sport

Security breaches can be slippery slopes. Fortunately, Friday’s failed planejacking ended with the containment of a Ukranian passenger who, claiming there was a bomb on board, attempted to reroute a Pegasus Airlines flight to land in Sochi during the Olympic Opening Ceremony. This success corroborates the findings of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism:  given that there have been no consistent changes in number of terror attacks during the past five Games, efforts to reinforce Olympic security have generally been effective. However, with the number of terrorist attacks striking Russia skyrocketing from 50 in 2003 to 250 in 2010, public safety at the Sochi Olympics continues to be a top priority. Safety and surveillance measures taken by Olympic officials have been largely successful at mitigating increased risks, but we’re left wondering why sport mega events are targeted in the first place.

Does the “spectacularization” of the Olympics make the games an ideal arena for terror? A historical look at terrorist attacks on the Olympics sheds some light on potential risks facing host cities.

• Richard Pringle. 2012. “Debunking Olympic sized myths: government investment in Olympism in the context of terror and the risk society.” Educational Review,64(3), 303-316.

Social forces—such as  global economic conditions and professional network structures—shape the security and surveillance strategies at sport mega events. How do these strategies change as both security concerns and expenditure rise?

• Richard Giulianotti and Francisco Klauser. 2011. Special Issue: Security and Surveillance at Sport Mega Events. Urban Studies, 48, 3157-3168.

Well everyone, it looks like it’s that time of the year again! That time when men and women across the nation gather together in bars and living rooms to share in the great American pastime of…watching commercials? Of course, there’s that pro football game, too. But diehard fans know that the game breaks are where the real action is at. Corporations, it appears, also agree with this sentiment. Why else would they dole out around $4 million dollars for 30 seconds worth of ad time between plays? Given the Super Bowl’s chart-topping viewer ratings and its exorbitant costs for ad time, advertisers are willing to do all it takes to make their commercials leave a lasting impression. Yet, doing so is easier said than done. What kind of tactics have corporations used in the past?

Researchers argue that marketers are well aware of the male-centric bias of professional sports viewership and tend to focus products and ads that they think will appeal to them:

• Lawrence A. Wenner and Steven Jackson. 2009. “Sport, Beer, and Gender in Promotional Culture: On the Dynamics of a Holy Trinity.” In Sport, Beer, and Gender in Promotional Culture and Contemporary Social Life, 1–34. New York: Peter Lang.

As times and demographics change, however, so do the ads. For instance, Super Bowl ads in the early-to-mid 2000s relied on the trope of men as “happy losers” as a way of attracting a wider audience:

• Michael A. Messner and Jeffrey Montez de Oca. 2005. “The Male Consumer as Loser: Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Events.” Signs 30(3): 1879–1909.

In more recent years, though, researchers have noticed a backlash of sorts to the “happy loser” motif, with an increase in Super Bowl ads touting a supposed “crisis of masculinity”:

• Kyle Green and Madison Van Oort. 2013. ““We Wear No Pants”: Selling the Crisis of Masculinity in the 2010 Super Bowl Commercials.” Signs 38(3): 695-719.

Which theme will prevail this year? Watch and find out!

As of late, the media has paid more attention to  the Miami Dolphins’ locker room than their play on the gridiron. Much of this interest stems from off the field controversies regarding two of the team’s players, Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. Shortly after news broke that Martin had left the team to deal with “emotional issues,” it was revealed that he had been on the receiving end of a series of over-the-top hazing practices by Incognito. The practices in question involved numerous voicemails and text messages with racial slurs and threats of violence against him and his family. After initial public backlash towards Incognito and his inappropriate actions, many prominent figures around the league, including his teammates, have come to his defense. They and others argue that while Incognito’s antics may seem excessive to the public, they are acceptable, even appropriate, within the context of a professional sports locker room.

The enactment of hegemonic masculinity in professional sport reproduces steep hierarchies and exacts emotional and physical cost.

• Messner, Michael. 1992. Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity. Boston: Beacon.

Sport culture generates and affirms a masculinist social order both on and off the field.

• Burstyn, Varda. 1999. The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport. Toronto: University of Toronto Press

The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic torch will boldly go where no torch has gone before: to the moon. Travelling by plane, train, car, reindeer sleigh, and spacecraft as part of the 39,000 mile relay involving 14,000 torch bearers, the Sochi flame relay will be the longest in the history of the Olympics. The torch will go to the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest, to the peak of the Mt. Elbrus, the highest in Europe and Russia, and to the International Space Station, for the first spacewalk in flame relay history. This makes us wonder: is this “faster, higher, stronger” performance inspired by the Olympic spirit or the Olympic sports industry?

Changes in the flame relay show the influence of the managerial revolution on Olympic affairs and provide new insights into globalization. For more on the controversial history of this transnational ritual, read:

• MacAloon, John J. (2012). Introduction: the Olympic Flame Relay. Local knowledges of a global ritual form. Sport in Society. 15(5): 575-594.