slur, used by "the the Ontario Superior Court, asserting that racially dis-
franchise, the National Football League (NFL), and their criminatory sporting team names and iconography
media partners to profit from" (King, 2016, p. 1). The use against Indigenous peoples are in violation of Canada’s
of this name, which dictionaries define “as an offensive, Human Rights Act and the Ontario Human Rights code.
antiquated, and insulting reference to an American (NASSH, 2017)
Indian” (King, 2016, p. 3) continues despite calls from In Canada, the CFL use of “Eskimos” has been
Indigenous organizations, academics, politicians, and labelled racist by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which rep-
media to remove it. resents over 60,000 Inuit in Canada. Recently, the own-
Numerous claims about the damage done by the use of ership of the Edmonton Eskimos has been exploring the
these racist names and images are backed up by research. suitability of their team name more proactively. They
For example, in the NASSH Resolution Opposing the Use carried out a survey about the appropriateness of the
of Racialized Indigenous Imagery in Sports (2017), each name “Eskimo” with their season ticket holders, and
concern raised about racialized Indigenous imagery in then went to the Northwest Territories to ask Inuit and
sport is linked to research that supports the claim, such as: other northerners what they felt about the name. “Inuit”
a growing body of social science literature that shows the is the Inuktitut name for “the people,” as opposed to
harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate “Eskimo,” which as long been a derogatory term for Inuit.
racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful The Edmonton ownership team returned with plans to

112 Chapter 5
 visit Nunavut, Ottawa, and Edmonton on this issue in the Indigenous women that, when used, contributes to a
future. For now, however, “Edmonton’s CFL team has no perception that they are of less value than other women,
plans to discard the Eskimos name, says the team’s justifying their derogatory treatment in the broader soci-
CEO” (CBC, 2018, para. 1). This is an example of ety. It is because of the racist historical legacy tied to the
unequal power relations tied to hegemonic privilege; term “Redmen” at McGill that Indigenous groups and
non-Indigenous professional team owners are able to others on campus and more broadly across North
create and follow a process of their own making, to America have been calling for the university to retire the
assess if it is in their (not Indigenous peoples’) best inter- title permanently (Peritz, 2018). Allowing these names to
ests to use a term that has been formally identified as persist in sport, along with the stereotypic words, images,
racist by an Inuit organization. and actions associated with such usage, makes sport a
“Redmen,” the title of the varsity men’s teams at hostile place for Indigenous athletes and it also empow-
McGill University, is another sport team label currently ers people to draw on those racist images and actions,
creating controversy. The university claims that the name and to reproduce them in sporting contexts where
is tied to the Celtic roots of the university and the red Indigenous athletes participate, as was seen at the
colour of their jerseys; however, from the 1930s to Quebec City minor hockey tournament in 2018 (Page,
1990s, stereotypic images, including an Indian head 2018). Importantly, in 2019, after lobbying and public
logo, along with descriptions of the team in the media all protests by Indigenous students, Faculty, and staff,
drew upon and reproduced stereotypic concepts of McGill announced that it will change the name of its
Indigenous peoples. For example, at one point the varsity men’s sports teams.
women’s teams were call the “squaws” (juniors) and the https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/mcgill-redmen-
“super squaws” (seniors), a highly derogatory term for name-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 cul-
tural 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 chal-
lenged 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 hap-
pen, 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)

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 113

 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 devel-
opment of the Aboriginal sport system and traditional physical practices; to develop
a better understanding of Aboriginal sporting experiences and share those under-
standings 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 pro-
vided 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 ath-
letes, 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 organiza-
tions 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 reconcili-
ation. 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 Chapter 5
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 back-
grounds 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 under-
standings. Segregated sporting opportunities have likewise emerged, enabling orga-
nizers 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 creat-
ing 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 dis-
crimination 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 eth-
nicity 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 pro-
viding activities that are universally popular, as well as legitimizing physical cul-
tural 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 acknowl-
edges 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 pro-
tected 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).

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 115

 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: descrip-
tively (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, acknowl-
edgement 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 docu-
ment 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 foun-
dations and contemporary issues. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.

116 Chapter 5
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 cul-
tural practices in Canada. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 17(8), 1046–1060.

References
Ali, A. (2018, November 30). What counts as national tragedy? The cruel pessimism of Humboldt.
Engaging Sports. Accessed from https://thesocietypages.org/engagingsports/2018/11/30/what-
counts-as-national-tragedy-the-cruel-pessimism-of-humboldt/. Used with permission.
Associated Press. (2013, June 3). Quebec soccer leaders cite safety on turban bans. Washington
Times. Accessed from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/3/quebec-soccer-
leaders-cite-safety-on-turban-bans. Used with permission.
Associated Press. (2014, May 2). Canadiens’ P. K. Subban target of racist tweets. CBC Sports.
Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/canadiens-p-k-subban-target-of-
racist-tweets-1.2629997.
BBC. (2018, January 9). Football Association adopts ‘Rooney Rule’ as Martin Glenn outlines
2018 plans. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/42623021.
Best, C. (1987). Experience and career length in professional football: The effect of positional
segregation. Sociology of Sport Journal, 4(4), 410–420.
Blay, Z. (2018, September 11). The whitewashing of Naomi Osaka. Retrieved from https://www.
huffingtonpost.ca/entry/the-whitewashing-of-naomi-osaka_us_5b967eb3e4b0cf7b004209b5?
ncid=other_email_o63gt2jcad4&utm_campaign=share_email.
Bueckert,K. (2018, May 8). ‘It’s not right’ Rangers GM says of racism faced by player Givani
Smith. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/givani-smith-
racism-post-season-1.4653588.
Burnaby Now. (2013, November 20). STM grad named just third CFL Canadian MVP.
Retrieved from http://www.burnabynow.com/sports/photo-galleries/stm-grad-named-just-
third-cfl-canadian-mvp-1.708508.
Canadian Heritage (2005). Sport Canada’s Policy on Aboriginal Peoples’ Participation in Sport.
Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Heritage. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/
Collection/CH24-10-2005E.pdf.
Canadian Heritage (2013). Sport participation 2010: A research paper. Ottawa, Canada:
Canadian Heritage. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/
pc-ch/CH24-1-2014-eng.pdf.
Canadian Human Rights Commission (2019). “What is discrimination?”. Retrieved from
https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/eng/content/what-discrimination.
CBC. (2018, July 3). CFL team consulted with Inuit residents, politicians and cultural lead-
ers. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-eskimos-name-
northern-consultations-1.4731990?cmp=rss.
Clipperton, J. (2018, June 26). Willie O’Ree, NHL’s 1st black player, gets hall of fame
call. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/hockey-hall-of-fame-inductees-
2018-1.4723167.
Coakley, J., & Donnelly, P. (2004). Sports in society: Issues and Controversies, First Canadian
Edition. Toronto, Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 117

 Cosentino, F. (1998). Afros, Aboriginals and amateur sport in pre-World War I Canada. Canada’s
Ethnic Group Series, Booklet No. 26. Ottawa, Canada: The Canadian Historical Society.
Dallaire, C., & Harvey, J. (2017). Sport and language politics in Canada. In A. Bairner, J.
Kelly, & J. W. Lee (Eds.). Handbook of sport and Politics (pp. 162–173). London, England:
Routledge.
Danford, M., & Donnelly, P. (2018). ‘Racial’ representation in Canadian interuniversity sport: A pilot
study. Toronto, Canada: Centre for Sport Policy Studies, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical
Education, University of Toronto. Retrieved from https://kpe.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/
Racial%20representation%20in%20university%20sport_4.pdf. Used with permission.
Denis, C. (1997). We are not you: First Nations and Canadian modernity. Peterborough, Canada:
Broadview Press.
Donnelly, P. (1993). Democratization revisited: Seven theses on the democratization of sport
and active leisure, Loisir et Société / Society and Leisure, 16 (2), 413–434.
Forsyth, J., & Heine, M. (2017). “The only good thing that happened at school”: Colonising
narratives of sport in the Indian School Bulletin. British Journal of Canadian Studies, 30(2),
205–225.
Forsyth, J., & Paraschak, V. (2013). The double helix: Aboriginal people and sport policy in
Canada, in L. Thibault & J. Harvey (Eds.). Sport policy in Canada (pp. 267–293). Ottawa,
Canada: University of Ottawa Press.
Frideres, J. (2008). Creating an inclusive society. In J. Biles, M. Burstein, J. Frideres (Eds).
Immigration and integration in Canada in the twenty-first century. Kingston, Canada: McGill-
Queen’s University Press.
Frisby, W., Alexander, T., Taylor, J., Tirone, S., Watson, C., Harvey, J., & Laplante. (2005).
Bridging the recreation divide: Listening to youth and parents from low income families across
Canada. Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Parks and Recreation Association.
Glazer, N. (1970). Ethnic groups in America: From national culture to ideology. In M.
Kurokawa (Ed.), Minority responses (pp. 74–86). New York, NY: Random House.
Globe and Mail. (2018). Despite low attendance, Global T20 Canada cricket organizers pleased
with inaugural tournament. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/
article-despite-low-attendance-global-t20-canada-cricket-organizers-pleased/.
Government of Canada. (1982). Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Retrieved from
https://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/ca_1982.html.
Government of Canada. (2003). Physical Activity and Sport Act. Retrieved from https://www.
canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/sc-2003-c-2/latest/sc-2003-c-2.html.
Government of Canada. (2018). Multiculturalism. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/
services/culture/canadian-identity-society/multiculturalism.html.
Gruneau, R. (1988). Modernization or hegemony: Two views on sport and social develop-
ment. In J. Harvey & H. Cantelon (Eds.), Not just a game: Essays in Canadian sport sociology
(pp. 9–32) Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press.
Harris, C. (2003). Breaking the ice: The black experience in professional hockey. Toronto, Canada:
Insomniac Press.
Hylton, K. (2008). Race and sport: Critical race theory. London, England: Routledge.
Hylton, K. (2010). How a turn to critical race theory can contribute to our understanding of ‘race’,
racism and anti-racism in sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45(3), 335–354.
Johnston, B. (1988). Indian School Days. Toronto, Canada: Key Porter Books.
Kalman-Lamb, N. (2018). Whiteness and hockey in Canada: Lessons from semi-structured
interviews with retired professional players. In J. Ellison & J. Anderson (Eds.),
Hockey: challenging Canada’s game (pp. 287–300). Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa
Press.
King, C.R. (2016). R*dskins: Insult and Brand. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

118 Chapter 5
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 coach-
ing 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-wide-
spread-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 sympo-
sium 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 soc-
cer. Globe and Mail. Accessed from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/fifa-
authorizes-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.theglobe-
andmail.com/canada/article-mcgill-students-vote-to-scrap-redmen-team-name/.
Pettipas, K. (1994). Severing the ties that bind: Government repression of Indigenous religious ceremo-
nies 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/first-
nations-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.

Physical Culture, Sport, Ethnicity, and Race in Canada 119

 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-partners-
toronto-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 expla-
nations. 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 Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
Mary Louise Adams and Sarah Barnes

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: Members of the Canadian
women’s basketball team
1 Define gender, sexuality, and related terms. celebrate after winning a gold
medal at the 2015 Pan Am
2 Understand gender and sexuality as social constructions.
Games in Toronto.
3 Identify norms related to gender and sexuality in sport. Historically, women have
fought hard to gain access to
4 Analyze how sport creates opportunities for people to both reproduce and high level playing
challenge norms, expectations, and stereotypes related to gender and sexuality. opportunities in sport.
KEVIN VAN PAASSEN/AFP/Getty
5 Discuss the role of feminism in helping to transform girls’ and women’s sport. Images

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.
121
 “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 ques-
tion 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 exam-
ines 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 pres-
ence or absence of certain secondary sex characteristics like beards or breasts. In our
culture there are two generally recognized sexes: female and male. While anthropo-
logical 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 soci-
ety, the answer to that question matters; many people find it unsettling when they

122 Chapter 6
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 any-
one 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 expec-
tations 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 bod-
ies 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 soci-
ety, 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 scien-
tifically 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 non-
binary, 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 gender-
fluid, 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 123
 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 confla-
tion 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 deci-
sion 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 devi-
ant. 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 biol-
ogy. 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 pro-
vide the grounds for gender-specific behaviours. Sociologists would call the testos-
terone-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, soci-
ologists 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 cross-
cultural 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 Chapter 6
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, sur-
prising 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 con-
sidered “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 domi-
nant 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 main-
tain 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 his-
torical 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 impor-
tance 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 abil-
ity to cultivate “historical” and “comparative sensitivities” (Mills, 1959/2000). These
“sensitivities” keep us mindful of the fact that human behaviour is variable; they pro-
vide 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 125
 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. Upper-
class 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 compo-
nent 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 mascu-
linity” (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 protec-
tion against gender-based and homophobic bullying. In a study with British elemen-
tary 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 Chapter 6
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 con-
tact 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

S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y 127
 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 profes-
sional 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 wom-
en’s sport on local television news programs in Los Angeles and on the ESPN high-
lights 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 ath-
letes 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 uncom-
mon for news stories about Canadian hockey superstar Hayley Wickenheiser to
make frequent references to her responsibilities as a mother. Certainly, it is impor-
tant 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 pre-
sented 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 cover-
age 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 play-
ers 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 Chapter 6
 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 differ-
ences 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 socio-
logical term for this is sport typing. North American football is a good example, as
are the aesthetic sports (rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming, figure skat-
ing, 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 ski-
ers 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 129
 be an excellent vehicle for demonstrating the similarities between female and male
bodies and the overlapping feminine and masculine traits that all people are capa-
ble 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 gen-
eral 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 legiti-
mize 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 intro-
duced 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 cer-
tainly 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 elimi-
nate 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 sociolo-
gists [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 other-
wise, 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.

130 Chapter 6
❯❯❭❯ BOX 6.1 Co-ed Recreational Sport Settings for Adults
As we have seen, male and female athletes rarely com- Play in organizations such as the SSCC is also often
pete against each other in elite sport. However, there are governed by rules that state the “minimum” number of
many sport organizations that offer adults opportunities women and men who can be on the court or field at any
to play in mixed-sex recreational settings, like the Sport time. So in 6-on-6 soccer at least two women and two
and Social Clubs of Canada (SSCC) that operate in cities men must be field, while the remaining two spots are
across the country. regarded as “gender neutral” because, in theory, either
Research suggests that there can be many positive men or women can fill them. But, as writer Catherine
aspects associated with mixed-gender recreational LeClair (2018) observed in her own experience of playing
spaces. Such environments can draw attention to men’s adult, co-ed recreational sports, many teams opt to play
and women’s similarities and foster physical cultures that the maximum number of men and the minimum number
allow men to become more aware of women’s skills and of women. In LeClair’s experience, this meant that
capacities as athletes (Henry & Comeaux, 1999; Wachs, women were often sidelined and waiting to substitute into
2002). Men and women develop friendships and learn to play. Many women in her league played a few games and
enjoy intense physical competition together (Henry & then quit. These types of rules position women as sec-
Comeaux, 1999; Wachs, 2002). Both men and women ond-class citizens in sport. And what do such rules mean
may challenge presumed gendered differences and ste- for transgender people?
reotypes that are built upon beliefs about male superior- In co-ed sports men and women are often treated as
ity and female inferiority in the athletic realm. Some fundamentally gendered. Given the ideas about gender
scholars have even explored how coed physical culture that tend to circulate in sport, that means they are not
could help radically transform ways of thinking about treated equally and that men tend to benefit. How might
gender and gender relations on a societal level (Henry & different rules and different ways of organizing play make
Comeaux, 1999; Wachs, 2002). co-ed sport and recreational spaces more inviting? How
However, scholars Alex Channon, Katherine Daspher, might they shift the way people think of what counts as
Thomas Fletcher, and Robert Lake (2016) note the inte- fun on the playing field, and what qualities are valued in
gration of men and women in sport and physical culture fellow players? How might they help develop everyone’s
can take many forms and not all arrangements may chal- playing skills?
lenge normative understandings of gender. For instance, There are positive examples of mixed recreational
play in co-ed recreational settings may just as easily sport settings that try to do things differently.
reinforce, rather than challenge, ideas about gender dif- Quidditch, for example, a game inspired by the Harry
ferences and inequality. Leagues like the SSCC often Potter book series, is growing in popularity across
adopt rules that treat male and female athletes differently North America. The sport’s organizing principles chal-
and in ways that emphasize gender asymmetries. In lenge normative gender ideas and aim to create more
sports like soccer or touch football, women might be gender-inclusive spaces that appeal to women and
awarded more points for scoring a goal or a touchdown. people who reject binary notions of gender. Instead of
In basketball, organizations might enforce rules that say forcing players to choose between binary gender iden-
men cannot take on an advantage position in the “key” tities, play is governed by a “maximum” rule that
while women can move freely on the court. What are the states teams cannot have more than 4 players on the
specific messages in these gendered rules? Often these field at a time who identify as the same gender (US
rules tell us that women are weaker and less capable Quidditch, n.d.). By building regulations around the
than men. The assumption is that in order to create a idea of gender “maximum” (instead of gender “mini-
level or fair playing field in co-ed sport, the conditions mum”), Quidditch encourages its participants to field
must be made more difficult and challenging for men teams that reflect and celebrate diverse gender identi-
while being easier for women. ties (US Quidditch, n.d.).

S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y 131
 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 con-
tentious 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 abol-
ished. 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

132 Chapter 6
have noted, elite sport is the domain of atypical bodies. Why single out this particu-
lar 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 knowl-
edge 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 segrega-
tion 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 trans-
gender people who may resist being categorized or who may categorize themselves
differently than sport officials do. The main issue from the perspective of transgen-
der 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 evi-
dence 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 recog-
nized, while doing little for trans people who are unable to access or are not inter-
ested 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 iden-
tify 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 ath-
letes to have been on hormone therapy for at least one year. U Sports, the govern-
ing body for Canadian university sport, passed a trans inclusion policy in
September 2018. The U Sports policy allows athletes to compete on teams that

S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y 133
 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 per-
mit 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 oppor-
tunity to participate because they do not identify with binary sex and gender cat-
egories. Even small steps can demonstrate the intent to be inclusive. The
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, for instance, holds a regular trans-
friendly 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 mentioned ­earlier, not all people who identify as trans-
the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender gender or transsexual have access to or are interested
identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds in medical interventions. Howell explained to the CBC,
for discrimination. This type of protective legislation “[the policy] wasn’t inclusive. It was very intrusive. And
represents an important step toward creating a more I think it was overkill, especially when we're talking
inclusive society. Yet, legislation alone cannot trans- community ball” (Zabjek & Harvey, 2018). Howell’s
form hostility toward trans people or ignorance about decision to resign from coaching prompted the
sex variation or gender non-conformity. As numerous Edmonton Youth Softball Association, Softball Alberta,
studies have shown, trans people in Canada continue and Softball Canada to begin rewriting their policies on
to experience high levels of harassment and violence gender inclusion. Sport organizations need to make
on the street, in their families, at school, in the health sure that policies related to locker-room behaviour,
care system, and at work (Ashley, 2018). All institu- travel arrangements, and uniforms provide a comfort-
tions in Canada, including sport, have a role to play in able environment for all players regardless of gender
transforming binary notions of gender and promoting identity (Taylor et al., 2011).
gender diversity. As more trans people “come out” at younger ages,
At every level of competition, trans athletes, their inclusion in sport may force a rethinking of the cur-
coaches, parents, and officials are working to change rent default organization of sport along lines of sex. Do all
discriminatory policies and cultures and to make sport sports at all levels really need to separate male and
more accessible and inviting. In 2016, Tim Howell, a female bodies? If sex segregation is intended to promote
parent and coach of a recreational under-16 softball fairness in sport, how must our notions of fairness
team in Edmonton, resigned to protest rules that would change when we think about the accessibility of sport to
have required teenaged trans athletes to provide medi- people who do not conform to normative categories of
cal proof of their ongoing gender transition. As we sex or gender?

134 Chapter 6
 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 pre-
sumed 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 homopho-
bia 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 high-
profile 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 commu-
nity 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

S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y 135
 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 vio-
lent 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 privi-
leges 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 Chapter 6
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 discus-
sion 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 dis-
abled), 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 mar-
ginalized 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 disadvan-
taged 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 oppor-
tunities. 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 differ-
ent 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 137
 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 regu-
larly 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 par-
ticipation 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%, pri-
marily 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 accu- and enforcing rules that are intended to protect athletes.
sations of sexual harassment and sexual assault made Donnelly and Kerr (2018) offer several recommendations
against the American film producer Harvey Weinstein. on how NSOs might comply with existing policies and
These accusations launched the #MeToo movement, a create better conditions for athletes. For example, NSOs
broad public effort to expose and counter sexual harass- might create better tools to make reporting safer and
ment and sexual violence. Women in the film industry, more accessible for athletes, and provide training for
media, politics, the arts, and higher education have come coaches and officials about how to prevent sexual abuse
forward to share their experiences of sexual abuse, and mistreatment before it happens.
harassment, and non-consensual sexual contact in the But as feminist scholars Sandra Kirby, Lorraine
workplace. Women athletes have also been part of this Greaves, and Olena Hankivsky (2000) correctly point
movement. For example, former national alpine ski coach out, the elimination of sexual harassment and abuse in
Bertrand Charest was convicted in December 2017 of 37 sport is not only the responsibility of sport organizations.
charges related to sexual assault and exploitation of nine While sport organizations should be more transparent
teenage skiers in the 1990s. Four of the skiers abused by and accountable on these issues, harassment and abuse
Charest have spoken up in the media, and they were are widespread public problems that concern everyone.
present when members of the Quebec National Assembly It is important for Canadians to reflect on how patriarchy,
passed a motion to work to “make sport abuse free.” toxic masculinity, and an ethic of over-conformity have
Sexual harassment and abuse in Canadian sport is permitted cultures of sexual abuse and harassment to
not new. Peter Donnelly and Gretchen Kerr (2018), sport grow in sporting environments.
researchers from the University of Toronto, explain that There are many questions about whose voices and
since 1990, Canada has had some of the most progres- experiences are recognized in the #MeToo movement,
sive policies in the world when it comes to sexual harass- and it remains to be seen how the growing awareness
ment and abuse in sport. For instance, in order to qualify about the systematic nature of sexual harassment and
for federal funding, all National Sport Organizations abuse in the workplace and other settings will translate
(NSOs) must have policies to deal with instances of sex- into social and institutional change (Zarkov & Davis,
ual abuse and harassment, and NSOs are supposed to 2018). Nevertheless, the emergence of the #MeToo move-
use independent investigators if, or when, maltreatment ment has highlighted the necessity of recognizing sexual
is reported. Yet, Donnelly and Kerr’s (2018) research abuse and harassment as barriers to full gender equality
also shows that many NSOs have difficulty implementing and justice in all social institutions, including sport.

138 Chapter 6
 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 con-
cepts 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 exer-
cise 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 nation-
alism 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 contem-
porary 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 construc-
tion 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 139
 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 expe-
rienced 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 iden-
tity 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 appro-
priate 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?

140 Chapter 6
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 rela-
tionship 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 repre-
sentation. 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-right-
to-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.

S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y 141
 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 partici-
pants 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 mascu-
linity. 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-no-
2-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/francoise-
abanda-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.

142 Chapter 6
International Olympic Committee. (2009). Women and sport: The current situation. Retrieved
from http://www.wcse2011.qa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Women-and-Sport-The-
Current-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/comment-
isfree/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-co-
ed-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-iaaf-
lawsuit.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 trans-
friendly. Xtra. Retrieved from http://dailyxtra.com/vancouver/news/vancouver-parks-
board-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-of-
sport-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.

S e x , G e n d e r, a n d S e x u a l i t y 143
 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 mas-
culinity 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 trans-
gender 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.

144 Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Youth Sport and Physical Culture
Jesse Couture and Jason Laurendeau

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: Sport and physical activity are
important features in the lives
1 List some of the ways that children and youth are socialized into and through of many Canadian youth and
sport and physical activity. their families.
Shutterstock
2 Describe and assess the benefits and limitations of physical activity guidelines
for children and youth.
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 com-
munities. 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 pri-
vate 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 monocul-
ture” 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 Chapter 7
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 ath-
letic scholarships, and others might qualify for international sporting mega-events such
as the Olympic Games. Following Donnelly (1996), however, we suggest that the exist-
ing 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 profes-
sional athlete. But this narrative—the dream of “making it” by “going pro”—is devel-
oped 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 phenom-

enon, 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, geo-
graphically, 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 pro-
lympic 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 con-
nected 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 high-
lighted 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 147
 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 base-
ball 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 decision-
makers 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 activ-
ity. 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 los-
ing, 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, child-
hood). 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 poten-
tial 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 Chapter 7
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 inter-
nalize 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) involve-
ment 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 experi-
enced 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 difficul-
ties, 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 health benefits derived from organized physical activities,
in Canada by various social actors (e.g., government regimented training programs were thought to provide
agencies, religious organizations) as part of what Woolford Native youth with much-needed lessons in life. (Forsyth,
(2015) calls a “benevolent experiment” (or what Thomas 2012, p. 25)
King [2012], more pointedly, calls “benevolent assaults”). Residential schools exercised control over every aspect
In the 19th and 20th centuries, in particular, sport was of students’ lives, and, as such, exemplify what sociolo-
marshalled as one of a number of strategies to assimilate gists call total institutions (Norman, 2017). These schools
young Indigenous peoples in Canada. Residential prohibited students’ use of their native languages and
schools, in particular, served as important sites for this shaped the kinds of understandings they formed of them-
physical, cultural, and ideological “education”: selves, their bodies, and their relationships with their own
Native students were subjected to regimented physical kin and the land (McKegney, 2013). As Forsyth argues,
training programs designed to inculcate patriotic values “[s]ports and games were thus pivotal sites through which
and instruct male and female students in appropriate mas- power was legitimized and exercised through Aboriginal
culine and feminine behaviours. . . . Aside from the obvious bodies in the residential school system” (2012, p. 32).

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 149
 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, underemphasiz-
ing 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 participa-
tion, 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 encour-
age 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 par-
ticipate in physical activity and informally organized sport; while they partici-
pate 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 Chapter 7
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 chil-
dren 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 house-
holds 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 partici-
pate. Finally, children from single-parent households were less likely (68%) to par-
ticipate 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 disabil-
ity, 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 Although disability sport can provide opportunity for
consider questions of disability, they tend to do so using a positive identity development and protection and
“biomedical” or “deficit-based” model (Goodwin & Peers, reassurance of its individual members, at the institu-
2011, p. 186). From this perspective, “disability is under- tional level it can reinforce ableism. The systematic
differentiation of disability sport from normal sport,
stood to be a problematic biological abnormality or deficit
for example, serves to reproduce the idea that . . . dis-
that is rooted within an individual’s cognition, ­sensation
ability sport is a derivative, adapted version of natural
and/or physiology” (Goodwin & Peers, 2011, p. 187). To able-bodied (male) sport. (Goodwin & Peers, 2011,
most readers, this likely sounds quite familiar; this is a p. 195)
dominant understanding of disability. Nevertheless, it is an
understanding that fundamentally fails to take account of It is important to consider that there is a notable lack
how our personal biographies are shaped by the institu- of statistics regarding the extent to which children with
tional contexts in which we find ourselves. In other words, disabilities participate in sport and physical activity more
it is important that we think critically about how disability broadly. This lack of data is interesting in and of itself. In
is produced; we must engage our sociological imagination an era in which data—and data about physical activity in
to consider disability not as something that people have particular—are pervasive, the dearth of such data with
(an idea that constructs disability in individualized terms), respect to sport and physical activity for people with dis-
but as something that is produced by systems, institutions, abilities suggests that this is barely on the radar of most
and practices (thus framing it in structural terms): policymakers.

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 151
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 recom-
mend 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 recom-
mendation 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).

152 Chapter 7
 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 individu-
als 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 physi-
cal (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 con-
ferences, 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 educa-
tion 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 assump-
tions 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 catego-
ries 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

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 153
 political and economic rationality that extends the logic of ‘the market’ into institu-
tions 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 cir-
cumstances, 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 eth-
nicity, 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 sug-
gest, 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 guide-
lines in broader, more inclusive terms? Might we create guidelines that create space
for reflection, sedentary play, and connections with important others in young peo-
ple’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 Canadian sport landscape is beginning to address and
and recreational leisure facilities, themselves, can cre- take seriously trans inclusion in youth sport (Travers,
ate a crisis situation for transgender and gender-non- 2018b, n.p.). A report published by the Canadian
conforming kids since each is predicated on the Teachers’ Federation urges educators and school
taken-for-granted assumption that there are only two administrators to enable transgender and gender-non-
(fundamentally different) sexes (Travers, 2018a). conforming kids to participate in all activities, including
Travers explains that sex-segregated and sex-differen- physical education and sport, in a manner consistent
tiated sport programs often unfortunately lead to trans with their affirmed gender identity (Travers, 2018a).
kids opting out of organized sport altogether (Travers, Travers (2018a) explains that most transgender and
2018a). gender non-conforming kids still often encounter barri-
Travers suggests there is a need to reconfigure sport- ers to participation, in spite of such reports, in part due
ing spaces and prevailing social practice to make sport to uneven adoption of these policies by both school
more inclusive of trans kids and they highlight how a boards and other sport and recreation providers across
number of newly-developed policies point to how the the country.

154 Chapter 7
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 repre-
sents 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 criti-
cally 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 vir-
tual 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 repackag-
ing (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 techno-
logically mediated extension of parenting. In other words, companies like Garmin
leverage the idea that there is an epidemic of physical inactivity and obesity, and mar-
ket 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 155
 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 physi-
cally 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” understand-
ings 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, sug-
gest 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 commer-
cialization 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 corpo-
rations 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 Chapter 7
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 recre-
ational 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 pro-
nounced 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 com-
mitment to sport can limit the time they have for friendships and other extracurricu-
lar 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 sim-
ply a matter of individual effort, skill, and hard work (and, thus, downplays or other-
wise 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 157
 “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 alterna-
tives 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 democra-
tized. They may also foster more inclusive cultures, and hence provide opportunities
for some young people who might not feel welcome or comfortable in more rational-
ized sporting cultures (Thorpe, 2018). Becky Beal’s (1995) foundational research with
young skateboarders, for instance, points to skateboarding as a “site of cultural resis-
tance,” 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 off-
setting 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 resis-
tances, 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 think-
ing 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 activ-
ity to be pursued simply for pleasure, but as a training aid in terms of athlete develop-
ment for elite (prolympic) sport (Strafford, van der Steen, Davids, & Stone, 2018).

158 Chapter 7
 Alternative sport
participation is growing
among today’s youth, and
points to possibilities
beyond the high-
performance model that
dominates the youth sport
landscape.
Altanaka/Shutterstock

While often embraced for their lack of rigid rules and for their penchant for cre-
ative 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 partici-
pate 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 chal-
lenges that continue to face youth sport in Canada. For the Love of the Game (www.
fortheloveofthegame.ca) and Paradigm Sports (www.paradigmsports.ca) provide educa-
tion 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, par-
ents, 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 over-
represented 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 159
 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 influ-
ences 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 con-
cern that has come to light once again recently.
To mitigate against these negative behaviours, numerous organizations have ini-
tiated 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 In Canada, the case of Graham James is, tragically, a
coaches such as Michael Arsenault (gymnastics, touchstone in terms of youth sport and sexual assault.
Edmonton, Alberta) and Dr. Larry Nassar (former Former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy accused James of
Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics national abusing him and another player between 1984 and 1995
team doctor) have illustrated the massive scope and while they played junior hockey. In 1997, James pleaded
impacts of these predatory behaviours, as well as the guilty to 350 sexual assaults involving the two players, was
(criminal) failures on the part of other organizational sentenced to three and half years in prison, and was
actors to prevent future assaults when presented with banned for life from coaching by the Canadian Hockey
evidence of wrongdoing (Giardina & Denzin, 2012). Association. James fled Canada and the public eye in
Each time a new case comes to light, there are 2000, but in the early 2000s was found to be coaching the
renewed calls to action to enforce rigorous screening boys national team in Spain. In 2007, James was par-
and mandatory background checks for youth sport doned by the National Parole Board, prompting national
coaches and others. outrage. In 2010, James was arrested on a nationwide
From a sociological perspective, screening and warrant and faced nine new sex-related charges involving
background checks are insufficient measures in and of three boys between 1979 and 1994. He pleaded guilty in
themselves, as they are aimed simply at weeding out 2011 and was sentenced to five additional years in prison.
the “bad apples” who might prey on young athletes, Against the backdrop outlined above, it is striking
and only reveal convictions, missing accusations that that a recent analysis of data from a sample of
did not result in conviction, for example. Rather, soci- National Sport Organizations (NSOs) in Canada and
ologists suggest that there are certain elements of sport Provincial Sport Organizations (PSOs) in Ontario reveals
cultures that make these kinds of abuse possible, and that a great many NSOs and PSOs are not in compliance
allow them to continue for years amidst suspicion, even with Sport Canada’s requirement that they each have a
accusation. Sandra Kirby and her colleagues argue policy “to deal appropriately with incidents of harassment
persuasively that there is a “dome of silence” in com- and abuse [and] have trained designated arm’s-length
petitive sport that creates the conditions for abuse of harassment officers” (Donnelly, Kerr, Heron, & DiCarlo,
athletes. This dome, they point out, functions to keep 2016, p. 34). Donnelly and his colleagues “highlight the
the sporting world separate from the outside world and need for further investigation of the implementation and
to put tremendous pressure on athletes within the dome effectiveness of sport policies related to athlete welfare”
to “create a self-sufficient and self-perpetuating sport (2016, p. 47). In other words, policies themselves are not
system” (Kirby, Greaves, & Hankivsky, 2000, p. 119) in enough. They need to be well thought out, carefully
which the conduct of coaches and other authority fig- administered, and anchored to broader questions of
ures is rarely challenged. athlete well-being.

160 Chapter 7
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 reconsid-
eration. 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, nor-
malize and objectify athletes’ bodies and as a consequence limit and constrain ath-
letes not empower them” (Denison, Mills, & Konoval, 2017, p. 773). Though this
may sound somewhat pessimistic, sociologists of sport see opportunities for coach-
ing practices and principles to be improved by being problematized:

No coaching knowledge or so called “best coaching practices” should be uncriti-

cally accepted and applied by coaches . . . all coaching knowledges and practices
have their uses, but also their dangers and problematic effects and . . . a commit-
ment 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 sustain-
able, 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 guid-
ance 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 161
 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)com-
patible with prolympism. Where the former is interested in access, inclusion, equal-
ity, 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 profes-
sional 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 pat-
terns 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?

162 Chapter 7
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 shap-
ing 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 sub-
culture of skateboarding. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 252−267.

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 163
 Brylinsky, J. (2010). Practice makes perfect and other curricular myths in the sport specializa-
tion 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 fig-
ures. 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 exami-
nation 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.

164 Chapter 7
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/about-
paradigm-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.

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 165
 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-play-
project.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/10573/5214760-
eng.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 sci-
ence. 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-of-
sport-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-said-
to-­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.

166 Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture
Jason Laurendeau and Danielle Peers

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter students will be able to: Ben Johnson’s victory in the
men’s 100-metre sprint in the
1 Explain different sociological approaches to deviance. 1988 Olympic Games, and
the drug scandal that
2 Describe the social processes through which particular bodies or actions come
followed, remains a
to be understood and policed as deviant. touchstone moment in
3 Compare what are understood as deviant acts within different sport, gender, or Canadian Olympic and
sporting history.
(dis)ability contexts.
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 lit-
any 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 Anti-
Doping Agency (WADA), meanwhile, is at the centre of a complicated web of consid-
erations 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 advan-
tage”? 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 under-
stood, 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 articula-
tion of the sociological imagination, in which Mills stresses the importance of under-
standing “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, negotia-
tions, 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).

168 Chapter 8
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-for-
granted 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 embodi-
ments 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 particu-
lar 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 sport-
related 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 devi-
ance 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 “per-
son, behaviour, or characteristic in question” (Bereska, 2011, p. 22). Other analysts,
meanwhile, see deviance as goal-oriented rational action connected to systems of

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture 169

 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, institu-
tions, 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 impor-
tant 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 gov-
ern 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 cul-
ture 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 heteronorma-
tivity, 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

170 Chapter 8
❯❯❭❯ BOX 8.1 Doping in Canadian Sport
The case of Ben Johnson is illustrative of a number of had used steroids and that the use of performance-
important points discussed at the outset of this chapter. enhancing drugs was endemic in elite sport” (Jackson &
In 1988, Johnson was one of the best-known athletes Ponic, 2001, pp. 54–55).
on the planet. A Canadian sprinter of Jamaican heri- The Dubin Inquiry is of sociological significance for
tage, Johnson exploded onto the sporting scene, estab- two other reasons. First, it “was the first full-scale exami-
lishing himself as a force to be reckoned with in one of nation of doping in sport that looked beyond the athlete’s
the most prestigious sporting events there is: the men’s guilt [and] attributed partial responsibility for Ben
100-metre sprint. Johnson’s dramatic victory in the Johnson’s doping offence to his coaches, trainers, and
event at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games established a other consultants” (Teetzel, 2009, p. 87). Second,
new world record and solidified his position as the “fastest though the Inquiry did more than blame an individual
man on Earth.” athlete for a doping infraction, it still located culpability
The fame Johnson gained with this victory was sur- very much at the feet of particular people, indicting their
passed, however, by his fall from grace less than 48 hours moral character for “cheating.” In so doing, the inquiry
later when it was revealed that he had tested positive for failed to critically consider a sociological analysis of the
a banned anabolic steroid. Officials publicly stripped structure of high performance sport (one that continues
Johnson of his gold medal and whisked him out of South to dominate national discussions of sport) that creates
Korea. In the years that followed, the Dubin Inquiry, the backdrop against which we must consider individual
which cost Canadian taxpayers $3.6 million, “revealed and collective decisions to use performance-enhancing
what almost everyone already knew: that Ben Johnson 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; dis-
abled 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 pro-
duce 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

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture 171

 athletes: The “large or fat running body presents a site where the disciplinary pro-
cesses 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 “fat-
ness” 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 typi-
cally 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 pathologi-
cal, 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 sig-
nificantly 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 first-
place 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 demon-
strated 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 athleti-
cism, 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 organiz-
ers 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 Chapter 8
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 competi-
tions and resources for those with the most significant disabilities (Howe, 2008).
Further, Paralympic organizers, mainstream media, and even Paralympians them-
selves, 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 struc-
tures. 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 these particular practices is very much up for debate.
elite athlete playing through serious pain—risking What is undeniable, however, is that the IPC and the
extreme discomfort and worsening injury—to win. media treated this as a pressing issue, deviantizing
Famous examples include Tiger Woods golfing on a bro- Paralympians in the process.
ken leg in the 2008 US Open, Canadian rower Silken In response to concerns about “boosting,” the IPC
Laumann winning a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympic began to check athlete blood pressure just prior to com-
Games only 10 weeks (and five surgeries) after shatter- petitions to search for “cheaters” whose systolic blood
ing her right leg in a rowing accident, and a whole host pressure was found to be above 160 mmHg. Any
of Olympic runners limping across the finish line. ­athletes whose blood pressure was above this limit were
In contrast, at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, barred from competing; they could not be otherwise
the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) cracked sanctioned by the IPC because there is no way to know
down on Paralympic athletes “cheating” by competing whether blood pressure is high due to an accidental
injured. Some athletes with high level spinal cord injury injury, purposeful injury, or other unrelated stimuli. After
are susceptible to a condition called autonomic dysre- all, despite the widespread media frenzy leading up to
flexia, a neurological reaction to extreme bodily stimuli the Rio Games about Paralympians as desperate
that increases blood pressure, heart rate, and, by exten- “scrotum-squeezing ‘boosters’” (Roelf, 2015), auto-
­
sion, potentially athletic performance but also increases nomic dysreflexia is a naturally occurring reaction to a
risk of seizures and stroke (Roelf, 2015). The IPC range of bodily stimuli including competing in hot
believed that some Paralympians purposefully caused ­temperatures, in-grown toenails, bowel issues, and even
autonomic dysreflexia reactions by triggering a pain sexual stimulation (HealthlinkBC, 2017).
response in body parts that they could not feel: a practice The question for us, as sociologists of sport, is not
known as “boosting.” The most common techniques whether or not these athletes were purposefully boosting,
alleged to be employed include sitting on a pin, overfilling but rather why are Paralympians playing with pain and
the bladder, breaking small bones, or—the most devian- injury treated more as deviants than their non-disabled
tized alleged act—twisting or sitting on one’s scrotum. counterparts? And what are the power effects of con-
Whether or not Paralympic athletes were engaging in structing and treating Paralympians as deviant boosters?

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture 173

 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 tremen-
dously narrow range of possibilities for those with disabilities. The supercrip is a
narrative that emphasizes the individual capacity of disabled deviants to overcome dis-
ability 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 mecha-
nisms 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 out-
side 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 devi-
ance, 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 par-
ticular 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 con-
tacting 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 investiga-
tion, 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 Chapter 8
DEVIANCE ON THE “FIELD OF PLAY”
Much academic and popular attention is devoted to considering examples of devi-
ance 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 con-
text, 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 under-
stand 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

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture 175

 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 rela-
tively recent phenomenon, one at odds with a longer history:

As difficult as it may be to accept today, sound historical studies have docu-

mented 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 high-
performance 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 under-
standings 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 state-
of-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 consti-
tute such a concern in elite sport at this particular historical juncture. Contemporary

176 Chapter 8
concerns about performance-enhancing drugs are quite unusual, historically speak-
ing. 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 govern-
ing 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 consump-
tion 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, painkill-
ers 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 ath-
letes: “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; cul-
turally revered and encouraged in many sporting spaces; and tied to broader normal-
ized 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 177

 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 phar-
maceutical 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 scandal-
plagued 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 regula-
tory 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 outlin-
ing Russian government complicity in a wide-ranging program of performance-
enhancing 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 Anti-
Doping,” 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 sev-
eral fronts. First, some critics suggest that drug-testing protocols violate the basic
human rights of all athletes (Rushall & Jones, 2007). Second, scholars have high-
lighted 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 Chapter 8
Third, scholars have highlighted that these testing protocols do much more than sim-
ply 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 conduct-
ing 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, prepara-
tion, 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 long-
standing 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 sug-
gest 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 quarter-
back 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 rea-
soning 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 179

 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, organiza-
tions, 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

180 Chapter 8
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 tar-
nished 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 rela-
tion 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 stigma-
tized 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 par-
ticipating 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 inter-
sect 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 181

 One particular field of activities often constructed as deviant (and yet simulta-
neously 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 straight-
forward 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 perform-
ing 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 par-
ticular 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 fundamen-
tally 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 Chapter 8
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 nor-
mality 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 desir-
able 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 perfor-
mance, 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 dis-
abilities 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.

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture 183

 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 bul-
lying 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-annoys-
paralympic-hero/article18278879/.
Cohen, S. (1972). Folk devils and moral panics: The construction of the Mods and Rockers. London,
UK: MacGibbon and Kee.

184 Chapter 8
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 cow-
ardice,’ 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 over-
conformity to the sport ethic. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8, 307–325.
Jackson, S., & Ponic, P. (2001). Pride and prejudice: Reflecting on sport heroes, national iden-
tity, 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-mari-
juana-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 neo-
liberalism in newspaper accounts of backcountry rescue. Communication & Sport, 1, 382–399.

Deviance, Sport, and Physical Culture 185

 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 sur-
veillance. Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, 5, 174–188.
Peers, D. (2009). (Dis)empowering Paralympic histories: Absent athletes and disabling dis-
courses. 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/paralympics-
to-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-nhl-
off-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-for-
cannabis-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-list-
wada-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-kaepernick-
explains-protest-of-national-anthem.

186 Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Violence and Sport
Stacy L. Lorenz

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: Violent sports have long been
the object of public
1 Describe the main approaches and theories that help us to understand violence fascination.
in sport. Katy Blackwood/Alamy Stock
Photo
2 Explain the historical relationship between violence and masculinity in sport.
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.

187
 “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 furi-
ous 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, particu-
larly 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 prov-
ing 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).

188 Chapter 9
 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 imagina-
tions 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, psycho-
logically 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 threat-
en or produce injury or that violate human justices and civil liberties. (p. 15)

Violence and Sport 189

 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 char-
acter 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 ejec-
tions 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, bench-
clearing 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 Chapter 9
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 behav-
iour 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 func-
tionalist 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 individu-
als 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 simi-
lar 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, includ-
ing peer groups, role models, and community institutions and other social structures.
In sport, for instance, violent behaviours frequently become naturalized and normal-
ized 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 191

 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 influ-
ence 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, por-
traying 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 modi-
fied 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 Chapter 9
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 ver-
sion 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” man-
hood 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 sig-
nificant problem. Michael Kimmel (1996) writes, “Men sought to rescue their sons
from the feminizing clutches of mothers and teachers and create new ways to ‘manu-
facture 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 man-
hood 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 ben-
efits 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 promi-
nent 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 193

 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

194 Chapter 9
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 con-
tinue 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 prac-
tice in the modern game and calling attention to the injury risks associated with
fighting.
Drawing from a structural functionalist framework, supporters of fighting fre-
quently 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 emo-
tion in their teammates or alter the momentum of a game through fighting. These
purposeful, tactical applications of violence demonstrate that fighting is learned behav-
iour in response to certain structural conditions, and, hence, a social construction.
Ideologically, under the “NHL theory of violence” (Dryden, 1989, p. 233), fight-
ing 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 unac-
ceptable 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 fight-
ing argue that harmful body checks and stick work could be curtailed more effec-
tively 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 toler-
ated 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 “thermo-
stat” that regulates the game. However, critics of the “code” note that catharsis the-
ory 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

Violence and Sport 195

 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 effec-
tively “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 concus-
sions 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, aggressive-
ness, confusion, paranoia, and depression (Concussion Legacy Foundation, 2018).
The first NFL player diagnosed with CTE was former Pittsburgh Steelers line-
man 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 fol-
lowing 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 fac-
ing 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).

196 Chapter 9
 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 dur-
ing the summer of 2011. Derek Boogaard died as a result of an overdose of painkill-
ers 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 ver-
sion 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 pub-
lic 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 diminish-
ing. 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 emas-
culation (Kline, 2011), “pansification” (Arthur, 2009), or “pussification” (Spector,
2013) of the sport.

Violence and Sport 197

❯❯❭❯ BOX 9.1 CTE and Conflict Theory
One of the most significant developments related to vio- ensure players’ safety. Under Gary Bettman’s leadership,
lence in sport over the past decade or so is the growing the NHL has used the lack of completely settled science
understanding of the consequences of sporting violence around brain injury—especially CTE—as an excuse not
for athletes, especially in relation to the possibility of to change the sport (Dryden, 2017).
brain injury. Increased media coverage of concussions, Matt Ventresca (2018) argues that “proclaiming a need
CTE, and the challenges faced by football and hockey for more conclusive evidence is a strategic way for sports
players in retirement “has served to increase awareness powerbrokers to delay making radical changes to league
of the concussion problem and encourage public debate rules or styles of play, all the while selling their respective
about sport, health and safety” (Ventresca, 2015). organizations as conscientious advocates for ‘good science’”
However, significant questions remain about the commit- (p. 13). But if we need “definitive knowledge before mean-
ment of professional leagues and sports organizations to ingful action can take place” (Ventresca, 2018, p. 13), will
accomplish meaningful change in reducing violence and leagues ever be expected to act to protect players’ health?
injury as a labour/health and safety issue for players/ After all, “certainty is ever-elusive and there are always more
workers. The NHL, for instance, continues to highlight studies to be done” (Ventresca, 2018, p. 13). A recent
the lack of certainty in measuring the impact of concus- Toronto Star editorial summarized the NHL’s perspective:
sions in order to justify inaction on reducing blows to the
The increasing focus on CTE—a single terrifying outcome
head, and to raise doubts about the league’s responsibil-
that can only be diagnosed after death—has skewed the
ity for players’ medical problems. From a conflict theory
entire debate around concussions in sport and created a
perspective, the NHL also views the struggles and diffi- ready excuse for Bettman and like-minded sport execu-
culties—even deaths—of retired players as isolated, tives to delay much-needed safety measures.
individual cases, rather than indications of broader Bettman runs a lucrative business and likes his hockey
structural issues related to violence within the sport and product just the way it is. And, no doubt, lawyers have sug-
the working conditions of players who are ultimately gested that continued denials of any link may help defend
alienated from their labour and from their own bodies. against lawsuits by players who’ve suffered debilitating
The NHL’s skeptical view of the connection between effects from head trauma, and their families.
hockey and brain injury is in line with the caution But let’s not pretend that’s got anything to do with the
expressed by the 2017 International Consensus state of science. It doesn’t. It’s nothing more than an excuse
to maintain the status quo and, shamefully, put players at
Statement on Concussion in Sports, which states that
unnecessary risk. (Star Editorial Board, 2018) (From
there has not yet been a demonstrated “cause-and-effect
Toronto Star. © 2018 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
relationship” between CTE and contact sports; therefore, rights reserved. Used under license.)
“the notion that repeated concussion or sub-concussive
impact cause CTE remains unknown” (quoted in It is not difficult to see here how conflict theory can
Ventresca, 2018, p. 10). However, it is crucial to note help us make connections between Bettman’s stated
that a requirement for clear “proof” of the link between position on CTE, the profit motive that underlies profes-
hockey, CTE, and other degenerative brain diseases sets sional sport, and the role athletes/workers play as mere
an extremely high standard of evidence before the NHL instruments (and seemingly disposable ones at that) to
can be compelled to take more significant action 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 Chapter 9
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 gener-
ated 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 bod-
ies: “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 ever-
present threat of demasculinization,” exclusion, and humiliation, as well as to distin-
guish 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 gen-
der and power and, in particular, with the acting out of codes of hegemonic masculin-
ity, 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 199

 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 objec-
tify 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 homo-
phobic 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 Chapter 9
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 consensu-
ally 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 play-
ing 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 normal-
ization 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 every-
thing 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 actu-
ally 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 201

 Finally, while Messner’s analysis of the connection between manhood and atti-
tudes 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 atti-
tudes 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 psy-
chological 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 conven-
tional 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 implica-
tions 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 injury-
producing 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 environ-
mental damage in the preparation and hosting of large-scale venues and sports
events” (Young, 2012, pp. 13−14).

202 Chapter 9
 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 per-
formance; the sexual abuse of young athletes by coaches; and the unique risks of
injury and death associated with extreme sports or dangerous activities like moun-
tain 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 demand-
ing 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 associa-
tions 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 trou-
bles—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 203

 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 member-
ship” on a new team (Bryshun & Young, 2007, p. 302). Sports-related hazing fre-
quently 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 pre-
vious 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 behav-
iour, such as wearing embarrassing clothing, unusual public singing or chanting,
attending a skit night or “roast,” or being forced to eat or drink something unpleas-
ant (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 socializa-
tion 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 superior-
ity in relation to less experienced team members, although Bryshun and Young
(2007) indicate that perhaps women do “not adhere as rigidly as their male counter-
parts 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

204 Chapter 9
his teammates were stripped naked and trapped in the washroom on the team bus dur-
ing 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 com-
mitted 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 haz-
ing 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 inter-
connected 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 partici-
pants. 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 han-
dled 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 eventu-
ally acknowledged a connection between football and CTE, and reached a settlement
that would pay former players approximately $1 billion for a number of neurodegen-
erative conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) (Hruby, 2018). More than 20,000 retired players have registered for compensa-
tion, 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 205

 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 treat-
ment 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 sur-
rounding head injuries, while other hockey executives highlight the sport’s long-
standing 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 orga-
nizational 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 repeti-
tive 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 frustra-
tion, 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.

206 Chapter 9
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 cultur-
ally 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 sports-
related 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-concussion-
diaries-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.

Violence and Sport 207

 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 examina-
tion 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 Chapter 9
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 influ-
ences 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-is-
here-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-do-
with-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-judgment-
in-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-concussion-
lawsuit-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.

Violence and Sport 209

 Chapter 10
Sport and Health
Parissa Safai

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Sports can be dangerous and After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
not always seen as a healthy
activity. 1 Identify the sport-health paradox and debate the commonplace assumption
Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans/ that sport is good for one’s health all the time and for all people.
Shutterstock
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

210
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 recog-
nize 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 intercon-
nections between sport and health, scholarship that has steadily grown in the sociol-
ogy 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 perspec-
tives, 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 criti-
cally 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 impor-
tance 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 promo-
tion and therefore is the best stepping stone in their career progression into a

Sport and Health 211

 ­ 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 physi-
cal 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 delegiti-
mize other ways of understanding the body, such as the social body) promotes a con-
ceptualization 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 prin-
ciples, 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 mechani-
cal 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 Chapter 10
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 machin-
ery 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 rationaliza-
tion 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 orga-
nized 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 pro-
lympic 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 them-
selves, 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 long-
term 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 competi-
tive 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).

Sport and Health 213

 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 problem-
atic, 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 rehabilita-
tion 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 justifica-
tions” (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 deperson-
alized 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 dif-
ferent 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 inter-
changeable 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 disre-
gard 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 Chapter 10
❯❯❭❯ BOX 10.1 Mental Health and Sport
It is important to also acknowledge that the health- than not, as an individual athlete’s problem. In other
compromising implications of the body as machine men- words, rarely are aspects of the sport system itself—for
tality are not just specific only to physical injury, but also example, the intensive training and competition regi-
to mental health and illness. In recent years, there has mens; the pressure from sport coaches, the public or
been growing scholarly attention being paid to the mental media; the rigors of constant training; the consequences
health issues among athletes, particularly for those par- of abuse and harassment in sport (e.g., hazing/initiation
ticipating in the highest levels of sport such as the rituals); etc.—identified as contributing factors to an
Olympics/Paralympics or in professional sport. athlete’s mental health struggles.
A consistent theme among scholars exploring this It is often not until athletes retire from active competi-
issue is that the all-encompassing focus on an athlete’s tion and start to get some distance and perspective on
sporting performance contributes, for some, to a lack of their experience or start to move onto different chapters
attention to underlying mental health issues because in their lives that we see critiques of the sport system
anything that could negatively impact performance— emerging. Stories about hazing in sport, for example,
including, for example, anxiety or depression—is dis- continue to make news headlines, including the admis-
tanced or suppressed. The encouraging news is that sions of high-profile former professional hockey players
there is growing public awareness of the issue of mental that were victims of hazing during their junior careers
health in sport, supported in large part by high profile and, as a consequence of their experiences of abuse,
athletes (e.g., Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes or for- suffered from profound mental health issues including
mer Toronto Raptor DeMar DeRozan) speaking publicly suicidal thoughts (Harrison, 2018). In a study of former
about their mental health struggles. elite child athletes, participants—all of whom participated
This is a positive trend but, given our commitment to in high performance sport as children—characterized
developing our sociological imaginations and our sensi- themselves as survivors of the sport system (Donnelly,
tivity to understanding individual troubles as public 1993); a powerful word that would not necessarily be
issues, we must be cautious simply because mental used if sport was as beneficial and healthful as we often
health issues in sport continue to be framed, more 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 preva-
lent, 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

Sport and Health 215

 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 individu-
als 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 atten-
tion 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 Inter-
Agency 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 devel-
opment. Good habits start early: the important role of physical education is dem-
onstrated 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 Chapter 10
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 neces-
sarily 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 participat-
ing in sports will solve serious personal health issues. Many of the major, contempo-
rary 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, influ-
ence 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 indi-
vidual 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 con-
sumption 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 prod-
uct 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 217

 For example, despite severe and prevalent health conditions like anorexia and buli-
mia, 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 solu-
tions 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 encourag-
ing 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 indi-
viduals 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 meri-
tocracy (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 pursu-
ing 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 Chapter 10
 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, disor-
dered 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 crite-
ria 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 par-
ticipation 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 219

 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 cir-
cles, 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 some-
thing 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 perfor-
mance 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 approx-
imately 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 fam-
ily 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 trans-
parent 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 pur-
suit 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 com-
mitment 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 Chapter 10
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 wide-
spread public acceptance that brain trauma and prescription drug use/abuse are preva-
lent 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, con-
cussions, 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 respec-
tive 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 ath-
letes 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

Sport and Health 221

 This call for a ban has been met with outrage by some who insist that the institu-
tion 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 negli-
gence. 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 frag-
ile 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’ direc-
tives or counter hegemonic masculinity scripts. High profile and key position ath-
letes (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

222 Chapter 10
❯❯❭❯ BOX 10.2 Weak at the Knees
Sport remains an important site for the construction of 2012, p. 20); in other words, we must see the female
hegemonic masculinity, including the use of force against athlete triad as a social phenomenon and a public issue.
oneself or against an opponent and the tolerance of pain/ Another example can be seen with the supposed
injury inflicted onto one’s self through sport. However, a “epidemic” of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries
large body of research on women’s sport experiences taking place in women’s sports (Sokolove, 2008). Critical
makes clear that female athletes adopt similar norms and sociocultural scholars (e.g., Theberge, 2015) suggest
behaviours as male athletes when it comes pain/injury that framing ACL injuries as epidemic among women
tolerance. Young and White (1995, p. 51) suggest, “if athletes risks reproducing the notion that women are
there is a difference between the way male and female more vulnerable than men because their bodies are
athletes . . . appear to understand pain and injury, it is only innately more fragile or physiologically less strong, and
a matter of degree” (see also Theberge, 1997; White & therefore are in need of more guidance or protection.
Young, 1999). In a very twisted way, one could suggest Theberge acknowledges that many clinicians and
that this is evidence of women’s sports being on level researchers are aware of this gendered bias and work to
ground with men’s sports; however, the twistedness of this discourage such framing. But, this doesn’t mean, how-
logic is that the supposed equality rests upon the produc- ever, that bias does not exist—as evidenced by the sen-
tion and reproduction of the damaging culture of risk! sationalist language of epidemic that gets used in relation
Interestingly, though, we can still see some ways in to women’s knee injuries (Sokolove, 2008).
which the bodies of women athletes are still socially con- The framing of women as weaker than men is not
structed as weaker than male athletes. One example is particularly new. In the Victorian era, women were
the female athlete triad (a combination of disordered actively discouraged from participating in any form of
eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis), a condition com- physical activity or sport out of fear that their life energy
monly isolated as a result of individual female athletes’ (which was believed to be quite finite) would run out or
pathology; in other words, the female athlete triad is that they would lose their ability to bear children (that a
constructed as a personal problem and as evidence that woman’s uterus would fall out if she were to engage in
women are not suitable for competitive sport. Yet critical vigorous activity; cf., Vertinsky, 1990). In mainstream
scholars contend that the female athlete triad must be science and medicine, those myths about women’s
understood in relation to specific sport setting, forms, reproductive systems have been debunked and yet, in
and practices, especially in contexts where “body surveil- sport, we see a different version of the frail woman nar-
lance and regulation are ubiquitous” (Cosh & Crabb, rative being created around women’s knees.

Some have long since noted how sport organizations (i.e., leagues and teams) facili-
tate 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 organi-
zation 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 work-
places 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 223

 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 super-
ficial 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 acci-
dental overdose. In Boogaard’s case, he needed profound help for physical and men-
tal 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 practi-
cal 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 Chapter 10
 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 singu-
larly 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 socioeco-
nomically 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, repro-
duce, 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?

Sport and Health 225

 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 rela-
tional 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.

References
Anderson, S. (Producer/Director) and Culbert, A. (Producer). (2015, March 14). The fifth
estate: The pain game: drugs, doctors and pro sports. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=j6fL9ouR2rQ.
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.
Armstrong, P., Armstrong, H., & Coburn, D. (Eds.). (2001). Unhealthy times: political economy
perspectives on health and care in canada. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.
Beamish, R., & Ritchie, I. (2004). From chivalrous “brothers-in-arms” to the eligible athlete:
Changed principles and the IOC’s banned substance list. International Review for the
Sociology of Sport, 39(4), 355–71.
Canadian Press. (2014, March 10). Nik Zoricic family feels vindicated by FIS findings.
Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/skiing/nik-zoricic-family-feels-vindi-
cated-by-fis-findings-1.2567048.
CBC News. (2012, April 25). Skier Nik Zoricic’s family wants impartial probe into
his death: Racer’s Toronto family says death ‘no freak accident.’ Retrieved from
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/skier-nik-zoricic-s-family-wants-impartial-
probe-into-his-death-1.1291732.
CBC News. (2013, January 17). Zoricic mother disputes police findings into skier’s death.
Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/zoricic-mother-disputes-police-findings-
into-skier-s-death-1.1305113.
Clark, W. (2008). Canadian social trends: Kids’ sport. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Retrieved from
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2008001/article/10573-eng.pdf.

226 Chapter 10
Crawford, R. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal
of Health Services, 10(3), 365−388.
Coakley, J., & Donnelly, P. (2009) Sports in society: issues and controversies, (2nd Canadian ed.).
Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
Coalter, F. (2007). A wider social role for sport: Who’s keeping the score? London, UK:
Routledge.
Cosh, S., & Crabb, S. (2012). Reconceptualising the female athlete triad: Locating athletes’
bodies within the discursive practices of elite sporting environments. Psychology of Women
Section Review, 14(2), 20−25.
Descartes, R. (1911). Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans
les sciences. (S. Haldane & G. R. T. Ross, Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press. (Original work published 1637)
Donnelly, P. (1993). Problems associated with youth involvement in high-performance sports.
In B.R. Cahill and A.J. Pearl (Eds.), Intensive Participation in Children’s Sports (pp. 95−126).
Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Donnelly, P. (2004). Sport and risk culture. In K. Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves:
sociological studies of sports-related injury. (pp. 29–58). Oxford: Elsevier.
Donnelly, P. (2013). Sport and social inequality: Recent Canadian research on sport participa-
tion. Canadian Journal of Social Research, 3(1), 1–11.
Donnelly, P., Kerr, G., Heron, A., & DiCarlo, D. (2014). Protecting youth in sport: An
examination of harassment policies. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 8(1),
1−18.
Donnelly, P., & Kidd, B. (2014). The Sochi inspiration won’t get us off the couch. The Globe
and Mail, February 25. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/olympic-
inspiration-wont-get-us-off-the-couch/article17069394/.
Donnelly, P., Kidd, B., MacNeill, M., Harvey, J., Houlihan, B., & Toohey, C. (2008). Opportunity
Knocks!: Increasing Sport Participation in Canada as a Result of Success at the Vancouver
Olympics. Centre for Sport Policy Studies Position Paper Series, No. 2. Toronto: Centre for
Sport Policy Studies, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto.
Duffin, J. (2010). History of medicine: A scandalously short introduction (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON:
University of Toronto Press.
Duquin, M. (1994). The body snatchers and Dr. Frankenstein revisited: Social construc-
tion and deconstruction of bodies and sport. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 18(3),
268−281.
Eitzen, D. S. (2016). Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of sport. New York, NY:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Ellison, J., McPhail, D., & Mitchinson, W. (Eds.). (2016). Obesity in Canada: Critical
Perspectives. Toronto ON: University of Toronto Press.
Fainaru-Wada, M., and Fainaru, S. (2013). League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis.
New York, NY: Crown Archetype.
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.
Hargreaves, J. and Vertinsky, P. (Eds.). (2006). Physical Culture, Power, and the Body.
London: Routledge.
Harrison, D. (2018, November 29). ‘These are supposed to be your friends’: Another
ex-player describes ‘constant abuse’ by Sarnia teammates. Retrieved from https://
www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/munce-hazing-sting-ohl-carcillo-1.4924124. Last accessed
November 29, 2018.

Sport and Health 227

 Hobbes, T. (1969). Leviathan, 1651. Menston UK: Scolar Press (Original work published 1651).
Hoberman, J. (1992). Mortal engines: The science of performance and the dehumanization of sport.
New York NY: Free Press.
Howe, P.D. (2015). Pushing towards excellence: Is Paralympic sport a healthy pursuit? In
J. Baker, P. Safai, and J. Fraser-Thomas (Eds.), Health and Elite Sport: Is High Performance
Sport a Healthy Pursuit? (pp. 163−173). London UK: Routledge.
Howell, J., & Ingham, A. (2001). From social problem to personal issue: The language of life-
style. Cultural Studies, 15(4), 326−351.
Hughes, R., and Coakley, J. (1991). Positive deviance among athletes: The implications of the
sport ethic. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8: 307–25.
Ingham, A. (1985). From public issue to personal trouble: well-being and the fiscal crisis of the
state. Sociology of Sport Journal, 2(1), 43−55.
International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005. (2005). Sport and health. Accessed at:
https://www.un.org/sport2005/a_year/s_health.html.
Isquith, E. (2015, March 20). “It gets really disgusting”: Dave Zirin unloads on Roger
Goodell, concussions & NFL’s demented culture. Retrieved from https://www.salon.
com/2015/03/20/it_gets_really_disgusting_dave_zirin_unloads_on_roger_goodell_concussions_
nfls_demented_culture/.
Jenkins, S., & Maese, R. (2013, March 16). NFL medical standards, practices are dif-
ferent than almost anywhere else. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.
washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfl-medical-standards-practices-are-different-
than-almost-anywhere-else/2013/03/16/b8c170bc-8be8-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.
html?utm_term=.42c3f808f458.
Kalman-Lamb, N. (2018). Game misconduct: Injury, fandom, and the business of sport. Black Point,
NS: Fernwood Publishing.
Karp, M. & Drapack, M. (Producers/Directors) (2013, January 18). The Fifth Estate: The last
race. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2012-2013/the-last-race.
Kerr, G. A., & Stirling, A. E. (2008). Child protection in sport: Implications of an athlete-
centered philosophy. Quest, 60(2), 307−323.
King, S. (2014). Beyond the war on drugs? Notes on prescription opioids and the NFL. Journal
of Sport & Social Issues, 38(2), 184−193.
Messner, M.A. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity and violence in sport.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25(3), 203–19.
Misener, L., Taks, M., Chalip, L., & Green, B. C. (2015). The elusive “trickle-down effect”
of sport events: Assumptions and missed opportunities. Managing Sport and Leisure, 20(2),
135−156.
National Football League Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation (2012) (No. 2:12-md-02323-AB
MDL No. 2323), Plaintiffs’ Amended Master Administrative Long-Form Complaint.
Retrieved from http://nflconcussionlitigation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Master_
Administrative_Long_Form_Complaint.pdf. Last accessed August 25, 2018.
Nixon, H. (1992). A social network analysis of influences on athletes to play with pain and
injuries. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 16(2): 127–35.
The Open University. (n.d.). Athletes and efficient hearts. [Online course]. Retrieved
from https://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/health/sport-and-fitness/
exploring-sport-online-athletes-and-efficient-hearts/content-section-0.
Pronger, B. (1995). Rendering the body: The implicit lessons of gross anatomy. Quest, 47(4),
427−446.
Raphael, D. (2009). Escaping from the Phantom Zone: Social determinants of health,
public health units and public policy in Canada. Health Promotion International, 24(2),
193−198.

228 Chapter 10
Raphael, D. Bryant, T., & Rioux, M. (Eds.) (2010). Staying alive: Critical perspectives on health,
illness, and health care (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Sabo, D., and Panepinto, J. (1990). Football ritual and the social reproduction of masculinity.
In M.A. Messner and D. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men and the gender order: Critical feminist perspec-
tives (pp. 115−126). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Safai, P. (2001). Healing the body in the ‘culture of risk,’ pain and injury: Negotiations between
clinicians and injured athletes in Canadian competitive intercollegiate sport. Unpublished
master’s thesis, University of Toronto.
Safai, P. (2007). A critical analysis of the development of sport medicine in Canada, 1955–80.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 42(3), 321−341.
Safai, P. (2008). Sport and health. In B. Houlihan (Ed.), Sport and society: A student introduction
(2nd ed.) (pp. 155−174). London, UK: Sage.
Safai, P. (2013). Sports medicine, the state and the politics of risk. In D. L. Andrews and
B. Carrington (Eds.), A companion to sport (pp. 112−128). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
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.
Scherer, J. (2011). Olympic villages and large-scale urban development: Crises of capitalism,
deficits of democracy? Sociology, 45(5), 782−797.
Shilling, C. (2005). The body in culture, technology and society, London, UK: Sage.
Shogan, D. (1999). The Making of High-Performance Athletes: Discipline, Diversity, and Ethics,
Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Sokolove, M. (2008). Warrior girls: protecting our daughters against the injury epidemic in women’s
sports. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Spaaj, R. (2011). Sport and social mobility: Crossing boundaries. London, UK: Routledge.
Sport Canada (2012). The Canadian sport policy. Ottawa: Canadian Heritage. Retrieved from
https://sirc.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/csp2012_en.pdf.
Theberge, N. (1997). “It’s part of the game”: Physicality and the production of gender in
women’s hockey. Gender and Society, 11(1): 69–87.
Theberge, N. (2007). It’s not about health: It’s about performance. In J. Hargreaves and
P. Vertinsky (Eds.), Physical Culture, Power and the Body (pp. 176–94). New York:
Routledge.
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.
Theberge, N. (2015). Social sources of research interest in women’s sport related injuries: A
case study of ACL injuries. Sociology of Sport Journal, 32(3), 229−247.
United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace (2003). Sport
for development and peace: Towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. United
Nations: Geneva.
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), 2074−2093.
Vertinsky, P. (1990). Eternally Wounded Women: Women, Doctors and Exercise in the Late
Nineteenth Century. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Whitson, D., & Macintosh, D. (1996). The global circus: International sport, tourism, and the
marketing of cities. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 20(3), 278−295.
Wilkinson, R., & Marmot, M. (2006). The social determinants of health, 2nd ed. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always
do better. London, UK: Allen Lane.

Sport and Health 229

 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-goodells-
message-to_b_803766.html.

230 Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Sport, Media, and Ideology
Jay Scherer and Mark Norman

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: The early days of sport on
Canadian television.
1 Discuss the main interest groups that make up the sports–media complex.
H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/
2 Explain why sports media rights are so valuable in the digital era. ClassicStock/Alamy Stock Photo

3 Discuss the most significant historical developments in the Canadian sports-

media 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

231
 INTRODUCTION
The numbers and financial figures are staggering. In 2013, the Canadian telecommu-
nications 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 chan-
nels (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, under-
score 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.

232 Chapter 11
 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 ESPN, ABC, TNT US$24 billion 2016–2025
Association)
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 com-
peting 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 estab-
lishment of the first sports section in daily newspapers and the emergence of special-
ist 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 adver-
tise 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 con-
venience), sporting events are generally consumed in real time and, thus, have far

Sport, Media, and Ideology 233

 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 rev-
enues 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 orga-
nizations (like FIFA and the IOC) report the highest audience numbers possible
because these figures entice greater advertising revenue and, by extension, more valu-
able 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 televi-
sion 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 con-
sume 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 emer-
gence 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 exclu-
sively through online streaming.

234 Chapter 11
 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 televi-
sion 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 pro-
moting 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 net-
works 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 prac-
tice of directly paying for sporting and other media content—there is, in fact, a fas-
cinating 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 235

 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 orga-
nizing 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 televi-
sion” (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 under-
standings 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 report-
ers, 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 intro-
duced 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 popular-
ity 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

236 Chapter 11
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 pre-
dominantly masculine experience, and CBC and Radio-Canada supplied an over-
whelming 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 celebra-
tions 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

Sport, Media, and Ideology 237

 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 program-
ming. 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 adver-
tisers 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 cham-
pionship 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 broad-
casts 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 high-
profile 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 trans-
form 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 Chapter 11
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 com-
munications sector” (Skinner, 2008, p. 7). Central to this new national communica-
tions 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 pur-
chased 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 all-
sport 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 well-
resourced 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 gov-
ernment 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 inter-
ests” (Winseck, 1995, p. 101), and the ascension of a new era of “consumer-driven”
digital television characterized by unprecedented levels of consumer choice and cus-
tomized channels (Skinner, 2008).
The entrance of TSN/RDS heightened the competition for popular sport pro-
gramming. 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 tele-
casts bring to the network—revenues that subsidize other programming and
Canadian content.

Sport, Media, and Ideology 239

 While the public sector was dealing with significant cutbacks, the CRTC con-
tinued to license new specialty sport channels owned by major corporate players in
the broadcasting industry (e.g., Sportsnet2), while longstanding regulatory frame-
works 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 conglomer-
ates 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 inte-
grated 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 popu-
lar 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 signifi-
cant 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 exclu-
sive 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 prime-
time 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

240 Chapter 11
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, regard-
less 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 prear-
ranged television timeouts for advertisers that inevitably interrupt the flow of vari-
ous games; the relocation of franchises to urban centres with larger television
markets (and, hence, the prospect of greater television revenue); and even the cre-
ation 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 cumu-
late over four days of play) has heightened the drama in golf and made it more appeal-
ing to viewing audiences around the world.

Sport, Media, and Ideology 241

 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 experi-
ence 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 trans-
forms those events through replays, sounds effects, graphics, close-up camera shots,
commercials, and vast amounts of pre- and postgame coverage that “expert” com-
mentators 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 com-
mentators according to various hierarchies. These hierarchies include the actual
sport selected for television, but also the type of socially constructed content associ-
ated and prioritized with the event including personalization strategies (e.g., a focus
on individual star athletes and hero-making) and various descriptive and interpre-
tive 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 manu-
facture 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 sig-
nificant 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 com-
mentary associated with particular sports often varies tremendously and is reflective
of the intended social characteristics (class, gender, race, etc.) of the television audi-
ence (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 accumu-
lation 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 Chapter 11
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 con-
tinue 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 skat-
ing, 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 broad-
cast 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 inter-
related 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 busi-
nessmen in the sports–media complex who simply regard women’s sport as an infe-
rior “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 opera-
tions in 2019, highlighting the ongoing precarious position of women’s professional
sport in Canada and its lack of sustained media coverage. Meanwhile, given the pau-
city 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 243

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 play-
ers, 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, bisex-
ual, 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 politi-
cal projects like the You Can Play campaign gain momentum and are endorsed by
high-profile athletes and by the major leagues.

244 Chapter 11
 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 proj-
ect has made significant use of digital media to promote its message of LGBTQ inclu-
sion, 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 report-
ers, 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, attrac-
tive, and presumably heterosexual women receive the lion’s share of the rare spon-
sorship 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 aug-
ment 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 inter-
national 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 pro-
fessional 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 (long-
bombs, blitzes, bounties, defensive lines, battling in the trenches). Of course, our
regular exposure to images of fighter jets and other military equipment, Canadian

Sport, Media, and Ideology 245

Former gold medal
Olympian, Cassie Campbell-
Pascall, 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 profes-
sional 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 com-
munities, and about what it “means to be Canadian.” Sport has, of course, long pro-
vided 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 coun-
tries 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 con-
nections to other national symbols and rituals (e.g., flags, anthems, political leaders)

246 Chapter 11
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 pow-
erful 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 uni-
fied 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 understand-
ings 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 adver-
tising 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 rac-
ist 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 247

 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 representing Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism
Hockey Night in Canada in various languages. The most (i.e., that there is no singular Canadian identity and that
successful and enduring of these broadcasts, however, people are welcome to practice their cultural traditions
has been in Punjabi (“HNIC Punjabi”). For over a within the framework of Canadian citizenship). These
decade, despite a brief cancellation due to lack of fund- supportive tweets celebrated HNIC Punjabi for making
ing, HNIC Punjabi has aired in online, cable, or digital hockey accessible to Punjabi speakers, as well as
formats, first under the management of the CBC and, encouraging intergenerational fandom within this com-
since its 2014 acquisition of NHL broadcasting rights, munity. Although these tweets were very positive about
later under Rogers. HNIC Punjabi has been widely cele- the program, it is important to question whether hockey
brated for symbolizing Canadian multiculturalism and for is a common cultural marker for old and new Canadians.
fostering an intergenerational love of hockey among Szto, in particular, suggested that uncritical celebrations
Punjabi Canadians. of multiculturalism through hockey constituted “an
Such perspectives, however, simplify the complicated erasure of the inherent discrimination built into a game
ways in which hockey and sport media are connected to historically dominated by Canadians of European heritage”
dominant ideas about race and citizenship in Canada. (Szto, 2016, p. 213).
Sport communications scholar Courtney Szto investi- Other tweets expressed “ambiguous ambivalence”
gated how Canadian users of Twitter reacted to the HNIC about HNIC Punjabi. These tweets were not negative per
Punjabi broadcasts. Szto began her research from the se but expressed unease about a significant Canadian
premise that, despite official government policies of mul- cultural product being announced by non-White
ticulturalism, non-White (i.e., racialized) Canadians— announcers in a language other than English or French.
including Punjabi Sikhs—regularly face subtle questions In contrast to the celebration of or ambivalence toward
about their citizenship and “Canadian-ness” in their daily multiculturalism, some tweets demonstrated “(racist)
interactions. As such, her research explored whether the resistance” to HNIC Punjabi. These reactions situated
Punjabi language broadcasts of hockey reflected or chal- hockey as a sport for white Canadians, and racially
lenged this everyday marginalization by analyzing a sam- mocked the presentation of hockey broadcasts to non-
ple of tweets posted by Twitter users in reaction to HNIC white audiences. In so doing, these individuals sought to
Punjabi. These tweets were organized into four major preserve the sport of hockey as a cultural bastion of
themes: 1) “reproducing multiculturalism”; 2) “ambiguous “traditional” white, conservative Canadian values against
ambivalence” 3); “(racist) resistance”; and 4) “laughing the incursion of “others” into this sporting space.
at difference.” Finally, the tweets of some users were “laughing at
Tweets that “reproduce[ed] multiculturalism” offered difference”—that is, expressing amusement about the
an uncritical celebration of HNIC Punjabi as ideally appearance and language of the HNIC Punjabi broadcast

248 Chapter 11
 crew. While laughter may like seem a benign reaction to and expanded (often instantaneous) audience engage-
the broadcast, Szto argues that it reinforces that hockey ment with television broadcasts, allowing fans to become
is a sport constructed by and for white people and marks sport media prosumers in new and exciting ways. It also
those outside this norm (such as dark-skinned, Punjabi- illustrates how sport media can engage an increasingly
speaking, and turban-wearing announcers) as objects of diversifying Canadian population, while simultaneously
difference and derision. reaffirming historical patterns of social exclusion. Finally,
Szto’s study of Twitter reactions to HNIC Punjabi it demonstrates how sport media is connected to broader
raises a number of important issues about contemporary social and political factors in Canadian society, such as
digital media and its contradictions. It highlights, first, immigration, multiculturalism, national identity, and
how social media platforms like Twitter have facilitated social inclusion.

SPORTS JOURNALISM: CRITICAL THINKING?

The profession of sport journalism has been central to the growth of both newspa-
pers 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 newspa-
per 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 relation-
ship 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 249

 (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 vari-
ous 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 promo-
tional 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 sub-
stantial 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 gen-
dered 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 lead-
ers, sports equipment companies, ad agencies—everything that’s integral to the pro-
fessional 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 alto-
gether (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 plat-
forms rather than relying on traditional journalists.
Second, the heavily concentrated newspaper industry in Canada has been deci-
mated thanks to declining subscription rates, diminished advertising revenue, and a
wide range of issues associated with the adoption of new digital platforms to accom-
modate new habits of media consumption. Since the 2008 economic recession, news-
rooms 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 Chapter 11
 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 infor-
mation 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 con-
trol significant sporting properties in addition to vast digital distribution outlets and
media platforms in a near fully privatized sports–media complex. So, too, have vari-
ous leagues and sport organizations profited handsomely from expansive broadcasting

Sport, Media, and Ideology 251

 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 seem-
ingly 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 con-
sumers (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 vary-
ing 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 com-
plex, digital media has also enabled some limited forms of resistance to these domi-
nant power structures. For example, individuals who engage in alternative sporting
subcultures (e.g., surfing, BASE jumping, parkour) have used digital media to cre-
atively 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 Chapter 11
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 Internet-
connected devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones. Digital media are character-
ized 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 corpora-
tions, 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.

Sport, Media, and Ideology 253

 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 insight-
ful 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 longi-
tudinal 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 masculin-
ity 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-tweets-
about-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.

254 Chapter 11
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 audi-
ence. 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 dis-
cussion, 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-commenta-
tors-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.

Sport, Media, and Ideology 255

 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 telecommunica-
tions and regulation. Canadian Journal of Communication, 20(1), 81–106.

256 Chapter 11
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
1 Define politics and policy. Winter Olympics Games’
$7.8 billion price tag.
2 Identify ways sport features in both politics and policy.
Sergei Bachlakov/Shutterstock
3 Describe the range of political actors that influence politics in sport, and sport
in politics.
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 mega-
events 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 them-
selves 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 politi-
cal 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 implica-
tions 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 val-
ues 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 collec-
tive decisions are taken on what is to be authoritatively allocated? A more encom-
passing definition is offered by Mintz, Close, and Croce (2018, p. 4), who define
politics as “activity related to influencing, making, and implementing collective deci-
sions 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 influ-
ence 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 Chapter 12
 Indeed, power is the principal currency of politics—the means through which
collective decisions are arrived at. As the introduction to this book discusses, how-
ever, 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 differ-
ent 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 down-
town 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 govern-
ment 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 neighbour-
hoods, 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 259

 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 competi-
tions 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 orga-
nizations to challenge racially segregated sport and to agitate for non-racial competi-
tion. 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 succes-
sion 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, com-
petitive, 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 objec-
tives, and then specify various intermediate organizational structures and steps by
which those objectives will be achieved. Once again, however, the reality of policy-
making 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 provin-
cial 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 inter-
vention by government will produce a backlash from fans, players, leagues, and

260 Chapter 12
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 non-
governmental 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 “grass-
roots” organizations and communities, to international and transnational actors,
objectives, and processes.

 ock Diplomacy? Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau,

S
❯❯❭❯ BOX 12.1 and the art of political communication
In efforts to achieve popular appeal as well as specific sometimes portrayed as synonymous with
political objectives, sport has often been an attractive “Canadianness.” As authors Jay Scherer and Lisa
vehicle for politicians of all partisan brands. In Canada, McDermott (2011) note, hockey provides a means of
political leaders have often turned their attention to “promotional politics” whereby politicians can “obscure
hockey where they, like millions of Canadians, can cele- their backgrounds” and become “ordinary” Canadians.
brate and associate themselves with the sport that is 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.

Sport, Politics, and Policy 261

“advance his domestic and foreign policy agenda” by Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also displayed
supporting Team Canada during the 1972 Summit his love for the great game—specifically showing his
Series between Canada and the USSR (Macintosh & hockey allegiance through his penchant for designer
Hawes, 1994; also, Scherer & McDermott, 2011, socks. Trudeau has also exploited sport to enhance his
p. 108). Moreover, former Prime Minister Stephen personal and partisan political “brand.” In March of 2012,
Harper used hockey as a means of molding and Trudeau—then simply the opposition Member of Parliament
humanizing his own political identity. Instead of being (MP) for Montreal’s Papineau riding—squared off in a
seen as a political “elite,” Harper promoted himself as televised boxing match against Conservative Senator
an “average” Dad, who like others, was a true hockey Patrick Brazeau. Although the match was formally to raise
fan. Harper is quoted as saying, “No matter how tired I money for charity (more than $200,000 went to the Ottawa
am, no matter how many things I have on my agenda, Regional Cancer Foundation), it also highlighted the persis-
if I can find time, I can always get up and make it to the tent reality that sport and politics are routinely intertwined,
hockey rink” (“Stephen Harper”, 2006; also in Scherer with sport being deployed as an attractive means of politi-
& McDermott, p. 118). cal 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 for-
mer, 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 orga-
nizations 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 non-
governmental (or civil society) bodies, they often work closely with government
departments or agencies and receive public funding. These types of non-governmen-
tal 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 pre-
ferred 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 interna-
tional 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 Chapter 12
 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 con-
trol 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” organi-
zation; partly (because of its exceptional profitability) akin to a multinational corpo-
ration; 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) accumu-
lated, and often abused, wealth and power with very little accountability and over-
sight. 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 jour-
nalism (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 partici-
pate 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 263

 1980 Moscow Olympics to signal their disapproval of the Soviet Union’s 1979 inva-
sion of Afghanistan. In retaliation, the Soviet Union and 13 allied countries boycot-
ted 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, ampli-
fied 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 envi-
ronmental 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 viola-
tions of the human and labour rights of vulnerable migrant workers building stadi-
ums 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 Chapter 12
World Cup to accumulate soft power—leading some scholars to argue that mis-
placed government efforts to exploit sport can actually lead to “soft disempower-
ment” (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) govern-
ments, 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 impor-
tant 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 pro-
mote 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 differ-
ences, 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 objec-
tives 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 con-
flict theorists, and positively by structural functionalists) as a means of socialization
and social control for marginalized youth—typically males—that are seen as poten-
tial 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 265

 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 under-
stood, 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 cor-
porate as well as national “branding” have led to rapidly escalating levels of profit-
ability, 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 politi-
cians 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 cir-
cumstances, 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 entrench-
ing 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 pat-
terns 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 ques-
tions 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 Chapter 12
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 pres-
ent) 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 distor-
tion 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 plebi-
scite 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 267

 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); gov-
ernment agencies at federal, provincial, and municipal (or city) levels; and support-
ers, 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 fed-
eral system of government, in which both tax-generated public revenues and
important public policy responsibilities (e.g., for security, infrastructure, eco-
nomic development, etc.) are divided between federal and provincial governments,
makes the challenge of collective decision making and inter-governmental coopera-
tion 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 linguisti-
cally diverse country, we experience intense forms of regional rivalry and resent-
ment. 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 pres-
ent 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 plat-
forms, 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 sup-
porting infrastructure (urban transportation, international airports, tourist venues,
housing for athletes and officials, etc.) in compressed time frames, but with long-
lasting community impacts (both positive and negative). For sporting venues in par-
ticular, 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 Chapter 12
❯❯❭❯ BOX 12.2 The Canadian Sport System
Like all political systems, the Canadian state encom- Committee, Commonwealth Games Canada, and Right to
passes a wide range of sub-systems in particular policy Play), literally dozens of national sports organizations
domains. The Canadian sport system is one such sub- (ranging from Equestrian Canada to Hockey Canada),
system, playing a vital role in designing and implement- and regionally based high performance sports centres
ing the many specific policies that flow from the and institutes. Beyond these governmental and non-
overarching Canadian Sport Policy 2012 noted above, for governmental organizations are a range of private sector
example, regarding doping, sport for women and girls, and civil society “stakeholders,” of which B2ten is a
sport for persons with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples’ prominent example (see Box 12.3).
participation in sport, or the hosting policy for SMEs (see Further complicating the Canadian sport system is
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/­services/ that, because authority for sport and recreation is shared
sport-policies-acts-regulations.html). At the federal (or between the federal government and the 12 provincial
national) level, the broad contours of the Canadian sport and territorial governments, similar sport systems are
system are captured in Figure 12.1. reproduced provincially and territorially, and must be
Sport policy falls under the overarching authority of coordinated with the national structures sketched above
the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the specific in order for policies to be effectively implemented.
authority of Sport Canada, which has its own Minister in Finally, when it comes to a variety of sporting issues—
the federal cabinet (currently the Minister of Science and notably, but not only SME hosting—federal and provin-
Sport). Sport Canada, in turn, relies on an array of multi- cial political and administrative structures and initiatives
sport organizations (including but not limited to those in must be coordinated with city-based or municipal
the figure: Own the Podium, the Canadian Olympic authorities.

Canadian Heritage

Sport Canada

National Multisport Service Organizations (MSOs) National Sport Olympic and Paralympic
Organizations (NSOs) Sport Centres and Institutes
Own the Podium Canadian Olympic
(OTP) Committee (COC)

Commonwealth B2ten
Right to Play
Games Canada

Figure 12.1 Canadian federal sport system

Source: Based on Sports organizations. (2018). Government of Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-
heritage/services/sport-organizations.html.

Sport, Politics, and Policy 269

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 ongo-
ing 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 his-
tory: 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 coloniz-
ers 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 Chapter 12
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 ambi-
tious mayor, Jean Drapeau, who (amazingly) led the city from 1954–57 and from
1960–86. Local “booster coalitions” of business elites, construction companies, tour-
ism 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 obliga-
tions 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, intergovern-
mental 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 com-
plicated 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 trajec-
tory 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 bid-
der 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 compre-
hensive policies and practices to ensure that Canadian cities were better prepared to

Sport, Politics, and Policy 271

 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 finan-
cial 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 promot-
ing 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

272 Chapter 12
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 hyper-
competitive 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 “stake-
holders,” with a strong interest in securing and benefitting from the Games.
As a result, the process of organizing the Games had become much more sophis-
ticated 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 sophisti-
cated and tightly controlled approach to image management and messaging, reflect-
ing the latest phase of “promotional politics,” in which political dialogue is
“subsumed by the language of contemporary marketing and image making specta-
cles” (Scherer & McDermott, 2011, p. 108). Backstopping VANOC was a carefully
crafted “multi-party agreement” linking key agencies from the three levels of govern-
ment (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 world-
class. 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 indus-
trial land on Southeast False Creek; and the iconic Richmond Speed Skating Oval,
successfully converted (although still publicly subsidized) to a multi-purpose recre-
ational 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 Sea-
to-Sky highway upgrades made more accessible.

Sport, Politics, and Policy 273

 Ideologically, Games organizers sought to project an inspiring core message of
sustainability and inclusivity, along with “harmonious diversity” and multicultural-
ism. 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 transpar-
ency 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 commit-
ments 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 con-
verted 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 surveil-
lance 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 hege-
monic 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 Chapter 12
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 controver-
sies 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 pri-
vate sector has taken on a greater role in helping athletes reach the podium, in part-
nership with government (see Thibault & Babiak, 2005). Specifically, both corporate
and governmental support grew sharply in order to develop successful high per-
formance 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 capital-
ize (sometimes more successfully than others) on the ideology and values that sport
reinforces. In this sense, they have been drawn to a structural functionalist under-
standing 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 275

❯❯❭❯ BOX 12.3 Owning the Podium?
During the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, no ath- Canada and elsewhere has created a “sporting arms race”
letes captured the attention of Canada — and the world — in which the cost per medal has escalated, averaging
quite as much as gold medalist ice dancers Tessa Virtue $8.6 million for each Canadian medal at the 2016
and Scott Moir. The two had achieved great success in Olympics in Rio (Sport Canada, 2017).
previous games, but their talent and popularity reached If there has been concern about the highly targeted
unprecedented levels in South Korea (Kelly, 2018). As approach adopted by OTP, however, Virtue and Moir’s
with other elite Canadian athletes, they had benefited Olympic success in 2018 involved an even more corpo-
from targeted financial support from Own the Podium, ratized approach. As their ice dancing supremacy was
initiated in 2004 with the bold objective of ensuring that challenged by the French pair of Gabrielle Papadakis
Canada topped the medal table at the Vancouver Winter and Guillaume Cizeron, Virue and Moir were among the
Games (in the end, Canada finished third). small cluster of “super elite” athletes singled out for sup-
By concentrating support on sports like figure skating, port from Montreal–based B2ten—a group of Canadian
which were seen as highly likely to “medal,” this non- philanthropists, most of whom remain anonymous, who
profit, government-initiated but arms-length organization aim to “use a business based approach” to advance
aimed to maximize (as its name implies) Canada’s podium Canada’s standing on the podium.
performances. While OTP has worked with an array of In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Tessa Virtue
partners, including provincial governments and national highlighted the resources that B2ten had offered the pair.
sports organizations (NSOs) (see Box 12.2), the federal “They’ve taken our training and our lives to a completely
government is by far its largest funder, contributing almost different level. They’re just in it for sport, for the people”
$62 million in 2016–17 (www.ownthepodium.org). While (Kelly, 2018). Besides the two ice dancers, B2ten cur-
Canadian athletes have enjoyed greater success at Games rently also shadows five other athletes, providing them
since OTP was established in 2004, controversy persists with services such as a nutritionist, an osteopath, or any
over the effects and effectiveness of the program, more additional help they may need. Denying personal motiva-
specifically, over how its single-minded fixation on winning tions for why the group aids athletes, they continue to
medals impairs broader processes of sport development emphasize their involvement as patriotic, stating “this is
(see Hall, 2016), and on the opportunity costs of focusing all about Canadian pride and elevating the Canadian
such a large share of sport funding on this objective. As brand” (Kelly, 2018). It remains to be seen what the
Peter Donnelly (2009) notes, financial assistance in 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 govern-
ments 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 Chapter 12
little evidence to support the anecdotal claims that high performance sport leads to
social benefits such as building national pride . . . [and] encouraging healthy behav-
iours” (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 corpo-
rate) 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 pri-
vate sector and public-private partnerships. The question of whether, and why, sup-
port 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 corpo-
rate 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 inter-
sect. 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 con-
tested. 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 corpo-
rate 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 fea-
turing controversial free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who led NFL play-
ers’ 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 277

 Key Terms
Civil society: The array of groups and organizations working in the interest of citizens but out-
side 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 trans-
continental 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 long-
term 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.

278 Chapter 12
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 sta-
diums, and social inequality,” Humanity & Society, 30, 84–108.

Sport, Politics, and Policy 279

 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://thew-
alrus.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 urbaniza-
tion, 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.

280 Chapter 12
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-the-
right-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/policy-
hosting-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.

Sport, Politics, and Policy 281

 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.

282 Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Business of Sport
Brad R. Humphreys and Brian P. Soebbing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: In 2018, the Toronto Blue
Jays’ Rogers Centre saw the
1 Describe the economic structure of professional sport in Canada and largest attendance drop in
throughout North America. Major League Baseball.
Design Pics Inc/Alamy Stock Photo
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.
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.

283
 “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 profes-
sional 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 eco-
nomic 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 com-
peting (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 Chapter 13
of cities with populations large enough to support spectator sports teams; 2) work-
ers, 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 respec-
tive 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 back-
ground on each league.

Canadian Football League

The Canadian Football League (CFL) formed in 1958. Historically, most of the fran-
chises 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

Latest Average
Year # of Franchises Current Canadian Franchise
League Began (2018) Franchises Prior Canadian Franchises Values (USD)
Canadian Football 1958 9 9: Ottawa, Ottawa (2): 1958–1996, Not Available
League Hamilton, Toronto, 2002–2005
Montreal, Calgary,
Edmonton,
Winnipeg,
Saskatchewan,
British Columbia
Major League 1903 30 1: Toronto Montreal: 1969–2004 1.65 billion
Baseball
Major League 1996 23 3: Vancouver, None 240 million
Soccer Toronto, Montreal
National Basketball 1946 30 1: Toronto Toronto: 1947; 1.65 billion
Association Vancouver: 1996–2001
National Football 1920 32 None None 2.6 billion
League
National Hockey 1917 31 7: Calgary, Winnipeg (1979–1996), 630 million
League Edmonton, Quebec City (1919–1920,
Vancouver, 1979–1995), Hamilton
Winnipeg, Toronto, (1920–1925), Montreal
Ottawa, Montreal (1917–1918; 1924–1938),
Ottawa (1917–1934)

The Business of Sport 285

 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 fran-
chise 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 Chapter 13
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 agree-
ment 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 agree-
ment 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 esti-
mated 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 fran-
chises 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 fran-
chises 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 instabil-
ity as it relates to labour disputes and an economic recession, the leagues themselves

The Business of Sport 287

 1400

Value (in millions of 2017 USD)

1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Year
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 valua-
tion is the increasing amount of money the league collects due to their media con-
tracts. 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 illus-
trate 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 unpre-
dictability 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 Chapter 13
 Sports league members must also agree on rules to govern on- and off-field deci-
sions 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 commis-
sioner is appointed by a vote of all existing league members. In addition to the com-
missioner, 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 dis-
cussed later in the chapter, the rules governing on- and off-field behaviour are gener-
ally 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 busi-
nesses that agree to coordinate economic decisions, for example, production and
pricing, to maximize the total profits earned by all cartel members. By acting collu-
sively 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 ter- ciated with real estate. Balsillie agreed to purchase the
ritorial control and monopoly power more than the dis- club in bankruptcy court and move it to Hamilton,
pute between Jim Balsillie and the NHL over the location Ontario, which is located in the market territory for the
of the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes. Jim Balsillie was Toronto Maple Leafs and close to the Buffalo Sabres’
the co-founder of the Waterloo, Ontario-based company market territory. Acting on behalf of the Leafs and the
that developed the Blackberry. Prior to his attempt to buy Sabres, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman repeatedly
the Coyotes, he tried to purchase several US NHL fran- claimed that Balsillie’s bid for the franchise was not valid
chises with the intention of relocating the team to because the league had sole control regarding where
Canada. The NHL owners stopped Balsillie’s pursuit of franchises could be located. A court ruled in favour of the
these franchises over the course of several years (Mason, NHL in terms of the league’s ability to determine the
Soebbing, & Jiang, 2017). location of their franchises. The NHL was eventually
In 2009, Balsillie attempted to purchase the Coyotes granted ownership of the franchise, which still remains in
from then-owner Jerry Moyes. Moyes had just filed for Arizona, and Balsillie’s efforts to bring another NHL team
bankruptcy protection due to large financial losses asso- to Canada were thwarted (Mason et al., 2017).

The Business of Sport 289

 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 regard-
ing on- and off-field practices. These actions include intentional lack of on-field suc-
cess 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 own-
ership 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 monop-
oly for certain business practices like collectively negotiated national media con-
tracts. 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 poli-
cies 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 bargain-
ing 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 con-
tract. 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 Chapter 13
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 rela-
tions 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, sub-
sequent 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 profes-
sional 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 nego-
tiate 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 dra-
matically 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 dis-
putes. 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 291

 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 busi-
nesses 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 repre-
sents 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 some-
how 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 bar-
gaining 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 sta-
bility 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 opts-
out. 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 cor-
porate elites and others (in this case, players), but we are also considering how dis-
agreements 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 imple-
mentation of several other policies that have become institutionalized within profes-
sional sport and broader society. We outline two below that have been designed to
further restrict the salaries and movement of professional athletes.

292 Chapter 13
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 allo-
cate 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 choos-
ing. 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 subse-
quent 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 bal-
ance. 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 rep-
resents the most important reason. The rationale is that without a cap on team pay-
roll, large market clubs (e.g., clubs in Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles) would

The Business of Sport 293

❯❯❭❯ BOX 13.2 Paying Canadian Hockey League Players
The debates around amateurism and the payment of money based on their labour (Joyce, n.d.). Alluding to
amateur players are by no means new in sport (see the idea of alienation, a former CHL player at the heart
Chapter 3). In North America, the most prominent cur- of the initial suit stated, “Teams treat us like grey-
rent example is the debate regarding paying NCAA hounds . . . When they can use us, great, we’re all in the
Division I athletes, particularly men’s football and basket- good graces, but we’re not getting paid. And then when
ball players. At the core of these debates is the degree they can’t use us, we’re just kicked to the side of the
to which amateur players—“student athletes”—are road” (CBC News, 2014, n.p.).
exploited by the sports teams and larger associations and Opponents of the lawsuit state that many CHL teams
receive little compensation in return for their labour. simply could not financially afford to pay all the players
Consider the massive amount of revenue that the NCAA minimum wage. Furthermore, they state that players are
receives from sports like Division I basketball, as well as already compensated above minimum wage as it relates
the size of salaries their coaches and athletic directors to obtaining tuition toward an undergraduate degree
receive, while the athletes who labour on the court once their CHL playing days are completed, in addition
receive very little in comparison. For this to change, col- to the travel costs and other benefits they receive as
lective labour action would be required. players (Canadian Press, 2018; Joyce., n.d.).
There is currently a debate in Canada revolving While the lawsuit was still ongoing at the beginning of
around paying Canadian Hockey League Players. In 2019, several provincial governments provide protection
2014, a class action lawsuit was brought against the CHL for CHL clubs in the form of various rules that impact on
arguing that players in the three leagues that comprise sport-related labour relations. Most recently, for example,
the CHL—the Western Hockey League (WHL), the the province of Ontario passed legislation preventing cur-
Ontario Hockey League (OHL), and the Quebec Major rent and future players from being regulated by the
Junior League (QMJHL)—were not paying players a standard employment laws of the province. In discussing
minimum wage. the legislation, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, drew
Since then, the lawsuit has received additional public from the mythology of hockey and a structural functional-
attention and scrutiny. For the players’ side, arguments ist perspective when he defended the decision: “Hockey
are made that the players are not paid at least minimum is central to so many childhoods, so many great family
wage for providing labour services for the owners of moments, part of all our communities. . . . Our govern-
various franchises. Furthermore, they are not compen- ment is proud to take action and cut red tape to provide
sated for weekend, holiday, or overtime pay. Hourly clarity and help make sure the OHL is able to continue
workers in other areas of the sport industry would be training players and showcase this great sport” (Canadian
eligible for this pay above and beyond the minimum Press, 2018, n.p.). While Ontario is the most recent prov-
wage rate of the province. As such, proponents for the ince to enact legislation, similar rules are already in place
players claim that these young athletes are being in many provinces throughout Canada (Canadian Press,
exploited by the owners of the hockey teams who make 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

294 Chapter 13
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 ben-
efit 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 pro-
fessional 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 compa-
nies 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, family-
owned 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 integra-
tion 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 indus-
try is the sport and entertainment industry and the purchasing of these teams repre-
sents 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

The Business of Sport 295

 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, conces-
sions, 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 profes-
sional sports leagues noted above from 1990 through 2017 (when they were in exis-
tence). 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 big-
gest 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.

70000
60000
Average Attendance

50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
90

92

94

96

98

00

02

04

06

08

10

12

14

16

18
19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

Year

CFL MLB MLS NBA NFL NHL

Figure 13.2 Average Attendance by League

296 Chapter 13
Pricing As discussed in Chapter 4, attending professional sporting events is expen-
sive 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, calcu-
lated 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.
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 dis-
counted 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.

500
Fan Cost Index (2016 USD)

450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
90

92

94

96

98

00

02

04

06

08

10

12

14

16
19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

Year

MLB NBA NFL NHL

Figure 13.3 Average Cost of Attending Professional Sports Games

The Business of Sport 297

 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 busi-
ness model which attempts to match buyers with sellers through Internet plat-
forms, 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 market-
place for individuals with tickets that they wanted to sell to be matched with con-
sumers 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 net-
works such as Rogers and TSN, some leagues and individual franchises created their
own broadcast networks (e.g., MLB Network, YES, and NESN networks) to elimi-
nate 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 exclu-
sive and official provider of some good or service), advertising from facility sig-
nage, 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 orga-
nizations 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.

298 Chapter 13
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 facili-
ties. The old facilities are neither structurally obsolete nor unsafe; rather, in the eyes
of the owners of professional sports franchises, these buildings are simply commer-
cially obsolete. As such, the costs of these new facilities—including the use of bil-
lions 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 relo-
cation 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 incor-
rect 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 consid-
ered, 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 avail-
able to be spent on other public budget items such as infrastructure, health care, and
education.

The Business of Sport 299

 Beyond an economic impact argument, we see other ideologies that are sum-
moned by proponents as rationales for using public money to help build profes-
sional 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 construc-
tion 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 disproportion-
ate 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 taxpay-
ers, who tend to be lower income than individuals who live in the suburbs, dispro-
portionately 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 Chapter 13
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 displace-
ment. 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 organiza-
tion 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 gen-
erally 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 poten-
tial 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 301

 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 most-
watched 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 com-
mittee 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 esti-
mated to cost CA$ 30 million.
While bidding has become expensive, hosting these events is extremely expen-
sive 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 Chapter 13
❯❯❭❯ BOX 13.3 Calgary 2026 Olympic Bid
A quick look at Olympic history shows that only a few had in 1988 when hosting the games. In their attempts to
cities in the world have hosted multiple Winter and/or exert ideological leadership, they also discussed some of
Summer Olympic games: London, Paris, Los Angeles, the positive economic benefits the city would see, includ-
Innsbruck, Athens, St. Moritz, and Lake Placid. Over the ing gains in tourism and other types of economic
next decade, Tokyo (2020) and Beijing (2022) will be impacts. However, those economic numbers can be
added to the list. The city of Calgary explored a bid to skewed one way or another (Dawson, 2018). Indeed,
host the 2026 Olympic Games in 2018. The 2026 Winter critics of the plan underlined not only the large stated
Games would have been the second Olympic Games for hosting cost, but they also noted that the Olympics
Calgary, after it hosted the 1988 Winter Games. Games generally always come in well over budget, and
According to the city’s report, the cost of hosting the that citizens would be on the hook for cost overruns.
games was estimated at CA$ 5.1 billion, which would Furthermore, they underlined the opportunity costs of
have been split between public and private funding. the use of hundreds of millions of public dollars at a time
Public funds would have come from the City of Calgary of financial recession, and took issue with the ethical
and the City of Canmore, along with significant amounts reputation of the International Olympic Committee
of provincial and federal money. While the initial bidding (Rumbolt, 2018).
plans were to renovate and reuse some of the infrastruc- On November 13, 2018, the City held a referendum on
ture from the 1988 Games, a successful bid for the whether it should pursue a bid for the Olympics. Fifty-six
Olympic Games, it was argued by proponents, would also percent of voters said the city should not. Roughly one
lead to new infrastructure for all residents of the cities week later, the city officially ended the bid. While the vote
that could be used long after the games concluded. One marked an end to the bid for the 2026 Winter Olympic
example of this infrastructure would be a new fieldhouse Games, and highlighted the importance of providing citi-
for community sport and recreation. zens with a democratic mechanism to influence the
The powerful proponents of the bid touted not only debate, it does not mean that the discussions over host-
the infrastructure improvements but also nostalgia and ing another Olympics in the future are over for the resi-
the reminder of the good feeling the residents of the city dents 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 dis-
placement 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 303

 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 mega-
event should be offset by alternative tourist spending that would have occurred
absent the event. This substantially reduces the total economic impact of mega-
events. 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 aware-
ness 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 commu-
nities, 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 devel-
opment (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 mega-
event, 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 economi-
cally, socially, and environmentally valuable for countries and governments around
the world.
The counter-arguments to some of the more prevalent justifications for hold-
ing 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 dom-
inant 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 Chapter 13
CONCLUSION
This is no public enterprise. Why should we think of hockey as a national pos-
session? 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 cut-
ting off “ownership” when failure occurs (e.g., losses).
At the same time, this chapter speaks to the strategies adopted by powerful busi-
nesses (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 one-
sided 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 land-
scape 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 bargain-
ing 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.

The Business of Sport 305

 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 enti-
ties 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 eco-
nomic, 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.

306 Chapter 13
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-cease-
playing-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-rights-
for-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-hockey-
teams-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-host-
2026-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/.

The Business of Sport 307

 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/NBA-
territory.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 profes-
sional 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-flourishing-
business-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, enter-
tainment, and the remaking of the business. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

308 Chapter 13
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: Previously known as the
Skydome, this Toronto
1 Explain what is meant by globalization and uneven development. multi-purpose stadium was
recently renamed as the
2 Discuss examples of the globalization of sport and physical culture.
Rogers Centre.
3 Describe the history of international development and the emergence of Sport Ian Trower/AWL Images/Getty
for Development and Peace. 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.

309
 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 connec-
tions 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 main-
tained;
■■ 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, move-
ments, 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 globaliza-
tion and its connections to sport, physical culture, and international develop-
ment. 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 identi-
ties 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 regu-
larly 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, rela-
tions, and effects of globalization. A good example of this, and one which is dis-
cussed 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 develop-
ment. 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 stake-
holders, like the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the International
Olympic Committee. Still, while the SDP sector and its programs have grown tre-
mendously in recent years and made important contributions to international devel-
opment, 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

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 311

 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 con-
cur 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 con-
tentious 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 contra-
dictory 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, com-
munities, 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 popu-
lar 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 popu-
list 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 migra-
tion and immigration, and by encouraging domestic economic activity. Such poli-
cies 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 chang-
ing or undoing of well-established social structures is no easy chore, despite popu-
list political rhetoric to the contrary.

312 Chapter 14
GLOBALIZATION AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
In a related (though distinct) manner, there have been similar concerns about the eco-
nomic 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 non-
Aboriginal 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 environ-
ment. 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 perspec-
tive (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 Through their efforts and agency, anti-sweatshop
practices of sweatshop labour, used by transnational cor- activists were able to document and communicate
porations in the production of sporting goods that are through the media Nike’s various exploitative and abu-
then marketed and sold on a global scale. For some criti- sive labour practices (Greenberg & Knight, 2004). This
cal analysts, sweatshop labour became “the symbol of led to better public awareness around the issue of sweat-
the perverse effects of neoliberal globalization” and anti- shop labour, and in some cases forced Nike to adopt
sweatshop activism represented “the struggle for social better monitoring of its factories and the rights of their
justice in the global economy” (Rodriguez-Garavito, workers. At the same time, however, these campaigns
2005, p. 64). In the 1990s, Nike became a key target of also encouraged consumers to simply boycott Nike prod-
global anti-sweatshop activism, as its practice of using ucts, rather than putting additional pressure on the
low-wage labour in Latin America and Asia was increas- company to change its production practices or alter its
ingly documented, and as its brand continued to enjoy business model in any fundamental ways (Greenberg &
global recognition and enormous profits. In line with con- Knight, 2004). As a result, many activists continue to call
flict theory, Nike became the centre of struggles between for Nike to change its global labour practices in ways that
relatively powerful corporate interests and the labour would ensure the safety, rights, and fair wages for work-
interests of workers—especially young teenage girls— ers (Zager et al., 2017).
around the world seeking safety, security, and fair wages.

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 313

 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 impera-
tive 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 coun-
tries, 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 Chapter 14
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 influ-
ence 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 common-
sense 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 glo-
balization 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 interna-
tional 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 socio-
logical 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 pro-
cesses 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 fur-
thers 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 315

 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 terror-
ism 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 under-
stand 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 socio-
logical 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

316 Chapter 14
❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.2 Local Interpretations of Global Sport
One of the goals of sport sociology is to explore and make Canada and a city like Toronto, and helped them in set-
sense of the various ways in which sport contributes to tling into neighbourhoods, finding jobs, and establishing
social experiences, meanings, and identities. Janelle their place in Canadian society.
Joseph (2017) studied the experiences of male cricket At the same time, cricket as a cultural form and
players from across the Caribbean diaspora. In her use practice offered Caribbean men a way to maintain their
of the term, diaspora refers to “the racial, ethnic, local Caribbean-ness, to celebrate their homeland, and also
and national (imagined) communities and cultures that to confront the threat and pain of racism and xenopho-
span borders as a result of historic and contemporary bia. In this sense, Joseph shows that sports like cricket
migrations” (Joseph, 2017, p. 8). Based on her ethno- can be used to establish both sameness as well as dif-
graphic research with cricket players, Joseph shows that ference, and that sport is often a key repository for
cricket featured prominently in their experiences of people navigating their own forms of movement around
migration, including that of coming to a country like the world.

types of assessments tend to conclude that when people (e.g., local sports fans or custom-
ers 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 global-
ization 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 scien-
tific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth
of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in con-
ditions 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

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 317

 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 under-
resourced in achieving modern development standards. These ideas remain an
important hallmark of some international development agendas, approaches, and poli-
cies 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

Human Development Life expectancy Expected years Gross national income
Country Index at birth of schooling 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).

318 Chapter 14
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 inter-
national development has been to challenge its very notion. Many of these criti-
cisms 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 organiza-
tions may be associated with ideologies that are reminiscent of colonialism (McEwan,
2009). For example, Darnell (2007) used a postcolonial lens to understand the experi-
ences 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 assump-
tions that underlie Truman’s vision of development. This means, for example, focus-
ing 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.

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 319

  igration, Human Rights, and Child Trafficking
M
❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.3 in Global Football
While the popularity of football (soccer) is often cited as identify as part of a global middle-class African diaspora,
a positive example of sport and globalization, in recent at the expense of personal ties to their local communi-
years scholars have noted the increase in football players ties, families, and cultural traditions.
migrating out of the continent of Africa (e.g., Darby, In his work, McGee questions some of the underlying
2010). These young athletes are often recruited, but they assumptions about global “connectedness,” particularly
can also be illegally sold and trafficked into countries, in the context of postcolonial Ghana and West Africa, by
primarily in Europe, to pursue professional football questioning “what . . . it mean[s] to be ever more con-
opportunities. Here, young footballers are “traded” nected across this uneven and unequal global land-
through “false paperwork, including fake passports, and scape” (McGee, 2015, p. 22). One answer is that
age fraud,” (McGee, 2012, p. 77). Much of this is orga- globalization and sport are (re)shaping development
nized through “football academies,” which have become efforts in countries like Ghana, and shifting focus away
widely established in countries throughout Africa and from community development to individual development.
South America. These academies are often unaffiliated, In turn, McGee advocates for thinking beyond the sup-
and therefore pay little heed to the legal or administrative posed benefits of globalization (such as connectedness)—
safeguards that govern football clubs or federations. and focusing as well on who is excluded, immobilized,
Darragh McGee (2015, 2018) conducted an ethno- and ultimately manipulated when football is seen as a
graphic study of Right To Dream, an internationally “global” game. While there may be a select few African
acclaimed non-profit football academy located in Accra, youths whose dreams are realized through their global
Ghana. The academy is ostensibly focused on youth mobility into the commercial spectacle of professional
development through education, football, and “character football in Europe, the dangers of this exploitive system
development.” His research explored the journeys of call for ongoing analysis and critical assessment. Overall,
male youth in their quest to migrate out of Africa by for young aspiring footballers, trying to “make it” in the
becoming professional footballers. McGee (2018) found global game is one of the ways they respond to the hege-
that while Right to Dream claimed to assist and “develop” mony of neoliberal globalization, or how they strive to
players, the academy’s relationship with youth was fun- succeed within a failing economic system that has, in
damentally exploitative since Right to Dream focused many ways, left countries like Ghana with little to offer in
mostly on the gifted young players, and taught them to 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):
■■ 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;

320 Chapter 14
■■ 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 edu-
cation, particularly focused on HIV/AIDS. The funding available to SDP as a
response to a global problem like HIV/AIDS was illustrative of emerging neoliber-
alism. 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 emer-
gence 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).

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 321

 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 func-
tionalist 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 toler-
ance. 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 develop-
ment” (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 spe-
cific 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 recog-

nize 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)

322 Chapter 14
 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 respon-
sibilities 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 demo-
cratic, 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 pro-
moting 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 uni-
versal language, an idea that is central to many SDP programs and initiatives, sug-
gests 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

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 323

❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.4 Parkour and Youth Agency
A recent example of critical issues in youth sport and In this way, local youth asserted their own agency in
SDP comes from the sport of parkour, or free-running. producing glocalized parkour forms. Thorpe and Ahmad
Thorpe and Ahmad (2015) worked with youth, particu- (2015) conclude that the activities of these young people
larly young men, in the Middle East who engaged in have important lessons for SDP, namely, that young
parkour. They found that these young people engaged people should be active participants in the ways that SDP
with other parkour communities around the world, par- is conceptualized and organized, not passive targets of
ticularly through the use of social media—learning about top-down sport programs that are deemed by others to
and growing the sport. These exposures to parkour led be good for them. In Thorpe and Ahmad’s words (2015,
also to the development of their own local parkour styles p. 699), “respectful collaborations with young, grassroots
and cultural identities. sporting participants have the potential to make a valu-
They did so by re-appropriating dangerous local spaces able contribution to the sustainability and success of
and even resisting cultural and familial expectations. 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 pre-
sumptions 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 sig-
nificance 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, domes-
tic, and sexual violence prevention and sexual and reproductive health rights pro-
motion 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.

324 Chapter 14
❯❯❭❯ BOX 14.5 The “Global” Girl Effect?
“Invest in a girl, and she will do the rest!” So goes the First, the majority of efforts within Nike’s Girl Effect
tagline of the Girl Effect, a global campaign initiated by movement tend to focus on the individual experiences of
the Nike Foundation in 2005 that positions girls and young women and girls residing in Western and Global
young women as agents of social change and poverty North nations, while describing their powerful, confident,
alleviation (Nike, 2017). The Girl Effect campaign ambi- “can-do” attitudes (Harris, 2004). This can lead to gen-
tiously promises to “raise 50 million girls out of poverty dered expectations and understandings about how all girls
by 2030” through its support of various development- should participate in global society, expectations that can
related projects targeting the education, health, sport, homogenize the diversity of girls’ experiences without con-
economic vitality, and ultimately the “potential” of girls sidering differences of race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality.
and young women, mostly across the Global South In turn, this individualized “can-do” approach—which
(Nike, 2017). asks girls to be competitive and productive but not depen-
The Girl Effect movement emerged alongside other dent on government—means that the Girl Effect is largely
trends in international development, including those ini- compatible with neoliberalism. That is, it is primarily a
tiatives focused on SDP, as well as corporate social functionalist approach that aims to transform and modern-
responsibility (CSR) (McSweeney et al., in press). CSR ize “at-risk” girls into successful global girl citizens by
refers to a “commitment to acting ethically and socially encouraging them to simply participate in global capital-
responsibly as a business or organization” (McSweeney ism (Hayhurst, 2013). Overall, SDP research studies that
et al., in press). As a movement grounded in Nike’s CSR employ critical theory to explore the Girl Effect have dem-
strategies, the Girl Effect has drawn positive attention to onstrated the need to first attend to structural inequalities
the fact that girls and young women were traditionally (e.g., poverty, unequal division of power and resources
ignored in development narratives, policies, and pro- between women and men, etc.) in order for young women
gramming. However, there are important challenges and to possibly benefit from any Girl Effect-infused sport-
concerns with the movement as well. related 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 glo-
balization 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 devel-
opment, 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 325

 Key Terms
Capitalism: The world’s dominant system of economic exchange, intimately tied to social rela-
tions of production and reproduction.
Corporate social responsibility: The commitments and actions taken by businesses and corpo-
rations in order to behave ethically and in a socially responsible manner.
Diaspora: The communities and cultures—often based on race and ethnicity—that span bor-
ders 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, rela-
tions, 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 com-
petition; and reduced social security and government influence in favour of capitalist markets.
Postcolonialism: The critical study of colonialism and its effects, both historically and contem-
porarily.

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 inter-
national 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 develop-
ment? Why or why not?

Suggested Readings
Bairner, A. (2001). Sport, nationalism, and globalization: European and North American perspec-
tives. 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.

326 Chapter 14
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 cul-
tural 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 peda-
gogies 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.

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 327

 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 engage-
ment. 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 man-
agement (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.

328 Chapter 14
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/transfor-
mingourworld.
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-closes-
unosdp/.
Zager, D., Solis, A., & Adjroud, S. (2017). These Georgetown students fought Nike—and
won. The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/these-georgetown-
students-fought-nike-and-won/.

Globalization, Sport, and International Development 329

 Chapter 15
Sport and the Environment
Brian Wilson and Brad Millington

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Floods caused by rising After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
waters is only one of many
environmental issues affecting 1 Identify ways that environmental issues are known to impact sport and
sports and physical culture in physical culture.
Canada.
2 Identify ways that particular sport and physical cultural activities are associated
Jason Salmon/123RF
with negative environmental outcomes.
3 Identify ways that sport organizations have responded to concerns about sport-
related 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.

330
 “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 foresee-
able 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 ris-
ing 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 sev-
eral 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 solu-
tions 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 solu-
tions 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 331

 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 sociolo-
gists 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 cli-
mate 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 environmen-
tally 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 underly-
ing 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 resis-
tance 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 sport-
related 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 sec-
ond relates to how sport itself can be environmentally impactful. In both cases, the over-
riding 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 envi-
ronment-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 environment-
related 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 Chapter 15
(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 inter-
twined. It is also notable how the historical and comparative aspects of Mills’s socio-
logical 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 knee-
deep 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 likeli-
hood 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 base-
ball 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 compe-
tition 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).

Sport and the Environment 333

 Similar concerns arose prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, compelling Chinese offi-
cials 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 sprin-
kling 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 underly-
ing 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

334 Chapter 15
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 col-
leagues (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.

 nvironmental Issues and the Future of the Winter

E
❯❯❭❯ BOX 15.1 Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games
The future of the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Even when it is possible, concerns have also been
Paralympic Games is one of the topics that has received raised in recent years about energy usage and emis-
attention in conversations about sport-related environ- sions associated with snowmaking machines, as well as
mental issues. Recently, major publications like the the potential environmental impacts of extracting large
New York Times have paid particular attention to research amounts of water from nearby sources to produce the
on the topic by Dan Scott, a geographer at the University snow in this way (Plourde, 2017; Schlosberg &
of Waterloo, and his colleagues. Carruthers, 2010). This includes concerns about the
Scott and his colleagues’ work rings alarm bells for large amounts of water needed for snowmaking, the
those considering whether cities that have hosted these impacts of withdrawing water from convenient water
Games in the past will be in a position to host them in the sources (e.g., from streams of lakes) on topsoils, and
future. To this question, Scott et al. (2018) found that with respect to water runoff issues. This is not to men-
in a low-emission scenario, only 13 of 21 locations remain tion the fact that treated wastewater is sometimes used
climate reliable for the OWG [Olympic Winter Games] in for snowmaking—a practice that has some unknown
the 2050s and 12 in the 2080s, whereas only 10 are reli- consequences, with some expressing concern that
able for the PWG [Paralympic Winter Games] (both in the “[even the treated] water may contain chemical inputs
2050s and 2080s). The impact of a business-as-usual from pharmaceuticals and other potentially hazardous
high-emission scenario is far greater, reducing the number hard-to-trace sources” (O’Connor, 2012)—although
of locations reliable for the OWG to 10 in the 2050s and 8 debates about these impacts are highly contentious.
in the 2080s, with even fewer reliable for PWG (8 in the Later in this chapter, we refer to the precautionary
2050s and only 4 in the 2080s) (p. 1).
approach, a term that refers to the idea that “not know-
It is perhaps unsurprising that Vancouver is on the list ing” the impacts of potentially hazardous environmental
of cities considered “climate unreliable” for a mid-21st practices—especially for non-essential activities—is not
century Games—alongside cities like Sochi, Garmisch- a reason to continue with such practices in a “business
Partenkirchen (Germany), Grenoble and Chamonix as usual” way.
(France), and Squaw Valley (USA). Scott et al. also high- This example not only highlights a situation where we
light that every city that has hosted the Games is cur- can see both “the impacts of environmental issues on
rently warmer in February than it was at the time of sport” and “the impacts of sport on the environment,” it
hosting—and that these warmer temperatures would also highlights a structural functionalist response to an
impact the effectiveness of snowmaking machines as environmental issue (i.e., that snowmaking can possibly
well as the likelihood of n
­ aturally occurring snow, since “fix” the lack of snow issue, and tourism and event hosting
snow-cannon based snowmaking is impossible in many can continue as always). It also implies that a critical
of the projected scenarios because of the higher response to the issue would be to question whether and
­temperatures. why certain sports should continue at all in certain contexts.

Sport and the Environment 335

 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 mega-
events 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
■■ 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 sensi-
tive 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 evalu-
ation 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 beneficia-
ries 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

336 Chapter 15
 On the negative side, the IOC and local organizing committees have been dispar-
aged 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 organiz-
ers 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 infra-
structure, 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 abil-
ity 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 move-
ment. Since then, organizing committees have sought not only to mitigate envi-
ronmental 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 337

 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 com-
munity sports facility. Many were also positive about the widening of the Sea-to-
Sky 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 con-
structed for Vancouver 2010, “incorporated practices and technologies that mini-
mize 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 busi-
ness” (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 event-
related 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 environ-
mental 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 penal-
ties 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:
■■ 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;

338 Chapter 15
■■ 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 sensi-
bilities (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 play-
ers 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 consump-
tion-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 syn-
thetic 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 con-
cerns 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 339

 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 miti-
gate 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 domi-
nant approach to dealing with sport-related environmental problems—known popu-
larly 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 sustain-
ability, 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 environ-
mental 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 environ-
mental 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 sec-
ond 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

340 Chapter 15
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 them-
selves 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 fea-
tures 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 fur-
ther detail.

So What Is Ecological Modernization?

At the core of ecological modernization is that idea that industrial activity will prog-
ress in a positive direction over time, moving from practices that are more environ-
mentally 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 monitor-
ing 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 indus-
tries 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

Sport and the Environment 341

 ­ 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 prin-
ciples. 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 sport-
related 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 damag-
ing impact on the natural environment. By highlighting this, SMEs are then posi-
tioned 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 indus-
tries 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 initia-
tives 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 eco-
logical 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

342 Chapter 15
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 facil-
ity possible.
Fourth and finally, SMEs sometimes advocate for voluntary and gradual forms
of environment-related regulation—regulation that industry agrees will support envi-
ronmental 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 mar-
ket driven advances. Elsewhere we explain the rationale for this voluntary and mini-
mal 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 environ-
mental problems that now loom (see Box 15.2).
The first problem concerns EM’s claims that better strategies for being environ-
mentally friendly can be attained through collaboration between different stakehold-
ers 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.

Sport and the Environment 343

  cological Modernization and The National Hockey
E
❯❯❭❯ BOX 15.2 League (NHL)
The 2014 NHL Sustainability Report provides an illustra- is cause for critique as well. For instance, johnson and
tive example of the growing role of EM in sport. The Ali question the very premise of the idea that carbon
report was analyzed by researchers jay johnson and offsets “avoid” carbon emissions (since emissions actu-
Adam Ehsan Ali (2018), who were interested in what the ally still occur), and the assumption that offsetting per-
Report says about the League’s approach to sustainabil- fectly compensates for emissions generated through
ity, and also how it helped position the NHL as an envi- (for example) travel (see Wilson, 2012b). The “bigger
ronmental leader. picture” point, however, is that the 2014 NHL
What the sustainability report does in the first instance Sustainability Report reveals a focus on peripheral
is acknowledge that environmental concerns are indeed adjustments. These are solutions that lie at the “edges”
worthy concerns. To even produce a sustainability analysis of the league’s business practices, and that effectively
is to acknowledge that this is a subject worth addressing— allow the NHL to present itself as environmentally
remembering that acknowledging (rather than denying) responsible without having to reckon, in a more radical
that the environment is at risk is a core element of the way, with the core nature of its businesses and its envi-
EM mindset. ronmental impacts.
What is significant from there is how exactly the NHL The bigger questions about whether having fewer
conceptualizes environmental stewardship. “Good busi- overall games would be the most sustainable solution, or
ness” and environmental sustainability are, for the NHL, whether the energy costs of arenas in particular climates
interlinked and deemed compatible. For example, having are “too much,” are seldom asked in an EM framework,
noted that professional sports, in their nature, require as the economic case is not balanced against the
extensive travel, the sustainability report notes that, in ­environmental one with such solutions. It’s worth consid-
2012, 584 metric tons of carbon offsets were purchased ering the limits of EM for addressing environmental
as a way of counter-balancing emissions incurred during issues here when “fewer games,” and/or “fewer teams”
the NHL playoffs. Elsewhere, technological innovation might be by far the most environmentally friendly
and industry partnerships are championed in the report response. EM ­critics would certainly suggest that some
as avenues to sound environmental practices. economic and mass entertainment compromises might
Responsibility for the environment is also dispersed in be necessary at this point.
that fans, players, and hockey arena managers are pre- All told, the point is not that the 2014 NHL
sented as good environmental citizens, and are called on Sustainability Report is “bad.” As we have argued in this
to behave as such. chapter, the point is that it forwards a limited approach
In analyzing the report, johnson and Ali are clear that to environmentalism—one that might constrain even
the NHL’s efforts are in many ways laudable. But there 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 environ-
mental 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 ecologi-
cal modernist perspective—and therefore emphasizing the need for public consultation

344 Chapter 15
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 envi-
ronmental 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 pro-
environment 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 envi-
ronmental 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 sustain-
ability can indeed be made compatible, or whether environmental concerns are des-
tined 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 “green-
washing,” meaning the appearance (in this case, among sport organizations) of envi-
ronmental 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 345

❯❯❭❯ BOX 15.3 Dealing with Uncertainty: A Precautionary Approach
Although there is general agreement that climate “when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or
change is linked to human activity, and that the nega- the environment, precautionary measures should be taken
tive consequences of global warming will be evident in even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully
the future, there are still many uncertainties. The “pre- established scientifically” (Raffensperger & Tickner, 1999,
cautionary approach” or “precautionary principle” quoted in Kriebel et al., 2001, p. 871). The precautionary
refers to the view that in the face of such uncertainties measures described in the statement include “taking pre-
(e.g., uncertainties about human impacts on global ventive action in the face of uncertainty; shifting the burden
warming, or the effects of chemical use on human of proof to the proponents of an activity; exploring a wide
health), the default response should be to “act preven- range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions; and
tively” and shift the burden of proof for doing an activity increasing public participation in decision making” (Kriebel
(e.g., an activity that may exacerbate global warming) to et al., 2001, p. 871).
the proponents of an activity. This would mean asking Recognized in this approach are the devastating
those who are doing the seemingly risky activity (e.g., ­consequences for future generations of not taking likely
running a sport mega-event; using pesticides to main- scenarios seriously. One of the inequities described
tain golf course grass) to “show why it is safe”—and not ­earlier in this chapter, intergenerational inequity, is cen-
to place the burden on those who may be impacted by tral to this way of thinking, since those living in the
the activity to “show why it is dangerous,” as is often the future, when the potential negative consequences of
case in such circumstances. The aim is to offer the not acting would be felt, will not have the same oppor-
“best chances” for a preferred future—and to act to tunities that we have now to respond. By not acting on
avoid possible future harms. This is the perspective the scenarios outlined by climate scientists, given the
offered by many who are concerned with the potential, likelihood of negative outcomes, it is as though current
but uncertain, impacts of environmental problems on generations would be gambling with the future in order
human health and wellbeing of non-humans (i.e. flora, to maintain current-day ways of living. It would be too
fauna, and ecosystems). late—as the changes noted above are generally irre-
In some respects, the approach is self-explanatory— versible and contribute to positive feedback cycles,
meaning, that it is important, from this perspective, to take leading to worse and worse situations. This is one of the
well-supported predictions seriously if we don’t know many reasons that the issues dealt with in this chapter
exactly what is happening, or have precise explanations for are considered among the most pressing of our time. Of
what is happening. A 1998 consensus statement includes course, we are not even accounting here for the other
the following description of how and when the term applies negative impacts that would still be felt by current gen-
to environment- and health-related activity especially erations 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 ban-
ning heavy-polluting vehicles from Beijing. Yet these measures were rescinded in the

346 Chapter 15
 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 com-
pany, 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 pro-
gramme 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 carbon-
saving 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 effec-
tive, 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 activi-
ties—without any acknowledgement of the concerns or complexities of offsetting
(see Wilson, 2012a; 2012b). The point is that even though offsets are generally help-
ful 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 environmen-
tal initiatives (and the promotion of them by sport mega-event organizers, for exam-
ple) 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 347

 public interests, should presumably adopt a critical eye and long-term view in con-
sidering whether greener outcomes—in general or in sport in particular—are in fact
materializing. As the sociologist John Hannigan (2006) contends, however, govern-
ments are generally motivated to address environmental concerns without affecting
the engine of economic growth. Governments stand to gain from EM’s “everyone ben-
efits” 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 move-
ments 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) along-
side 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 contin-
ues 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 ter-
ritories. 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

348 Chapter 15
(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 environ-
ment 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 criti-
cal 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 intel-
lectual 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 rele-
vance 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 exam-
ple, 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 high-
lights 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 out-
weigh 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.

Sport and the Environment 349

 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 neces-
sary. . . . [But] a normal consumption-based strategy that is simply rooted in indi-
vidual 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, social-
structural 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 econo-
my, 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 environmen-
tal 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 “prog-
ress” (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.

350 Chapter 15
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” con-
texts 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 mea-
sures, 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 environ-
ment. 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.

References
Associated Press. (2017, May 23). Scathing report on 2016 Rio Olympics: Wenues “white
­elephants”. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/­
olympics/2017/05/22/scathing-report-on-rio-olympics-venues-white-elephants/102041926/.

Sport and the Environment 351

 Boykoff, J., & Mascarenhas, G. (2016). The Olympics, sustainability, and greenwash-
ing: The Rio 2016 Summer Games. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 27(2), 1–11, DOI:
10.1080/10455752.2016.1179473.
Brooks, B., & Barchfield, J. (2015, July 30). Olympic teams to swim, boat in Rio’s filth.
Associated Press report, reprinted in Miami Herald. Retrieved from https://www.miamiherald.
com/news/nation-world/world/article29518732.html.
Brundtland, G. (Ed.) (1987). Our common future (Report of the World Commission on Environment
and Development). New York NY: Oxford University Press.
Cantelon, H., & Letters, M. (2000). The making of the IOC environmental policy as the third dimen-
sion of the Olympic movement. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35(3), 294–308.
Chappelet, J.L. (2008). Olympic environmental concerns as a legacy of the winter games.
International Journal of the History of Sport, 25(14), 1884–1902.
Chernushenko, D., Van der Kamp, A., & Stubbs, D. (2001). Sustainable sport management:
Running an environmentally, socially, and economically responsible organization. Nairobi,
Kenya: United Nations Environment Programme.
Chestin, I. (2014, February 14). Sochi Olympics have left a trail of environmental destruc-
tion. The Conversation. Retrieved August 6, 2018 from http://theconversation.com/sochi-
olympics-have-left-a-trail-of-environmental-destruction-23112. Used with the permission.
Christoff, P. (1996). Ecological modernisation, ecological modernities. Environmental politics,
5(3), 476–500.
Davis, S. (2018). What abandoned Olympic venues from around the world look like today.
Business Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-olympic-
venues-around-the-world-photos-rio-2016-8.
Dolf, M. (2017). A life cycle assessment of the environmental impacts of small to medium sports events
(Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia).
Duffy, A. (2011). Raising the bar for sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. In
J. Savery & K. Gilbert (Eds.), Sustainability and sport (pp. 43–49). Champaign, IL: Common
Ground.
Foster, J.B. & Ferre, J.C. (2017, July 2). ‘We need a resistance movement for the planet’, inter-
view with John Bellamy Foster. Left Voice. Retrieved August 6, 2018 from: http://www.
leftvoice.org/A-Resistance-Movement-for-the-Planet-Full-Interview.
Giles, L.V., & Koehle, M.S. (2014). The health effects of exercising in air pollution. Sports
Medicine, 44(2), 223–249.
Green Sports Alliance. (2018). Green sports alliance: Benefits. Retrieved from http://greensport-
salliance.org/members-benefits/.
Hannigan, J. (2006). Environmental sociology (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Hoffman, A. J. (2001). From heresy to dogma: An institutional history of corporate environmentalism.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Homer-Dixon, T. (2000) The Ingenuity Gap: Can we solve the problems of the future? New York,
NY: Knopf.
Horne, J. (1998). The politics of sport and leisure in Japan: Global power and local resistance.
International Review for the Sociology Of Sport, 33(2), 171–182.
Huber, J. (1985). Die Regenbogengesellschaft: Ökologie und Sozialpolitik (The rainbow society.
Ecology and social policy). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer.
Hutchison, A. (2017, December 13). Don’t let pollution stop you from exercising. Outside.
Retrieved from https://www.outsideonline.com/2268346/dont-let-pollution-stop-you-
exercising.
johnson, j., & Ali, A. E. (2018). Ecological modernization and the 2014 NHL Sustainability
Report. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(1), 49–57.
Kearins, K., & Pavlovich, K. (2002). The role of stakeholders in Sydney’s Green Games.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 9(3), 157–169.

352 Chapter 15
Kriebel, D., Tickner, J., Epstein, P., Lemons, J., Levins, R., Loechler, E.L., Quinn, M., Rudel,
R., Schettler, T.. and Stoto, M. (2001). The precautionary principle in environmental sci-
ence. Environmental Health Perspectives, 109(9), 871–876.
Lenskyj, H. (1998). Sport and corporate environmentalism: The case of the Sydney 2000
Olympics. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 33(4), 341–354.
Lubbers, E. (Ed.) (2002). Battling big business: Countering greenwash, infiltration and other forms
of corporate bullying. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Books.
McLeod, C. M., Pu, H., & Newman, J. I. (2018). Blue skies over Beijing: Olympics, ­environments,
and the People’s Republic of China. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(1), 29–38.
Miller, T. (2017). Greenwashing sport. Routledge.
Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2013). Super intentions: Golf course management and the evolu-
tion of environmental responsibility. The Sociological Quarterly, 54(3), 450–475.
Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2016). The greening of golf: Sport, globalization and the environ-
ment. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2017). Contested terrain and terrain that contests: Donald
Trump, golf’s environmental politics, and a challenge to anthropocentrism in Physical
Cultural Studies. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(8), 910–923.
Mills, C. W. (1961). The sociological imagination. New York NY: Grove Press.
Neo, H. (2010). Unravelling the post-politics of golf course provision in Singapore. Sport and
Social Issues, 34(3), 272–287.
O’Bonsawin, C. (2014). Showdown at Eagleridge Bluffs: The 2010 Vancouver Olympic
Winter Games, the Olympic sustainability smokescreen, and the protection of Indigenous
lands. In J. Forsyth, C. O’Bonsawin & M. Heine (Eds.), Intersections and intersectionalities in
Olympic and Paralympic studies (pp. 82–88). London, ON: International Centre for Olympic
Studies, 2014. Used with the permission.
O’Connor, M.C. (2012, October 11). The nasty environmental impact of making snow.
Outside. Retrieved from https://www.outsideonline.com/1904791/nasty-environmental-
impact-making-snow.
Olympic.org. (2012). Flexible and sustainable: London’s Olympic Stadium sets new standards.
Retrieved from https://www.olympic.org/news/flexible-and-sustainable-london-s-olympic-
stadium-sets-new-standards.
Olympic.org. (2013). 10th IOC World Conference on Sport and the Environment kicks off in
Sochi. Retrieved from https://www.olympic.org/news/10th-ioc-world-conference-on-sport-
and-the-environment-kicks-off-in-sochi.
Perkins, C., Mincyte, D., & Cole, C. L. (2010). Special issue: Making the critical links and the
links critical in golf studies. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 34(3), 267–375.
Pelham, F. (2011). Sustainable event management: The journey to ISO 20121. In J. Savery &
K. Gilbert (Eds.), Sustainability and Sport (pp. 43–49). Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Pitter, R. (2009). Finding the Kieran way: recreational sport, health, and environmental policy
in Nova Scotia. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 33(3), 331–351.
Pitts, B. G., & Stotlar, D. K. (2007). Fundamentals of sport marketing, Third edition. Morgantown:
Fitness Information Technology.
Plourde, D. (2017, December 11). Plourde: Making artificial snow is a very slippery slope.
Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved from https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/plourde-
making-artificial-snow-is-a-very-slippery-slope.
Raffensperger, C., & Tickner, J. (Eds.). (1999). Protecting public health and the environment:
Implementing the precautionary principle. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Rice, J. (2016). “The everyday choices we make matter”: Urban climate politics and the
postpolitics of responsibility and action. In H. Bulkeley, M. Paterson & J. Stripple (Eds.),
Towards a cultural politics of climate change: Devices, desires, and dissent (pp. 110–126).
Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sport and the Environment 353

 Romm, J. (2016). Climate change: What everyone needs to know. New York NY: Oxford
University Press.
Schellnhuber, H. J., Hare, W., Serdeczny, O., Adams, S., Coumou, D., Frieler, K., Martin,
M., Otto, I. M., Perrette, M., Robinson, A., & Rocha, M. (2012). Turn down the heat: Why
a 4°C warmer world must be avoided. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Schlosberg, D., & Carruthers, D. (2010). Indigenous struggles, environmental justice, and
community capabilities. Global Environmental Politics, 10(4), 12–35.
Scott, D., Steiger, R., Rutty, M., & Fang, Y. (2018). The changing geography of the Winter
Olympic and Paralympic Games in a warmer world. Current Issues in Tourism, DOI:
10.1080/13683500.2018.1436161.
Stoddart, M. C., & MacDonald, L. (2011). “Keep it wild, keep it local”: Comparing news
media and the internet as sites for environmental movement activism for Jumbo Pass,
British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 36(4), 313–335.
Stolle-McAllister, J. (2004). Contingent hybridity: The cultural politics of Tepoztlán’s anti-golf
movement. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 11, 195–213.
United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.
VanWynsberghe, R. (2015). The Olympic Games Impact (OGI) study for the 2010 Winter
Olympic Games: Strategies for evaluating sport mega-events’ contribution to sustainability.
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 7(1), 1–18,
Vause, J. (2008). China announces emergency Olympics smog plan. CNN. Retrieved from
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/30/oly.beijing.pollution/.
Wheaton, B. (2007). Identity, politics, and the beach: Environmental activism in surfers
against sewage. Leisure Studies, 26(3), 279–302.
Whitson, D. (2012). Vancouver 2010: The saga of Eagleridge Bluffs. In G. Hayes & J.
Karamichas (Eds.), Olympic Games, mega-events and civil societies: Globalization, environment,
resistance (pp. 219–235). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
WHO Factsheet. Climate change and health (2018, February 1). Retrieved July 5, 2018 from
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/.
Wilson, B. (2012a). Sport and peace. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, B. (2012b). Growth and nature: Reflections on sport, carbon neutrality, and ecologi-
cal modernization. In D. Andrews & M. Silk (Eds.), Sport and neo-liberalism: Politics, con-
sumption, and culture (pp. 90–108). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Wilson, B., & Millington, B. (2013). Sport, ecological modernization, and the environment.
In D. Andrews & B. Carrington (Eds.), A companion to sport (Wiley-Blackwell Companions
to Cultural Studies) (pp. 129–142). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Wilson, B., & Millington, B. (2015). Sport and environmentalism. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.),
Routledge handbook of the sociology of sport (pp. 366–376). New York: Routledge.
Witte, J. C., Schoeberl, M. R., Douglass, A. R., Gleason, J. F., Krotkov, N. A., Gille, J. C.,
Pickering, K. E., & Livesey, N. (2009). Satellite observations of changes in air quality dur-
ing the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics. Geophysical Research Letters, 36(17), 1–6.
Wolff, A. (2007, March 11). Going, going green. Sports Illustrated, 36–45.
World Health Organization. (2014). Quantitative risk assessment of the effects of climate change on
selected causes of death, 2030s and 2050s. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
Yoon, L. (2017, June 7). To see the world through a mountain: Mount Gariwang and the 2018
PyeongChang Olympic Games. The Society Pages. Retrieved from https://thesocietypages.
org/engagingsports/2017/06/07/to-see-the-world-through-a-mountain-mount-gariwang-and-
the-2018-pyeongchang-winter-olympic-games/.

354 Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Sport and the Future
Brian Wilson and Jay Scherer

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to: Will ongoing tensions about
societal inequalities lead to
1 Connect trends in sport, physical culture, and society to a set of predictions more intense protests at
about what sport, physical culture, and society might look like in the future. global sport mega-events?
Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/
2 Identify ways that particular sport and physical cultural activities are associated AP Images
with negative environmental outcomes.

355
 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 injuri-
ous. 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 con-
sider 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 com-
paratively 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 pre-
ferred 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 ideologi-
cal vision that guided Adolph Hitler’s work in Nazi Germany leading up to and dur-
ing 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

356 Chapter 16
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 environ-
ment. 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 com-
mentators 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 asso-
ciated 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 busi-
nesses 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 sup-
port prosocial societal changes by choosing the best services—decisions that, theo-
retically 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.

Sport and the Future 357

 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 pro-
duced 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 neoliberal-
ism 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 sport-
ing bodies are often understood—and how responsibility for our bodies is com-
monly 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, recre-
ation, 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 participa-
tory 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 develop-
ments, 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 Chapter 16
in the future will cater more to older populations, and especially the large, demo-
graphically significant, aging baby boomer cohort, such a response would not neces-
sarily 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 pov-
erty” to gain reduced-fee access. Still, as the gap between the rich and the poor con-
tinues 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 devel-
opment purposes will continue to—and perhaps increasingly—work to fill the
gaps left by governments In recent years, both the private sector and various nongov-
ernmental 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 solu-
tions. 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 prac-
tices 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

Sport and the Future 359

 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 philan-
thropic 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 num-
ber 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 prob-
lem identified in Prediction #1, there are reasons to be concerned about the qual-
ity 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 promi-
nent 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 impor-
tant 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 prac-
tices. 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, windsurf-
ing, BASE jumping, surfing, parkour, and Ultimate, which are ­commonly more
participant-driven activities—activities that are, in some respects and contexts, inten-
tionally oppositional to dominant aspects of mainstream (sport) culture.

360 Chapter 16
 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)com-
petitive, (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 sub-
culture 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 contem-
porary 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 anti-
consumerist. 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 sub-
cultural 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 dis-
semination 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 park-
our 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 prac-
tices 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 ideolo-
gies. 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 show-
ing 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 361

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 conse-
quences 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 misogy-
nist and racist behaviours and stances—was elected, renowned Canadian social com-
mentator 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 Chapter 16
 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, includ-
ing Trump himself, will continue to promote their populist platforms and political
images through associations with sport, championship sports teams, and popular sport-
ing figures. These strategies, it can be suggested, are especially important for conserva-
tive 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 sub-
sequently “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 quarter-
back Colin Kaepernick over police brutality and racism in the US, and his subse-
quent 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 insult-
ing 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 ath-
letes 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 vari-
ous 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 363

 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 bor-
der 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 con-
sumers 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 Chapter 16
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 unin-
tended 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 immi-
grants 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 pov-
erty 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 cul-
ture 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 365

 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 docu-
mented 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 docu-
menting how the interventions they are involved with are thought to, in some circum-
stances 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 humani-
tarian 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 associ-
ated 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 rec-
reational 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 Chapter 16
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 previ-
ous 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 fund-
ing, 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 innova-
tions” (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 feel-
ings post-use, and an increased focus on individual weight management and slen-
derness 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 367

 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 com-
petitive 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 pro-
lympic 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 Chapter 16
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 neces-
sarily 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 broadcast-
ing 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 priva-
tized, “on-demand,” and interactive consumption experiences.
It is worth noting here that these developments may not necessarily be accompa-
nied 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 spec-
tatorship, 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

Sport and the Future 369

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 environ-
mental 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 eco-
nomic 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 Chapter 16
Prediction #10
Debates about best strategies for “greening” sport will be invigorated as exist-
ing 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 dem-
onstrate 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 impor-
tance 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 exam-
ple, 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 sport-
related 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 information-
sharing between people. Debates will also be more likely as sociologists are increas-
ingly 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 iden-
tify 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 371

 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 ques-
tion 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 con-
tinue 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 opportuni-
ties, and in the pursuit of careers in professional sport, even in the face of over-
whelmingly 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 con-
trol 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 colonial-
ism 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 Chapter 16
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 con-
tinue 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 pre-
sumes 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 stake-
holder 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 environ-
mental movement is not interested in trying to convince members of the golf indus-
try 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 long-
standing 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 373

 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 per-
sonalization of politics for participants. This attempt to deal with and respond to
problems with dominant power structures through participation in a cultural move-
ment 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 con-
sider the prospect of social change. For example, could an incentive system be cre-
ated 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 coun-
tries 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 environ-
mental impacts of building new facilities while allowing for some of the tourism-
related 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?

374 Chapter 16
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 dream-
ing. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

References
Atkinson, M. (2009). Parkour, anarcho-environmentalism, and poiesis. Journal of Sport and
Social Issues, 33(2), 169–194.
Atkinson, M., & Young, K. (Eds.). (2008). Tribal play: Subcultural journeys through sport.
Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.
Aucoin, P. (1995) The new public management: Canada in comparative perspective. Montreal,
QC: The Institute for Research on Public Policy.
Beal, B. (1995). Disqualifying the official: An exploration of social resistance through the sub-
culture of skateboarding. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 252–267.
Beaujot, R., & Patterson, L. (2018). Maximum Canada: What do Canadians wish to maximize?
Canadian Studies in Population, 45(1-2), 72–83.
Bembry, J. (2008, February 6). Athletes passing on visiting the White House is nothing new:
If the Eagles get an invite, the players who have said they’ll skip the trip would join a long
list. The Undefeated. Retrieved from https://theundefeated.com/features/athletes-passing-
on-visiting-the-white-house-is-nothing-new-philadelphia-eagles/.
Coakley, J., & Donnelly, P. (2009). Sports in society: Issues and controversies (2nd Canadian ed.).
Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
Coburn, D. (2004). Beyond the income inequality hypothesis: Class, neo-liberalism, and
health inequalities. Social Science & Medicine, 58(1), 41–56. Used with permission.
Davis, N. W., & Duncan, M. C. (2006). Sports knowledge is power: Reinforcing masculine privi-
lege through fantasy sport league participation. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 30(3), 244–264.
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.
Forde, S., & Wilson, B. (2018). Radical sports journalism?: Reflections on ‘alternative’
approaches to covering sport-related social issues. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(1), 66–76.
Frisby, W., & Millar, S. (2002). The actualities of doing community development to promote
the inclusion of low income populations in local sport and recreation. European Sport
Management Quarterly, 2(3), 209–233.
Goodyear, V. A., Kerner, C., & Quennerstedt, M. (2017). Young people’s uses of wearable
healthy lifestyle technologies; surveillance, self-surveillance and resistance. Sport, Education
and Society, 1-14. doi: 10.1080/13573322.2017.1375907.

Sport and the Future 375

 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/rise-
of-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-threat-
to-sport/. Used with permission.
Millington, B. (2012). Amusing ourselves to life: Fitness consumerism and the birth of bio-
games. 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 dis-
cussion, 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-went-
to-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.

376 Chapter 16
References

Aalgaard, T. (2017, July 27). Transgender cyclist Kristen Alexander, K. (2017). Guiding modern girls: Girlhood, empire,
Worley wins settlement in rights case. Canadian Cycling and internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Vancouver,
Magazine. Retrieved from https://cyclingmagazine.ca/ BC: UBC Press.
advocacy/transgender-kristen-worley-settlement- Ali, A. (2018, November 30). What counts as national trag-
rights/. edy? The cruel pessimism of Humboldt. Engaging
Abrams, D. (2011). Achieving equal opportunity in youth Sports. Accessed from https://thesocietypages.org/
sports: Roles for the “Power of the Permit” and the engagingsports/2018/11/30/what-counts-as-national-
“Child Impact Statement.” In S. Spickard Prettyman tragedy-the-cruel-pessimism-of-humboldt/. Used with
and B. Lampman (Eds.), Learning culture through sports: permission.
Perspectives on society and organized sports (2nd ed., Alini, E. (2017, September 3). The cheapest and most expen-
pp. 32–42). Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. sive kids activities in Canada: Ipsos poll. Retrieved from
Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2013). Are we driving our kids https://globalnews.ca/news/3663732/the-cheapest-and-
to unhealthy habits? 2013 Active Healthy Kids Canada most-expensive-kids-activities-in-canada-ipsos-poll.
Report Card of Physical Activity for Children and Allen, J. (2006). A short history of U.S. ski jumping. Skiing
Youth. Toronto Ontario, Canada: Author. Heritage, 18, 34.
Adams, C. (2008). “Queens of the ice lanes”: The Preston Allison, L. (1993). The changing context of sporting life. In
Rivulettes and women’s hockey in Canada, 1931–1940. L. Allison (Ed.), The changing politics of sport. Manchester
Sport History Review, 39, 1–29. UK: Manchester University Press.
Adams, C. (2009). Organizing hockey for women: The Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (1926). 1926 Handbook.
Ladies Ontario Hockey Association and the fight for Anderson, E., & Kian, E. M. (2012). Examining media con-
legitimacy, 1922–1940. In J. Wong (Ed.), Coast to coast: testation of masculinity and head trauma in the National
Hockey in Canada to the Second World War (pp. 132–159). Football League. Men and Masculinities, 15(2), 152–173.
Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Anderson, S. (Producer/Director) and Culbert, A. (Producer).
Adams, C. (2011). Supervised places to play: Social reform, (2015, March 14). The fifth estate: The pain game: drugs,
citizenship and femininity at municipal playgrounds in doctors and pro sports. Retrieved from https://
London, Ontario, 1900–1942. Ontario History, CIII(1), www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6fL9ouR2rQ.
60–80. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions
Adams, C. (2014). Troubling bodies: “The Canadian girl,” of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of
the ice rink, and the Banff Winter Carnival. Journal of Minnesota Press.
Canadian Studies, 48, 200–220. Armstrong, P., Armstrong, H., & Coburn, D. (Eds.). (2001).
Adams, C., & Laurendeau, J. (2018). “Here they come! Look Unhealthy times: political economy perspectives on health
them over!”: Youth, citizenship, and the emergence of and care in canada. Toronto, ON: Oxford University
minor hockey in Canada. In J. Ellison & J. Anderson Press.
(Eds.), Hockey: Challenging Canada’s game (pp. 111–124). Arthur, B. (2009, November 11). Winds of change a mere
Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. breeze. National Post, p. S1.
Adams, C., & Leavitt, S. (2018). “It’s just girls’ hockey”: Ashley, F. (2018). Don’t be so hateful: The insufficiency of
Troubling progress narratives in girls’ and women’s anti-discrimination and hate crime laws in improving
sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53, trans well-being. University of Toronto Law Journal,
152–172. 68(1), 1–36.
Adams, C., & Wamsley, K.B. (2005). Moments of silence in Associated Press (2014, December 3). Buffalo Bills to cease play-
shallow halls of greatness: The Hockey Hall of Fame ing home games in Toronto. CBC Sports. Retrieved from
and the politics of representation. In C. Howell (Ed.), https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/buffalo-bills-
Women’s hockey: On and off the ice (pp. 13–17). Halifax, to-cease-playing-home-games-in-toronto-1.2858780.
NS: Centre for the Study of Sport and Health. Associated Press. (2013, June 3). Quebec soccer leaders cite
Adams, M. L. (2006). The game of whose lives? Gender, race, safety on turban bans. Washington Times. Accessed
and entitlement in Canada’s national game. In R. Gruneau from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/
& D. Whitson (Eds.), Artificial ice: Hockey, culture, and jun/3/quebec-soccer-leaders-cite-safety-on-turban-
commerce (pp. 71–84). Peterborough, ON: Broadview. bans. Used with permission.

377
Associated Press. (2014, May 2). Canadiens’ P. K. Subban Beamish, R. (2010). The promise of sociology: The classical
target of racist tweets. CBC Sports. Retrieved from tradition and contemporary sociological thinking. Toronto,
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/canadiens-p-k- ON: University of Toronto Press.
subban-target-of-racist-tweets-1.2629997. Beamish, R. (2015). The dialectic of modern, high-perfor-
Associated Press. (2017, May 23). Scathing report on 2016 mance sport: Returning to the Dubin inquiry to move
Rio Olympics: Wenues “white elephants”. USA Today. forward. In R. Field (Ed.). Playing for change: The con-
Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/ tinuing struggle for sport and recreation. Toronto ON:
sports/olympics/2017/05/22/scathing-report-on-rio- University of Toronto Press.
olympics-venues-white-elephants/102041926/. Beamish, R. (2016). The promise of sociology: Classical
Atkinson, M. (2009). Parkour, anarcho-environmentalism, approaches to contemporary society (2nd ed.). Toronto:
and poiesis. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 33(2), University of Toronto Press.
169–194. Beamish, R. (2017). Social structure and human agency.
Atkinson, M., & Young, K. (2008). Deviance and social control Toronto: McGraw-Hill Education.
in sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Beamish, R., & Borowy, J. (1988). Q. What do you do for a
Atkinson, M., & Young, K. (Eds.). (2008). Tribal play: living? A. I’m an athlete. Kingston, ON: The Sport
Subcultural journeys through sport. Bingley, UK: Emerald Research Group.
Group Publishing. Beamish, R., & Ritchie, I. (2004). From chivalrous “broth-
Aucoin, P. (1995) The new public management: Canada in ers-in-arms” to the eligible athlete: Changed principles
comparative perspective. Montreal, QC: The Institute for and the IOC’s banned substance list. International
Research on Public Policy. Review for the Sociology of Sport, 39(4), 355–71.
Autor, D., Manning, A., & Smith, C. (2010). The contribution Beamish, R., & Ritchie, I. (2006). Fastest, highest, strongest: A
of the minimum wage to U.S. wage inequality over three critique of high-performance sport. New York, NY:
decades: A reassessment. Cambridge: NBER Working Routledge.
Paper No. 16533, National Bureau of Economic Research. Beaujot, R., & Patterson, L. (2018). Maximum Canada:
Avner, Z., Markula, P., & Denison, J. (2017). Understanding What do Canadians wish to maximize? Canadian
effective coaching: A Foucauldian reading of current Studies in Population, 45(1-2), 72–83.
coach education frameworks. International Sport Bell, S., Longchap, B. & Smith, C. (2018, May 31). First
Coaching Journal, 4, 101–109. Nations hockey team subjected to racist taunts, slurs at
Bailey, Steve. (2008). Athlete first: A history of the Paralympic Quebec City tournament. Retrieved from www.cbc.ca
Movement. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Belson, K. (2018, April 13). N.F.L. says fraud plagues the
Bandura, A., & Walters, R. (1963). Social learning and per- concussion settlement. New York Times. Retrieved from
sonality development. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/sports/nfl-
Winston. concussion.html.
Bannerji, H. (2000). The dark side of the nation: Essays on mul- Bembry, J. (2008, February 6). Athletes passing on visiting
ticulturalism, nationalism and gender. Toronto, ON: the White House is nothing new: If the Eagles get an
Canadian Scholars Press. invite, the players who have said they’ll skip the trip
BBC. (2018, January 9). Football Association adopts ‘Rooney would join a long list. The Undefeated. Retrieved
Rule’ as Martin Glenn outlines 2018 plans. Retrieved from https://theundefeated.com/features/athletes-
from https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/42623021. passing-on-visiting-the-white-house-is-nothing-new-
philadelphia-eagles/.
Beal, B. (1995). Disqualifying the official: An exploration of
social resistance through the subculture of skateboard- Bereska, T. (2011). Deviance, conformity, and social control in
ing. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 252–267. Canada (3rd ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada.
Beal, B. (2002). Symbolic interactionism and cultural stud- Berger, P. (1963). Invitation to sociology. New York: Anchor
ies: Doing critical ethnography. In J. Maguire & K. Books.
Young (Eds.), Theory, sport & society (pp. 353–373). Best, C. (1987). Experience and career length in professional
Amsterdam: JAI. football: The effect of positional segregation. Sociology
Beamish, R. (1990). The persistence of inequality: An analy- of Sport Journal, 4(4), 410–420.
sis of participation among Canada’s high performance Bick, J. (2007). Looking for an edge? Private coaching, by the
athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25, hour. New York Times, February 25.
143–55. Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London, UK: Sage.
Beamish, R. (2002). Karl Marx’s enduring legacy for the Birrell, S., & McDonald, M. G. (Eds.). (2000). Reading sport:
sociology of sport. In J. Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Critical essays on power and representation. Richmond,
Theory, sport & society (pp. 25–39). Amsterdam: JAI. VA: Northeastern University Press.

378 References
Black, D. (1999). ‘Not Cricket’: The effects and effectiveness Brock, D., Raby, R., & Thomas, M. (2012). Power and every-
of the sport boycott. In Neta Crawford and Audie Klotz day practices. Toronto, ON: Nelson.
(Eds). How sanctions work: Lessons from South Africa. Brooks, B., & Barchfield, J. (2015, July 30). Olympic teams
London UK: Macmillan. to swim, boat in Rio’s filth. Associated Press report,
Black, D. (2017). Managing the mega-event ‘habit’: Canada as reprinted in Miami Herald. Retrieved from https://
serial user. Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 9(2), 219–235. www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/
Blay, Z. (2018, September 11). The whitewashing of Naomi article29518732.html.
Osaka. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost. Brundtland, G. (Ed.) (1987). Our common future (Report of the
ca/entry/the-whitewashing-of-naomi-osaka_us_5b967 World Commission on Environment and Development).
eb3e4b0cf7b004209b5?ncid=other_email_ New York NY: Oxford University Press.
o63gt2jcad4&utm_campaign=share_email. Brylinsky, J. (2010). Practice makes perfect and other cur-
Block, S. (2017). Losing ground: Income inequality in Ontario ricular myths in the sport specialization debate. Journal
2000–2015. Toronto: Canadian Centre for Policy of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 81, 22–25.
Alternatives. Bryshun, J., & Young, K. (2007). Hazing as a form of sport
Bloom, M., Grant, M., & Watt, D. (2005). Strengthening and gender socialization. In K. Young and P. White,
Canada: The socio-economic benefits of sport participation (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (2nd ed.) (pp. 302–327).
in Canada. Conference Board of Canada. Retrieved Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.
from http://www.conferenceboard.ca/e-library/ Bueckert,K. (2018, May 8). ‘It’s not right’ Rangers GM says
abstract.aspx?did=1340 of racism faced by player Givani Smith. Retrieved
Booth, D. (1998). The race game: Sport and politics in South from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-
Africa. Routledge Press. waterloo/givani-smith-racism-post-season-1.4653588.
Boudarbat, B., Lemieux, T., and Riddell, W. (2010). The Burnaby Now. (2013, November 20). STM grad named just
evolution of the returns to human capital in Canada, third CFL Canadian MVP. Retrieved from http://
1980–2005. Canadian Public Policy, 36, 63–89. www.burnabynow.com/sports/photo-galleries/stm-
Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. grad-named-just-third-cfl-canadian-mvp-1.708508.
Sociological Theory, 7, 14–25. Burstyn, V. (1999). The rites of men: Manhood, politics, and
Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in Question. London: Sage the culture of sport. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto
Publications. Press.
Bourdieu, P. ([1979] 1984). Distinction: A social critique of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. (2012). Sport in transi-
judgement of taste. Cambridge MA: Harvard University tion: Making sport in Canada more responsible for gender
Press. inclusivity. Ottawa, ON: Developed by the Trans
Boykoff, J. (2016). Power games: A political history of the Inclusion in Sport Expert Working Group.
Olympics. London, UK: Verso. Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. (2016). Creating inclu-
Boykoff, J., & Mascarenhas, G. (2016). The Olympics, sus- sive environments for trans participants in Canadian sport.
tainability, and greenwashing: The Rio 2016 Summer Ottawa, ON: Developed by the Trans Inclusion in
Games. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 27(2), 1–11, DOI: Sport Expert Working Group.
10.1080/10455752.2016.1179473. Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA). (2012).
Boynton, N. (2018). Everything’s not O.K. The Players’ Transgendering CCAA Student-athletes. Policy Excerpt,
Tribune. Retrieved from https://www.theplayerstribune. CCAA. Retrieved from www.sportlaw.ca/wp-content/
com/en-us/articles/nick-boynton-everythings-not-ok. uploads/2012/06/CCAAPolicyExcerpts.pdf.
Branch, J. (2015, July 27). Dutee Chand, female sprinter with Canadian Heritage (2005). Sport Canada’s Policy on Aboriginal
high testosterone level, wins right to compete. The New Peoples’ Participation in Sport. Ottawa, Canada: Canadian
York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes. Heritage. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/
com/2015/07/28/sports/international/dutee-chand- collections/Collection/CH24-10-2005E.pdf.
female-sprinter-with-high-male-hormone-level-wins- Canadian Heritage. (2013). Sport participation 2010. Retrieved
right-to-compete.html. from publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2013/
Brannagan, P. M., & Giulianotti, R. (2018) The soft power– pc-ch/CH24-1-2012-eng.pdf.
soft disempowerment nexus: The case of Qatar. Canadian Human Rights Commission (2019). “What is dis-
International Affairs, 94(5), 1139–1157. crimination?”. Retrieved from https://www.chrc-ccdp.
Brayton, S., Helstein, M., Ramsey, M., & Rickards, N. (2017). gc.ca/eng/content/what-discrimination.
Exploring the missing link between the concussion ‘crisis’ Canadian Labour Congress. (2015). Closing the gender pay
and labour politics in professional sports. Communication gap. Retrieved from http://canadianlabour.ca/issues-
& Sport, DOI: 10.1177/2167479517740342. research/closing-gender-pay-gap.

References 379
Canadian Press (2011, October 27). Bell Media wins World https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/zoricic-mother-
Cup TV rights for 2018, 2022. CTV News. Retrieved disputes-police-findings-into-skier-s-death-1.1305113.
from https://www.ctvnews.ca/bell-media-wins-world- CBC Sports (2005, February 22). Governor General wants
cup-tv-rights-for-2018-2022-1.717687. women to compete for Cup. Retrieved from www.cbc.ca
Canadian Press (2018, November 16). Ontario excludes CBC Sports. (2005, October 18). McGill scraps football
OHL players from provincial employment standards. season over hazing. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.
CBC.ca. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/ ca/sports/football/mcgill-scraps-football-season-over-
canada/toronto/ohl-employment-laws-1.4908492. hazing-1.553792.
Canadian Press. (2014, March 10). Nik Zoricic family feels CBC. (2018, July 3). CFL team consulted with Inuit resi-
vindicated by FIS findings. Retrieved from https:// dents, politicians and cultural leaders. Retrieved from
www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/skiing/nik-zoricic- https://w w w .c bc .c a /ne w s/c a na da /e d mont on/
family-feels-vindicated-by-fis-findings-1.2567048. edmonton-eskimos-name-northern-consultations-
Canadian Soccer Association. (2016). Canadian Soccer 1.4731990?cmp=rss.
Association’s annual report: Think globally act locally. CFLRI. (2013). Getting kids active! 2010–2011 physical activity
Ottawa, ON: Author. monitor: Facts and figures. Retrieved from https://www.
Canadian Sport for Life. (2015). Canada’s physical literacy con- cflri.ca/sites/default/files/node/1147/files/CFLRI%20
sensus statement. Retrieved from http://sportforlife.ca/ PAM%202010-2011_Bulletin%201%20EN.pdf
wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Consensus-Handout.pdf. (accessed December 4, 2018).
Reprinted with permission. Channon, A., Dashper, K., Fletcher, T., & Lake, R. J. (2016).
Cantelon, H. (1981). High performance sport and the child The promises and pitfalls of sex integration in sport and
athlete: Learning to labour. In A.G. Ingham & E.F. physical culture. Sport in Society, 19:8–9, 1111–1124.
Broom (Eds.), Career patterns and career contingencies in Chappelet, J.L. (2008). Olympic environmental concerns as
sport (pp. 258–286). Vancouver, Canada: University of a legacy of the winter games. International Journal of the
British Columbia. History of Sport, 25(14), 1884–1902.
Cantelon, H., & Gruneau, R. (1988). The production of Charlesworth, H., & Young, K. (2004). Why English female
sport for television. In J. Harvey & H. Cantelon (Eds.), university athletes play with pain: Motivations and
Not just a game: Essays in Canadian sport sociology rationalisations. In K. Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies,
(pp. 177–193). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-related injury
Cantelon, H., & Ingham, A.G. (2002). Max Weber and the (pp. 163–180). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.
sociology of sport. In J. Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Chase, L. (2008). Running big: Clydesdale runners and tech-
Theory, sport & society (pp. 63–81). Amsterdam: JAI. nologies of the body. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25,
Cantelon, H., & Letters, M. (2000). The making of the IOC 130–147.
environmental policy as the third dimension of the Cheek, J. (2008). Healthism: A new conservatism? Qualitative
Olympic movement. International Review for the Sociology Health Research, 18(7), 974–982.
of Sport, 35(3), 294–308. Chen, X., Raby, R., & Albanese, P. (2017). Introduction:
Card, D., Lemieux, T., & Riddell, C. (2004). Unionization Taking stock and claiming space for the Sociology of
and wage inequality: A comparative study of the U.S., childhood and youth in Canada. In X. Chen, R. Raby,
UK and Canada. Journal of Labor Research, 25, 519–59. & P. Albanese (Eds.), The sociology of childhood and
Cavanaugh, R. (1992). The development of Canadian sports youth in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Scholars.
broadcasting 1920–1978. Canadian Journal of Chernushenko, D., Van der Kamp, A., & Stubbs, D. (2001).
Communication, 17, 301–317. Sustainable sport management: Running an environmen-
CBC News (2014, October 20). Canada’s junior hockey tally, socially, and economically responsible organization.
teams violate minimum wage laws: lawsuit. Retrieved Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment
from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ Programme.
canada-s-junior-hockey-teams-violate-minimum- Chestin, I. (2014, February 14). Sochi Olympics have left a trail
wage-laws-lawsuit-1.2806008. of environmental destruction. The Conversation. Retrieved
CBC News. (2012, April 25). Skier Nik Zoricic’s family wants August 6, 2018 from http://theconversation.com/sochi-
impartial probe into his death: Racer’s Toronto family olympics-have-left-a-trail-of-environmental-destruc-
says death ‘no freak accident.’ Retrieved from https:// tion-23112. Used with the permission.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/skier-nik-zoricic-s- Chidley-Hill, J. (2018, November 29). Ex-NHLer Carcillo
family-wants-impartial-probe-into-his-death-1.1291732. recalls alleged OHL beating with sawed-off goalie stick.
CBC News. (2013, January 17). Zoricic mother disputes CBC.ca. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/
police findings into skier’s death. Retrieved from hockey/nhl/carcillo-hazing-hockey-ohl-1.4920922.

380 References
Cho, Y., Leary, C., & Jackson, S. J. (2012). Glocalization activity of Canadian children and youth, 2007 to 2015.
and sports in Asia. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(4), Health Reports, 28, 8–16.
421–432. Collins, T., & Vamplew, W. (2002). Mud, sweat and beers: A
Choudry, A. (2007). Transnational activist coalition politics cultural history of sport and alcohol. Oxford, UK: Berg.
and the de/colonization of pedagogies of mobilization: Compton, B. (2018, July 2). Tavares signs seven-year con-
Learning from anti-neoliberal indigenous movement tract with Maple Leafs. Retrieved from https://www.
articulations. International Education, 37(1), 6. nhl.com/news/john-tavares-signs-seven-year-deal-
Christie, J. (2004, December 3). Shared award annoys Paralympic with-toronto-maple-leafs/c-299370932.
hero. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www. Concussion Legacy Foundation (2018). What is CTE?
theglobeandmail.com/news/national/shared-award- Retrieved from https://concussionfoundation.org/
annoys-paralympic-hero/article18278879/. CTE-resources/what-is-CTE.
Christoff, P. (1996). Ecological modernisation, ecological Connell, R. W. (1990). An iron man: The body and some
modernities. Environmental politics, 5(3), 476–500. contradictions of hegemonic masculinity. In M.A.
Clark, W. (2008). Canadian social trends: Kids’ sport. Ottawa: Messner & D.F. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men, and the gender
Statistics Canada. Retrieved from http://www.statcan. order: Critical feminist perspectives (pp. 83–114).
gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2008001/article/10573-eng.pdf. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Clipperton, J. (2018, June 26). Willie O’Ree, NHL’s 1st Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkley, CA: University
black player, gets hall of fame call. Retrieved from of California Press.
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/hockey-hall- Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA:
of-fame-inductees-2018-1.4723167. University of California Press.
Coakley, J. (2009). Sports in society: Issues and controversies Connor, J. (2009). Towards a sociology of drugs in sport.
(10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Sport in Society, 12, 327–343.
Coakley, J. (2010). The “logic” of specialization. Journal of Cooky, C., Messner, M., & Hextrum, R. (2013). Women
Physical Education, Recreation, and dance, 81(8), 16-25. play sport, but not on TV: A longitudinal study of tele-
DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2010.10598520. vised news media. Communication & Sport, 1(3), 203–230.
Coakley, J. (2011). Youth sports: What counts as “positive Cooky, C., Wachs, F. L., Messner, M., & Dworkin, S. L.
development”? Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 35(3), (2010). It’s not about the game: Don Imus, race, class,
306–324. gender and sexuality in contemporary media. Sociology
Coakley, J. (2017). Sports in society: Issues and controversies of Sport Journal, 27(2), 139–159.
(12th ed.). McGraw Hill: New York, NY. Corsaro, W. (2018). The Sociology of Childhood (5th ed.).
Coakley, J., & Donnelly, P. (2004). Sports in society: Issues and Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Controversies, First Canadian Edition. Toronto, Canada: Cosentino, F. (1975). A history of the concept of profession-
McGraw-Hill Ryerson. alism in Canada. Canadian Journal of History of Sport and
Coakley, J., & Donnelly, P. (2009). Sports in society: Issues and Physical Education, 6, 75–81.
controversies (2nd Canadian ed.). Toronto, ON: McGraw- Cosentino, F. (1998). Afros, Aboriginals and amateur sport in
Hill Ryerson. pre-World War I Canada. Canada’s Ethnic Group Series,
Coalter, F. (2007). A wider social role for sport: Who’s keeping Booklet No. 26. Ottawa, Canada: The Canadian
the score? London, UK: Routledge. Historical Society.
Coalter, F. (2013). Sport for development: What game are we Cosh, S., & Crabb, S. (2012). Reconceptualising the female
playing? London, UK: Routledge. athlete triad: Locating athletes’ bodies within the dis-
Coburn, D. (2004). Beyond the income inequality hypothe- cursive practices of elite sporting environments.
sis: Class, neo-liberalism, and health inequalities. Social Psychology of Women Section Review, 14(2), 20–25.
Science & Medicine, 58(1), 41–56. Used with permission. Cote, J. E., & Allahar, A. L. (2005). Critical Youth Studies: A
Cohen, S. (1972). Folk devils and moral panics: The construc- Canadian Focus. Pearson: Toronto.
tion of the Mods and Rockers. London, UK: MacGibbon Coubertin, P. (2000). Olympism: Selected writings. Lausanne:
and Kee. International Olympic Committee.
Cole, C., & Denny, H. (2004). Visualizing deviance in post- Couture, J. (2019). “Protecting the Gift”: Risk, parental (ir)
Reagan America: Magic Johnson, AIDS, and the pro- responsibility, and CrossFit Kids Magazine. Sociology of
miscuous world of professional sport. Critical Sociology, Sport Journal, 36(1), 77–86
20, 123–147. Crawford, R. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of
Colley, R. C., Carson, V., Garriguet, D., Janssen, I., everyday life. International Journal of Health Services,
Roberts, K. C., & Tremblay, M. S. (2017). Physical 10(3), 365–388.

References 381
Crompton, J. L. (1995). Economic impact analysis of sport- Dawson, T. (2018, November 12). Calgary Olympics 2026:
ing facilities and events: Eleven sources of misapplica- The city is about to vote on whether to host the Games
tion. Journal of Sport Management, 9, 14–35. again—but should it? National Post. Retrieved from
Crompton, J. L. (2006). Economic impact studies: Instruments https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/alberta-ski-
for political shenanigans? Journal of Travel Research, 45, resort-requires-60-million-in-upgrades-to-host-
67–82. 2026-olympics.
Crompton, J. L., & Howard, D. R. (2013). Costs: The rest De Matas, J. (2017). Making the national great again:
of the economic impact story. Journal of Sport Trumpism, Euro-scepticism and the surge of populist
Management, 27, 379–392. nationalism. Journal of Comparative Politics, 10(2), 19–36.
Crosset, T. W., Benedict, J. R., & McDonald, M. A. (1995). Delaney, K., & Eckstein, R. (2006). “Local growth coali-
Male student-athletes reported for sexual assault: A tions, publicly subsidized sports stadiums, and social
survey of campus police departments and judicial inequality,” Humanity & Society, 30, 84–108.
affairs offices. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 19(2), Demers, G. (2006). Homophobia in sport—Fact of life,
126–140. taboo subject. Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching,
CSIT (2018). Official website of the Confédération Sportive 6(2). Retrieved from http://www.coach.ca/april-2006-
Internationale Travailliste et Amateur (CSIT; vol-6-no-2-p132855.
International Workers and Amateurs in Sports Denis, C. (1997). We are not you: First Nations and Canadian
Confederation). Retrieved from https://www.csit.tv/en. modernity. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press.
Curtis, J., Loy, J., & Karnilowicz, W. (1986). A comparison Denison, J., Mills, J. P., & Konoval, T. (2017). Sports’ disci-
of suicide-dip effects of major sport events and civil plinary legacy and the challenge of “coaching differ-
holidays. Sociology of Sport Journal, 3, 1–14. ently”. Sport, Education and Society, 22(6), 772–783.
Dallaire, C., & Harvey, J. (2017). Sport and language politics Depper, A., & Howe, P. D. (2017). Are we fit yet? English
in Canada. In A. Bairner, J. Kelly, & J. W. Lee (Eds.). adolescent girls’ experiences of health and fitness apps.
Handbook of sport and Politics (pp. 162–173). London, Health Sociology Review, 26, 98–112.
England: Routledge. Descartes, R. (1911). Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire
Danford, M., & Donnelly, P. (2018). ‘Racial’ representation sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences. (S. Haldane
in Canadian interuniversity sport: A pilot study. Toronto, & G. R. T. Ross, Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Canada: Centre for Sport Policy Studies, Faculty of University Press. (Original work published 1637)
Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Deutschmann, L. (2002). Deviance and social control (3rd ed.).
Toronto. Retrieved from https://kpe.utoronto.ca/ Toronto, ON: Nelson Thomson.
sites/default/files/Racial%20representation%20 Dickerson, N. (2016). Constructing the digitalized sporting
in%20university%20sport_4.pdf. Used with permis- body: Black and White masculinity in NBA/NHL
sion. Internet memes. Sport & Communication, 4(3), 303–330.
Darby, P. (2010). ‘Go outside’: The history, economics and DiPaola, J. (2017, September 26). Penguins, Syndey Crosby’s
geography of Ghanaian football labour migration. White House visit ‘act of moral cowardice,’ Nova Scotia
African Historical Review, 42(1), 19–41. activist says. Retrieved from https://archive.triblive.
Darnell, S. (2012). Sport for development and peace: A critical com/sports/penguins/penguins-sidney-crosbys-white-
sociology. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. house-visit-act-of-moral-cowardice-nova-scotia-
Darnell, S. C. (2007). Playing with race: Right to play and the activist-says/.
production of whiteness in ‘development through Dodd, M. (2006, April 30). Sport or not a sport? Pot is split
sport’. Sport in society, 10(4), 560–579. on poker. USA Today, p. 13C.
Daum, E., & Scherer, J. (2018). Changing work routines and Doherty, A. & Taylor, T. (2007). Sport and physical recre-
labour practices of sports journalists in the digital era: ation in the settlement of immigrant youth. Leisure/
A case study of Postmedia. Media, Culture & Society, Loisir, 1(1), 27–55.
40(8), 551–566. Dolf, M. (2017). A life cycle assessment of the environmental
Davis, N. W., & Duncan, M. C. (2006). Sports knowledge impacts of small to medium sports events (Doctoral disser-
is power: Reinforcing masculine privilege through fan- tation, University of British Columbia).
tasy sport league participation. Journal of Sport & Social Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., & Sears, R.
Issues, 30(3), 244–264. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale
Davis, S. (2018). What abandoned Olympic venues from University Press.
around the world look like today. Business Insider. Retrieved Donnelly, M., Norman, M., & Donnelly, P. (2015). The
from https://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned- Sochi 2014 Olympics: A gender equality audit. Toronto,
olympic-venues-around-the-world-photos-rio-2016-8. ON: Centre for Sport Policy Studies.

382 References
Donnelly, P. (1993). Democratization revisited: Seven theses Success at the Vancouver Olympics. Centre for Sport
on the democratization of sport and active leisure, Policy Studies Position Paper Series, No. 2. Toronto:
Loisir et Société / Society and Leisure, 16 (2), 413–434. Centre for Sport Policy Studies, Faculty of Kinesiology
Donnelly, P. (1993). Problems associated with youth involve- and Physical Education, University of Toronto.
ment in high-performance sports. In B.R. Cahill and Donnelly, P., Norman, M., & Kidd, B. (2013). Gender equity
A.J. Pearl (Eds.), Intensive Participation in Children’s in Canadian interuniversity sport: A biennial report (No. 2).
Sports (pp. 95–126). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Toronto, ON: Centre for Sport Policy Studies.
Donnelly, P. (1996). Prolympism: Sport monoculture as Dowbiggin, B. (2013). Racist tweets about TSN hosts reveal
crisis and opportunity. Quest, 48(1), 25–42. Canada’s nasty side. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from
Donnelly, P. (2004). Sport and risk culture. In K. Young http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-
(Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves: sociological studies sports/racist-tweets-about-tsn-hosts-reveal-canadas-
of sports-related injury. (pp. 29–58). Oxford: Elsevier. nasty-side/article9845192/#dashboard/follows.
Donnelly, P. (2009, December 1). Own the podium or rent it? Downey, A. (2018). The creator’s game: Lacrosse, identity, and
Canada’s involvement in the global sporting arms race. indigenous nationhood. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Policy Options. Retrieved from http://policyoptions. Downey, A., & Neylan, S. (2015). Raven plays ball: Situating
irpp.org/magazines/the-2010-olympics/own-the- “Indian Sports Days” within Indigenous and colonial
podium-or-rent-it-canadas-involvement-in-the-global- spaces in twentieth-century coastal British Columbia.
sporting-arms-race/. Canadian Journal of History, 50, 442–468.
Donnelly, P. (2013). Sport and social inequality: Recent Dryden, K. (1989). The game: A thoughtful and provocative
Canadian research on sport participation. Canadian look at a life in hockey. Toronto, ON: Harper & Collins.
Journal of Social Research, 3(1), 1–11. Dryden, K. (1983). The game (10th Anniversary ed.). Toronto:
Donnelly, P. (2013). Sport participation. In L. Thibault & J. Macmillan Publishers.
Harvey (Eds.), Sport policy in Canada (pp. 177–213). Dryden, K. (2017). Game change: The life and death of Steve
Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Montador and the future of hockey. Toronto, ON:
Donnelly, P. (Ed.) (2011). Taking sport seriously: Social issues McClelland & Stewart.
in Canadian sport, 3rd ed. Toronto: Thompson Dryden, K. (2017). Game change: The life and death of Steve
Educational. Montador, and the future of hockey. Toronto: McClelland
Donnelly, P., & Harvey, J. (2007). Class and gender: & Stewart.
Intersections in sport and physical activity. In P. White Dubin, C. (1990). Commission of inquiry into the use of drugs
& K. Young (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada. Toronto: and banned practices intended to increase athletic perfor-
Oxford University Press. mance. Ottawa: Ministry of Supply & Services.
Donnelly, P., & Kerr, G. (2018). Revising Canada’s policies on Duffin, J. (2010). History of medicine: A scandalously short
harassment and abuse in sport: A position paper and recom- introduction (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON: University of
mendations. Toronto: Centre for Sport Policy Studies. Toronto Press.
Donnelly, P., & Kidd, B. (2014). The Sochi inspiration won’t Duffy, A. (2011). Raising the bar for sustainable Olympic and
get us off the couch. The Globe and Mail, February 25. Paralympic Winter Games. In J. Savery & K. Gilbert
Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ (Eds.), Sustainability and sport (pp. 43–49). Champaign, IL:
opinion/olympic-inspiration-wont-get-us-off-the- Common Ground.
couch/article17069394/. Duncan, M. C. (2006). Gender warriors in sports: Women
Donnelly, P., & Petherick, L. (2004). Workers’ playtime? in the media. In A. A. Raney and J. Bryant (Eds.),
Child labour at the extremes of the sporting spectrum. Handbook of Sports and Media (pp. 231–252). New York,
Sport in Society, 7(3), 301–321. NY: Routledge.
Donnelly, P., Kerr, G., Heron, A., & DiCarlo, D. (2014). Dunning, E., & Waddington, I. (2003). Sport as a drug and
Protecting youth in sport: An examination of harass- drugs in sport: Some exploratory comments. International
ment policies. International Journal of Sport Policy and Review for the Sociology of Sport, 38, 351–368.
Politics, 8(1), 1–18. Duquin, M. (1994). The body snatchers and Dr. Frankenstein
Donnelly, P., Kerr, G., Heron, A., & DiCarlo, D. (2016). revisited: Social construction and deconstruction of
Protecting youth in sport: An examination of harassment bodies and sport. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 18(3),
policies. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 268–281.
8(1), 33–50. DOI: 10.1080/19406940.2014.958180. Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology. New York,
Donnelly, P., Kidd, B., MacNeill, M., Harvey, J., Houlihan, NY: The Free Press.
B., & Toohey, C. (2008). Opportunity Knocks!: Dyck, N. (2012). Fields of play: An ethnography of children’s
Increasing Sport Participation in Canada as a Result of sports. University of Toronto Press: Toronto.

References 383
Easton, D. (1953). The political system: An inquiry into the (Eds.), Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada
state of political science. Ethics. 65(3), 201–2015. (pp. 15–34). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Edelson, N. (2011). Inclusivity as an Olympic event at the Forsyth, J. (2013). Bodies of meaning: Sports and games at
2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Urban Geography, Canadian residential schools. In J. Forsyth & A. R.
32(6), 804–822. Giles (Eds.), Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada:
Edwards, L., Jones, C., & Weaving, C. (2013). Celebration Historical foundations and contemporary issues (pp. 21–25).
on ice: Double standards following the Canadian wom- Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
en’s gold medal victory and the 2010 Winter Olympics. Forsyth, J., & Giles, A. R. (Eds.). (2012). Aboriginal peoples
Sport in Society, 16, 682–698. and sport in Canada: Historical foundations and con-
Eitzen, D. S. (2016). Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and temporary issues. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Paradoxes of sport. New York, NY: Rowman & Forsyth, J., & Heine, M. (2017). “The only good thing that
Littlefield. happened at school”: Colonising narratives of sport in
Ekos Research Associates (2010). 2009 Status of the high per- the Indian School Bulletin. British Journal of Canadian
formance athlete. Final report. Ottawa, ON: Author. Studies, 30(2), 205–225.
Retrieved from http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/sc/rpts/ Forsyth, J., & Paraschak, V. (2013). The double helix:
rpt-eng.pdf. Aboriginal people and sport policy in Canada, in L.
EKOS Research Associates. (1992). The status of the high Thibault & J. Harvey (Eds.). Sport policy in Canada
performance athlete in Canada: Final report. Submitted to (pp. 267–293). Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa
Sport Canada Directorate, Fitness and Amateur Sport, Press.
September. Fortin, N., Green, D., Lemieux, T., Milligan, K., & Riddell,
Elite Performance Academy. (2018). Elite development C. (2012). Canadian inequality: Recent developments
programs. Retrieved from http://www.eliteperfor- and policy options. Canadian Public Policy, 38, 121–45.
manceacademy.ca/elite-development-programs. (fig. 4, p. 127).
Ellison, J., McPhail, D., & Mitchinson, W. (Eds.). (2016). Foster, J.B. & Ferre, J.C. (2017, July 2). ‘We need a
Obesity in Canada: Critical Perspectives. Toronto ON: resistance movement for the planet’, interview
University of Toronto Press. with John Bellamy Foster. Left Voice. Retrieved
Fainaru-Wada, M., and Fainaru, S. (2013). League of Denial: August 6, 2018 from: http://www.leftvoice.org/A-
The NFL’s Concussion Crisis. New York, NY: Crown Resistance-Movement-for-the-Planet-Full-
Archetype. Interview.
Field, R. (2015). The new ‘Culture Wars’: The Vancouver Frideres, J. (2008). Creating an inclusive society. In J. Biles,
2010 Olympics, public protest, and the politics of resis- M. Burstein, J. Frideres (Eds). Immigration and integra-
tance. In R. Field (Ed.). Playing for change: The continu- tion in Canada in the twenty-first century. Kingston,
ing struggle for sport and recreation. Toronto ON: Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
University of Toronto Press. Friedman, H. (2013). Playing to win: Raising children in a com-
Fisher, D. (2002). Lacrosse: A history of the game. Baltimore, petitive culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Friedman, M. T., & Andrews, D. L. (2010). The built sport
Fleras, A. (2001). Social problems in Canada: Conditions, con- spectacle and the opacity of democracy. International
structions and challenges. Toronto, ON: Prentice Hall. Review for the Sociology of Sport, 46, 181–204.
For the Love of the Game (2018). About us. Retrieved from Frisby, W., & Millar, S. (2002). The actualities of doing
http://www.fortheloveofthegame.ca/. community development to promote the inclusion of
Forde, S., & Wilson, B. (2018). Radical sports journalism?: low income populations in local sport and recreation.
Reflections on ‘alternative’ approaches to covering European Sport Management Quarterly, 2(3), 209–233.
sport-related social issues. Sociology of Sport Journal, Frisby, W., Alexander, T., Taylor, J., Tirone, S., Watson,
35(1), 66–76. C., Harvey, J., & Laplante. (2005). Bridging the recreation
Forrest, D., & Simmons, R. (2002). Outcome uncertainty divide: Listening to youth and parents from low income
and attendance demand in sport: The case of English families across Canada. Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Parks
soccer. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series D and Recreation Association.
(The Statistician), 51, 229–241. Furness, Z. (2016). Reframing concussions, masculinity, and
Forsyth, J. (2007). The Indian Act and the (re)shaping of NFL mythology in League of Denial. Popular
Canadian Aboriginal sport practices. International Communication, 14(1), 49–57.
Journal of Canadian Studies, 35, 95–111. Gardam, K., Giles, A. R., & Hayhurst, L. M. C. (in press).
Forsyth, J. (2012). Bodies of meaning: Sports and games at Understanding the privatization of funding for sport
Canadian residential schools. In J. Forsyth & A. Giles for development in the Northwest Territories, Canada:

384 References
 A Foucauldian analysis. International Journal of Sport McLaren report. International Journal of Sport Policy and
Policy and Politics. Politics, 10, 393–407.
Garmin. (2018). vivofit® jr. App. Available at https://buy. Giulianotti, R. (2011). The sport, development and peace
garmin.com/en-CA/CA/p/568169. sector: A model of four social policy domains. Journal
Gary Roberts High Performance Training. (2018). About us. of Social Policy, 40(04), 757–776.
Retrieved from https://www.garyrobertshockey.com/ Giulianotti, R., & Robertson, R. (2012). Glocalization and
pages/about-us. sport in Asia: Diverse perspectives and future possibili-
Gatehouse, J. (2004, January 26). We would love to be no. 1. ties. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(4), 433–454.
But athletes need support, the Canadian Olympic Gladwell, M. (2009, October 19). Offensive play: How
Committee boss says. Maclean’s, 117(4), 32–33. different are dogfighting and football. The New
Gatehouse, J. (2018). The NHL wins, Canada Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/
loses. Retrieved from https://links.lists.cbc. reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell.
ca/v/443/6bfb647e3a526fec2683d91f1c8b600362a6cb7 Glazer, N. (1970). Ethnic groups in America: From national
f09ad748323f1f694ea285081. culture to ideology. In M. Kurokawa (Ed.), Minority
Gemar, E. (2018). Sport in broader leisure lifestyles: An responses (pp. 74–86). New York, NY: Random House.
analysis of the professional sport consumer’s cultural Gleaves, J., & Llewellyn, M. (2014). Sports, drugs and amateur-
engagement. International Review for the Sociology of ism: Tracing the real cultural origins of anti-doping rules in
Sport, 19, 1–19. international sport. The International Journal of the History of
Genel, M. (2000). Gender verification no more? Sport, 31(8), 839–853. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2013.831838.
Medscape Women’s Health, 5(3), E2. Retrieved from Globe and Mail. (2018). Despite low attendance,
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/ Global T20 Canada cricket organizers pleased with
OlympicGenderTesting.html. inaugural tournament. Retrieved from https://www.
theglobeandmail.com/sports/article-despite-low-
Giardina, M. & Donnelly, M. (Eds.)(2008). Youth culture
attendance-global-t20-canada-cricket-organizers-
and sport: Identity, power, and politics. New York:
pleased/.
Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of
Giardina, M., & Denzin, N. (2012). Policing the “Penn State
spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
crisis”: Violence, power, and the neoliberal university.
Cultural Studies 3 Critical Methodologies, 12, 259–266. Goldlust, J. (1987). Playing for keeps: Sport, the media and
society. Melbourne, AU: Longman Cheshire.
Giardina, M., & Donnelly, M. (eds.) (2012). Youth culture
and sport: Identity, power and politics. New York: Goodwin, D., & Peers, D. (2011). Disability, sport and inclu-
Routledge. sion. In S. Dagkas & K. Armour (Eds.), Inclusion and exclu-
sion through youth sport (pp. 186–202). London: Routledge.
Giddens, A. (1987). Social theory and modern sociology. Palo
Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Goodyear, V. A., Kerner, C., & Quennerstedt, M. (2017).
Young people’s uses of wearable healthy lifestyle tech-
Giddens, A., & Sutton, P. (2017). Essential concepts in sociol-
nologies; surveillance, self-surveillance and resistance.
ogy (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Sport, Education and Society, 1-14. doi:
Gilbert, R. (2011). Playing on the same page. In P. Donnelly 10.1080/13573322.2017.1375907.
(Ed.), Taking sport seriously: Social issues in Canadian Goodyear, V. A., Kerner, C., & Quennerstedt, M. (2019).
sport (3rd ed., pp. 251–255). Toronto, ON: Thompson Young people’s uses of wearable healthy lifestyle tech-
Educational Publishing. nologies; surveillance, self-surveillance and resistance.
Giles, L.V., & Koehle, M.S. (2014). The health effects Sport, Education and Society, 24(3), 212–225.
of exercising in air pollution. Sports Medicine, 44(2), Gorman, D. (2010). Amateurism, imperialism, internation-
223–249. alism and the first British Empire Games. International
Gill, R., Henwood, K., & McLean, C. (2005). Body projects Journal of the History of Sport, 27(4), 611–634.
and the regulation of normative masculinity. Body & Government of Canada. (1982). Canadian Charter of Rights
society, 11(1), 37–62. and Freedoms. Retrieved from https://www.solon.org/
Gillis, C. (2009, February 9). Can we please now ban fighting Constitutions/Canada/English/ca_1982.html.
in hockey? Maclean’s, 122(4), 48–51. Government of Canada. (2003). Physical Activity and Sport
Gillmor, D. (2013). Is minor hockey worth it? Toronto Star. Act. Retrieved from https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/
Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/news/ laws/stat/sc-2003-c-2/latest/sc-2003-c-2.html.
insight/2013/01/11/is_minor_hockey_worth_it.html. Government of Canada. (2018). Multiculturalism. Retrieved
Girginov, V., & Parry, J. (2018). Protecting or undermining from https://www.canada.ca/en/services/culture/
the integrity of sport? The science and politics of the canadian-identity-society/multiculturalism.html.

References 385
Green Sports Alliance. (2018). Green sports alliance: Benefits. (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (pp. 56–74). Toronto,
Retrieved from http://greensportsalliance.org/members- ON: Oxford University Press.
benefits/. Hall, A. (2016). The girl and the game: A history of women’s
Green, D., Riddell, C., & St.-Hilaire, F. (2017). Income sport in Canada, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto
inequality in Canada: Driving forces, outcomes and Press.
policy. In D. Green, C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire (Eds.), Hall, A., Slack, T., Smith, G., & Whitson, D. (1991). Sport
Income inequality: The Canadian story, (pp. 1–73). in Canadian society. Toronto, ON: McClelland and
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Stewart.
Greenberg, J., & Knight, G. (2004). Framing sweatshops: Nike, Hall, S. (2000). Racist ideologies and the media. In P. Marris
global production, and the American news media. & S. Thornham (Eds.), Media studies: A reader
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 1(2), 151–175. (pp. 271–282). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Greer, C., & Jewkes, Y. (2005). Extremes of otherness: Media Hall, T. (2016 August 5). Why is the goal more medals? A
images of social exclusion. Social Justice, 32, 20–31. Canadian medallist on why our Olympic strategy
Grix, J. (2016). Sport politics: An introduction. London UK: betrays the spirit of the Games. The Walrus. Retrieved
Palgrave. from https://thewalrus.ca/the-wrong-track/.
Grix, J., & Carmichael, F. (2012). Why do governments Hannigan, J. (2006). Environmental sociology (2nd ed.). New
invest in elite sport? A polemic. International journal of York: Routledge.
sport policy and politics, 4(1), 73–90. Hargreaves, J. (1994). Sporting females: Critical issues in the
Gruneau, R. (1972). An analysis of Canada Games’ athletes, history and sociology of women’s sport. London: Routledge.
1971. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Hargreaves, J. and Vertinsky, P. (Eds.). (2006). Physical
Calgary, Calgary. Culture, Power, and the Body. London: Routledge.
Gruneau, R. (1988). Modernization and hegemony: Two Hargreaves, J. E., & Vertinsky, P. E. (2007). Introduction. J.
views on sport and social development. In J. Harvey & Hargreaves & P. Vertinsky (Eds.), Physical culture,
H. Cantelon (Eds.), Not just a game: Essays in Canadian power, and the body (pp. 1–24). London, UK: Routledge/
sport sociology (pp. 9–32). Ottawa, ON: University of Taylor & Francis Group.
Ottawa Press. Harris, A. (2004) Future girl: Young women in the Twenty-First
Gruneau, R. (1989). Making spectacle: A case study in televi- Century. London, UK: Routledge.
sion sports production. In L. Wenner (Ed.), Media, sports, Harris, C. (2003). Breaking the ice: The black experience in
and society (pp. 134–154). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. professional hockey. Toronto, Canada: Insomniac Press.
Gruneau, R. (1999). Class, sports, and social development. Harrison, D. (2018, November 29). ‘These are supposed to
Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. be your friends’: Another ex-player describes ‘constant
Gruneau, R. (2016). Goodbye Gordie Howe: Sport partici- abuse’ by Sarnia teammates. Retrieved from https://
pation and class inequality in the “pay for play” society. www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/munce-hazing-sting-
In D. Taras & C. Waddell (Eds.), How Canadians com- ohl-carcillo-1.4924124. Last accessed November 29,
municate V: Sports (pp. 223–246). Edmonton, AB: 2018.
Athabasca University Press. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. New York,
Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada: NY: Oxford University Press.
Sport, identities, and cultural politics. Toronto, ON: Harvey, J. (2000). What’s in a game? In P. Donnelly (Ed.),
Garamond. Taking sport seriously. Toronto, ON: Thompson
Gruneau, R., Whitson, D., & Cantelon, H. (1988). Methods Educational Publishing.
and media: Studying the sports/television discourse. Harvey, J., Horne, J., Safai, P., Darnell, P., & Courchesne-
Society and Leisure, 11, 265–281. O’Neill, S. (2003). Sport and social movements: From the
Guest, A. M. (2009). The diffusion of development-through- local to the global. London UK: Bloomsbury Academic.
sport: Analysing the history and practice of the Olympic Hayhurst, L. M. (2009). The power to shape policy: Charting
movement’s grassroots outreach to Africa. Sport in sport for development and peace policy discourses.
Society, 12(10), 1336–1352. International Journal of Sport Policy, 1(2), 203–227.
Gzowski, P. (1981). The game of our lives. Toronto, ON: Hayhurst, L. M. (2013). Girls as the ‘new’ agents of social
McClelland & Stewart. change? Exploring the ‘girl effect’ through sport, gender
Hall, A. (2002). The girl and the game: A history of women’s sports and development programs in Uganda. Sociological
in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Research Online, 18(2), 1–12.
Hall, A. (2007). Cultural struggle and resistance: Gender, Hayhurst, L., Sundstrom, L., & Arksey, E. (2018). Navigating
history, and Canadian sport. In K. Young & P. White norms: Charting gender-based violence prevention and

386 References
 sexual health rights through global-local sport for devel- hooks, b. (1984) Feminist theory: From the margin to the center.
opment and peace relations in nicaragua. Sociology of Boston, MA: South End Press.
Sport Journal, 35(3) 277–288. hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics.
HealthlinkBC. (2017). Spinal cord injury: Autonomic Boston, MA: South End Press.
Dysreflexia. Retrieved from https://www.health- Horne, J. (1998). The politics of sport and leisure in Japan:
linkbc.ca/health-topics/ug2980. Global power and local resistance. International Review
Heisz, A. (2017). Trends in income inequality in Canada and for the Sociology Of Sport, 33(2), 171–182.
elsewhere. In D. Green, C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire Horne, J., & Whannel, G. (2016). Understanding the
(Eds.), Income inequality: The Canadian story, (pp. 77–102). Olympics, (2nd ed.). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Howe, P. D. (2008). The cultural politics of the Paralympic
Held, D., & McGrew, A. (2002). Globalization/antiglobalization. Movement: Through an anthropological lens. London,
Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. UK: Routledge.
Henry, J. M., & Comeaux, H. P. (1999). Gender egalitarian- Howe, P. D., & Silva, C. F. (2017). The cyborgification of
ism in coed sport: A case study of American soccer. Paralympic sport. Movement and Sport Sciences, 3,
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 34(3), 17–25.
277–290.
Howe, P.D. (2015). Pushing towards excellence: Is Paralympic
Henslin, J. M., Glenday, D., Pupo, N., & Duffy, A. (2014). sport a healthy pursuit? In J. Baker, P. Safai, and J.
Sociology: A down to earth approach (6th Canadian ed.). Fraser-Thomas (Eds.), Health and Elite Sport: Is High
Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada. Performance Sport a Healthy Pursuit? (pp. 163–173).
Heroux, D. (2018, July 17). CFL expansion to Halifax London UK: Routledge.
reaches crucial crossroad. CBC Sports. Retrieved from Howell, J., & Ingham, A. (2001). From social problem to
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/cfl-expansion- personal issue: The language of lifestyle. Cultural
to-halifax-reaches-crucial-crossroad-1.4750278. Studies, 15(4), 326–351.
Hickey, P. (2018, May 16). Françoise Abanda says lack of Hruby, P. (2012). The Olympics show why college sports should
media coverage is ‘because I am black’. Montreal Gazette. give up on amateurism. The Atlantic, July 25. Retrieved
Retrieved from https://montrealgazette.com/sports/ from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/
francoise-abanda-says-lack-of-media-coverage-is- archive/2012/07/the-olympics-show-why-college-sports-
because-i-am-black. should-give-up-on-amateurism/260275/.
Hill, C. (1996). Olympic politics. Manchester, UK: Manchester Hruby, P. (2013, February 8). The NFL: Forever backward.
University Press. Sports on Earth. Retrieved from http://www.sportsonearth.
Hobbes, T. (1969). Leviathan, 1651. Menston UK: Scolar com/article/41492872.
Press (Original work published 1651). Hruby, P. (2018, August 8). Startling jump in NFL player
Hoberman, J. (1992). Mortal engines: The science of perfor- claims for Parkinson’s and ALS pushes payout projec-
mance and the dehumanization of sport. New York NY: tions past 65-year total in 18 months. Los Angeles Times.
Free Press. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/
Hoberman, J. (1995). Towards a theory of Olympic interna- la-sp-nfl-medical-payouts-20180808-story.html#.
tionalism. Journal of Sport History, 22(1), 1–37. Huber, J. (1985). Die Regenbogengesellschaft: Ökologie und
Hockey Canada. (2018). 2016–2017 Annual report. Ottawa, ON: Sozialpolitik (The rainbow society. Ecology and social pol-
Author. Retrieved from http://www.hockeycanada.ca/ icy). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer.
en-ca/Corporate/About/Basics/Downloads. Hughes, R., & Coakley, J. (1991). Positive deviance among
Hoffman, A. J. (2001). From heresy to dogma: An institutional athletes: The implications of overconformity to the
history of corporate environmentalism. Stanford, CA: sport ethic. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8, 307–325.
Stanford University Press. Hume, M. (2013, October 23). Vancouver Olympics worth
Holman, M. (2004). A search for a theoretical understanding the $7-billion price tag, study says. Globe and Mail.
of hazing practices in athletics. In J. Johnson and M. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Holman, (Eds.), Making the team: Inside the world of sport news/british-columbia/vancouver-olympics-worth-
initiations and hazing (pp. 50–60). Toronto, ON: the-7-billion-price-tag-study-says/article15036916/.
Canadian Scholars Press. Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remak-
Holt, N. & Knight, C. (2014). Parenting in youth sport: From ing of world order. New York: Simon and Schuster.
research to practice. New York: Routledge. Hutchins, B., & Rowe, D. (2012). Sport beyond television: The
Homer-Dixon, T. (2000) The Ingenuity Gap: Can we solve the Internet, digital media and the rise of networked media
problems of the future? New York, NY: Knopf. sport. New York, NY: Routledge.

References 387
Hutchison, A. (2017, December 13). Don’t let pollution stop ISSA (International Sociology of Sport Association). (2005).
you from exercising. Outside. Retrieved from https:// About ISSA. Retrieved from http://issa.otago.ac.nz/
www.outsideonline.com/2268346/dont-let-pollution- about.html. Reprinted with the permission.
stop-you-exercising. Jāhāna, S. (2016). Human development report 2016: Human
Hylton, K. (2008). Race and sport: Critical race theory. development for everyone. New York: United Nations
London, England: Routledge. Publications.
Hylton, K. (2010). How a turn to critical race theory can Jackson, S., & Ponic, P. (2001). Pride and prejudice:
contribute to our understanding of ‘race’, racism and Reflecting on sport heroes, national identity, and crisis
anti-racism in sport. International Review for the Sociology in Canada. Culture, Sport, Society, 4, 43–62.
of Sport, 45(3), 335–354. Jaffe, E. D. (2006). Globalization and development. Philadelphia,
Ifedi, F. (2008). Sport participation in Canada, 2005. Ottawa: PA: Chelsea House Publishers.
Statistics Canada, Culture, Tourism and the Centre for James, C. L. R. (1963). Beyond a Boundary. London: Stanley
Educational Statistics. Paul & Co.
Ingham, A. (1973). Occupational subcultures in the work Jenkins, S., & Maese, R. (2013, March 16). NFL medical
world of sport. In D. Ball & J. Loy (Eds.), Sport and the standards, practices are different than almost anywhere
social order. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing else. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.
Company. washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfl-medical-
Ingham, A. (1985). From public issue to personal trouble: standards-practices-are-different-than-almost-
well-being and the fiscal crisis of the state. Sociology of anywhere-else/2013/03/16/b8c170bc-8be8-11e2-9f54-
Sport Journal, 2(1), 43–55. f3fdd70acad2_story.html?utm_term=.42c3f808f458.
Ingham, A. G., Chure, M. A., & Butt, J. (2002). From the Jennnings, A. (1996). The new lords of the rings. Transparency
performance principle to the Development principle: Books.
Every Kid a Winner? Quest, 54(4), 308–331.
Jhally, S. (1984). The spectacle of accumulation: Material
Ingham, A.G. (2004). The sportification process: A biographical and cultural factors in the evolution of the sports/media
analysis framed by the work of Marx, Weber, Durkheim complex. Critical Sociology, 12, 41–57.
and Freud. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Sport and modern social
Jhally, S. (1989). Cultural studies and the sports/media
theorists (pp. 11–32). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
complex. In L. Wenner (Ed.), Media, Sports, & Society
INM (Idle No More). (2014). The vision. Retrieved from (pp. 70–93). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
http://www.idlenomore.ca/vision. Used with Permission.
Jijon, I. (2017). The moral glocalization of sport: Local
Inside Edge Hockey. (2018). We are inside edge hockey.
meanings of football in Chota valley, Ecuador.
Retrieved from https://www.insideedgehockey.com/
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(1),
About.
82–96.
International Olympic Committee. (2009). Women and sport:
johnson, j., & Ali, A. E. (2018). Ecological modernization
The current situation. Retrieved from http://www.
and the 2014 NHL Sustainability Report. Sociology of
wcse2011.qa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Women-
Sport Journal, 35(1), 49–57.
and-Sport-The-Current-Situation-2009-10-eng-.pdf.
Johnson, J., & Holman, M. (2004). Making the team: Inside
International Olympic Committee. (2015). IOC consensus
the world of sport initiation and hazing. Toronto, Canada:
meeting on sex reassignment and hyperandrogenism.
Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Retrieved from https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/
Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ Johnson, J., & Holman, M. (Eds.) (2004). Making the team:
ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_ Inside the world of sport initiations and hazing. Toronto,
hyperandrogenism-en.pdf. ON: Canadian Scholars Press.
International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005. johnson, j., Guerrero, M. D., Holman, M., Chin, J. W., &
(2005). Sport and health. Accessed at: https://www. Signer-Kroker, M. A. (2018). An examination of hazing
un.org/sport2005/a_year/s_health.html. in Canadian intercollegiate sports. Journal of Clinical
Intersex Society of North America. (n.d.). How common is inter- Sport Psychology, 12, 144–159.
sex? Retrieved from http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency. Johnston, B. (1988). Indian School Days. Toronto, Canada:
Isquith, E. (2015, March 20). “It gets really disgusting”: Dave Key Porter Books.
Zirin unloads on Roger Goodell, concussions & NFL’s Johnston, P. (2018, October 17). How marijuana legalization
demented culture. Retrieved from https://www.salon. will—and won’t—affect the NHL. Retrieved from
com/2015/03/20/it_gets_really_disgusting_dave_zirin_ https://theprovince.com/news/national/patrick-
unloads_on_roger_goodell_concussions_nfls_ johnston-how-marijuana-legalization-will-and-wont-
demented_culture/. affect-the-nhl.

388 References
Jones, K. G. (1975). Developments in amateurism and pro- Kennelly, J. (2015). ‘You’re making our city look bad’:
fessionalism in early 20th century Canadian sports. Olympic security, neoliberal urbanization, and home-
Journal of Sport History, 2, 29–40. less youth. Ethnography, 16(1), 3–24.
Joseph, J. (2017). Sport in the black Atlantic: Cricket, Canada Kenyon, G. (1977). Factors influencing the attainment of
and the Caribbean diaspora. Manchester, UK: Manchester elite track status in track and field. Post Olympic confer-
University Press. ence proceedings. Ottawa: Coaching Association of
Joyce, G. (n.d.). Answering the question at the heart of a Canada.
pending lawsuit could reshape major junior hockey in Kenyon, G., & McPherson, B. (1973). Becoming involved in
Canada. Sportsnet.ca. Retrieved from https://www. physical activity and sport: A process of socialization.
sportsnet.ca/hockey/juniors/big-read-can-chl-afford- In G. L. Rarick (Ed.), Physical activity: Human growth
pay-players/. and development. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Junod, T. (2013, January 18). Theater of pain. Esquire. Kerr, G. A., & Stirling, A. E. (2008). Child protection in
Retrieved from http://www.esquire.com/features/nfl- sport: Implications of an athlete-centered philosophy.
injuries-0213-2. Quest, 60(2), 307–323.
Kalman-Lamb, N. (2018). Game misconduct: Injury, fandom, Kerr, R. (June 14, 2018). Jeff Adams on being inducted into
and the business of sport. Black Point, NS: Fernwood the Canada Sports Hall of Fame and career in wheel-
Publishing. chair racing. [Radio program]. The Big Show. Calgary,
Kalman-Lamb, N. (2018). Whiteness and hockey in Canada: AB: Sportsnet360. Used with permission.
Lessons from semi-structured interviews with retired Kidd, B. (1984). The myth of the ancient Games. In A.
professional players. In J. Ellison & J. Anderson (Eds.), Tomlinson & G. Whannel (Eds.), Five ring circus:
Hockey: challenging Canada’s game (pp. 287–300). Money, power and politics at the Olympic Games
Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press. (pp. 71–83). London and Sydney: Pluto Press.
Kane, M. J. (1995). Resistance/transformation of the opposi- Kidd, B. (1991). From quarantine to cure: The new phase of
tional binary: Exposing sport as a continuum. Journal of the struggle against apartheid sport. Sociology of Sport
Sport and Social Issues, 19(2), 191–218. Journal 8, 33–46.
Karkazis, K. (2018, April 26). The treatment of Caster Kidd, B. (1996). The struggle for Canadian sport. Toronto,
Semenya shows athletics’ bias against women of ON: University of Toronto Press.
colour. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www. Kidd, B. (2008). A new social movement: Sport for develop-
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/26/ ment and peace. Sport in Society, 11(4), 370–380.
testosterone-ruling-women-athletes-caster-semanya-
Kidd, B., & McFarlane, J. (1972). The death of hockey.
global-south.
Toronto, ON: New Press.
Karp, M. & Drapack, M. (Producers/Directors) (2013,
Kimmel, M. (1996). Manhood in America: A cultural history.
January 18). The Fifth Estate: The last race. Retrieved
New York, NY: The Free Press.
from http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2012-2013/the-
last-race. King, C.R. (2016). R*dskins: Insult and Brand. Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press
Katz, C. (2001). On the grounds of globalization: A topogra-
phy for feminist political engagement. Signs, 26(4), King, S. (2014). Beyond the war on drugs? Notes on prescrip-
1213–1234. tion opioids and the NFL. Journal of Sport & Social
Issues, 38(2), 184–193.
Kearins, K., & Pavlovich, K. (2002). The role of stakehold-
ers in Sydney’s Green Games. Corporate Social King, S., Carrey, S., Jinnah, N., Millington, R., Phillipson,
Responsibility and Environmental Management, 9(3), 157– A., Prouse, C., & Ventresca, M. (2014). When is a drug
169. not a drug? Troubling silences and unsettling painkillers
in the National Football League. Sociology of Sport
Kelly, C. (2018 February 16). Montreal-based B2ten is
Journal, 31, 249–266.
giving Canadian Olympians a better run for their
money. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www. King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A Native narrative.
theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/montreal- Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press.
based-b2ten-is-giving-canadian-olympians-a-better- King, T. (2012). The inconvenient indian: A curious account of
run-for-their-money/article38013877/. native people in North America. New York: Random House.
Kelly, D., Pomerantz, S., & Currie, D. (2008). “You can Kirby, S. L., Greaves, L., & Hankivsky, O. (2000). The dome
break so many rules”: The identity work and play of of silence: Sexual harassment and abuse in sport. Fernwood:
becoming skater girls. In M. Giardina & M. Donnelly Halifax.
(Eds.), Youth culture and sport: Identity, power, and politics Kirby, S. L., Hankivsky, O., & Greaves, L. (2000). The dome
(pp. 113–126). New York: Routledge. of silence. Fernwood.

References 389
Kirby, S., Greaves, L., & Hankivsky, O. (2000). The dome of https://deadspin.com/why-co-ed-sports-leagues-are-
silence: Sexual harassment and abuse in sport. Halifax, NS: never-really-co-ed-1827699592.
Fernwood Publishing. Lee, Y. N. (2018, October 5). Tokyo Olympics cost for
Klein, N. (2016). It was the Democrats’ embrace of neoliberal- national government now reportedly estimated at 7
ism that won it for Trump. The Guardian. Retrieved from times budget. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/ cnbc.com/2018/10/05/2020-tokyo-olympics-
nov/09/rise-of-the-davos-class-sealed-americas-fate. estimated-to-cost-7-times-over-budget-report.html.
Used with permission. Lefkowitz, B. (1997). Our guys: The Glen Ridge rape and the
Kline, J. (2011, October 13). Don Cherry is right, fighting is an secret life of the perfect suburb. Berkeley, CA: University
essential part of hockey. National Post, p. A3. Material of California Press.
republished with the express permission of: National Post, Lemieux, T., & Riddell, C. (2017). Who are Canada’s top 1
a division of Postmedia Network Inc. percent? In D. Green, C. Riddell, & F. St.-Hilaire (Eds.),
Kobayashi, K. (2012). Corporate nationalism and glocaliza- Income inequality: The Canadian story, (pp. 103–55).
tion of Nike advertising in “Asia”: Production and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
representation practices of cultural intermediaries. Lenskyj, H. (1986). Out of bounds: Women, sport and sexuality.
Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(1), 42–61. Toronto, ON: Women’s Press.
Kobierecki, M. (2016). Canada-USSR hockey exchanges. Lenskyj, H. (1998). Sport and corporate environmentalism:
Between positive and negative sports diplomacy. The case of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. International
Historia i Polityika, 18(25), 19–32. Review for the Sociology of Sport, 33(4), 341–354.
Kriebel, D., Tickner, J., Epstein, P., Lemons, J., Levins, R., Leonard, D. J. (2017). Playing while white: Privilege and power
Loechler, E.L., Quinn, M., Rudel, R., Schettler, T.. and on and off the field. Seattle, WA: University of
Stoto, M. (2001). The precautionary principle in envi- Washington Press.
ronmental science. Environmental Health Perspectives, Leonard, M. (2016). The sociology of children, childhood, and
109(9), 871–876. generation. London: Sage.
Krieger, J., Pieper, L., & Ritchie, I. (2018). Sex, drugs, Lewis, S. (2006). Race against time: Searching for hope in AIDS-
& science: The IOC’s and IAAF’s attempts to ravaged Africa. Berkeley, CA: House of Anansi Press.
control fairness in sport. Sport in Society, DOI: Li, P. S. (1990). Race and ethnicity. In P. S. Li (Ed.), Race and
10.1080/17430437.2018.1435004. ethnic relations in Canada (pp. 3–17). Toronto, Canada:
Kuper, S., & Szymanski, S. (2009). Soccernomics: Why Oxford University Press
England loses, why Germany and Brazil win, and why the Livingston, L. A., Tirone, S. C., Miller, A. J., & Smith, E.
US, Japan, Australia, Turkey—and even Iraq—are des- L. (2008). Participation in coaching by Canadian immi-
tined to become the kings of the world’s most popular sport. grants: Individual accommodations and sport system
New York, NY: Nation Books. receptivity. International Journal of Sports Science &
Kyle, D. G. (2007). Sport and spectacle in the ancient world. Coaching, 3(3), 403–415.
Malden, MA: Blackwell. Lombardo, J. (2016, February 22). NBA teams get more ter-
Laurendeau, J. (2008). “Gendered risk regimes”: A theoreti- ritory: Big opportunities after league increases size of
cal consideration of edgework and gender. Sociology of local markets. Sports Business Journal. Retrieved from
Sport Journal, 25, 293–309. https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/
Laurendeau, J. (2012). BASE jumping: The ultimate guide. Issues/2016/02/22/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/
Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. NBA-territory.aspx.
Laurendeau, J., & Adams, C. (2010). “Jumping like a girl”: Longman, J. (2018, June 18). Caster Semenya will challenge
Discursive silences, exclusionary practices, and the con- testosterone rule in court. The New York Times.
troversy over women’s ski jumping. Sport in Society, 13, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/
431–447. sports/caster-semenya-iaaf-lawsuit.html.
Laurendeau, J., & Konecny, D. (2015). Where is childhood? Longman, J. (2018, June 19). Olympian will challenge testos-
In conversation with Messner and Musto. Sociology of terone rule in court. The New York Times. Retrieved
Sport Journal, 32, 332–344. from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/sports/
Laurendeau, J., & Moroz, S. (2013). Morality in the moun- caster-semenya-iaaf-lawsuit.html.
tains: Risk, responsibility, and neoliberalism in newspa- Lorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes of gender. New Haven, MA: Yale
per accounts of backcountry rescue. Communication & University Press.
Sport, 1, 382–399. Lorenz, K. (2002). On aggression. London, UK: Routledge.
LeClair, K. (2018, July 25). Why co-ed sports leagues Lorenz, S. (2004, December 28). On-ice violence has been a part
are never really co-ed. Deadspin. Retrieved from of hockey for almost 100 years. Edmonton Journal, p. A16.

390 References
Lorenz, S. L., & Osborne, G. B. (2006). “Talk about strenu- Marx, K. & Engels, F. ([1845] 1939). The German ideology.
ous hockey”: Violence, manhood, and the 1907 Ottawa New York: International Publishers.
Silver Seven–Montreal Wanderer rivalry. Journal of Marx, K. (1847] 1936). The Poverty of Philosophy. London:
Canadian Studies, 40, 125–156. Martin Lawrence Limited.
Lorenz, S. L., & Osborne, G. B. (2017). “Nothing more than the Marx, K. (1963). Economic and philosophical manuscripts.
usual injury”: Debating hockey violence during the man- In T.B. Bottomore (Ed.), Karl Marx: Early writings. New
slaughter trials of Allan Loney (1905) and Charles Masson York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
(1907). Journal of Historical Sociology, 30(4), 698–723.
Marx, K. (1972). Thesis on Feuerbach. In R.C. Tucker (Ed.),
Lowes, M. (1999). Inside the sports pages. Toronto, ON: The Marx-Engels reader (pp. 107–9). New York, NY:
University of Toronto Press. W.W. Norton & Company.
Lubbers, E. (Ed.) (2002). Battling big business: Countering gre- Marx, K. (1977). Capital: Vol. I. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
enwash, infiltration and other forms of corporate bullying.
Monroe, ME: Common Courage Books. Marx, K. ([1852] 1934). Marx to Weydemeyer. In Marx-
Engels-Lenin Institute (Ed.), Karl Marx and Friedrich
Lukes, S. (1974). Power: a radical view. New York NY: Macmillan.
Engels correspondence 1846–1895 (pp. 55–8). London:
Lumpkin, A. (2009). Female representation in feature arti- Martin Lawrence Ltd.
cles published by Sports Illustrated in the 1990s. Women
Marx, K. ([1852] 1935). The eighteenth brumaire of Louis
in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 18, 38–51.
Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers.
Lupton, D. (1999). Risk. New York, NY: Routledge.
Marx, K. ([1894] 1909). Capital, vol. 3. Chicago, IL: Charles
Lupton, D. (2013). Risk (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. H. Kerr & Company Co-operative.
Macintosh, D., & Whitson, D. (1990). The game planners:
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1948). The communist manifesto. New
Transforming Canada’s sport system. Montreal, QC:
York, NY: International Publishers.
McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Mason, D. S. (1999). What is the sports product and who
Macintosh, D., Bedecki, T., & Franks, C. E. S. (1987). Sport
buys it? The marketing of professional sports leagues.
and politics in Canada. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s
European Journal of Marketing, 33, 402–418.
University Press.
Mason, D. S., Thibault, L., & Misener, L. (2006). An
MacIntosh, D., Bedecki, T., & Franks, C.E.S. (1987). Sport and
agency-theory perspective on corruption in sport: The
politics in Canada: Federal government involvement since
case of the International Olympic Committee. Journal
1961. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
of Sport Management, 20, 52–73.
Macintosh, D., Hawes, M., Greenhorn, D. R., & Black, D.
R. (1994). Sport and Canadian diplomacy. Montreal, QC: Mason, D., Soebbing, B. P., & Jiang, L. (2017). Managing
McGill-Queen’s University Press. team and league brands: Diverging interests in the
National Hockey League. In C.L. Campbell (Ed.), The
MacNeill, M. (1996). Networks: Producing Olympic ice
customer is NOT always right? Marketing orientations in a
hockey for a national television audience. Sociology of
dynamic business world: Proceedings of the 2011 World
Sport Journal, 13, 103–124.
Marketing Congress (pp. 49–57). New York, NY: Springer.
Malkki, L. (2010). Children, humanity, and the infantiliza-
McAloon, J. (2016). Agenda 2020 and the Olympic move-
tion of peace. In I. Feldman & R. Ticktin (Eds.), In
ment. Sport in Society, 19(6), 767–785.
the name of humanity: The government of threat and
care (pp. 59–85). Duke University Press. DOI: McCallum, M., & Perry, A. (2018). Structures of indifference:
10.1215/9780822393221-003. An Indigenous life and death in a Canadian city. Winnipeg:
Mangan, J. A., & Walvin, J. (1987). Introduction. In J. A. University of Manitoba Press.
Mangan & J. Walvin (Eds.), Manliness and morality: McDermott, L. (2007). Governmental analysis of children
Middle class masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 “at risk” in a world of physical activity and obesity
(pp. 1–7). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. epidemics. Sociology of Sport Journal, 24, 302–324.
Markovits, A., & Rensmann, L. (2010). Gaming the world: McEwan, C. (2009). Postcolonialism and development. London,
How sports are reshaping global politics and culture. UK: Routledge.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McEwen, K., and Young, K. (2011). Ballet and pain:
Marks, L. J., & Michael, J. W. (2001). Science, medicine, Reflections on a risk-dance culture. Qualitative Research
and the future: Artificial limbs. British Medical Journal, in Sport, Exercise and Health, 3, 152–173.
323(7315), 732–735. McGannon, K. R., Cunningham, S. M., & Schinke, R. J.
Marlow, I. (2010). Canadians’ Internet use exceeds TV (2013). Understanding concussion in socio-cultural
time. Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www. context: A media analysis of a National Hockey League
theglobeandmail.com/technology/canadians-internet- star’s concussion. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14,
use-exceeds-tv-time/article4352565/#dashboard/follows. 891–899.

References 391
McGee, D. (2012). Displacing childhood: Labour exploita- Messner, M.A. (1990). When bodies are weapons:
tion and child trafficking in sport. In A. Quayson, & A. Masculinity and violence in sport. International Review
Arhin (Eds.), Labour migration, human trafficking and for the Sociology of Sport, 25(3), 203–19.
multinational corporations : The commodification of iillicit Metcalfe, A. (1987). Canada learns to play. Toronto, ON:
flows (pp. 71–90). New York: Routledge. McLelland and Stewart.
McGee, D. (2015). Navigating bodies, borders and the global Metcalfe, A. (1995). The meaning of amateurism: A case
game: An ethnography of youth, football and the poli- study of Canadian sport: 1884–1970. Canadian Journal
tics of privation in Ghana, West Africa (Doctoral dis- of the History of Sport, 26, 33–48.
sertation, University of Toronto).
Miah, A. (2004). Genetically modified athletes: Biomedical eth-
McGee, D. (2018). Youth, reinventive institutions and the moral ics, gene doping and sport. New York, NY: Routledge.
politics of future-making in postcolonial Africa. Sociology.
Miah, A. (2010, February 5). Gene doping: A reality, but not
Advance online publication. doi: 0038038518772773.
a threat [Weblog post]. Professor Andy Miah. Retrieved
McKegney, S. (2013). “Pain, pleasure, shame. Shame.”: from http://www.andymiah.net/2010/02/05/is-gene-
Masculine embodiment, kinship, and Indigenous reter- doping-a-threat-to-sport/. Used with permission.
ritorialization. Canadian Literature, 216, 12–33.
Miller, J. R. (1996). Shingwauk’s vision: A history of Native residen-
McKegney, S., & Phillips, T. (2018). Decolonizing the hockey tial schools. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
novel: Ambivalence and apotheosis in Richard
Miller, T. (2017). Greenwashing sport. Routledge.
Wagamese’s Indian Horse. In J. Ellison & J. Anderson
(Eds.), Hockey: Challenging Canada’s game (pp. 97–110). Millington, B. (2012). Amusing ourselves to life: Fitness
Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. consumerism and the birth of biogames. Journal of Sport
and Social Issues. doi:10.1177/0193723512458932.
McKinnon, A. (2013, May 14). Vancouver Parks Board wants
to make its spaces more trans-friendly. Xtra. Retrieved Millington, B. (2013). Aging in the information age: An eth-
from http://dailyxtra.com/vancouver/news/vancouver- nographic study of video gaming in Canadian retire-
parks-board-wants-make-spaces-trans-friendly. ment centres. Paper presented at the Sport Canada
Research Initiative Conference, Ottawa, ON.
McLeod, C. M., Pu, H., & Newman, J. I. (2018). Blue skies
over Beijing: Olympics, environments, and the People’s Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2013). Super intentions: Golf
Republic of China. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(1), 29–38. course management and the evolution of environmental
responsibility. The Sociological Quarterly, 54(3), 450–475.
McPherson, B. (1977). Factors influencing the attainment of
elite hockey status. Post Olympic conference proceedings. Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2016). The greening of golf:
Ottawa: Coaching Association of Canada. Sport, globalization and the environment. Manchester,
UK: Manchester University Press.
McRobbie, A. (1991). Feminism and youth culture. Boston:
Unwin Hyman. Millington, B., & Wilson, B. (2017). Contested terrain and
McSweeney, M., Hayhurst, L. M. C., & Kidd, B (in press). terrain that contests: Donald Trump, golf’s environ-
Corporate social responsibility, sport and development. mental politics, and a challenge to anthropocentrism in
In M. Li, E. Macintosh, & G. Bravo (Eds.), International Physical Cultural Studies. International Review for the
sport management (2nd ed.) Champaign, IL: Human Sociology of Sport, 52(8), 910–923.
Kinetics. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York,
Mead, G. H. (1962). Mind, self, & society from the standpoint of a NY: Oxford University Press. Used with Permission.
behaviorist. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. London,
Messner, M. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity UK: Oxford.
and violence in sport. International Review for the Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York,
Sociology of Sport, 25(3), 203–320. NY: Oxford University Press.
Messner, M. (2009). It’s all for the kids: Gender, families, and Mills, C. W. (1959/2000). The sociological imagination. New
youth sports. Berkeley: University of California Press. York: Oxford University Press.
Messner, M. A. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity Mills, C. W. (1961). The sociological imagination. New York,
and violence in sport. International Review for the Sociology NY: Grove Press.
of Sport, 25(3), 203–220. Mills, C.W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford,
Messner, M. A. (2002). Taking the field: Women, men, and UK: Oxford University Press
sports. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Miner, J. W. (2016, June 1). Why 70 percent of kids quit
Press. sports by age 13. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
Messner, M., Dunbar, M., & Hunt, D. (2000). The televised https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/
manhood formula. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, wp/2016/06/01/why-70-percent-of-kids-quit-sports-
24(4), 380–394. by-age-13/?utm_term=.3bc840f1a773.

392 References
Minnaert, L. (2012). An Olympic legacy for all? The non- https://www.nassh.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/
infrastructural outcomes of the Olympic Games for mascot-resolution-final-draft.pdf.
socially excluded groups (Atlanta 1996–Beijing 2008). National Football League Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation
Tourism Management, 33, 361–370. (2012) (No. 2:12-md-02323-AB MDL No. 2323), Plaintiffs’
Mintz, E., Close, D., & Croce, O. (2018). Politics, power, and Amended Master Administrative Long-Form Complaint.
the common good: An introduction to political science, (5th Retrieved from http://nflconcussionlitigation.com/wp-
ed.). Toronto: Pearson. content/uploads/2012/01/Master_Administrative_Long_
Mirtle, J. (2018). The great offside: How Canadian hockey is Form_Complaint.pdf. Last accessed August 25, 2018.
becoming a game strictly for the rich. Retrieved from Nauert, R. (2018, August 8). Survey: Heavy Smartphone
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ Use Tied to Anxiety, Loneliness, Depression.
time-to-lead/the-great-offside-how-canadian-hockey- PsychCentral. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.
is-becoming-a-game-strictly-for-the-rich/ com/news/2018/04/12/survey-heavy-smartphone-use-
article15349723/. tied-to-anxiety-loneliness-depression/134590.html.
Misener, L., Taks, M., Chalip, L., & Green, B. C. (2015). Neale, W. C. (1964). The peculiar economics of professional
The elusive “trickle-down effect” of sport events: sports. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 78, 1–14.
Assumptions and missed opportunities. Managing Nederveen Pieterse, J. P. (2004). Globalization and culture:
Sport and Leisure, 20(2), 135–156. Global mélange. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Morrow, D. (1986). A case-study in amateur conflict: The Neo, H. (2010). Unravelling the post-politics of golf course pro-
athletic war in Canada, 1906–08. The International vision in Singapore. Sport and Social Issues, 34(3), 272–287.
Journal of the History of Sport, 3, 173–190. Neverson, N. (2010). Build it and the women will come?
Morrow, D., & Wamsley, K. G (2017). Sport in Canada. A WTSN and the advent of Canadian digital television.
history. 4th ed. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. Canadian Journal of Communication, 35, 27–48.
Morrow, D., & Wamsley, K.B. (2013). Sport in Canada: A Newman, Z. (2012). Bodies, genders, sexualities: Counting
history, 3rd ed. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press. past two. In D. Brock, R. Raby, & M. Thomas (Eds.),
Mosco, V. (2003). The transformation of communication in Power and everyday practices (pp. 61–85). Toronto, ON:
Canada. In W. Clement & L. Vosko (Eds.), Changing Nelson.
Canada: Political economy as transformation (pp. 287–308). Nike. (2017). The girl effect. Retrieved from http://about.
Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. nike.com/pages/girl-effect.
Mosse, D. (2005). Global governance and the ethnography Nixon, H. (1992). A social network analysis of influences on
of international aid. In D. Mosse & D. Lewis (Eds.), athletes to play with pain and injuries. Journal of Sport
The aid effect: giving and governing in international devel- and Social Issues, 16(2): 127–35.
opment (pp. 1–6). London, UK: Pluto Press. Nixon, H. L. (1993). Accepting the risks of pain and injury
Muller, M. (2015). What makes an event a mega-event? in sport: Mediated cultural influences on playing hurt.
Definitions and sizes. Leisure Sciences, 34, 627–642. Sociology of Sport Journal, 10(2), 183–196.
Mullick, R. (2002, February). Warren Moon. CFL Legends. The Nolan, M. (2001). CTV: The network that means business.
Official Site of the Canadian Football League. Retrieved Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta Press.
from http://www.cfl.ca/CFLLegends/moon.html. Noll, R. G. (2003). The organization of sports leagues.
Munro, J. (1970). Proposed sports policy for Canadians. A Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 19, 530–551.
white paper tabled in the Canadian house of parlia- Norman, M. (2012). Saturday night’s alright for tweeting:
ment, March 20. Cultural citizenship, collective discussion, and the new
Naiman, J. (2012). How societies work: Class, power, and media consumption/production of Hockey Day in
change. Halifax, NS: Fernwood. Canada. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(3), 306–324.
Nakamura, Y. (2016). Rethinking identity politics: The mul- Norman, M. (2017). Serious leisure, prosumption and the
tiple attachments of an ‘excusive’ sport organization. digital sport media economy: A case study of ice hockey
Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(2), 146–155. blogging. In S. Carnicelli, D. McGillivray, & G.
Nakamura, Y., & Donnelly, P. (2017). Interculturalism and McPherson (Eds.), Digital leisure cultures: Critical perspec-
physical cultural diversity in the Greater Toronto Area. tives (pp. 80–93). New York: Routledge.
Social Inclusion, 5(2), 111–119. Norman, M. (2017). Sport in the underlife of a total institu-
Nanda, S. (2000). Gender diversity: Crosscultural variations. tion: Social control and resistance in Canadian prisons.
Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(5),
NASSH (2017). NASSH Resolution Opposing the Use of 598–614. DOI: 10.1177/1012690215609968.
Racialized Indigenous Imagery in Sports. North North American Indigenous Games. (2018). Retrieved from
American Society for Sport History. Retrieved from http://www.naigcouncil.com/index.php.

References 393
North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. (2019). lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference
Our Mission. Retrieved from https://nasss.org/our- (pp. 55–69). New York, NY: Routledge.
mission-and-history/. Paradigm Sports (2018). About us. Retrieved from https://
O’Bonsawin, C. (2010). ‘No Olympics on stolen native www.paradigmsports.ca/about-paradigm-sports-2/.
land’: contesting Olympic narratives and asserting Paraschak, V. (1997). Variations in race relations: Sporting
indigenous rights within the discourse of the 2010 events for Native peoples in Canada. Sociology of Sport
Vancouver Games. Sport in Society, 13(1), 143–156. Journal, 14(1), 1–21.
O’Bonsawin, C. (2013). Indigenous peoples and Canadian- Paraschak, V. (2003). ‘Get into the mainstream’: Aboriginal
hosted Olympic Games. In J. Forsyth & A. Giles (Eds.), Sport in Canada, 1967–2002. In V. Paraschak & J. Forsyth
Aboriginal peoples and sport in Canada: Historical founda- (Eds.), North American Indigenous Games research sympo-
tions and contemporary issues (pp. 35–63). Vancouver, sium proceedings, July 25th and 26th 2002 (pp. 23–30).
BC: UBC Press. Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba.
O’Bonsawin, C. (2014). Showdown at Eagleridge Bluffs: The Parcels, J., & Campbell, K. (2013). Selling the dream: How
2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, the Olympic hockey parents and their kids are paying the price for our
sustainability smokescreen, and the protection of Indigenous national obsession. Toronto: Viking.
lands. In J. Forsyth, C. O’Bonsawin & M. Heine (Eds.), Parent, M., Rouillard, C., & Leopkey, B. (2011). Issues and
Intersections and intersectionalities in Olympic and Paralympic strategies pertaining to the Canadian governments’
studies (pp. 82–88). London, ON: International Centre for coordination efforts in relation to the 2010 Olympic
Olympic Studies, 2014. Used with the permission. Games. European Sport Management Quarterly, 11(4),
O’Connor, M.C. (2012, October 11). The nasty environ- 337–369.
mental impact of making snow. Outside. Retrieved Park, J. (2005). Doped bodies: The World Anti-Doping
from https://www.outsideonline.com/1904791/nasty- Agency and the global culture of surveillance. Cultural
environmental-impact-making-snow. Studies 3 Critical Methodologies, 5, 174–188.
Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (2019). ParticipACTION (2018). ParticipACTION Teen Challenge.
“Linguistic Duality”. Retrieved from https://www.clo- Retrieved from https://www.participaction.com/
ocol.gc.ca/en/resources/frequently-asked-questions#Q9. en-ca/programs/teen-challenge.
Olympic.org. (2012). Flexible and sustainable: London’s ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity
Olympic Stadium sets new standards. Retrieved from for Children and Youth (2016). Retrieved from:
https://www.olympic.org/news/flexible-and-sustainable- https://www.participaction.com/sites/default/files/
london-s-olympic-stadium-sets-new-standards. downloads/2016-06-16%20EN%20Highlight%20
Olympic.org. (2013). 10th IOC World Conference on Sport -%20FINAL%20DESIGN%20-%20singles.pdf.
and the Environment kicks off in Sochi. Retrieved from Peacock, B. (2011). ‘A secret instinct of social preservation’:
https://www.olympic.org/news/10th-ioc-world- Legitimacy and the dynamic (re)constitution of Olympic
conference-on-sport-and-the-environment-kicks-off- conceptions of the ‘good.’ Third World Quarterly, 32(3),
in-sochi. 477–502.
Own the Podium. (2018) Funding. Retrieved from http:// Peers, D. (2009). (Dis)empowering Paralympic histories:
www.ownthepodium.org/Partners/Government. Absent athletes and disabling discourses. Disability &
Own the Podium. (2018). Vision, mission, mandate, goals and Society, 24, 653–665.
values. Retrieved from http://www.ownthepodium.org/ Peers, D. (2012a). Interrogating disability: The (de)composi-
About-OTP/Vision,-Mission,-Mandate-Goals. tion of a recovering Paralympian. Qualitative Research in
Oxfordictionaries.com (2019). “Colonialism”. Retrieved Sport and Exercise, 4, 175–188.
from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ Peers, D. (2012b). Patients, athletes, freaks: Paralympism
colonialism. and the reproduction of disability. Journal of Sport and
Page, J. (2018, June 1). Racist slurs at minor hockey tourna- Social Issues, 36, 295–316.
ment in Quebec City symptom of widespread problem. Pelham, F. (2011). Sustainable event management: The jour-
CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/ ney to ISO 20121. In J. Savery & K. Gilbert (Eds.),
canada/montreal/racist-slurs-at-minor-hockey- Sustainability and Sport (pp. 43–49). Champaign, IL:
tournament-in-quebec-city-symptom-of-widespread- Common Ground.
problem-1.4687852.
Pells, E. (2018). Beckie Scott resigns from WADA commit-
Pal, L. (2006). Beyond policy analysis: Public issue management tee that recommended reinstating Russian Anti-Doping
in turbulent times. Toronto ON: Nelson. Agency. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/
Palmer, C. (2004). Death, danger and the selling of risk in olympics/trackandfield/beckie-scott-wada-russian-
adventure sports. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding doping-agency-1.4825469.

394 References
Pentifallo, C. (2015). “The city and the spectacle: Press, J. (2017, October 10). Over 80% of reserves have
Homelessness, social housing, and Vancouver 2010.” median income below poverty line, census data shows.
PhD Dissertation, University of British Columbia. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3795083/
Peritz, I. (2013, June 14). FIFA authorizes wearing of turbans reserves-poverty-line-census/.
at all levels of Canadian soccer. Globe and Mail. Pronger, B. (1995). Rendering the body: The implicit lessons
Accessed from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ of gross anatomy. Quest, 47(4), 427–446.
sports/soccer/fifa-authorizes-wearing-of-turbans-at- Raffensperger, C., & Tickner, J. (Eds.). (1999). Protecting
all-levels-of-canadian-soccer/article12550476/. public health and the environment: Implementing the pre-
Peritz, I. (2018, November 13). Mending fences: McGill cautionary principle. Washington, DC: Island Press.
pressed to scrap Redmen team name as sign of Indigenous Random notes on current sports (1922, December 18).
reconciliation. Globe and Mail. Accessed from https:// Toronto Daily Star, p. 24.
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-mcgill- Raphael, D. (2009). Escaping from the Phantom Zone: Social
students-vote-to-scrap-redmen-team-name/. determinants of health, public health units and public
Perkins, C., Mincyte, D., & Cole, C. L. (2010). Special issue: policy in Canada. Health Promotion International, 24(2),
Making the critical links and the links critical in golf 193–198.
studies. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 34(3), 267–375. Raphael, D. Bryant, T., & Rioux, M. (Eds.) (2010). Staying
Perks, T. (2007). Does sport foster social capital? The contri- alive: Critical perspectives on health, illness, and health
bution of sport to a lifestyle of community participa- care (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’
tion. Sociology of Sport Journal, 24(4), 378–401. Press.
Perrottet, T. (2004). The naked Olympics: The true story of the RBC Learn to Play (2018). About the RBC Learn to Play
ancient games. New York, NY: Random House. Project. Retrieved from http://www.rbc.com/community-
Peters, J. (2013, October 1). How Qatar won the right to host sustainability/community/learn-to-play/about-the-rbc-
the 2022 World Cup. Bleacher Report. Retrieved from learn-to-play-project.html.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1793593-how- Renold, E. (2001). Learning the “hard” way: Boys, hege-
qatar-won-the-right-to-host-the-2022-fifa-world-cup. monic masculinity and the negotiation of learner identi-
Pettipas, K. (1994). Severing the ties that bind: Government ties in the primary school. British Journal of Sociology of
repression of Indigenous religious ceremonies on the prairies. Education, 22(3), 369–385.
Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba Press. Retrosi, S. (2014, February 10). Why the Olympics are a lot
Pieper, L.P. (2016). Sex testing: Gender policing in women’s like ‘The Hunger Games.’ The Nation. Retrieved from
sports. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of https://www.thenation.com/article/why-olympics-
Illinois Press. are-lot-hunger-games/.
Pitter, R. (2006). Racialization and hockey in Canada: From Rice, J. (2016). “The everyday choices we make matter”:
personal troubles to a Canadian challenge. In D. Urban climate politics and the postpolitics of responsi-
Whitson & R. Gruneau (Eds.), Artificial ice: Hockey, bility and action. In H. Bulkeley, M. Paterson & J.
culture and commerce (pp. 123–139). Peterborough, Stripple (Eds.), Towards a cultural politics of climate
Canada: Broadview Press. change: Devices, desires, and dissent (pp. 110–126).
Pitter, R. (2009). Finding the Kieran way: recreational sport, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
health, and environmental policy in Nova Scotia. Rist, G. (2009). The history of development: From western origins
Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 33(3), 331–351. to global faith (3rd ed.). London UK: Zed Books.
Pitts, B. G., & Stotlar, D. K. (2007). Fundamentals of sport Ritzer, G. (2007). The McDonaldization of society. London,
marketing, Third edition. Morgantown: Fitness UK: Sage.
Information Technology. Ritzer, G., & Stepnisky, J. (2014). Sociological theory (9th ed.).
Plourde, D. (2017, December 11). Plourde: Making artificial New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
snow is a very slippery slope. Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved Robertson, R. (2001). Globalization theory 2000: Major
from https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/ problematics. In G. Ritzer & B. Smart (Eds.), Handbook
plourde-making-artificial-snow-is-a-very-slippery-slope. of social theory (pp. 458–471). London, UK: Sage.
Porter, J. (2016, December 15). First Nations Girls Suit Up Robidoux, M. (2002). Imagining a Canadian identity through
With Donated Gear For Newly Formed Hockey Team, sport: A historical interpretation of lacrosse and
Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ hockey. The Journal of American Folklore, 115(456),
thunder-bay/first-nations-donated-hockey- 209–225.
equipment-1.3897249. Robidoux, M. A. (2001). Men at play: A working understand-
Pray, L. (2008) Sports, gene doping, and WADA. Nature ing of professional hockey. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
Education, 1(1), 77. University Press.

References 395
Robidoux, M. A. (2002). Imagining a Canadian identity anthropology of women (157–210). New York: Monthly
through sport: A historical interpretation of lacrosse Review Press.
and hockey. Journal of American Folklore, 115, 209–25. Rumbolt, R. (2018, November 10). Calgary Olympic bid’s
Robidoux, M.A. (2001). Men at play: A working understand- no-side rallies support ahead of public vote. Calgary
ing of professional hockey. Montreal, QC: McGill- Herald. Retrieved from https://calgaryherald.com/
Queen’s University Press. news/local-news/calgary-olympic-bids-no-side-
Robinson, L. (1998). Crossing the line: Violence and sexual rallies-support-ahead-of-public-vote.
assault in Canada’s national sport. Toronto, ON: Rushall, B., & Jones, M. (2007). Drugs in sport: A cure
McClelland & Stewart. worse than the disease? International Journal of Sports
Robinson, L. (2002). Black tights: Women, sport and sexuality. Science & Coaching, 2, 335–361.
Toronto, ON: Harper Collins. Rutherford, P. (1990). When television was young: Primetime
Roche, M. (2000). Mega-events and modernity. Abingdon, Canada (1952–1967). Toronto, ON: University of
UK: Routledge. Toronto Press.
Rodríguez-Garavito, C. A. (2005). Nike’s law: The anti- Ryan, J. (1995). Little girls in pretty boxes: The making and
sweatshop movement, transnational corporations, and breaking of elite gymnasts and figure skaters. New York:
the struggle over international labor rights in the Doubleday.
Americas. In Santos & Rodriguez-Caravito (Eds.), Law Sabo, D., and Panepinto, J. (1990). Football ritual and the
and globalization from below: Towards a cosmopolitan social reproduction of masculinity. In M.A. Messner
legality (pp. 64–91). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge and D. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men and the gender order:
University Press. Critical feminist perspectives (pp. 115–126). Champaign,
Roelf, W. (2015, November 17). Paralympics get rough IL: Human Kinetics.
on scrotum-squeezing ‘boosters’. Reuters. Retrieved Safai, P. (2001). Healing the body in the ‘culture of risk,’ pain
from https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-paralympics- and injury: Negotiations between clinicians and injured
boosting/paralympics-to-get-tough-on-scrotum- athletes in Canadian competitive intercollegiate sport.
squeezing-boosters-idUKKCN0T61VS20151117. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Toronto.
Romm, J. (2016). Climate change: What everyone needs to Safai, P. (2007). A critical analysis of the development of
know. New York NY: Oxford University Press. sport medicine in Canada, 1955–80. International Review
Rosenberg, D. (2003). Athletics in the Ward and beyond: for the Sociology of Sport, 42(3), 321–341.
Neighborhoods, Jews, and sport in Toronto, 1900–1939. Safai, P. (2008). Sport and health. In B. Houlihan (Ed.), Sport
In R. C. Wilcox, D. L. Andrews, R. Pitter, & R. L. and society: A student introduction (2nd ed.) (pp. 155–174).
Irwin, (Eds.), Sporting dystopias: The making and meanings London, UK: Sage.
of urban sport cultures (pp. 137–152). Albany, NY: State Safai, P. (2013). Sports medicine, the state and the politics of
University of New York Press. risk. In D. L. Andrews and B. Carrington (Eds.), A compan-
Rotundo, E. A. (1993). American manhood: Transformations ion to sport (pp. 112–128). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
in masculinity from the Revolution to the modern era. New Safai, P., johnson, j., & Bryans, J. (2016). The absence of
York, NY: Basic Books. resistance training? Exploring the politics of health in
Roult, R., & Lefebvre, S. (2010). Planning and reconversion high performance youth triathlon. Sociology of Sport
of Olympic heritages: the Montreal Olympic Stadium. Journal, 33(4), 269–281.
International Journal of the History of Sport 27(16–18), Sage, G. H. & Eitzen, D. S. (2013). Sociology of North American
2731–2747. sport. 9th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Rovell, D. (2016, June 24). Thanks to TV revenue, CFL is Sage, G.H. (1997). Physical education, sociology, and sociol-
flourishing on business side. ESPN.com. Retrieved ogy of sport: Points of intersection. Sociology of Sport
from http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/16454871/ Journal, 14: 317–339.
cfl-flourishing-business-side. Sager, N. (2010). Canadian commentators fail to cool it with
Rowe, D. (2004a). Watching brief: Cultural citizenship and Johnny Weir jokes. Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved from
viewing rights. Sport in Society, 7(3), 385–402. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-neate-sager/
Rowe, D. (2004b). Sport, culture and the media (2nd ed.). canadian-commentators-fail-cool-johnny-weir-jokes-
Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press. -olympics.html.
Rowe, D. (2007). Sports journalism: Still the “toy depart- Sam, M., 2009. The public management of sport. Wicked
ment” of the news media? Journalism, 8(4), 385–405. problems, challenges and dilemmas. Public management
Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: Notes on the “polit- review, 11(4), 499–514.
ical economy” of sex. In R. R. Reiter (ed.), Towards an Saturday Night. (1905, April 1), p. 1.

396 References
Satzewich, V., & Liodakis, N. (2017). “Race” and ethnicity in Silk, M., Millington, B., Rich, E., & Bush, A. (2016). (Re-)
Canada: A critical introduction. Don Mills, Canada: thinking digital leisure. Leisure Studies, 35, 712–723.
Oxford University Press. Skinner, D. (2008). Television in Canada: Continuity or
Saunders, D. (2010). Arrival city: The final migration and our change? In D. Ward (Ed.), Television public policy: Change
next world. Toronto, ON: Knopf Canada. and continuity in an era of global liberalization (pp. 3–26).
Saunders, D. (2017). Maximum Canada: Why 35 million New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Canadians are not enough. Toronto: Knopf Canada. Smishek, E., 2004. Physical culture muscles its way into
Schellnhuber, H. J., Hare, W., Serdeczny, O., Adams, S., academia. UBC Reports. Retrieved from http://news.
Coumou, D., Frieler, K., Martin, M., Otto, I. M., ubc.ca/ubcreports/2004/04oct07/body.html [Accessed
Perrette, M., Robinson, A., & Rocha, M. (2012). Turn 1 March 2018].
down the heat: Why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided. Smith J. (2008). Social movements for global democracy.
Washington, DC: The World Bank. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Scherer, J. (2011). Olympic villages and large-scale urban Smith, M. D. (1983). Violence and sport. Toronto, ON:
development: Crises of capitalism, deficits of democ- Butterworths.
racy? Sociology, 45(5), 782–797. Smith, M., & Wrynn, A. M. (2008). Women in the 2000,
Scherer, J. (2016). Resisting the world-class city: Community 2004 and 2008 Olympic and Paralympic games: An analy-
opposition and the politics of a local arena develop- sis of participation and leadership opportunities. East
ment. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(1), 39–53. Meadow, NY: Women’s Sport Foundation.
Scherer, J., & Harvey, J. (2013). Televised sport and cultural Smythe, D. W. (1977). Communications: Blindspot of west-
citizenship in Canada: The “two solitudes” of Canadian ern Marxism. Canadian Journal of Political and Social
public broadcasting? In J. Scherer & D. Rowe (Eds.), Theory, 1(3), 1–27.
Sport, public broadcasting, and cultural citizenship: Signal Soebbing, B. P., & Mason, D. S. (2009). Managing legiti-
lost? (pp. 48–73). New York, NY: Routledge. macy and uncertainty in professional team sport: The
Scherer, J., & Jackson, S. (2008). Producing allblacks.com: NBA’s draft lottery. Team Performance Management, 15,
Cultural intermediaries and the policing of electronic 141–157.
spaces of sporting consumption. Sociology of Sport Sokolove, M. (2008). Warrior girls: protecting our daughters
Journal, 25, 243–262. against the injury epidemic in women’s sports. New York:
Scherer, J., & McDermott, L. (2011). Playing promotional Simon and Schuster.
politics: Mythologizing hockey and manufacturing “ordi- Solutions Research Group. (2014). Massive competition in
nary” Canadians. International Journal of Canadian Studies/ pursuit of the $5.7 billion Canadian youth sports mar-
Revue internationale d’études canadiennes, (43), 107–134. ket. Retrieved from http://www.srgnet.com/2014/06/10/
Scherer, J., & Rowe, D. (Eds.). (2013). Sport, public broadcast- massive-competition-in-pursuit-of-the-5-7-billion-
ing, and cultural citizenship: Signal lost? New York, NY: canadian-youth-sports-market/.
Routledge. Spaaj, R. (2011). Sport and social mobility: Crossing boundaries.
Schlosberg, D., & Carruthers, D. (2010). Indigenous strug- London, UK: Routledge.
gles, environmental justice, and community capabilities. Sparks, R. (1992). Delivering the male: Sports, Canadian
Global Environmental Politics, 10(4), 12–35. television, and the making of TSN. Canadian Journal of
Schultz, J. (2014). Qualifying times: Points of change in US Communication, 17, 319–342.
women’s sport. Chicago. IL: University of Illinois Press. Spector, M. (2013, October 16). The future of fighting in
Scott, D., Steiger, R., Rutty, M., & Fang, Y. (2018). The hockey is here, it’s in the CIS. Sportsnet. Retrieved from
changing geography of the Winter Olympic and http://www.sportsnet.ca/cis/the-future-of-fighting-in-
Paralympic Games in a warmer world. Current Issues in hockey-is-here-its-in-the-cis/.
Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2018.1436161. Sport Canada (2012). The Canadian sport policy. Ottawa:
Shanahan, S. (2007). Lost and found: The sociological Canadian Heritage. Retrieved from https://sirc.ca/sites/
ambivalence towards childhood. Annual Review of default/files/content/docs/pdf/csp2012_en.pdf.
Sociology, 33(1), 407–428. DOI: 10.1146/annurev. Sport Canada. (1986). Women in sport: A Sport Canada policy.
soc.33.040406.131808. Ottawa, ON: Author.
Shilling, C. (2005). The body in culture, technology and society, Sport Canada. (2008). Federal policy for hosting international
London, UK: Sage. sports events. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/
Shogan, D. (1999). The Making of High-Performance Athletes: en/canadian-heritage/services/sport-policies-acts-
Discipline, Diversity, and Ethics, Toronto, ON: regulations/policy-hosting-international-sport-events.
University of Toronto Press. html.

References 397
Sport Canada. (2012). Canadian sport policy 2012. Retrieved http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&re
from https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/ trLang=eng&id=2020709&&pattern=&stByVal=1
services/sport-canada.html#a2. &p1=1&p2=-1&tabMode=dataTable&csid=#F4.
Sport Canada. (2017). Review of sport Canada’s targeted excel- Statistics Canada. (2017a). Average hourly wages of employ-
lence approach: Final report. Retrieved from https:// ees by selected characteristics and occupation, unad-
open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/2e9a24f2-d285-4717- justed data, by province. Retrieved from http://www.
9a2b-42abb5c9306a. statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/
Sport for Life (2018). Physical Literacy. Retrieved from labr69a-eng.htm.
http://sportforlife.ca/physical-literacy/. Statistics Canada. (2017c). High income trends of tax
Staggenborg, S. (2008). Social movements. Toronto, ON: filers in Canada, provinces, territories and census
Oxford University Press. metropolitan areas (CMA), national thresholds.
Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/
Star Editorial Board. (2018, May 29). Gary Bettman’s view
a26?lang=eng&id=2040001.
on concussions in hockey has nothing to do with sci-
ence. Toronto Star. Retrieved from https://www.thestar. Statistics Canada. (2017d). Household income in Canada:
com/opinion/editorials/2018/05/29/gary-bettmans- Key results from the 2016 census. Retrieved from
view-on-concussions-in-hockey-has-nothing-to-do- http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170913/
with-science.html. dq170913a-eng.htm?HPA=1.
Statistics Canada (2017). Immigration and ethnocultural Statistics Canada. (2017e). Unionization rates falling.
diversity: Key results from the 2013 census. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-630-
Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ x/11-630-x2015005-eng.htm.
daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025b-eng.htm. Statistics Canada. (2018). Gini coefficients of adjusted mar-
Statistics Canada (2017b). Directly measured physical ket, total and after-tax income, Canada and provinces.
activity of children and youth, 2012 and 2013. Retrieved from http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/
Retrieved from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82- pick-choisir?lang=eng&p2=33&id=2060033.
625-x/2015001/article/14136-eng.htm. Statistics Canada. (2018b). Canada [country] (table). Aboriginal
Statistics Canada (2018, March 2). Spectator sports, event population profile. 2016 census. Statistics Canada
promoters, artists and related industries, 2016. Catalogue no. 98-510-X2016001. Released June 21, 2018.
Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-
daily-quotidien/180302/dq180302e-eng.htm. recensement/2016/dp-pd/abpopprof/index.cfm?Lang=E.
Statistics Canada (2018a). Aboriginal peoples highlight tables, Statistics Canada. (2019). Visible minority of person.
2016 census. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan. Retrieved from http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/
gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/hlt-fst/abo-aut/ p3Var.pl?Function=DEC&Id=45152.
Table.cfm?Lang=Eng&T=101&S=99&O=A. Staudohar, P. D. (2005). The hockey lockout of 2004–05.
Statistics Canada. (2008). Sports participation of children Monthly Labor Review, 128, 23–29.
aged 5 to 14 by socio-demographic characteristics, 2005 “Stephen Harper Balances Job, Hockey Dad Duties.” (2006,
(table). Canadian Social Trends. Statistics Canada online March 1) CTV.ca. Retrieved from http://www.ctv.ca/
catalogue no. 11-008-XWE. https://www150.statcan.gc. servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060228/
ca/n1/pub/11-008-x/2008001/t/10573/5214760-eng.htm harper_hky_dad_060228/20060228?hub=TopStories.
(accessed December 4, 2018). Stewart, B., Nicholson, M., Westerbeek, H., Smith, A.
Statistics Canada. (2009). Earnings and incomes of Canadians (2005). Australian sport: better by design? The evolution of
over the past quarter century, 2006 Census highlights. Australian sport policy. London, UK: Routledge.
Retrieved from https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census- Stoddart, M. C., & MacDonald, L. (2011). “Keep it wild,
recensement/2006/as-sa/97-563/p13-eng.cfm. keep it local”: Comparing news media and the internet
Statistics Canada. (2011). Analytical document: Immigration as sites for environmental movement activism for
and ethnocultural diversity in Canada. National Jumbo Pass, British Columbia. Canadian Journal of
Household Survey, 2011. Retrieved from http:// Sociology, 36(4), 313–335.
www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010- Stolle-McAllister, J. (2004). Contingent hybridity: The cultural
x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm. politics of Tepoztlán’s anti-golf movement. Identities:
Statistics Canada. (2013). Gini coefficients of market, total Global Studies in Culture and Power, 11, 195–213.
and after-tax income of individuals, where each indi- Strafford, B., van der Steen, P., Davids, K., & Stone, J.
vidual is represented by their adjusted household (2018). Parkour as a donor sport for athletic develop-
income, by economic family type. Retrieved from ment in youth team sports: Insights through an ecologi-

398 References
 cal dynamics lens. Sports Medicine—Open, 4(21): https:// Thibault, L., & Babiak, K. (2013). Athlete Development and
doi.org/10.1186/s40798-018-0132-5. Support. In L. Thibault & J. Harvey, Sport policy in
Strashin, J. (2017, September 25). As athletes protest, Canada. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press.
Crosby and the NHL strike an off-key chord. Thompson, S. T. (2002). Sport, gender, feminism. In J.
Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/ Maguire & K. Young (Eds.), Theory, sport & society
nhl/trump-protests-crosby-nhl-off-key-chord-jamie- (pp. 105–127). Amsterdam: JAI.
strashin-1.4306467. Thorpe, H. (2018). Feminist Views of Action Sports. In L.
Suddath, C. (2010, February 11) Why Can’t Women Ski Mansfield, J. Caudwell, B. Wheaton, and B. Watson
Jump? Time. Retrieved from www.content.time.com. (eds.) The Palgrave handbook of feminism and sport, leisure
Sullivan, E. (2018, February 19). Laura Ingraham told and physical education (pp. 699–719). Palgrave Macmillan:
LeBron James to shut up and dribble; He went to the London.
hoop. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/ Thorpe, H., & Ahmad, N. (2013). Youth, action sports and
sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/19/587097707/laura- political agency in the Middle East: Lessons from a
ingraham-told-lebron-james-to-shutup-and-dribble- grassroots parkour group in Gaza. International Review
he-went-to-the-hoop. for the Sociology of Sport. doi: 10.1177/1012690213490521.
Szto, C. (2016). #LOL at multiculturalism: Reactions to Thorpe, H., & Ahmad, N. (2015). Youth, action sports and
Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi from the Twitterverse. political agency in the Middle East: Lessons from a
Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(3), 208–218. grassroots parkour group in Gaza. International review
Tallbear, K. (2013). Native American DNA: Tribal belonging for the sociology of sport, 50(6), 678–704.
and the false promise of genetic science. Minneapolis: Tirone, S. (2000). Racism, indifference and the leisure experi-
University of Minnesota Press. ences of South Asian Canadian teens. Leisure: The Journal
Taylor, C., & Tracey, P., with McMinn, T. L., Elliott, T., of the Canadian Association of Leisure Studies, 24(1), 89–114.
Beldom, S., Ferry, A., Gross, Z., Paquin, S., & Tirone, S., & Pedlar, A. (2000). Understanding the leisure expe-
Schachter, K. (2011). Every class, in every school: The final rience of a minority ethnic group: South Asian teens and
report on the first national climate survey on homophobia, young adults in Canada. Society and Leisure, 23(1), 145–169.
biphobia, and transphobia in Canadian schools. Toronto, Tirone, S., Livingston, L. A., Miller, A. J., & Smith, E. L.
ON: EGALE Canada Human Rights Trust. (2010). Including immigrants in elite and recreational
Teetzel, S. (2009). Sharing the blame: Complicity, conspiracy, sports: The experiences of athletes, sport providers and
and collective responsibility in sport. Acta Universitatis immigrants. Leisure, 34(4), 403–420.
Palackianae Olomucensis. Gymnica, 36, 85–93. Tomlinson, A. (2014). FIFA: the men, the myths, the money.
The Open University. (n.d.). Athletes and efficient hearts. London, UK: Routledge.
[Online course]. Retrieved from https://www.open. Toy, A. (2018, October 17). Sports leagues in Canada
edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/health/sport- ready for cannabis legalization. Retrieved from https://
and-fitness/exploring-sport-online-athletes-and- globalnews.ca/news/4551600/sports-leagues-in-
efficient-hearts/content-section-0. canada-ready-for-cannabis-legalization/.
Theberge, N. (1997). “It’s part of the game”: Physicality and Travers, A. (2018, July 20). For trans people of all ages, sex
the production of gender in women’s hockey. Gender segregation of sport and physical recreation is a key bar-
and Society, 11(1): 69–87. rier to participation. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved
Theberge, N. (2007). It’s not about health: It’s about perfor- from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/
mance. In J. Hargreaves and P. Vertinsky (Eds.), Physical article-for-trans-people-of-all-ages-sex-segregation-
Culture, Power and the Body (pp. 176–94). New York: of-sport-and-physical/.
Routledge.
Travers, A. (2018a). Transgender issues in sport and leisure.
Theberge, N. (2008). “Just a normal bad part of what I do”: In L. Mansfield, J. Caudwell, B. Wheaton, & B.
Elite athletes’ accounts of the relationship between Watson (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of feminism and
health and sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(2), sport, leisure and physical education (pp. 649–665).
206–222. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Theberge, N. (2015). Social sources of research interest in Travers, A. (2018b, July 20). For trans people of all ages, sex
women’s sport related injuries: A case study of acl inju- segregation of sport and physical recreation is a key
ries. Sociology of Sport Journal, 32(3), 229–247. obstacle to participation. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved
Thibault, L., & Babiak, K. (2005). Organizational changes in from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/
Canada’s sport system: Toward an athlete-centred approach. article-for-trans-people-of-all-ages-sex-segregation-
European Sport Management Quarterly, 5(2), 105–132. of-sport-and-physical/.

References 399
Travers, A., & Deri, J. (2010). Transgender inclusion and United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for
the changing face of lesbian softball leagues. International Development and Peace (2003). Sport for development
Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(6), 1–20. and peace: Towards achieving the Millennium Development
Tremblay, M.S., Carson, V., Chaput J.-P., Dinh, T., Duggan, Goals. United Nations: Geneva.
M., Faulkner, G., . . . Zehr, L. (2016). Canadian 24-hour United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030
movement guidelines for children and youth: an integra- agenda for sustainable development. Retrieved from
tion of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/
Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 41, S311–27. transformingourworld.
Trudeau, J. (2018). Statement by the Prime Minister on the US Quidditch (n.d.). Rules. Retrieved from: https://www.
opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Posted on Prime usquidditch.org/about/mission/rules.
Minster Justin Trudeau’s Twitter feed, February 9. Vancouver 2010. (2006). Own the podium—2010. Retrieved
Used with permission. Retrieved from https://pm.gc. from http://www.vancouver2010.com/ en/Winter
ca/eng/news/2018/02/09/statement-prime-minister- Games/OwnPodium.
opening-2018-winter-olympics.
VanWynsberghe, R. (2015). The Olympic Games Impact (OGI)
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). study for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games: Strategies for
Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future, summary of evaluating sport mega-events’ contribution to sustainability.
the final report of the truth and reconciliation commission, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 7(1), 1–18,
Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, Ltd.
Vanwynsberghe, R., Surborg, B., & Wyly, E. (2013). When
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to the games come to town: Neoliberalism, mega-events
Action (2015). Truth and Reconciliation Commission and social inclusion in the Vancouver 2010 Winter
of Canada. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Olympic Games. International Journal of Urban and
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together. New York, NY: Basic Books. Regional Research, 37(6), 2074–93.
Turner, G. & Wang. S. (2018, January 9). Fitbit Considers Vause, J. (2008). China announces emergency Olympics smog
Developing Smartwatch for Kids. Retrieved from: https:// plan. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2008/
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-09/fitbit- WORLD/asiapcf/07/30/oly.beijing.pollution/.
is-said-to-consider-developing-smartwatch-for-kids.
Ventresca, M. (2015, January 16). Concussions aren’t only a
Ubelacker, S. (2018). Why hazing continues despite physical and medical issue. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://
mental health consequences. The Canadian Press, posted theconversation.com/concussions-arent-only-a-
on the CBC News website, December 8. Retrieved from medical-issue-35304.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/hazing-physical-mental-
Ventresca, M. (2018). The curious case of CTE: Mediating
health-consequences-1.4936003. Used with permission.
materialities of traumatic brain injury. Communication
UN (United Nations). (2004). Universal language of sport & Sport, 1–22. Retrieved from https://doi-org.login.
brings people together, teaches teamwork, tolerance, ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1177/2167479518761636.
secretary-general says at Launch of International Year.
Vertinsky, P. (1990). Eternally Wounded Women: Women,
SG/SM/9579. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/
Doctors and Exercise in the Late Nineteenth Century.
press/en/2004/sgsm9579.doc.htm.
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
UN (United Nations). (2013). International Day of Sport for
Development and Peace. A/RES/67/296. Retrieved from Vertinsky, P. A. (1990). The eternally wounded woman.
http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois.
asp?symbol=A/RES/67/296. Vertinsky, P., Jette, S. & Hofmann, A. (2009). ‘Skierinas’ in
UN (United Nations). (2015). Transforming our world: the Olympics: Gender justice, and gender politics at the
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Develolpment. local, national and international level over the challenge
Retrieved from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un. of women ski jumping. Olympika, XVIII, 25–56.
org/post2015/transformingourworld. Wachs, F. L. (2002). Leveling the playing field: Negotiating
Unifor (2017, June 16). Unifor partners with the Toronto gendered rules in coed softball. Journal of Sport and
2017 North American Indigenous Games. Retrieved Social Issues, 26(3), 300–316.
from https://unifor.org/en/whats-new/press-room/ “WADA should remove cannabis from banned list, says
unifor-partners-toronto-2017-north-american- Canadian snowboard legend.” (2018, October 17).
indigenous-games. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/rebagliati-
United Nations (2007). United Nations Declaration on the cannabis-banned-list-wada-1.4866595.
Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Retrieved from Waddington, I. (2010). Surveillance and control in sport: A
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/ sociologist looks at the WADA whereabouts system.
DRIPS_en.pdf. International Journal of Sport Policy, 2, 255–274.

400 References
Walvin, J. (1987). Symbols of moral superiority: Slavery, sport during childhood and youth: Multivariate analyses
and the changing world order, 1800–1950. In J. A. Mangan using Canadian national survey data. Sociology of Sport
& J. Walvin (Eds.), Manliness and morality: Middle class Journal, 29(2), 186–209.
masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (pp. 242–260). White, P., & Young, K. (2000). Health and the new age
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ascetic. Reprinted in P. Donnelly (Ed.), Taking sports seri-
Washburne, R. F. (1978). Black underparticipation in wild- ously: Social issues in canadian sport (2nd ed., pp. 56–58).
land recreation: Alternative explanations. Leisure Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing.
Sciences, 1, 175–189. White, P., & Young, K. (2007). Gender, sport and the injury
Weber, M. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capital- process. In K. Young & P. White (Eds.), Sport and gen-
ism. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. der in Canada (pp. 259–278). Toronto, ON: Oxford
Weber, M. ([1910a] 2002). A final rebuttal of Rachfahl’s University Press.
critique of the “spirit of capitalism.” In M. Weber, The Whitson, D. (2012). Vancouver 2010: The saga of Eagleridge
Protestant ethic and the “spirit” of capitalism and other Bluffs. In G. Hayes & J. Karamichas (Eds.), Olympic
writings, (pp. 282–339). New York: Penguin Books. Games, mega-events and civil societies: Globalization, envi-
Weber, M. ([1910b] 2002). Rebuttal of the critique of the ronment, resistance (pp. 219–235). London, UK: Palgrave
“spirit” of capitalism. In M. Weber, The Protestant ethic Macmillan.
and the “spirit” of capitalism and other writings, WHO Factsheet. Climate change and health (2018, February
(pp. 244–81). New York: Penguin Books. 1). Retrieved July 5, 2018 from http://www.who.int/
Weber, M. ([1920] 2002). The Protestant ethic and the “spirit” of mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/.
capitalism and other writings. New York: Penguin Books. Whitson, D. (2015). Globalization and sport. In J. Crossman
Weber, M. ([1921] 2010). The distribution of power with the & J. Scherer (Eds.), Social Dimensions of Canadian Sport
community: Classes, Stände, parties. Journal of Classical and Physical Activity (pp. 300–319). North York, ON:
Sociology 10, 137–52. Pearson Canada.
Westhead, R. (2018, July 24). Ex-NHLers won’t appeal judg- Whitson, D., & Macintosh, D. (1996). The global circus:
ment in concussion case, lawyer says. TSN.ca. Retrieved International sport, tourism, and the marketing of cit-
from https://www.tsn.ca/talent/ex-nhlers-won-t- ies. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 20(3), 278–295.
appeal-judgment-in-concussion-case-lawyer- WHO Factsheet. (no date). Retrieved from http://www.
says-1.1146800. who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/.
Whannel, G. (1992). Fields in vision: Television sport and cul- Whyno, S. (2018, November 12). NHL, retired players reach
tural transformation. London, UK: Routledge. tentative settlement in concussion lawsuit. CBC.ca.
Wheaton, B. (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/
Consumption, identity, and difference. Routledge: New nhl/nhl-concussion-lawsuit-settlement-1.4901856.
York. Wickstrom, M. (2017). UN secretary-general closes
Wheaton, B. (2007). Identity, politics, and the beach: UNOSDP. Play the Game. Retrieved from http://www.
Environmental activism in surfers against sewage. playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2017/0309_un-
Leisure Studies, 26(3), 279–302. secretary-general-closes-unosdp/.
Wheaton, B. (2008). From the pavement to the beach: Wiest, A. L., Andrews, D. L., & Giardina, M. D. (2015).
Politics and identity in “Surfers Against Sewage.” In M. Training the body for healthism: reifying vitality in and
Atkinson & K. Young (Eds.), Tribal play: Subcultural through the clinical gaze of the neoliberal fitness club.
journeys through sport (pp. 113–134). Bingley, UK: Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 37,
Emerald Group Publishing. 21–40.
Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level: Why
Consumption, identity and difference. London, UK: more equal societies almost always do better. London, UK:
Routledge. Allen Lane.
White, H. (1973). Metahistory: The historical imagination in Wilkinson, R., & Marmot, M. (2006). The social determinants
19th century Europe. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins of health, 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
University Press. Wilson, B. (1999). “Cool pose” incorporated: The market-
White, P. G., & Young, K. (1999). Is sport injury gendered? ing of black masculinity in Canadian NBA coverage. In
In P.G. White and K. Young (Eds.), Sport and Gender in P. White & K. Young (Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada
Canada (pp. 68–84). Toronto ON: Oxford University Press. (pp. 232–253). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.
White, P., & McTeer, W. (2012) Socioeconomic status and Wilson, B. (2012). Sport & peace: A sociological perspective.
sport participation at different developmental stages Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.

References 401
Wilson, B. (2012a). Sport and peace. Oxford, UK: Oxford “World Anti-Doping Agency votes to reinstate Russia.”
University Press. (2018, October 16). Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/
Wilson, B. (2012b). Growth and nature: Reflections on sports/olympics/wada-russia-reinstatement-1.4831159.
sport, carbon neutrality, and ecological modernization. World Health Organization. (2014). Quantitative risk assess-
In D. Andrews & M. Silk (Eds.), Sport and neo-liberal- ment of the effects of climate change on selected causes of
ism: Politics, consumption, and culture (pp. 90–108). death, 2030s and 2050s. Geneva, Switzerland: World
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Health Organization.
Wilson, B., & Hayhurst, L. (2009). Digital activism: Neo- Wyche, S. (2016, August 27). Colin Kaepernick explains why
liberalism, the internet, and “sport for development.” he sat during national anthem. Retrieved from http://
Sociology of Sport Journal, 26(1), 155–181. www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/
Wilson, B., & Millington, B. (2013). Sport, ecological mod- colin-kaepernick-explains-protest-of-national-anthem.
ernization, and the environment. In D. Andrews & B. Yoon, L. (2017, June 7). To see the world through a moun-
Carrington (Eds.), A companion to sport (Wiley-Blackwell tain: Mount Gariwang and the 2018 PyeongChang
Companions to Cultural Studies) (pp. 129–142). Olympic Games. The Society Pages. Retrieved from
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. https://thesocietypages.org/engagingsports/2017/06/07/
Wilson, B., & Millington, B. (2015). Sport and environ- to-see-the-world-through-a-mountain-mount-
mentalism. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Routledge handbook gariwang-and-the-2018-pyeongchang-winter-olympic-
of the sociology of sport (pp. 366–376). New York: games/.
Routledge. Young, A. J. (1988). Beyond heroes: A sport history of Nova
Wilson, D. (2004). “Cricket’s Shame: The Inside Story.” Scotia: Vol. 2. Hantsport, Canada: Lancelot Press.
New Statesman, 17, 836. Young, K. (1993). Violence, risk, and liability in male sports
Wilson, T. (2002). The paradox of social class and sports culture. Sociology of Sport Journal, 10(4), 373–396.
involvement. International Review for the Sociology of Young, K. (2011). Sport, violence, and society. New York, NY:
Sport, 37, 5–16. Routledge.
Winfree, J. A., & Rosentraub, M. S. (2012). Sports finance Young, K. (2012). Sport, violence and society. London and
and management: Real estate, entertainment, and the New York: Routledge.
remaking of the business. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Young, K., & White, P. (1995). Sport, physical danger, and
Winseck, D. (1995). Power shift? Towards a political econ- injury: The experiences of elite women athletes. Journal
omy of Canadian telecommunications and regulation. of Sport & Social Issues, 19(1), 45–61.
Canadian Journal of Communication, 20(1), 81–106. Young, K., White, P., & McTeer, J. (1994). Body talk: Male
Winter, J. (2006). Dreams of peace and freedom: Utopian athletes reflect on sport, injury and pain, Sociology of
moments in the 20th century. New Haven, CT: Yale Sport Journal, 11, 175–94.
University Press. Zabjek, A., & Harvey, M. (2018, March 21). Softball coach
Witte, J. C., Schoeberl, M. R., Douglass, A. R., Gleason, calls out league policy on transgender athletes, sparks
J. F., Krotkov, N. A., Gille, J. C., Pickering, K. E., national response. CBC News. Retrieved from: https://
& Livesey, N. (2009). Satellite observations of www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/softball-league-
changes in air quality during the 2008 Beijing transgender-policy-1.4584947.
Olympics and Paralympics. Geophysical Research Zager, D., Solis, A., & Adjroud, S. (2017). These Georgetown
Letters, 36(17), 1–6. students fought Nike—and won. The Nation. Retrieved
Wolbring, G. (2008). The politics of ableism. Development from https://www.thenation.com/article/these-
51, 252–258. georgetown-students-fought-nike-and-won/.
Wolff, A. (2007, March 11). Going, going green. Sports Zarkov, D., & Davis, K. (2018). Ambiguities and dilemmas
Illustrated, 36–45. around #metoo: #Forhowlong and #whereto? European
Wong, L. (2008). Multiculturalism and Ethnic Pluralism in Journal of Women’s Studies, 25(1): 3–9.
Sociology: An Analysis of the Fragmentation Position Zimbalist, A. (2015). Circus maximus: The economic gamble
Discourse. Canadian Ethnic Studies 40(1), 11–32. behind hosting the Olympics and the World Cup.
Canadian Ethnic Studies Association. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute Press.
Woolford, A. (2015). This benevolent experiment: Indigenous Zirin, D. (2011, May 25). Roger Goodell’s message to nfl
boarding schools, genocide, and redress in Canada and the players and fans: Drop dead. Huffington Post. Retrieved
United States. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/
Press. roger-goodells-message-to_b_803766.html.

402 References
Index

1867 Canada Act, 97 Adams, C., 51, 148 Belak, Wade, 197
1930 British Empire Games, 267 Adams, Jeff, 52, 53 Bell Canada wireless and wired
1968 Summer Olympic Games, 8 Adams, Mary Louise, 121–139 ­networks, 2–3
1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, Agency, 17 Bertuzzi, Todd, 196
52, 247, 270 Aggression, 189, 191 Bettman, Gary, 16, 196
1984 Los Angeles Olympic Ahluwalia, Gurdeep, 248 Big Owe, 271
Games, 264 Ahmad, N., 324 Billig, Michael, 247
1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, 247 Albanese, P., 147 Black, David, 257
1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Ali, Adam, 100 Blackhawk property, 63
Act, 98 Alienation, 34, 214, 223 Boogaard, Derek, 197, 224
1988 Official Languages Act, 97 Allen, Damon, 52 Boosting, 173
1996 Paralympic Games, 172 Alternative sport, 158 Borderline violence, 190
1998 Tour de France, 178 The Amateur Hockey Association Bourdieu, Pierre, 84–87
2001 British Medical Journal, 367 of the United States Boxing, 188
2001 Edmonton World (AHAUS), 63 Boykoff, J., 42, 333, 346
Championships, 52 Amateurism, 62 Boynton, Nick, 201
2006 Winter Olympics, 52 Amateur Soccer, 110 Brashear, Donald, 195–196
2007–2009 Canadian Health Measures Amber, David, 247 Broncos, Humboldt, 56, 99
Survey, 152 Ambiguous ambivalence, 100 Brudar, Silvia, 220
2008 Beijing Games, 346 Anderson, S., 224 Brunswick, New, 58
2010 General Social Survey data, 105 Andrews, D. L., 301 Brutal body contact, 190
2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) Bryshun, J., 204
Games, 2, 10, 18, 32, 130, 180, injuries, 223 B2ten, 275
247, 272, 302 Anti-apartheid social
2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, ­movement, 260 C
10, 19, 274 Anti-sweatshop movements, 313 CAHA. See Canadian Amateur
2014 World Cup, 302 Appadurai, A., 323 Hockey Association (CAHA)
2015 Truth and Reconciliation Arctic Winter Games, 112 Calls to Action, 113–114, 372
Commission Final Report, 98 Arsenault, Michael, 160 Calvin, John, 35
2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, 173 Art of political communication, Canada Games, 114
2016 Rio Summer Games, 274 261–262 Canada Sports Hall of Fame
2017 North American Indigenous The Assassin, 200 (CSHoF), 52
Games, 3 Assimilation, 111 Canadian Amateur Hockey
2017 Toronto Waterfront Marathon, 3 Atkinson, Michael, 28, 361 Association (CAHA), 63, 64
2018 Gay Games, 3 Atlantic telegraph cable, 58 Canadian Association for the
2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Audience commodity, 369 Advancement of Women and
Games, 32, 67, 276 Austin, Rodney, 180 Girls in Sport (CAAWS), 134
2018 Winter Olympic Games, 9, 178 Autor, D., 80 Canadian Association for the
2022 World Cup, 264 Advancement of Women and
2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic B Sport and Physical Activity
Games, 302 Baker, Mary, 52 (CAAWS), 243
2026 Winter Olympic Games, 42, 267 Bannerji, Himani, 45 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
BASE ethics, 174 and Radio-Canada, 8
A Barnes, S., 121 Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport
Ableist belief systems, 172 Beal, B., 158, 361 (CCES), 132–134
Aboriginal peoples, 98 Beamish, R., 73, 81, 176 Canadian Collegiate Athletic
Active Healthy Kids Report Card, 153 Beckham, David, 311 Association (CCAA), 133
Active play, 154 Beers, G., 101 Canadian federal sport system, 269

403
Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Co-ed Recreational Sport Settings for Daspher, Katherine, 131
Research Institute Adults, 131 Davies, Alphonso, 365
(CFLRI), 150 Cold War, 178, 264, 267 Davis, N. W., 369
Canadian Football League (CFL), 86, Collective bargaining agreements Deaflympics, 172
168, 285–286 (CBAs), 291–292 De Coubertin, Pierre, 27, 126
Canadian Heritage, 3, 88 Colleges and universities, Deep politics, 266–267
Canadian Hockey Association Canadian, 3 Democratic revolutions, 28
(CHA), 61 Colonialism, 113 Democratization, 3
Canadian Human Rights Act, Common sense, 19, 26–27, 170 Denis, Claude, 100
133, 134 The Communist Manifesto, 34 Depper, A., 156, 367
Canadian Interuniversity Sport Comparative sensitivity, 15 Deviance, 168. See also Sport
(CIS), 4 Competitive balance, 288 bodies, 171–174
Canadianness, 45 Concussion crisis, 16 bodies and embodiments, 171–174
Canadian Physical Activity Conflict theory, 36–38, 147, 198, conceptualization, 169–170
Guidelines, 87–88 214, 223 dance, 168
Canadian Radio-television and Connell, R. A., 19 embodiments, 171–174
Telecommunications Connell, R. W., 126 on the field of play, 175–179
Commission (CRTC), 235 Constitution Act, 111 off the field of play, 179–181
Canadian society, 8, 356 Contemporary sporting violence, social control, 174
Canadian Sport Policy 2012, 260 195–198 sports and sporting identities,
The Canadian Sport System, 269 Contemporary theory, 84–87 181–182
Canadian Women’s Hockey League Contested terrain, 13 Diaspora, 317
(CWHL), 243 Corporate social responsibility Digital health technologies, 155–156,
“Can-do” attitudes, 325 (CSR), 325 367, 369
CANPLAY (CFLRI) study, 153 Corsaro, W., 150 Digital media, 234, 244, 245
Cantelon, Hart, 38 Cosentino, F., 61, 101 Digital technologies, 235
Capital, 85 Coursier, Isobel, 66–67 Discrimination, 101
Capital (1867), 34 Court of Arbitration for Sport Dodd, Mike, 11
Capitalism, 314–315 (CAS), 44 Doherty, A., 149
Carcillo, Daniel, 204 Couture, Jesse, 145, 156 Dominant, 97
Card, D., 80 Crawford, Chandra, 52, 53 Donnelly, M., 137, 146, 147
Carlos, John, 8 Crescents, Alexandria, 194 Donnelly, P., 3, 27, 38, 98, 99, 102,
Carmichael, Fiona, 276 Criminal violence, 190 103, 137, 138, 157, 160, 373
Carnegie, Herb, 247 Critical race theory, 105 Doran, P. J., 61
Cartel, 289–290 Critical sensitivity, 15–16 Downey, Allan, 59
Catharsis, 191 Critical social theory, 55, 216 Drapeau, Mayor, 271
Chand, D. 44 Critical sociological theory Drugs, 176–178
Channon, Alex, 131 critical race studies, 45–46 policing performance-enhancing,
Charlesworth, H., 202 gender relations and sexuality, 178–179
Chen, X., 147 43–44 in sport, 175–176
Cherry, Don, 197 Crompton, J. L., 299 Dryden, K., 16, 192
Child, Wilton Little, 52 Crosby, Sidney, 60 Dubin Inquiry, 171
Choudry, A., 314 Crossman, Jane, 1 Duncan, Carlisle, 128
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE. See chronic traumatic Duncan, M. C. 128, 369
(CTE), 196, 198 ­encephalopathy (CTE) Durkheim, Émile, 30–31
Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Culbert, A., 224
Behind Hosting the Olympics and Cultural capital, 85 E
the World Cup, 42 Culture, 12 Easton, David, 258
Cisgender, 123 Culture of risk, 219 Ecological modernization (EM), 332
City of Champions, 15 Curtis, James, 32 definition, 341–342
Clarkson, Adrienne, 60 Cyborg athletes, 173 and sport management, 342–343
Clay, Bryan, 11 wrong with, 343–347
Coakley, J., 175, 219, 373 D Economic capital, 85
Coakley, V. A., 156, 158 Dallaire, Christine, 106 Economic inequality, 79–81
Coburn, D., 358 Darnell, Simon C., 309 Edmonton Grads, 15

404 Index
Education, 2, 3 Friedman, H., 89 Governance, 357–358
Einstein, Albert, 26 Friedman, M. T., 301 Gramsci, Antonio, 19, 41
Elite athletes, 81 Frustration–aggression Greater Toronto Area (GTA), 102
Elite sport agenda, 275 hypothesis, 191 Greater Toronto Hockey League
Embodiment, 171–174, 212 Functionalism, 30 AAA, 88
Engels, F., 82 Greaves, Lorraine, 138
Entry drafts, 293 G Greek Olympic program, 188
Environment, 369–371 Game Change: The Life and Death of Green Sports Alliance, 371
changes impact, 333–339 Steve Montador and the Future of Green-washing, 345
ecological modernization, 341–347 Hockey, 16 Gretzky, Wayne, 60
issues, 332–333 Gamification, 155 Grix, Jonathan, 276
reflections on politics, 347–349 Gary Roberts High Performance Gruneau, R., 10, 18, 57, 59, 61,
sociology, 339–340 Training, 89 81, 156
sustainability, 340–341 Gay, 135–136 Guest, A. M., 323
Equality of condition, 75 Gemar, E., 86
Equality of opportunity, 75 Gemeinschaft, 83, 84 H
Ermineskin Cree Nation, 52 Gender, 123, 243–245 Habitus, 85
Erythropoietin (EPO), 176 binary system, 122–123 Hall, A., 4, 15, 43
Eskimo, 112 inclusion, 133–134 Hall, Rob, 182
Ethnicity, 96. See also Race performances, 199 Hankivsky, Olena, 138
media, 247–248 and sex differences, 129–130 Hannigan, John, 348
relations, 98–101 social construction, 124–125 Hargreaves, Alison, 182
structure, 97–101 Genetically Modified Athletes, 368 Hargreaves, J. E., 12
theory, 104–105 Gesellschaft, 83 Harper, Stephen, 261–262
Ethnic-structured sport systems, Giddens, Anthony, 6 Harris, James, 109
101–104 Gilbert, R., 250 Harvey, J., 3, 106
Euro-Canadian sports, 111 Giles, Audrey R., 95, 96 Hayhurst, Lyndsay M. C., 309, 359
Gilliam, Joe, 109 Health
F Gillmor, D., 88 culture of risk, 218–224
Facility construction subsidies, Gini index, 77, 78 implications of conceptualizing,
299–301 The Girl and the Game: A History 211–214
Fan cost index (FCI), 297 of Women’s Sport in Canada neoliberal era, 217–218
Father of Medicine, 211 (2016), 43 sport, 215–217
Fédération Internationale de Football Girl effect, 325 Healthism, 217–218
Association (FIFA), 232, 263 Girls’ hockey, 157 Hegemonic masculinity, 19, 126,
Felicien, Perdita, 172 Gladwell, M., 221 193, 201
Female athletes, 128–129 Gleaves, J., 177 Hegemony, 19, 41, 259, 345
Feminism, 136–137 Global Forum for Sport and Henrrich, Taylor, 66
Feminist studies, 43 Environment, 371 Heteronormativity, 124
Field, 85 Globalization, 264, 363–364 Hibbeln, Maya, 257
FIFA World Cup, 9 approach and study, 315–317 Historical sensitivity, 14–15, 54–55
Fight and capitalism, 314–315 Humboldt tragedy, 56–57
in hockey, 195–196 and indigenous peoples, 313–314 HIV, 181
for inclusion, 66–68 and international development, Hobbes, Thomas, 212
First Nations Elite Bantam AAA, 68 317–321 Hockey
Fleras, Augie, 310 postcolonialism, 319 cost of, 88
Fletcher, Thomas, 131 to sport, 311–312 fighting in, 195–196
Fluid drug, 177 sustainable development goals, for girls and women, 63–65
Forced labour, 34 322–323 minor hockey for boys, 61–63
Forsyth, J., 68, 69, 95, 96 theories, 312 National Hockey League, 60–61
Fortin, N., 80 Goal-rational action, 36, 213 Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC), 10,
Francophones, 105–106 Goffman, Erving, 181 64, 100, 234, 248–249
Franklin, Jermain, 247 GoFundMe campaign, 100 Hofmann, A., 54
Free Footie Edmonton, 365 Golob, M., 95, 96 Holman, Margery, 204
Frideres, J., 110 Goodyear, V. A., 156, 367 Homophobia, 124

Index 405
Howe, Gordie, 60 James, LeBron, 311 Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer
Howe, P. D., 156, 214, 367 Jelinek, Otto, 32 (LGBTQ), 244–245
Huber, Joseph, 341 Jenkins, S., 219 Liberian Civil War, 365
Hughes, R., 175, 219 Jerome, Harry, 247 Liodakis, N., 107
Human growth hormone (HGH), 176 Jette, S., 54 Livingston, L. A., 102
Humboldt tragedy, 56–57 Jeux de la francophonie canadienne Llewellyn, M., 177
Humphreys, Brad R., 283 (JFC), 106 Lockouts, 291
The Hunger Games, 203 Jock clique, 199 London Olympic Games Organizing
Hylton, K., 105 John, Saint, 58 Committee (LOCOG), 338
Johnson, Ben, 32, 171 Loney, Allan, 194
I Johnson, Magic, 181 Longboat, Tom, 247
Ice hockey, 66 Jumpstart charity, 359 Lorber, Judith, 129
Ideology, 19, 259, 345 Lorenz, Konrad, 191
Idle No More (INM), 18, 313 K Lorenz, Stacy L., 187
Income inequality, 77 Kadri, Nazem, 74 Love of the Game, 159
Indian Act, 68, 111 Kaepernick, Colin, 179, 180 Lowes, Mark, 249–250
Indian Horse, 69 Karim, Nabil, 248 Loy, John, 32
Indigenous peoples, 68–69, 98, Karkazis, Katrina, 132 Lu, John, 247
111–112 Karnilowicz, Wally, 32 Lukes, Steven, 259
globalization and, 313–314 Kasper, Gian Franco, 67 Lundby, Maren, 67
Industrial Revolution, 29, 57 Kearins, K., 344 Lupton, Deborah, 148, 182
Ingham, Alan, 31, 35, 147 Kennedy, Sheldon, 160 Luxury taxes, 293–295
Injury talk strategies, 214 Kenyon, G., 81 Lynch, Zoya, 67
Instinct theory, 191 Keon, Dave, 52
Institutionalization, 10, 61 Kerner, C., 156 M
Intergenerational inequity, 332, 370 Kerr, Gretchen, 138 MacGregor, Roy, 233
International Association of Athletics Kidd, Bruce, 27, 60, 61 Macrosociology, 38
Federations (IAAF), 44 Kimmel, Michael, 193 Maese, R., 219
International development King, C. R., 112 Major League Baseball (MLB), 86, 286
globalization and, 317–319 King, S., 177 Major League Soccer (MLS), 286
and postcolonialism, 319 Kirby, Sandra, 52, 53, 138 Male athlete violence, 198–200
sport in, 320–321 Klein, Naomi, 362 Manning, A., 80
International division of labour, 314 Koss, Johann Olav, 321 Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment
International Ice Hockey federation Kuper, Simon, 32 (MLSE), 232
(IIHF), 63 Kyle, Donald, 188 Marginality theory, 104
International nongovernmental Marner, Mitch, 74
sport, 366 L Marx, Karl, 17, 33–34, 76, 82–83
International Olympic Committee Labour conflict, 37 Mascarenhas, G., 333, 346
(IOC), 4, 44, 66, 67, 125–126, Ladies Ontario Hockey Association Masculinity
263, 301, 323 (LOHA), 63–64 hegemonic, 193, 201
International Ski Federation, 18, 67, Lake, Robert, 131 violence, 193–194
130, 220 Lalji, Farhan, 247 Mason, D., 301
International sports organizations Lance Armstrong, 176 Mass media, 233
(ISOs), 263 Laumann, Silken, 173 Matthews, Auston, 74
International Year of Sport and Laurendeau, Jason, 145, 148, 167, 182 McDavid, Connor, 60
Physical Education (IYSPE), 216 Laurin, Alcide, 194 McDermott, L., 261
Intersectionality, 123 LeClair, Catherine, 131 McDonaldization, 315
Interspecies inequity, 333 Lefkowitz, Bernard, 199 McLaren report, 178
Intra-generational inequity, 333 Legacies, 303–304 McRobbie, A., 13
Invictus (2009), 265 Legitimacy, 190 McSorley, Marty, 195–196
ITunes, 233 Legitimate sport, 108 McTeer, J., 214
Lemieux, T., 78, 80 Mead, George Herbert, 38–40
J Leonard, David, 106 Media, the
Jacobs, Jeremy, 74 Leonard, M., 158 continuity and change in, 236–237
James, G., 160, 205 Lesbian, 135–136 costs of rights, 232

406 Index
 CTV Era, 237–238 Morrow, D., 59 “Old-time” hockey, 197
ethnicity, 247–248 Mosse, D., 314 Oligopoly, 235
ideological role, 241–243 Muller, M., 301 Olympic(s), 18. See also London
militarism, 245–247 Multiculturalism, 100 Olympic Games Organizing
nationalism, 245–247 Munro, John, 75 Committee (LOCOG)
new sport broadcasting order, Myth of meritocracy, 157 Athens Olympic Games, 172
238–240 Beijing Olympic Games, 132, 346
race, 247–248 N bids, and Calgary Olympics, 2026
sport journalism, 249–251 Nahanee, Harriet, 348 bids, 303
technology and, 366–369 Nakamura, Y., 102, 103 Calgary Winter Olympics, 247
viewing rights, 240–241 Nassar, Larry, 160 Special Olympics, 172
Mega-events, 301. See also Sport National Basketball Association Winter Olympics, 9, 42, 52, 168,
Men and women separate events, 130 (NBA), 86, 181, 286 178, 273, 267, 302
Men at Play: A Working Understanding National Football League (NFL), 86, Olympic Games Impact (OGI)
of Professional Hockey, 40 112, 219, 221, 287 Study, 274
Men’s hockey, 63–65 The National Game, 59 Olympic Television Rights, US
Meritocracy, 74 The National Hockey Association Network Payments for, 232
Messner, Michael, 188, 198–199 (NHA), 61 Ontario Hockey League (OHL), 294
#MeToo, 138 National Hockey League (NHL), 2, 37, Opposition, 361
Miah, Andy, 368 60–61, 74, 86, 109, 168, 179, O’Ree, Willie, 109–110
Microsociology, 38, 40 287–288, 344 Organization for the Security and
Milbury, Mike, 196 Nationalism, 245–247 Co-operation of Europe
Militarism, 245–247 Banal nationalism, 247 (OSCE), 263
Miller, A. J., 102 Canadian Nationalism, 58–65 Orwell, George, 245
Miller, Damian, 180 National Sport Organizations Osaka, Naomi, 107
Miller, Roy, 180 (NSOs), 138, 160 Osborn, Duffield, 193
Milliat, Alice, 43 National Sports Act, 59 The Ottawa Senators, 61
Mills, C. W., 13, 14, 26, 125, 146, National Sports Organization Our Guys, 199
168, 360 (NSO), 262 Out of Bounds: Women, Sport &
Millington, Brad, 330, 367, 369 National/state-level politics, 265–266 Sexuality, 43
Mind, Self, and Society, 38 National Women’s Hockey League Ownership forms, 295–296
Minimum wage, 80 (NWHL), 243 Own the Podium (OTP), 275
Minister of State for Fitness and Neo, H., 343
Amateur Sport, 32 Neoliberalism, 153, 315 P
Minor hockey for boys, 61–63 Neoliberal policies, 310 Pacific Coast Hockey Association
Minority, 97 Neoliberal principles, 358 (PCHA), 61
Misener, L., 301 Netflix, 233 Pain, 173
Mixed martial arts (MMA), 188 New York Times, 335 Pankration, 188
Modernization, 57 Niagara Turf Club, 101 Paradigm Sports, 159
Modern Olympic Games, 301 Nike, 313 Paralympic Games, 172
“Modern” sport, 57 Nongovernmental organizations Paraschak, Victoria, 95, 96
Modes of production, 34 (NGOs), 359–360 ParticipACTION Report Card on
Monopoly, 290 Non-whitestream race, 101–104 Physical Activity for Children and
Monopsony, 290 Norman, Mark, 8, 137, 231, 369 Youth, 152
Montgomery, Jon, 181 The North American Chinese Participatory sport, 358–359
Montreal Amateur Athletic Invitational Volleyball Patriarchy, 123
Association, 60 ­tournament, 102–103 Pavlovich, K., 344
The Montreal Canadiens, 61 North American Indigenous Games Peacock, Byron, 263
Montreal Pedestrian Club, 101 (NAIG), 45, 53, 103 Peers, Danielle, 167
Moon, Warren, 108, 109 Northern Games Society, 108 Perks, Thomas, 149
Moore, Steve, 196 Nylander, William, 74 Petherick, L., 157
Moral codes, 181 Physical activity, 358–362
Moral panic, 148, 175 O Physical culture, 216
Morin, Marie-Pierre, 67 O’Brien, M. J., 61 definition, 12–13
Moroz, S., 182 Ogi, Adolf, 322 future of, 371–373

Index 407
Physical literacy, 155–156 National Hockey League, 287–288 Robinson, Jackie, 108
Pitter, Robert, 109–110 public policy, 299–301 Robinson, Laura, 205, 245
The Players’ Tribune, 201 Reserve Clause, 290–291 Rogers Communications
Policy salary caps and luxury taxes, Incorporated (RCI), 74
definition, 258–261 293–295 Rooney Rule, 99
professional sports leagues, sponsorship revenues, 298 Rosentraub, M. S., 284
288–289 structure and policy, 288–289 Rowing World Championships, 58
Political community, 258 team outcomes, 295–298 Roxborough, Henry, 41
Politics, 258 tickets pricing, 297–298 Rubin, Gayle, 123, 125
athlete assistance, 275–277 work stoppages, 291–292 Russian Anti-Doping Agency
counter-hegemonic, 259 Prolympism, 146–147, 361 (RUSADA), 74, 178
deep politics, 266–267 Promotional politics, 268 Rypien, Rick, 197
definition, 258–261 Pronger, B., 213
of high performance sport, Prosumption, 235 S
275–277 The Protestant Ethic, 35 Safai, Parissa, 210
international/global, 263–265 Provincial Sport Organizations Salary caps, 293–295
national/state-level, 265–266 (PSOs), 160 Sanderson, Don, 196
principal currency, 259 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League
and sport intersect, 262–263 Q (SJHL), 58, 99–100
of sports mega-events, 267–272 Quasi-criminal violence, 190 Saturday Night, 194
Pollard, Fritz, 109 Quebec Major Junior League Satzewich, V., 107
Positive deviance, 175, 219 (QMJHL), 294 Saunders, Doug, 364, 365
The Poverty of Philosophy, 82 Quennerstedt, M., 156 Scherer, Jay, 1, 8, 231, 261, 355, 369
Power, 83, 259 Scott, Dan, 335
sociology, 17–19 R Self, 39
sport and, 10–12 Raby, R., 147 Semenya, Caster, 44
Power Games: A Political History of the Race, 96 Sex
Olympics, 42 media, 247–248 binary system, 122–123
Practical consciousness, 7–8, 97, 212 patterns, 108–111 and gender differences, 129–130
Pray, Leslie, 368 relations, 98–101 tests, 44, 132–133
Precautionary approach, 335, 346 sport, 106–108 Sex-segregated Sport, 154
Predestination, 35 structure, 97–101 Sexual assault, 160
Preston Rivulettes, 65 theory, 104–105 Sexuality, 243–245
Private sector, 359–360 Racism, 68–69, 107 Seymena, Caster, 132
Professionalism, 62 Rebagliati, Ross, 168 Shanahan, S., 147
Professional Sports Broadcasting Recolonialism, 113 Shan, Zhang, 130
Rights, Network Payments Recreational facilities, 154 Shoemaker, Jarrod, 334
for, 233 Redmen, 113 Ski cross, 220
Professional sports leagues, 284–285 Reductionist paradigm, 212 Ski jumping, 66, 130
attendance, 296 Renold, Emma, 126 Slack, T., 4
Canadian Football League, 285–286 Residential schools, 69, 149 Smith, C., 80
cartel, 289–290 Retrosi, Samantha, 203 Smith, G., 4
collective bargaining, 291–292 Revenue streams, 296–298 Smith, M. D., 189, 190, 192
entry drafts, 293 Reverse racism, 103 Smith, Tommie, 8
Free Agency, 290–291 Richard, Maurice, 60 Soccer, 32
international issues, 301–302 Richards, Cabral, 248 Soccernomics (2009), 32
Major League Baseball, 286 Rickey, Branch, 108 Sochi Games, 137
Major League Soccer, 286 Riddell, C., 80 Social change, 55
media revenues, 298 Riddell, W., 78 Social class, 81
mega-event bidding and costs, Ridge, Glen, 199 Social conflict, 34
302–303 Rielly, Morgan, 74 Social construction, 124–125
mega-event legacy effects, 303–304 Risk society, 182 Social control, deviance, 174
Monopsony Power, 290–291 Ritchie, Ian, 25, 104, 176 Social determinants of health
National Basketball Association, 286 Ritzer, G., 310 (SDOH), 217, 218
National Football League, 287 Robidoux, Michael, 40 Social facts, 31

408 Index
Social gradient, 218 definition, 10–12 emergence, 321–322
Social integration, 31 development in Canada, 56–58 research, 323–324
Socialization, 148–150 deviance, 169 Sport mega-event (SME), 258,
and sport, 40 drugs in, 175–176 267–272
Social learning theory, 191, 192 ecological modernization, 341–347 environmental impacts, 336–338
Social science, 5 emergence of, 6 politics, 267–272
Social stratification, 74–76 female athletes, 128–129 Sports and Global Warming, 333
early theories, 82–87 formal vs. informal, 11 SportsCenter, 128
financial burden, 87–89 francophones, 105–106 SportsCentre, 248
fundamental equalities, 75 functions of, 31–33 Sports crowd violence, 189
social inequality, 75–81 future of, 371–373 Sports–media complex, 235
unequal class relations, 87–89 hazing in, 204–205 Sports-related violence (SRV),
Social structure, 17 income and involvement in, 3 189–190, 203
resource category, 17 inequalities in, 3 Sport typing, 129
rule category, 17 international/global politics, Stade Olympique, 271
Sociological imagination, 13–17, 263–265 Standard sociological variables, 4
54–55, 168, 189, 193–194 journalism, 249–251 Stände, 83, 84
Sociological theory meaning of, 6 Stanley Cup, 60
conflict theory, 36–38 mental health, 215 Stanley, Frederick Arthur, 60
critical, 41–46 microsociology, 40 Staudohar, P. D., 291
criticisms of functionalism, 33 mirror, 5 Stepnisky, J., 310
everyday experiences, 38–40 national/state-level politics, 265–266 Steroids, 176
functions of sport, 31–33 non-Anglophones in, 3 Stigma, 181
historical context, 28–29 opportunities and pleasurable Stockholm Consensus, 133
putting theories, 30 ­experiences, 4 Strikes, 291
social facts, 31 participation, 87–89 Structural-functionalism, 30
social integration, 31 and physical activity, 3, 4 Subban, P. K., 110, 247
structural-functionalism, 30 and physical culture, 104–105 Subcultures, 40
theory vs. common sense, 26–27 politics intersect and, 262–263 Suicide, 32
Sociologists popularity and visibility of, 10 Suicide: A Study in Sociology, 30
activities, 6–7 power and performance model Summit Series, 264
change strategies, 373–374 of, 7–8 Supercrip, 174
roles of, 6 questions and political issues, 5 2005 Supreme Court, 124
Sociology race, 106–108 Sustainability, 332
agency, 17 and sexual assault, 160 Symbolic capital, 85
hegemony, 19 social construction of, 11 Symbolic interactionism, 39
ideology, 19 social issues in, 7 Szto, Courtney, 100
issues, 29 social stratification, 74–76 Szymanski, Stefan, 32
power, 17–19 social world and, 5
social structure, 17 society and, 5–6 T
of sport, 6–10 sociological analysis of, 4 Tavares, John, 74
Sock Diplomacy, 261–262 sociological variables in, 4 Taylor, T., 149
Soebbing, Brian P., 283 sociology, 5–10 Televised sports manhood
South African Non-Racial Olympic stratification of, 6 formula, 244
Committee (SAN-ROC), 260 sustainability and, 340–341 Terminology, 97
Spanish Indian Residential violence, 192 (see also Violence) Thibault, L., 301
School, 111 women in, 3 Thompson, Shona, 43
The Spirit of Capitalism, 35 Sport and Social Clubs of Canada Thorpe, H., 324
Spoiled identity, 181 (SSCC), 130 Tirone, S., 102
Sport Sport-driven environmental impacts, Tolerable deviance, 169
brain trauma, 221 338–339 Toronto Blue Jays, 250
conflict theory and, 36–38 Sport ethic, 175 Toronto Daily Star, 64
culture, 200–202 Sport for Development and Peace Toronto FC, 232
death in, 220 (SDP) Toronto Maple Leafs, 74, 232, 250
deep politics, 266–267 concept and practice, 311 Toronto Raptors, 232

Index 409
Total income, 79 contemporary sport, 195–198 Workers’ Sports Association of
Tough-guy masculinity, 127 costs and consequences, 196–197 Canada, 41
Traceurs, 361 criminal, 190 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA),
Transfrontier inequity, 332 critical framework, 198–202 74, 168, 178–179, 367
Transgender, 123, 133–134 historical sensitivity, 193–194 World Chess Boxing Organization, 10
Transsexuals, 123 injury and sport culture, 200–202 World Cup, 264, 302
Travers, Ann, 133 institutionalization, 193 World Indigenous Games, 53
Tripping Up Trump, 349 male athlete violence, 198–200 World Rock Paper Scissors
Trudeau, Justin, 32, 261–262 masculinity, 193–194 Society, 10
Trudeau, Pierre, 32, 46, 261 quasi-criminal, 190 World Track and Field
Truman, Harry, 317–318 sociological imagination, 193–194 Championships, 32
Trump, Donald, 312, 362 sports-related, 202–205 World War I, 61
Truth and Reconciliation theories, 191–192 World War II, 317, 356
Commission (TRC), 69, 113–114 Vívofit® jr., 155
Turkle, S., 367 Voices for Democracy (VFD), 259
Vision of the future, 368
X
X Games, 159
U
Ultimate Fighting Championship W
(UFC), 188 Wagamese, Richard, 69 Y
Uncertainty of outcome, 288 Walvin, James, 126 Young, K., 189, 202, 204, 214,
Union wage, 80 Wamsley, K. G., 59 222, 223
United Nations Human Development War minus the shooting, 245 Youth agency, 324
Index, 318 Weak at the Knees, 223 Youth sport
United Nations Inter-Agency Task Weber, Max, 35–36, 76, 83–84 alternative, 158–159
Force on Sport for Development Weekes, Kevin, 247 digital health technologies,
and Peace, 216 Weir, Johnny, 245 155–156
US Open Golf Championships, 9 Western Hockey League (WHL), 294 disability, 151
Wheaton, B., 361 dropout, 156–158
V White, P. G., 214, 223 parents, coaches, ethics, and fair
play, 159–161
Vancouver 2010, 272–275 Whitestream society, 100
Whitestream sport system, 102, 110 participation, 150–152
Vancouver Organizing Committee
Whitson, D., 4, 10, 59, 61 physical literacy, 155–156
(VANOC), 18, 273
Willis, Katie, 67 policies, recommendations, and
Van, Lindsey, 130
Wilson, Brian, 1, 330, 355, 359, 369 guidelines, 152–154
Ventresca, Matt, 198
Wimbledon, 9 prolympism, 146–148
Vertinsky, P., 12, 54
Winfree, J. A., 284 socialization, 148–150
Vick, Michael, 180
Winter X Games, 159 withdrawal, 156–158
Vietnam War, 8
Vincent, John, 174 Women’s hockey, 63–65
Violence Women’s sport Z
borderline, 190 transformation, 137–139 Zimbalist, Andrew, 42
classification, 189–191 Women’s Sport Network (WTSN), 243 Zoricic, Nik, 220

410 Index