society

There’s a popular story that goes something like this: investing time, money, and resources into performance-sport will in turn contribute to improving public health. It’s a nice tale, and variations of it have been told over and over in the past few decades. The ideas at the core of it are so embedded in politics, policy, media, everyday conversations, and even some scholarship, that few question it. After all, watching world-class athletes perform clearly inspires people to be active, doesn’t it? And sport is healthy, isn’t it? Common stories would make us believe the answer to these questions is “yes”. But the truth, as our recent paper shows, is far less rosy and far more complicated.

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Sport has long been intertwined with the study of human movement in North American post-secondary education. Whereas traditionally, the study of human movement and sport was housed within physical education programs, it is now predominantly offered through kinesiology programs that, more than ever before, align with narrowly defined health sciences. Much like how the Olympics celebrate “faster, higher, stronger” sporting bodies and performances, the current focus of kinesiology as a field of study is increasingly linked to an Olympic-like emphasis on educating students on how to produce “faster, higher, stronger” bodies, optimize performance, and individualizing narratives of health promotion. This intense fixation on functional movement and on narrow conceptualizations of health stands in contrast to kinesiology’s origins as “…the best option in promoting a broad-based disciplinary, professional, and performance approach to the study of physical activity” (Newell, 1990, p. 273). As scholars who study sport from a sociological perspective, we are concerned with these approaches to the study of human movement, as they minimize larger social forces and/or societal structures that impact experience of, access to, and opportunity for physical activity and sport.

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In 2024, the Rubik’s Cube, the puzzle invented by the Hungarian professor of architecture Ernő Rubik, celebrates its 50th anniversary. We would like to take this opportunity to discuss how important Rubik’s invention has been to humanity. It is estimated that approximately one in seven people in the world have at least attempted to solve the Rubik`s Cube. This amounts to over a billion people. Rubik himself writes in his biography, Cubed: The Puzzle of Us All, that the cube can bring out important qualities in each of us that are central to utilizing our creative potential, such as sharpening concentration, arousing curiosity, and activating the eagerness to discover solutions. The Rubik’s Cube has received attention in many different fields since its invention, including art, science, pedagogy, technology, politics, and philosophy. Not only that, the Rubik’s Cube has led to the creation of a new sport: speedcubing.

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Ignorance is an activity, it isn’t simply not knowing but a form of knowing supported by the socio-political system. –Lisa Slater

It is well documented that youth sport teaches young people life lessons – about themselves, the importance of teamwork, etc. In this short reflexive essay (drawn from a larger book project), I consider another kind of education at work in youths’ encounters with sport in settler states – countries founded upon the theft of land from Indigenous peoples: it teaches young settlers, in particular, about their place in the world, their “right” to live on stolen lands.

Here, I take up selected fragments of my childhood and youth, interrogating how my encounters with sport (as both a participant and a consumer) shaped my understandings of myself and my belonging on lands claimed by Canada. I consider, in the words of social scientist Lisa Slater, some of the “dimly lit memories” that provide clues to my developing sense of self.

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The increasing public recognition of direct links between sports, social issues, and politics poses a challenging question: what should we watch? If we watched the 2022 Beijing Olympics despite concerns about IOC policy and China’s human rights record and repressive surveillance, does that make us bad people? If we watch the 2022 World Cup in Qatar despite concerns about FIFA motives along with the rights of migrant workers and LGBTQ people, does that make us complicit?

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“What do you do in the middle of a pandemic, when winter weather has arrived and almost every form of recreation is banned? Build an outdoor ice rink.” This was the question CBC Manitoba asked its readers—and answered for them—in December 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic’s second wave. A month later, firefighters in rural Ontario were filling backyard rinks for residents, and CTV highlighted pandemic induced backyard rinks from Ottawa to the Maritime provinces.

Outdoor ice rinks play a significant social and cultural role in the construction of a collective Canadian identity; from the romantic images of children scrimmaging on frozen ponds in commercials for Tim Hortons coffee shops, to the National Hockey League’s Winter Classic games, outdoor hockey is painted with nostalgia and innocence, as the game in its purest form. So, when backyard rinks had a renaissance during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not surprising the Canadian media viewed such a development as worthy of celebration. Yet, as we face another winter marked by the pandemic, it is important to consider that, despite these media images, many Canadians have not been able to stick-handle “around the pandemic on [their] backyard rink.”

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Tennis star Naomi Osaka declared she would not participate in press conferences prior to the 2021 French Open. Reactions to her refusal were filled with anger and criticism. In a deleted tweet, Roland Garros posted images of athletes doing press work with the text, “They understood the assignment.” Early reporting provided lip-service to Osaka’s concern for her own mental health while emphasizing other players, such Rafael Nadal, disagreed with her. Similarly, tennis icon Billie Jean King criticized Osaka for avoiding media since the press helps build the sport. Others characterized her as a self-centered, childish millennial unwilling to sacrifice like other athletes. And after assessing a $15,000 fine for not meeting contractual media obligations, she was further threatened with suspension from other major tournaments.

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Numerous European attendance records have been set at soccer matches in Glasgow, Scotland; 147,365 spectators attended the 1937 Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park, 149,415 were at the 1937 Scotland vs England match, and 136,505 attended Celtic vs Leeds United in 1970. In all these instances, supporters—the vast majority working class men—stood on steep, mostly uncovered, terraces. Such a design characterised virtually all British soccer stadiums at the time. Getting as many people as possible into the stadium meant little regard for sanitation, comfort, provision of food, and safety.

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In March 2020, COVID-19 abruptly halted sport as we know it across almost all ages, levels, and communities in North America and much of the world. In a matter of days we went from sport to no sport—from sport everywhere to nowhere. So what does this mean for sports fans and for society in general? What are the implications of a society without sport?

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The COVID-19 pandemic has systemically disrupted sport organizations and spectator sporting events around the world. Major and minor sporting events have been cancelled, youth sports have been put on hold, and professional leagues have followed the National Basketball Association (NBA) in suspending their current seasons. “Social distancing” largely underpins these unprecedented adjustments, as sport organizations heed the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus. The disruptions will undoubtedly result in a financial hit for leagues, teams and players, and exacerbate the precarious economic situations of low-wage stadium and arena workers. For women’s sports, the pandemic has meant the sudden interruption of recent progress made in the push for greater financial equity and media coverage. Amidst fears of a pending economic recession, American consumers now must adapt to living without much of their common sporting entertainment for at least the near future.

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