Consuming Sport

Fans, Sport and Culture

Garry Crawford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415288910
• eBook ISBN: 9781134440689
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Consuming Sport offers a detailed consideration of how sport is experienced and engaged with in the everyday lives, social networks and consumer patterns of its followers. It examines the processes of becoming a sport fan, and the social and moral career that supporters follow as their involvement develops over a life-course.The book argues that while for many people sport matters, for many more, it does not. Though for some sport is significant in shaping their social and cultural identity, it is often consumed and experienced by others in quite mundane and everyday ways, through the media images that surround us, conversations overheard and in the clothing of people we pass by.As well as developing a new theory of sport fandom the book links this discussion to wider debates on audiences, fan cultures and consumer practices. The text argues that for far too long consideration of sport fans has focused on exceptional forms of support ignoring the myriad of ways in which sport can be experienced and consumed in everyday life.

Part I

1 Introduction

This is a book about sport fans¹. If, for a moment, we adopt the (theoretical) model that a cultural product involves three stages or components, those of production, text and audience, which is frequently applied to many cultural studies (for instance, Longhurst 1995), then the focus of this book is primarily placed upon the third of these components – the audience. However, the argument advocated within this book is that this division between the ‘parts’ of a cultural product (be that music, television or sport) is never as clear-cut as this model would appear to suggest.

Audiences within many cultural studies have frequently been viewed as the end-point or even as a by-product of processes of cultural production, and hence, are largely irrelevant compared with the central importance of these processes and the text itself. However, what I wish to argue in this book is that consumers of cultural products may also be crucial in the production of these and even constitute part of the text itself. For instance, many sport supporters will frequently produce or contribute to Internet sites, fanzines and radio discussions, which are then consumed by others. Furthermore, it is sport fans themselves who help create the atmosphere at ‘live’ sport venues, constituting a major part of the text that is viewed and consumed by other audience members; both in the ‘live’ venue and via mass media sources. It is also the consumers of cultural products, such as sporting events, who help give these their meaning and social importance, through their conversations, patterns of consumption and social interaction. However, it is the meanings and sensibilities of fans that are often overlooked in discussions of sport; as White and Wilson (1999: 259) write: ‘many sociological questions remain unanswered, especially those related to the meanings that social groups place on sport spectatorship in general or on different sports in particular’. Hence, this book focuses specifically on the meanings, experiences and consumer patterns of contemporary sport fans.

To say that this book is primarily concerned with acts of consumption does not mean that this book is solely about the use of material goods, such as replica team jerseys, though these inevitably constitute part of this discussion. Lury (1996: 1) defines consumer culture as part of a wider material culture, which she uses to refer to a ‘person–thing’ relationship. However, I wish to use the term consumption in a much looser sense than this, and suggest that not all acts of consumption necessarily involve material goods. For instance, consumption can also involve ‘person–person’ relationships, where individuals may observe and ‘consume’ the actions and performances of others, such as in watching a sporting event. This is evident in the work of Holt (1995) who uses the actions and sentiments of baseball fans attending Wrigley Field as illustrative of patterns of consumer behaviour.

It is also important to recognize that not all fan activity directly involves acts of consumption. For instance, Anthony Cohen (1985: 98) suggests that it is primarily in the thoughts and minds of members of a community, and not necessarily its structures and their behaviour that its culture exists. Much of what makes someone a fan is what is located within her or his personal identity, memories, thoughts and social interactions. However, much of this will relate, either directly or indirectly, to acts of consumption. For instance, the memories, thoughts and conversations of sport fans will often relate to events people have attended, games they have seen on television, consumer goods they have bought or seen, and similar acts of consumption.

Hence, it is my assertion that though not all fan related activities can be seen as directly involving acts of consumption, being a fan is primarily a consumer act and hence fans can be seen first and foremost as consumers². This is particularly apparent if we follow the line of argument set out by Bauman (1998a), amongst others, that in late-capitalist societies, such as the UK, consumption has become of central importance.

The social significance of consumption has been an important feature of discussions of social relations for over a century. For instance, Miles (1998) indicates that though it was production that was the chief concern of much of Marx's work, in his discussion of ‘commodification’³, Marx (1970 [1864]) provides one of the founding blocks in the theoretical understanding of how products acquire an exchange-value above and beyond their use-value. Furthermore, Veblen in 1899 considered the consumer patterns of the emergent American nouveaux riches of the late nineteenth century, while Simmel (1990 [1907]) as well as his consideration of the importance of monetary-exchange, presented a significant perspective on the use of consumption and fashion within everyday life and as an expression and marker of social ‘individuality’.

However, Bauman suggests ‘our’ (contemporary Western late-capitalist) society has witnessed a significant shift towards the primacy of consumption within social relations. Bauman (1998a: 26) argues that where all prior societies have been primarily producer societies (before an individual could fully participate in society, they had to be producers or at least part of the production process), in ‘our’ society an individual ‘needs to be a consumer first, before one can think of becoming anything in particular’.

Likewise, the role and location of consumption has become an increasingly significant characteristic (particularly for fans and followers) of contemporary sport within late-modern societies. As Coakley (1994: 303) writes: ‘throughout history sport has always been used as a form of entertainment. However, sports have never been so heavily packaged, promoted, presented and played as commercial products as they are today.’

Giulianotti (2002) suggests that sport has witnessed an increased commodification (particularly in Britain and North America) since the 1960s. In particular, Giulianotti cites the examples of how Taylor (1971) and Critcher (1979) consider the commodification and commercialization of association football in Britain in the 1960s and how Alt (1983: 100) likewise discusses North American sport fans’ increasing tendency to ‘shop around the franchise marketplace’ for more successful teams (cited in Giulianotti 2002: 28). However, Giulianotti suggests that since the late-1980s sport (and in particular he cites the example of association football) has witnessed a much more rapid commercialization and (what he refers to as) a ‘hypercommodification’:

. . . this hypercommodification has been driven by the extraordinary and different volumes of capital that have entered the game [association football] from entirely new sources: satellite and pay-per-view television networks, Internet and telecommunications corporations, transnational sports equipment manufacturers, public relations companies, and the major stock markets through the sale of club equity (ibid.: 29).

Giulianotti (ibid.) suggests that this rapid ‘hypercommodification’ has been largely brought about by shifts within the nature of late-capitalist society and in particular moves towards ‘the contemporary condition of “disorganized capitalism’” – a term he borrows from Lash and Urry (1987).

Lash and Urry (1987: 2) suggest that Marx and Engels set out an extremely useful consideration of organized capitalism in the ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ that emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century in many Western societies. However, Lash and Urry argue that recently there has been a steady move towards disorganized capitalism characterized by transformations of time, space, economics and culture. This move to disorganized capitalism, Lash and Urry (1987: 5–7) argue, has been caused and is characterized by certain key developments in the nature of capitalist societies. These can be summarized as a decline in primary and secondary industries and industrial cities coupled with a move towards a greater emphasis on the tertiary (service) sector. Linked to this has been a decline in the ‘traditional’ working classes, and a rapid growth in a more affluent (white collar, service sector) working class. This period of change has also witnessed a decline in the collective bargaining power of the working classes, as traditional communities and trade unions fragment and collapse.

In particular, Lash and Urry (1987) suggest that the most significant change within the social hierarchies is the rapid growth of the service class (and decline of the traditional working class) in most capitalist Western societies from the 1960s onwards. As they state:

Old-style occupational communities have been undermined by the atomization of the worker; by higher wages and consumerism; by reduced work time; by individual mobility and changed residence patterns; and by the increased availability of highly differentiated consumer goods (1987: 228).

The service class, Lash and Urry argue, is a class not of producers but of consumers. Individual identities become more fluid, less fixed and increasingly based upon ‘life-styles’ – purchased ready-made through the ‘diverse myriad’ of consumer products and mass media sources. Popular culture for Lash and Urry becomes less class based and increasingly has ‘radical anti-hierarchical values’ and ‘anti-authoritarian popularism’ (1987: 15). The argument that identities become increasingly bought ready-made is considered further (and largely critiqued) in chapter eight, however Lash and Urry (amongst others) are useful in that they highlight the changing nature of contemporary society and the increased importance of patterns of consumption.

Hence, this book is concerned with the changing nature of society and primarily the changing nature of sport fans, their communities and cultures. However, it is also about continuity as well as change. In 1995 Wann and Hamlet made the (now frequently cited) observation that only around four per cent of all sport sociology and psychology focuses on sport fans. Though over the past few years the volume of research on fans has increased significantly, these discussions still continue to be primarily focused upon those (relatively few) fans who regularly attend ‘live’ sporting events – leaving largely ignored the myriad of ways fans can connect with sport via mass media sources, social interactions, memory and recall, in their everyday lives. There has also been a tendency to focus academic discussion on top-down macro-processes of change, such as processes of globalization and commercialization. These discussions tend to overlook aspects of continuity in the everyday lived experiences of fans and the importance and location of sport in social formations.

This book asserts that it is important to understand fan culture from the perspective of the everyday lived experiences, social interactions and identities of the fans themselves, as this affords insight into both the changes and continuities within these cultures. This book, then, is primarily about the agency of fans, however, it recognizes that to a large degree this agency will be shaped by the continued importance of structures in people's lives, such as gender, ethnicity and social class. However, before progressing further, it is important at this stage to recognize some of the key developments that have occurred within contemporary sport.

The changing nature of sport

In line with wider changes within late-capitalist societies, the nature of sport (being a significant and constituent part of most contemporary societies) has likewise witnessed considerable change and development in recent decades.

In many respects the assertion that the nature of contemporary sport is changing is largely a truism, as sport throughout all history in all societies (as with all societies themselves) has continued to change and develop in character, organization and social importance. Likewise, it would be mistaken to suggest that it is only within late-capitalist societies that sport has involved acts of consumption. For instance, if we accept sport spectating as a form of consumption (see later in this chapter), this has been present at most organized sports throughout history.

However, authors such as Giulianotti (2002) argue that many sports in contemporary late-capitalist societies have witnessed a rapid process of ‘hypercommodification’ resulting in the increased importance of commerce and consumerism within these. It is suggested that the contemporary relationship between sport and its followers has been most notably affected by the interrelated processes of increased involvement of big businesses in the running and organization of sport, the importance and influence of the mass media, processes of globalization, and more generally the changing nature of audiences in late-capitalist society – and it is to each of these I now turn.

First, Horne et al. (1999: 267) suggest that much of sports’ increased commercialization has been brought about by the involvement of ‘opportunist and maverick entrepreneurs’ in the organization and running of sport. In particular, they suggest business entrepreneurs such as Jack Kramer, Kerry Packer, Mark McCormack, Horst Dassler and Rupert Murdoch have been ‘key figures in this process’ of sports’ commercialization (ibid.). It was business people such as these who from the late 1970s onwards began to see the business opportunities and economic potential in professional sport around the world. It was Kramer who ‘sowed the seeds’ for the professionalization of tennis, McCormak who helped increase the potential earning power of golf's top players, and Packer who facilitated changes in the nature of world cricket such as the introduction of coloured clothing and flood-lit matches. Furthermore, Dassler made many of the world's sport governing bodies, such as the IOC and FIFA, increasingly aware of marketing, television and sponsorship opportunities, and Murdock and his multinational telecommunications company Sky brought about the transformation of association football and rugby league in England in the 1990s (ibid.).

What fuelled (and often went hand-in-hand with) this increased involvement of business entrepreneurs in world sport was the ever-growing relationship between sport and the mass media. Sport and the mass media have had an extremely long relationship stretching back for many centuries. For instance, Rowe (1999: 30) suggests that the reporting of cricket was an important part of London's newspapers ‘well before 1750’. Even the relationship between television and sport is one that has existed for well over half a century, with the BBC broadcasting the world's first ‘live’ television pictures of a soccer match in April 1938, and the launch of their first sport programme to have a full-time production team, Sportsview, in 1954 (Barnett 1990). However, for much of the twentieth century the relationship between sport and the mass media, and in particular television, was an uneasy one. For instance, in England association football resisted the ‘live’ coverage of football games up until 1983, and it was only due to escalating costs coupled with declining gates that the potential of income from sponsorship and television rights became too tempting for the games’ ruling bodies to refuse any longer (Whannel 1992).

However, since the late 1980s this association between sport and the mass media has become exceptionally strong as sport has increasingly recognized the potential of the mass media not only to pay large sums of money to cover sport but also the increased sponsorship opportunities this has allowed. This has enabled sponsors to reach a far greater audience, and has hence increased their willingness to invest heavily in sport. As Coakley (1994: 305) writes: ‘the media are closely associated with the commercialization of sports. They provide needed publicity and create and sustain spectator interest among large numbers of people. In the past, newspapers and radio did this job, but today television has the greatest effect on spectator involvement’.

In recent years television has increasingly drawn other cultural and leisure pursuits, including sport, into its domain – turning other forms of entertainment into a media spectacle (Whannel and Williams 1993: 2). It is evident that in Western (if arguably not global) societies, television has become an integral part of sport's presentation, contributing to the growth and popularity of many modern sports, and for many people (and for most of the time) sport is television sport (Whannel 1992: 1–3). In particular, Kellner (2001: 37) suggests that television has transformed sport into a ‘media extravaganza’; transforming it into ‘a spectacle that sells the values, products, celebrities, and institutions of the media and consumer society’ (ibid.: 38). Again, this relationship and transformation of sport can be tied to wider developments in the nature of late-capitalist societies, as sport (like many other aspects of ‘disorganized capitalism’) becomes ever more based around acts of consumption and increasingly transformed into a media package. As Kellner (ibid.: 39) continues his argument:

. . . the media are becoming ever more technologically dazzling and are playing an increasingly central role in everyday life. Under the influence of a postmodern image culture, seductive spectacles fascinate the denizens of the media and consumer society and involve them in the semiotics of a new world of entertainment.

Moreover, the strengthening of the affiliation between sport and television, to a large degree, has been brought about by rapid changes and developments in television related technologies, and in particular, the rise in cable, satellite and now digital television. The proliferation of new television networks has led to a rise in the number of subject specific channels and in particular specialist sport channels. Numerous examples, such as Sky television's buying up of exclusive rights to broadcast ‘live’ top-flight English association football in 1992, have demonstrated the public's willingness to buy new technologies to enable them to watch sport. The knock-on effect of this has often been that to compete with these new networks many terrestrial channels have likewise sought to increase their coverage of sport. For instance, following the Sky deal to secure exclusive ‘live’ coverage of the English FA Premier League, British terrestrial channels scrambled to sign broadcast rights to whatever remaining competitions existed, as well as bringing in coverage of foreign leagues and other sports. Likewise, technologies such as satellite television have allowed many sports to be broadcast much more widely, and many major sporting events such as the soccer World Cup and Olympic Games now attract enormous audiences and have become major global events, which leads me on to my third point, the globalization of sport.

There exists a great deal of ambiguity and confusion surrounding a clear definition of ‘globalization’. Sabo (1993: 2) defines globalization as a ‘growing interdependence among the world's societies’ and Giddens (1990) as an intensification of social relations at the world level, while Robertson (1992) defines this as ‘the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’ (cited in Harvey et al. 1996: 259). Likewise, there exists considerable disagreement over the origins of this process. Mennell (1990: 359) suggests that globalization is a ‘very long-term process’ that has existed for as long as the human race; Kern (1983) suggests it has occurred since the standardization of space and time negotiated through technological advances at the turn of the twentieth century, while Harvey et al. (1996: 260) argue that globalization has significantly intensified since the early 1980s with the increased power and scope of neo-liberal forces such as transnational corporations, international capital, neo-liberal economists and new-right p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I
• Part II: Studying sport fans
• Part III: The sport venue
• Part IV: Everyday life
• Part V
• Notes
• References