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Sport in a Credit Crunched Consumer Culture

Sport in a Credit Crunched Consumer Culture This brief rapid response article suggests a few ways in which modern competitive sport and large-scale sport events have developed in line with the logic of (late) capitalist modernity. It considers the impact of the credit crunch for recent trends in sport and suggests that the sociological study of sport faces the same concerns as other sociological domains of interest during the current economic conditions whilst having its own specific public issues and private troubles to consider. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Sociological Research Online SAGE

Sport in a Credit Crunched Consumer Culture

Sociological Research Online , Volume 14 (2): 6 – Mar 1, 2009

Sport in a Credit Crunched Consumer Culture

This brief rapid response article suggests a few ways in which modern competitive sport and large-scale sport events have developed in line with the logic of (late) capitalist modernity. It considers the impact of the credit crunch for recent trends in sport and suggests that the sociological study of sport faces the same concerns as other sociological domains of interest during the current economic conditions whilst having its own specific public issues and private troubles to consider. Keywords: Sport, Physical Activity, Credit Crunch, Capitalism, Consumer Culture Introduction 1.1 At the end of the first decade of the 21st century we are faced with a new political environment in the midst of an old type of economic crisis. The financial system that helped fuel the consumer culture of the past 25 years is in chaos. Yet recession, deflation, rising unemployment, declining purchasing power, were all features of the environment for sport and leisure in capitalist Britain surveyed in the early 1980s (e.g. see Clarke & Critcher, 1985). The impact of the current socio-economic situation on specific social groups and their responses to it are as of much interest today as they were a quarter of a century ago. In this rapid response article therefore we consider the impact of the credit crunch for recent trends in sport. 1.2 Our argument is as follows. Many of the apparently "fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions" in sport, as in much else, have been undermined in the past 25 years (Marx & Engels 1969 [1848] p. 46). The current recession will heighten market-driven changes that have impacted on sport, especially professional sport. Yet in this economic context the place of sport in people's lives will continue to exhibit the paradoxes of life in consumer culture. Sport may be seen as a means of resisting as well as subscribing to these conditions. Much contemporary sport is both a product of...
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References (15)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 2009 SAGE Publications and the British Sociological Association
eISSN
1360-7804
DOI
10.5153/sro.1920
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This brief rapid response article suggests a few ways in which modern competitive sport and large-scale sport events have developed in line with the logic of (late) capitalist modernity. It considers the impact of the credit crunch for recent trends in sport and suggests that the sociological study of sport faces the same concerns as other sociological domains of interest during the current economic conditions whilst having its own specific public issues and private troubles to consider.

Journal

Sociological Research OnlineSAGE

Published: Mar 1, 2009

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