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| CHAPTER 1
Introduction:
Sport and Policy |
Sport has become an important aspect of government policy intervention, as evidenced by the number of nations articulating a discrete ‘sport policy’ with concomitant funding and support for elite and community sport development initiatives. Bergsgard, Houlihan, Mangset, Nødland and Rommetvedt (2007) argued that national governments consider sport to be an important facet of economic and social activity for three reasons. First, sport is of strong cultural significance to most developed nations, which is demonstrated by the amount of media attention devoted to national team success and the support for the construction of major stadia and other sporting infrastructure with public funds. Second, sport is considered a resource that can be used to help deliver non-sport objectives, such as demonstrating political power, combating social exclusion, reducing childhood obesity, improving economic development and facilitating urban regeneration. Third, sport is multi-dimensional in that it is not only a public service, but also an important aspect of welfare provision and facet of economic activity. Thus, it can contribute in many ways to the achievement of government objectives outside of sport policy that is focussed on instrumental aspects of sport, such as improving the performance of elite athletes and increasing participation in sport.
The reasons that governments support elite sport through mechanisms such as the creation of elite sports institutes, hypothecation of lottery funds for sporting infrastructure and targeted operational funding have been well-documented (cf. Green & Houlihan, 2005). Similarly, government policies aimed at increasing participation levels and general sport development have also been the subject of scholarly debate (cf. Coalter, 2007; DaCosta & Miragaya, 2002; Houlihan & White, 2002; Hylton & Bramham, 2008; Hylton, Bramham, Jackson & Nesti, 2001). The intersection of the sport industry with government policy, however, is not limited to what is generally accepted to come under the purview of ‘sport policy’. Governments also enact policies that seek to regulate the actions of sport organizations as well as utilize sport for the accomplishment of other government policy goals.
One of the earliest attempts to analyse the intersection of sport with public policy was the edited volume prepared by Johnson and Frey (1985:13) who argued that ‘sports activities are affected in myriad ways by public policy decisions’. They reasoned that, even in the 1980s, the nature of sport becoming big business, coupled with ‘a general change in the values and norms of society affecting public expectations of government [that the sport industry had] become a legitimate area of interest for government’ (Johnson & Frey, 1985:13). While the focus of their book was primarily the US sports industry and the impact of public policy on the broad areas of athletes, sports administration and public interests, it was one of the first concerted efforts to explore the questions of what might be the role of government in sport: should government intervene in sport through the development of public policy, and if it did, were public policy interventions more or less successful than market forces. Some 20 years later, Houlihan noted that ‘sport is a focus for a growing volume of state regulatory activity’ (Houlihan, 2005:164) and that ‘the increasingly prominent role of the state as variously promoter, regulator, resource provider, manipulator and exploiter of sport is beyond challenge’ (Houlihan, 2005:182).
This book explores those areas of government policy that fall outside what can be described as ‘sport policy’. These include policies that seek to regulate the organizational practices of sport organizations, policies aimed at regulating how individuals might participate in particular sporting activities, policies enacted that are meant to protect individuals involved in sport, policies to control gambling associated with sport, policies controlling how sport is broadcast by the media and how physical education is delivered. Aside from areas of government policy that focus on regulation, governments have also sought to use sport as a vehicle or conduit for the achievement of wider policy agendas, such as seeking to increase physical activity and health, assisting to facilitate urban regeneration and economic development and enhancing social inclusion and community development. All of these policy areas significantly impact sport, and in particular the community sport systems and organizations that deliver much of the sport participation and competition opportunities within countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. These three broad areas of government policy intersections with sport are depicted in Table 1.1.
The focus of this book is an exploration of the impact and effect of the policies that are distinct from what can generally be considered as sport policy – namely the middle (regulatory intersections) and right-hand (wider policy goals) columns in Table 1.1. This chapter presents a brief analysis of the focus of sport policy studies, including the elements that comprise sport policy and the instruments used to achieve sport policy outcomes. This provides the background to our arguments for a wider analysis of government policy that influences the sport system. The chapter also identifies in more detail the areas of government policy that fall outside what is commonly understood to be sport policy and poses a number of questions worthy of investigation in order to understand the effects of government policy intersections with sport.
| Table 1.1 | Broad Areas of Government Policy Intersections with Sport |
| Sport Policy Foci | Regulatory Intersections | Wider Policy Areas |
- Elite sport development
- Anti-doping or drug control
- Increasing mass participation
- Increasing capacity of the community sport system
| - Organizational practices adopted by sport
- Sport activity
- Protecting members of sport organizations
- Wagering and betting associated with sport
- Sport broadcasting
- Physical education policy
| - Using sport to address poor physical activity levels and ameliorate community health issues
- Using sport for urban regeneration and economic development
- Using sport to improve social inclusion and facilitate community development
|
SPORT POLICY ISSUES AND RESEARCH
Houlihan (2005:163) suggested that while other policy areas have been the subject of extensive analysis, sport policy ‘has remained on the margins’. This is in contrast to the recognition by many governments that sport is an important area of policy. Houlihan (2005:163) argued that although ‘few governments in the 1960s gave any explicit budgetary or ministerial recognition to sport, by the mid-1990s sport was an established feature in the machinery of government in most economically developed countries’. These developments have gradually resulted in more academic interest in the area of public policy in sport, an interest that has intensified as governments more frequently view sport as a panacea for a diversity of social and economic concerns.
The focus of national sport policies of western countries is generally accepted as being the twin objectives of enhancing elite sport performance and increasing the proportion of people involved in formalized competitive sport or physical activity (Bergsgard et al., 2007; Green & Houlihan, 2005; Stewart, Nicholson, Smith & Westerbeek, 2004). It is also possible to identify two further policy objectives – ensuring a fair playing field and developing the capacity of the community sport system – that have achieved prominence within the sport policies of countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. The ‘fair play’ policy agenda has been dominated by anti-doping and drug policies, which have sought to control (mainly) performance-enhancing drug use in sport. The capacity of the community sport system in Commonwealth countries has generally been conceptualized as management improvement in the sport sector, and has primarily focussed on national sport organizations and clubs. The increasing attention devoted to the issue of drugs in sport is undeniably linked to concerns about the integrity of elite sport (and thus one of the key and most highly visible policy vehicles for government). On the other hand, management improvement programs are often framed around generic issues related to governance and organizational performance. However, even in the area of management improvement, governments have been concerned to maximize the value of their investment in sport. The interest in management improvement that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s engendered more ‘business-like’ and commercial approaches to managing sport. The consequences of these developments included the dilution of traditional democratic approaches to representative governance processes and a shift to a model encouraging people with business, marketing and entrepreneurial experience be appointed to boards. Such developments served to reinforce the largely instrumental paradigm evident in government priorities and the subservience of other policy concerns to elite performance, rationality and professionalization.
Sport policies are therefore arguably focussed on the achievement of instrumental outcomes, such as delivering elite success, increasing the talent pool of participants to support elite sport, ensuring sport is drug free and supporting the actions of community sport organizations to recruit and retain volunteer coaches, officials and administrators. Sport policies are usually encapsulated in a central policy statement that is the responsibility of a central sport agency such as the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) or Sport Canada. A common element of many western sport policies is the delivery of elite support programs through an elite sport institute. The development and debate associated with the elements that comprise a nation's sport policy are also usually restricted to a specific sport policy community made up of national sport organizations, national sport leagues, central government agencies and specific interest groups.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of sport policy research has tended to mirror the issues that comprise sport policy and have been focussed on topics such as elite sport (Bergsgard et al., 2007; De Bosscher, De Knop, van Bottenburg & Shibli, 2006; Green, 2005; Green & Houlihan, 2005; Green & Oakley, 2001; Houlihan & Green, 2008), or on broader topics, such as economic development and urban regeneration (Gratton & Henry, 2001) and sport development (Coalter, 2007; DaCosta & Miragaya, 2002; Houlihan & White, 2002; Hylton & Bramham, 2008; Hylton etal., 2001). There have also been a number of country-specific studies (Green, 2004, 2006; Oakley & Green, 2001; Sam & Jackson, 2004; Stewart et al., 2004) and a number of studies that have explored different approaches to the analysis of sport policy its...
