Sport in Capitalist Society - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Sport in Capitalist Society write by Tony Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-12. Sport in Capitalist Society available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Why are the Olympic Games the driving force behind a clampdown on civil liberties? What makes sport an unwavering ally of nationalism and militarism? Is sport the new opiate of the masses? These and many other questions are answered in this new radical history of sport by leading historian of sport and society, Professor Tony Collins. Tracing the history of modern sport from its origins in the burgeoning capitalist economy of mid-eighteenth century England to the globalised corporate sport of today, the book argues that, far from the purity of sport being ‘corrupted’ by capitalism, modern sport is as much a product of capitalism as the factory, the stock exchange and the unemployment line. Based on original sources, the book explains how sport has been shaped and moulded by the major political and economic events of the past two centuries, such as the French Revolution, the rise of modern nationalism and imperialism, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War and the imposition of the neo-liberal agenda in the last decades of the twentieth century. It highlights the symbiotic relationship between the media and sport, from the simultaneous emergence of print capitalism and modern sport in Georgian England to the rise of Murdoch’s global satellite television empire in the twenty-first century, and for the first time it explores the alternative, revolutionary models of sport in the early twentieth century. Sport in a Capitalist Society is the first sustained attempt to explain the emergence of modern sport around the world as an integral part of the globalisation of capitalism. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the history or sociology of sport, or the social and cultural history of the modern world.
Capitalism and Sport
Capitalism and Sport - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Capitalism and Sport write by Michael Lavalette. This book was released on 2013. Capitalism and Sport available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Millions of working class people watch or participate in sports, and yet sport is shaped by the drives and contradictions of capitalism. The essays in this collection focus on the politics of, and politics in, sport. They look at the origins of sport regulation, the impact of globalisation and the place of individual and collective resistance. Covering issues such as racism, doping, sexism, fan movements and great figures from Muhammad Ali to Billie Jean King to Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak, this is a radical journey through sporting history.
Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games
Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games write by Jules Boykoff. This book was released on 2013-08-15. Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The Olympic Games have become the world’s greatest media and marketing event—a global celebration of exceptional athletics gilded with corporate cash. Huge corporations vie for association with the "Olympic Image" in the hope of gaining a worldwide marketing audience of billions. In this provocative critical study of the contemporary Olympics, Jules Boykoff argues that the Games have become a massive planned economy designed to shield the rich from risk while providing them with a spectacle to treasure. Placing political economy at the center of the analysis, and drawing on interdisciplinary research in sociology, politics, geography, history, and economics, Boykoff develops an innovative theory of "celebration capitalism", the manipulation of state actors as partners that drives us towards public–private partnerships in which the public pays and the private profits. He argues that the Athens Games in 2004 marked the full emergence of celebration capitalism, with London 2012 representing its quintessential expression, characterized by a state of exception, unfettered commercialism, repression of dissent, questionable sustainability claims, and the complicity of the mainstream media. Controversial, challenging, and forthright, this book opens up a fascinating new avenue for understanding the contemporary Olympics in the context of global capitalist society. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the Olympic Games, the relationship between sport and society, or global politics and culture.
Fans of the World, Unite!
Fans of the World, Unite! - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Fans of the World, Unite! write by Stephen F. Ross. This book was released on 2008-08-19. Fans of the World, Unite! available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Fans of baseball, football, basketball, and hockey have long been exploited and oppressed by the monopolistic practices of team owners. The time has come for a revolution in the organization of major U.S. sports! Fans of the World, Unite! is a clarion call to sports fans. Appealing to anyone who is in despair due to the greed and incompetence of team owners, this book proposes a significant restructuring of sports leagues. It sets out a rational program for a revolution that will serve the best interests of the fans and of the sport itself. But Stephen F. Ross and Stefan Szymanski are no Marxists: they show how a revolution in the organization of sports might even benefit the owners. By harnessing the power of markets, sports leagues can be made both more responsive to the needs of the fans, and more efficient. Ross and Szymanski have spent many years evaluating the ways in which leagues work across the globe. Drawing on their extensive study of leagues, the authors boil down their plan to two major reforms. Borrowing from NASCAR, they propose that team owners should not own sports leagues as well. Rather, league ownership should be separate. Their second proposal is drawn from soccer: introduce competition through a promotion and relegation system. In this type of system, the worst teams in the league are kicked out at the end of the season and replaced by the best performing teams in the next division down. This gives poor performing teams incentive to step up their game, and allows fresh blood to enter the leagues if the poor performers fail to do so. The main goal of these reforms is to align the financial interest of those who own the league with the best interests of the fans and the sport. Having laid out the problem and the solution, the authors skillfully address practical implications of introducing their scheme, suggesting how leagues might at least make some changes, if not all of those suggested. The time for change has come! Armed with this book, and with fairness on their side, fans can set forth to begin a revolution.
Barbaric Sport
Barbaric Sport - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Barbaric Sport write by Marc Perelman. This book was released on 2014-04-22. Barbaric Sport available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Marc Perelman pulls no punches in this succinct and searing broadside, assailing the ‘recent form of barbarism’ that is the global sporting event. Forget the Olympics and consider, under Perelman’s guidance, the ledger of inequities maintained by such supposedly harmless games. They have provided a smokescreen for the forcible removal of ‘undesirables’; aided governments in the pursuit of racist agendas; affirmed the hypocrisy of drug-testing in an industry where doping is more an imperative than an aberration; and developed the pornographic hybrid that Perelman dubs ‘sporn’, a further twist in our corrupt obsession with the body. Drawing examples from the modern history of the international sporting event, Perelman argues that today’s colosseums, upheld as examples of ‘health’, have become the steamroller for a decadent age fixated on competition, fame and elitism.
