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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 07 September 2021
doi: 10.3389/fspor.2021.673178
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living | www.frontiersin.org 1September 2021 | Volume 3 | Article 673178
Edited by:
Hans Westerbeek,
Victoria University, Australia
Reviewed by:
Andrew Grainger,
Massey University, New Zealand
Christopher Hallinan,
The University of Melbourne, Australia
*Correspondence:
Steven J. Jackson
steve.jackson@otago.ac.nz
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Sports Management and Marketing,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
Received: 26 February 2021
Accepted: 11 August 2021
Published: 07 September 2021
Citation:
Jackson SJ and Dawson MC (2021)
The Global Business of Sport in a
Brave New World: Conceptualising a
Framework for Alternative Futures.
Front. Sports Act. Living 3:673178.
doi: 10.3389/fspor.2021.673178
The Global Business of Sport in a
Brave New World: Conceptualising a
Framework for Alternative Futures
Steven J. Jackson 1
*and Marcelle C. Dawson 2
1School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2Sociology,
Gender Studies and Criminology, University of Otago and the Centre for Social Change, University of Johannesburg,
Johannesburg, South Africa
In July 1991, Sports Illustrated published a special issue featuring two articles that
prognosticated about what sport would look like 10 years later. As the world entered
the 21st century, Sports Illustrated writers, Oscar Johnson and Ron Fimrite, offered
their visions of sport in the year 2001. Their analysis highlighted how a range of
economic, social and technological changes in society would impact on how sport is
structured, produced and consumed, but also offered insights into the future of the major
professional sport leagues in North America. It has been 30 years since they publicised
their views and, while technology continues to impact sport, the Covid-19 pandemic has
forced the world to pause and to consider a range of deep, soul-searching questions
about the nature of society, including sport. Against this background, we consider
the opportunities and challenges for sport in the 21st century. The paper is divided
into three sections including: (1) a reflection on the meaning, value and significance
of sport including its privileged position in society, or what we refer to as “sporting
exceptionalism”; (2) a brief overview of a case study that illustrates the challenges facing
the global business of sport; and, (3) a framework for conceptualising alternative futures
in the global business of sport, drawing on examples from women’s sport.
Keywords: global sport business, sporting exceptionalism, alternative futures, sociology, sustainability, global
sport
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”
Orwell,1984 (1949, p. 175)
INTRODUCTION
In July 1991, Sports Illustrated published a special issue featuring two articles prognosticating about
what sport would look like 10 years into the future. Sports Illustrated writers, Oscar Johnson and
Ron Fimrite, offered their respective visions of sport in the year 2001 as the world entered the 21st
century. While their forecasts were not perfect, they were prescient. For example, Johnson (1991)
correctly envisaged that pay-per-view televised sport would increase, that sports gambling would
be legalised and normalised, that sports fans would have increasing control over how they watched
sport (including the ability to select which cameras and sound feeds they wished to receive), and
that there would be increasing tensions over who owned sport leagues and broadcasting rights.
Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
Following on from this, Fimrite (1991) expressed his
apprehensions regarding the impact of new technologies, not
only on sport but on the human condition more generally. For
example, he shared his concerns about how the exponential
growth in televised sport would reduce fans’ willingness to attend
live events, thus impacting not only on the business of sport,
but also human interaction. Still, he readily admitted that similar
fears were held about the perceived threat of earlier forms
of technology, such as radio, which turned out to be largely
unwarranted. However, on the matter of how new technologies
may be impacting on human interaction, communication,
socialisation and social bonding, Fimrite’s concerns may have
more merit. There are mounting and legitimate concerns about
how new technologies, including social media platforms, are
impacting on society (Zuboff, 2019) and young people in
particular, not only in terms of their ability to relate to others
and to discern reality from fiction, but also with regard to the
flow on effects on well-being (Keles et al., 2020). In combination,
Johnson’s (1991) and Fimrite’s (1991) analyses highlighted how a
range of economic, social, legal and technological changes could
impact on the ways in which sport is structured, produced and
consumed, and how these changes, in turn, could impact on
social life in the future.
Thirty years later, both sport and the global business
surrounding it have not only survived a wide range of
challenges, but have become one of the most powerful corporate-
entertainment industries in history. Yet, some problems have
endured, and new challenges and threats to global sport have
emerged. Consider the following extensive and diverse list of
problems facing the contemporary global business of sport:
•Integrity of Sporting Competition: this concept encompasses
a range of issues that threaten the values and very essence
of sport, including the use of performance enhancing drugs
(PEDs), match-fixing, and the exploitation of advantages
gained from the use of new technologies such as Nike’s
AlphaFly running shoe. Integrity is important because it is
a core value of sport. Indeed—using the example of match-
fixing—if the outcome of sport is in any way predetermined,
the cultural practice in question is, by definition, no longer
“sport” (Carpenter, 2012; Tak et al., 2017).
•Athlete welfare: This issue ranges from over-training to sexual
harassment and abuse to the increasing recognition of the
impact of concussion, which has been linked to Alzheimer’s
disease and premature death, resulting in class action lawsuits
by former athletes across a range of sports (Stirling, 2009;
Parent and Fortier, 2018; Kerr and Kerr, 2020).
•Discrimination: There is increasing awareness of, resistance to,
and activism against, discrimination related to gender, race,
indigenous rights, sexuality and disability in sport.
•Sport mega-events and human rights: The Olympics, FIFA
World Cup and other sport mega-events face increasing
scrutiny regarding the ethics and morality of awarding hosting
rights to nation-states that have a track record of human rights
violations (Lenskyj, 2000; Boykoff, 2014; Horne, 2018).
•Environment: Sports are under increasing pressure to reduce
their impact on the environment, particularly activities such as
motor racing (Miller, 2018) and golf that requires enormous
amounts of water and the use of harmful chemicals (Wilson
and Millington, 2013).
•Terrorism: Given its global visibility and significance, sporting
events are not only a target of terrorist groups, but sport itself
is increasingly used as a site and strategy for the recruitment of
radical political extremists (Kuper, 2006; Taylor and Toohey,
2006; Giulianotti and Klauser, 2012; Spaaij, 2021).
•Corporatisation: The consolidation and monopolisation of
global sport and associated media technologies and platforms,
which is leading to a concentration of power and control
within the hands of a decreasing number of expanding hyper-
competitive, corporations. A prime example of this was the
controversial 2021 proposal for a 12-team European Super
League featuring the top football teams from England, Spain
and Italy. The proposed new league would have consolidated
the world’s richest and most successful football clubs and
posed a direct and immediate threat to UEFA and the current
Champions League competition. Moreover, for many loyal
fans the new rebel league was perceived as an attempt by rich,
greedy owners to further advance their own interests at the
expense of history, tradition and community.
This list of challenges is certainly not exhaustive, but hopefully
it provides some insight into the scale and diversity of issues
currently confronting the global elite, professional sport industry.
As per the stated aim of this special issue, we “seek to explore
the impact of (changes in) economic, technological, ecological,
demographic, political and social conditions of, or on, humans on
how sport will be consumed in the future.” However, our focus is
less upon how particular organisational structures, partnerships
and technologies can simply add value to the global business
of sport in the pursuit of future growth and profitability, and
more on how existing problems and challenges, including the
Covid-19 pandemic, offer a potential watershed moment for
reflection, reappraisal and transformation. To this end, we first
focus on the case of professional rugby in Aotearoa New Zealand
in order to highlight problems with the global sport industry.
We also consider changes that are currently underway in the
realm of women’s professional sport with the aim of signalling
the emergence of alternative sporting futures that are more
accessible, equitable and sustainable.
This essay is divided into three sections: (1) a reflection
on the meaning, value and significance of sport including its
privileged position in society, or what we refer to as “sporting
exceptionalism”; (2) a brief overview of a case study that
illustrates the challenges facing the global business of sport; and,
(3) a framework for conceptualising alternative futures in the
global sports industry, drawing on the example of the business
of women’s sport. To be clear from the outset, it is not our
intention to provide an empirical analysis of the situation. Rather,
we offer a critical exploration of the global business of sport
through the lens of an alternative futures framework. Overall,
we assert that if the current model of global sport business
continues on its current trajectory, it will inevitably be plagued
by some of the issues and problems noted above. Moreover,
global sport will confront the limits of a business model located
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
within an unsustainable system of consumer capitalism (Lewis,
2013). The aim of our provocation is to encourage other ways of
viewing sport and its place in global society beyond the prevailing
hegemonic system of consumer capitalist sport.
SPORTING EXCEPTIONALISM
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a paradoxical impact on sports
fans and consumers. For some people, the global pandemic
was a reminder that we should not take things, such as sport,
for granted. For others, it has brought into sharp relief the
fact that sport may not be the most important thing in life
when considered in relation to other priorities such as family,
health, work and education. Regardless of one’s view, there is
no denying the enduring global significance of sport, which
Ulrich Beck once described as “the most important thing in
the world” (Beck, 2000, p. 62). While we do not agree with
Beck (and indeed we are not sure he would agree with his own
statement today), there is abundant evidence that confirms the
sustained social significance of sport including: the amount of
media coverage it receives, the viewership numbers for major
sporting spectacles, the global visibility and influence of sport
celebrities and brands, the longstanding strategic use of sport in
international diplomatic relations, and the emerging popularity
of eSport and virtual sport, both of which are now billion
dollar industries. A more recent indicator of the power and
popularity of sport is the extreme effort that has gone into
creating “safe” bubbles to enable the Tokyo Olympics and a wide
range of professional sport leagues to operate under pandemic
conditions, including: the EPL, NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLB, NHL,
international football, rugby and cricket, and pro golf and tennis.
Indeed, sport has emerged as a key symbolic barometer of the
world’s understanding, response and management of the Covid-
19 pandemic. As Rowe (2020, p. 708) astutely observes: “Sport
was kept constantly to the fore in debates about the “return to
normality.”” The prioritisation of sport has prevailed, despite the
fact that, for many epidemiological experts, exemptions for sport
during the pandemic defied science, logic and morality, and put
citizens at risk. The privileged position of sport during the Covid-
19 pandemic leads to two interrelated questions. First, why is
sport, that is, the production and consumption of a particular
form of global entertainment, treated differently to almost every
other type of cultural activity, including births, deaths, marriages
and even societal necessities like education? And second, how
does the answer to the first question enable or constrain the
possibility of an alternative future for global sport business?
The answer to the first question lies, in part, at the intersection
of two basic concepts that underpin all sport but in particular the
broader “sports-media complex” (Jhally, 1989); that is, the overall
integrated system of sport organisations, media conglomerates,
corporate sponsors and sport personnel. The first concept is
Coakley’s (Coakley, 2015) “Great Sport Myth” (GSM), which
consists of three interrelated beliefs: (1) that sport is inherently
pure and good; (2) that the purity and goodness of sport is
transmitted to all those who play or consume it; and (3) that
sport inevitably leads to individual betterment and community
development. Notably, Coakley asserts that the power of the
GSM does not just emerge naturally from these beliefs, but
rather that the “halo” surrounding sport is used and maintained
by powerful individuals and groups to protect their interests.
This is achieved by upholding particular structures and values
of sport and by framing narratives about sport as being wholly
in the public interest, while, in reality, many of the unintended
outcomes of sport occur at the expense of the average citizen.
Alluding to Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony and the role
of culture in winning consent, Coakley (2021, p. 403) asserts
that, “It’s as if ruling elites had read Gramsci and concluded that
sport, more than other civil institutions today, appeals to popular
tastes in ways that make people gullible and subject to political
manipulation and control.” This is not to suggest that people are
cultural dupes, but rather that those in positions of power have
increasingly more complex, pervasive, and immediate control
over media technologies, platforms, content and narratives
through which to maintain hegemony.
The second concept is what we refer to as “sporting
exceptionalism”; a notion that combines and reinforces the effects
of the GSM and is embedded in a set of assumptions that
reproduces a generalised belief that the history, structure and
values of sport are unique, positive and universally accepted
compared to other cultural practices and institutions. As a
consequence, the dominant representation of sport—and the
socio-economic system within which it is located—are seldom
questioned, and alternatives rarely considered. Consider two
basic examples that illustrate the exceptionalism of sport. First,
sport is a law unto itself given that, by and large, it self-regulates
and self-polices across a wide range of serious, often criminal,
matters including athlete maltreatment, violence, doping, match-
fixing and corruption (Stirling, 2009; Kihl et al., 2017; Tak
et al., 2018; Young, 2019). Second, sporting exceptionalism is
confirmed by its privileged treatment in the face of a global
pandemic where, professional sport, was recognised “as an
essential industry in which athletes, audiences and stadia were
represented as the symbolic equivalents, respectively, of health
professionals, patients, and hospitals” (Rowe, 2020, p. 708).
In combination, the concepts of the Great Sport Myth
and sporting exceptionalism help to explain the ideological,
cultural, economic and political power of sport, and how
and why it is rarely challenged. Indeed, these concepts
sharpen our understanding of “uber-sport,” a heuristic device
coined by Andrews (2019) to explain a phenomenon wherein
“an amalgam of corporate capitalism, consumer culture,
neoliberalism, and nationalism frames the constitution and
experience of professional sport as a mass entertainment
product” (Andrews, 2019, p. 8). While Andrews’ insights focused
specifically on the US context, we suggest that the notion of
“uber-sport” can be employed in other contexts too. We turn
now to the case of professional rugby in Aotearoa New Zealand
in order to highlight some of the fundamental problems facing
the contemporary global sport industry. Our assertion is that the
current model of sport is flawed, and that if we aspire for a more
accessible, more equitable, and sustainable version, then we need
to consider some bold alternative futures not only in the realm of
sport, but also in society more generally.
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
CASE STUDY: NEW ZEALAND RUGBY
Rugby is neither the largest nor most popular sport in the
world, but it does offer some unique insights with respect to
understanding the challenges facing the future of global sport
business. For example, although it has a long history dating
back to the 1800s, rugby did not officially turn professional
until 1995 and, as such, provides a useful case study for
understanding the development and challenges of a fairly
new global professional sport. Here, we focus on the case of
New Zealand rugby for a range of reasons: rugby is often
unquestionably considered to be the national sport [indeed,
Fougere (1989), asserted that it predated the actual formation
of the nation-state itself]; the country is geographically remote
and has a relatively small population (approximately five
million) and economy; and, the men’s national team, the All
Blacks, are arguably the most successful sporting franchise
in history with a 75 per cent win record over more than
a century.
We begin by putting the business of rugby, in general, and
the All Blacks as the primary generator of revenue for the
corporate body that oversees the national sport, New Zealand
Rugby (NZR), in particular, in context. In the early 1990s,
two rival media moguls, Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch
were embroiled in what FitzSimons (1996) described as the
“Rugby War.” In the lead-up to the 1995 Rugby World Cup,
Kerry Packer’s World Rugby Corporation (WRC) aggressively
pursued broadcast deals and lucrative contracts to attract the best
rugby players in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. In
response, and in an effort to ward off Packer’s master plan, the
New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), as it was then
known (later becoming the NZRU and eventually rebranding
simply as the NZR), in conjunction with the Australian and
South African Rugby Unions formed (SANZAR, which became
SANZAAR in 2016 with the addition of the Argentina Rugby
Union), signed a 10-year, $800-plus million-dollar world-wide
broadcast deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited. The deal,
which provided millions of dollars to the NZRFU, was a major
turning point for the sport of rugby generally and New Zealand’s
national game in particular. Not only did the broadcast deal
provide crucial funding to retain top young players, it also
contributed to grassroots development. Unsurprisingly, the News
Limited broadcast deal, which operated in New Zealand under
the Sky Network Television network, soon attracted sponsorship
opportunities. In 1999, global sportswear company Adidas
became an official sponsor of New Zealand Rugby offering one
of its biggest team contracts at that time, estimated at more
than $US100 million dollars over five years. The agreement
represented a strategic decision by Adidas to: (a) capitalise on
a new sport/team that was likely to succeed outside Europe
and North America, and (b) harness the major marketing
opportunity that media coverage of rugby provided (Adidas
thinks big over All Blacks, 1999, p. 11). As a global sporting
commodity (and the most powerful within world rugby), the
All Blacks became a very attractive “brand.” Indeed, Howard
Greive, the Saatchi and Saatchi advertising executive, who was
responsible for producing the first new Adidas advertising
campaign, argued that: “the All Blacks can deliver something
to the [Adidas’] brand that no other team or individual can
in sport” (Anon, 1999, p. 22–23). Evidence of the enduring
value of the All Blacks to the company is the fact that Adidas
has remained a loyal sponsor, with its most recent contract,
which runs from 2017 to 2023, estimated at $US10 million
per year.
In many ways the Sky TV and Adidas deals saved or, perhaps
more accurately, sustained NZR. Yet, this major injection of
funding was in sufficient in the long run. Moreover, it was not
viewed positively by everyone. For example, former All Black and
New Zealand diplomat, Laidlaw (1999, p. 177–178) warned in
1999 that:
There is a real danger that control of the game in New Zealand
will steadily be wrested away from New Zealand hands. . . . It is
the bottom line of the national personality that is at stake and we
are in danger of letting McWorld have it for a few pieces of silver.
[However] [t]he massive deals that have been done with major
sponsors were the only way of preserving that sovereignty.
Laidlaw’s comments capture the paradox of contemporary global
sport business; that is, to secure enough funding to survive in the
future, one might need to negotiate a deal that relinquishes some
control and ownership to foreign interests. This conundrum
has repeated over the past two decades and is evident in the
ongoing challenges faced by New Zealand as a nation and the
All Blacks as a sport franchise operating within the new global
economy of sport (Scherer and Jackson, 2007, 2010, 2013). For
example, in 2012 Adidas was joined by another major global
corporate sponsor, American Insurance Group (AIG). AIG is
a company with more than 90 years of history that boasts an
annual revenue in excess of $US60 billion, 88 million clients
in 130 countries and almost 50,000 employees. Aside from the
unique features that the All Blacks offered corporate sponsors
(Jackson et al., 2001), AIG’s interest stemmed from another major
global sporting development. In 2009, the International Olympic
Committee announced that it was adding Sevens Rugby to the
2016 Olympics. As a consequence, there was an acceleration of
investment in and global growth of the sport in nations seeking to
secure one or more of the six new medals on offer (Women’s and
Men’s gold, silver and bronze). Moreover, as the largest sporting
spectacle on earth, the Olympics provided unprecedented brand
exposure for corporate sponsors. Thus, AIG signed a 9-year deal
(2012–2021) estimated at $US14 million per year. In return for
this large investment, AIG made some major demands including
prime logo placement in the centre of the All Blacks jersey; a
space that had been left blank for more than 100 years and
which some would consider sacred. Moreover, they negotiated
the sponsorship to include the rebranding of all New Zealand
national teams: the All Blacks, the Black Ferns, the M¯
aori All
Blacks, Men’s and Women’s Sevens teams and the Under-20
Men’s team. The case of Olympic Sevens Rugby and subsequent
AIG sponsorship highlights not only the power of global sport
organisations, such as the IOC, to determine what is defined as
legitimate sport, but also their ability to influence nation-state
investment in targeted sport development on one hand, and the
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
links to the sport-media complex (including broadcast rights and
corporate sponsorship) on the other.
Notably, not unlike when Adidas entered the New Zealand
sporting landscape in 1999, the new AIG sponsorship deal raised
immediate concerns from a range of stakeholders. For example,
while Adidas had reservations about how AIG’s presence might
clash with their own brand visibility, New Zealand Rugby was
apprehensive about the potential demands and loyalty of the
new American sponsor. As if echoing Chris Laidlaw’s lament
from 1999, Steve Tew, the former CEO of NZR, highlighted the
challenges of being a small nation-state within the global sport
business economy:
We are in a challenging time in this world we live in. . . . We have
a business that has roughly $100 million turnover a year—it needs
to be significantly more than that if we’re going to survive, if we’re
going to grow the game at the community level and if we’re going
to retain players. It’s a challenge for us, and we need some money.
(APNZ, 2012).
The AIG deal highlights the ambivalence that NZR, and
the wider New Zealand public, hold towards the increasing
commercialisation of the national game. Despite the initial
misgivings of many, the AIG sponsorship no doubt helped
buoy the All Blacks over the next decade, and the necessity of
such deals has come to be widely accepted as essential to the
game’s survival. The recent, and unexpected, announcement that
AIG’s sponsorship would end in 2021 has raised major financial
concerns and revealed the game’s reliance on corporate backers.
Yet, beyond the impending loss of the AIG sponsorship, NZR
has been facing a raft of equally significant problems including:
a dramatic decline in participation rates amongst young males,
revelations of rising rates of head injuries resulting in the threat
of lawsuits from former players, a hypermasculine sporting
subculture that has been under increasing public scrutiny, and
a growing number of players leaving New Zealand for lucrative
overseas contracts.
However, perhaps the biggest threat to NZR (and other
non-European rugby nations) has been the failure of World
Rugby (formerly the International Rugby Board, IRB)—the
international body responsible for governing and developing
the sport—to develop a sustainable model for the future. Many
nations have become increasingly vocal about the need for a
new global competition that would not only elevate international
interest and attract additional media and corporate investment,
but would also promote the global growth of the game into new
regions, facilitate a more equitable distribution of funding and
help improve player welfare by balancing competition schedules.
Unfortunately, as it is currently structured and governed, World
Rugby is dominated by the rugby unions of the Six Nations
(England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy) each of
which is allocated three votes, giving them a clear advantage
with respect to decision-making. Highlighting the severity and
urgency of the problem in 2020 when the effects of Covid-19 were
beginning to be realised, NZR chairman, Brent Impey, issued a
stark warning about World Rugby’s complacency: “If these guys
don’t get on and make change, if it’s four more years of the same,
we’ll [NZR] be gone” (Napier, 2020). Confirming the reality of the
challenge, the 2020 NZR annual report revealed a $US24 million
dollar loss.
Despite the concerns about NZR’s financial stability there have
been some recent signs of optimism. Over the past year, it has
explored potential partnerships with overseas investors and, in
February 2021, news broke that NZR was in advanced discussions
with Silverlake, a Silicon Valley-based technology investment
company with interests in Twitter, Dell, Airbnb, Broadcom and
Alibaba (Keall, 2021). Preliminary reports indicate that Silverlake
has offered $US323 million in exchange for a 15% share of
NZR’s commercial rights (Napier, 2021). Part of the appeal of
Silverlake for the NZR is that it has a track record within
global sport business with direct or indirect investments in UFC
(through holding company Endeavour), Madison Square Garden
Company (which owns the NBA’s New York Knicks and the
NHL’s New York Rangers) and City Football Group, whose
flagship team is Manchester City. In addition, Silverlake offers
financial strength and stability with an estimated US$83 billion in
assets, while its investment portfolio generates more than $US180
billion revenue annually (Napier, 2021). However, a key question
is why would a successful American technology investment
company be interested in the sport of rugby, particularly in
a small market nation like New Zealand? The answer may be
multidimensional but, alas, not necessarily complicated. While
NZ itself may be a small market, NZR’s commercial rights,
owing largely to the powerful All Blacks brand, is currently
valued at US$2.2 billion. This value is quite incredible given
both the modest profile of rugby as a global sport and the size
of New Zealand’s market, and it stacks up well when compared
to elite franchises such as the LA Lakers valued at US$4.4b
and Manchester United, ranked third amongst the world’s
most valuable football brands, worth US$3.8b. In all likelihood,
Silverlake’s ability to use their extensive media technologies and
networks to leverage these commercial rights is at the heart of
their bid for rugby in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Some view the Silverlake offer as the saviour of NZR and
a turning point in its history. Others, however, are not only
sceptical, but fear that the deal will render NZR at the mercy of a
global corporate entity whose loyalty is unproven, whose values
and objectives may not align with those of rugby supporters,
and who has the potential to sell, trade or otherwise destroy the
very fabric of the national sport in the future. Many of the fears
stem partly from NZR’s broad roles and responsibilities beyond
the professional game. As New Zealand Herald sports journalist,
Dylan Cleaver (2021), has noted, there are a couple of unique
features of NZR’s organisational functions that may distinguish it
from other global sport franchises. First, while most professional
sport franchises are privately-owned businesses with a focus on
delivering profits for their owners and shareholders, NZR “has
an obligation to act in the best interests of its key stakeholders,
the most important being its 26 [provincial] unions. Those 26
unions, in turn, are charged with running not just representative
teams, but fostering the growth of community rugby” (Dylan
Cleaver, 2021). In short, in contrast to other professional sport
organisations, NZR has broader social responsibilities with
respect to supporting grassroots sport.
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
Another local factor complicating the Silverlake bid relates
to the fact that in 2019, NZR entered into a unique partnership
with its local media broadcaster, Sky TV. While some details are
confidential, it is estimated that Sky TV paid $US340 million
for the broadcast rights rugby in New Zealand from 2020–
2025. Highlighting both the perceived value of rugby as an
entertainment commodity and the intense competition for media
content, this figure is almost double the amount Sky TV paid
for these rights in its previous contract. However, there is one
other distinctive feature of the NZR-Sky TV deal; that is, as part
of the agreement, NZR has taken a five percent equity stake in
Sky TV, which, in 2019 was worth about $20m (Herald, 2019).
Given the longstanding partnership, which dates back to 1995,
and the rather fragile state of NZR finances, the deal seemed both
logical and mutually beneficial. However, just over a year later, the
value of NZR’s shares in Sky TV had dropped from $US14m to <
$US2.7m largely due to the media company’s continued decline
in the face of competition from other broadcasters. The NZR-
Sky TV deal highlights both the unique and vulnerable nature
of the sport-media complex and associated contracts within a
small market like Aotearoa New Zealand. Beyond the risk of
being an investor in Sky TV, NZR may now have to carefully
navigate negotiations with Silverlake who, as an investor with its
own broadcast and streaming technologies, expertise, networks
and aspirations, will seek to maximise the value of All Black
test matches both locally and globally. While there are many
unanswered questions, one immediate red flag for NZR might
be the fact that the company donated more than US$4m to
American political interests over the previous four-year electoral
cycle, most of it to Donald Trump and the Republican Party
(Keall, 2021). Moreover, NZR will need to be cognisant of the fact
that if the current proposal proceeds it will not be able to control
whether, when or to whom Silverlake may want to sell its 15%
stake in the future.
The case and fate of NZR highlights one example of the
challenges facing global sport business and serves as a timely
reminder that the world is more interconnected than ever before.
As such, “no sporting nation is an island even if, geographically,
it is one” (Rowe, 2020, p. 706). Yet, the situation is even more
complicated because, despite the potential positives associated
with a deal with Silverlake, NZR is already behind in the global
media stakes game. Consider the fact that a rival private equity
firm, Luxembourg-based CVC, negotiated major investment and
media deals with Six Nations Rugby. As of 2021, CVC has a
“long-term strategic partnership” which will see it gain a 14.3%
share in Six Nations Rugby, a 27% share of Premiership Rugby,
the body that oversees the top rugby division in England, and
a 28% stake in the Pro14, the major European cross-border
rugby competition (Lewis, 2021). Consequently, inasmuch as
Silverlake’s investment may help to sustain New Zealand Rugby
in the short term, the reality is that the combined political and
economic power of Six Nations Rugby—in terms of both voting
dominance within World Rugby and the enormous media and
investment deals such as those of CVC—will continue to provide
significant advantages over its Southern counterparts and will
likely see those in the North remain the key powerbrokers in
global rugby.
The case of professional rugby provides an example of some
of the challenges facing one particular sport in the contemporary
world of global sport business. Here we have outlined a scenario
of the challenges and opportunities within a “business as usual”
scenario. Regardless of the debates about Silverlake or any other
foreign investors in New Zealand rugby, all of these proposals are
based on the existing consumer capitalist model of sport rather
than any type of fundamental, transformational change1. We
contend that it is prudent, and indeed essential, for those involved
directly in the global business of sport as well as humanity
at large, to consider alternatives to the current structure and
ideological underpinnings of contemporary sport. To this end,
the next section offers a conceptual framework emerging out of
the literature on alternative futures, with the aim of stimulating
new ways of thinking about global sport business.
Alternative Futures: A Conceptual
Framework
If legacies are about story-telling, how would we like the story of
the global sport industry in the early part of the 21st century to
be told to those learning about it in 22nd? We could capitulate to
the “TINA” (there is no alternative) narrative and accept “uber-
sport” (Andrews, 2019) as “common sense” (Gramsci, 1971),
thereby giving ourselves license to rehash the same stock stories
that reinforce structures of power and privilege (Bell, 2019).
Stock stories, however, deny the potential of collective human
agency to transform the world. Another option is to accept Marx’s
invitation not only to interpret the world, but also to change it
(Marx, 2002), which requires us to produce counter-stories (Bell,
2019); an alternative way of thinking about the global business of
sport. We choose the latter.
The conceptual building blocks for our counterhegemonic
project within the business of sport are inspired by Dawson’s
(2016) three-step framework for alternative futures and Jarvie,
Thornton and Mackie’s (Jarvie et al., 2018) insights into the
potential of sport as a ‘resource of hope’. Dawson’s (2016) quest to
find “sociological alternatives” begins with the seemingly obvious
task of identifying a social problem. Likewise, Jarvie et al. (2018)
encourage us to ask: “What is going on out there in the world of
sport?” Of course, pinpointing the problem is no simple matter.
For example, we may not all agree on what the problem is, or
why it has come to be defined or experienced as a problem, who
has the power to define something as a problem, or for whom it
is perceived as a problem in the first place. Thus, embedded in
this first phase of building alternative futures lies the sociological
duty of exposing and disrupting power relations. Such an exercise
is inherent in Jarvie’s (2018) second task, namely providing an
analysis and explanation.
1There have been a number of subsequent and alternative proposals to the
Silverlake deal tabled. For example, the New Zealand Rugby Players Association
offered suggestions ranging from the possibility of a public share float that would
enable everyday citizens the opportunity to invest in the commercial arm of the
NZR. The concept of partial public ownership of professional sport franchises
does exist and offers one potential alternative for the future. However, given that
the NZR signed a controversial 6-year sponsorship deal with UK-based petro-
chemical company, Ineos, for an estimated $US3.4-5.6 million per year in July,
2021, suggests that it is not yet capable or ready for transformational change.
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
Once the problem has been identified and its dimensions
analysed, both Dawson (2016) and Jarvie et al. (2018) suggest
proposing an alternative. In so doing, we are encouraged to
move beyond a politics of grievance towards a call and/or
plan for collective action. It is at this stage that we are
tasked with mapping out a vision for the future, not only
in terms of nature/direction and scale, but also in terms of
duration (i.e., is the alternative for now or forever?). This
step harnesses the uniquely human ability to imagine and act
on that imagination, or to desire and create, which offers a
more humanist interpretation of the processes of consumption
and production inherent in crude, reductionistic accounts of
the economy (Graeber, 2007). In other words, formulating
alternatives for the future is a fundamentally human task. It is
not up to the “invisible hand” of the market to decide what
humans should want or how they should live in the future. Jarvie
et al. (2018) extend this step by asking us to consider what our
own individual role or contribution to change would entail. In
other words, this second stage of formulating alternative futures
is ultimately about collective and individual agency.
Perhaps the most crucial step in building an alternative
society is the last one, which entails justifying how the proposed
alternative addresses the problem identified at the start (Dawson,
2016, p. 3). Here, we have the opportunity to consider possible
unintended consequences and to engage in prolepsis, a literary
technique used to peek ahead to events that may only come to
fruition later (Yates, 2015). It is a clever stratagem that blurs the
line between present and future and allows one to resolve the
puzzle of knowing then what one knows now. Prolepsis raises the
possibility that one might behave differently if one could see into
the future. In a practical sense, this stage affords an opportunity
to play devil’s advocate and map out various responses or plans
of action, depending on potential/hypothetical criticisms against
one’s proposed alternative.
To demonstrate the value and broader implications of
Dawson’s (2016) and Jarvie’s (2018) frameworks for alternative
sporting futures, we turn our attention to the current landscape of
women’s professional sport. Specifically, we briefly consider the
status and challenges of women’s professional sport in relation
to the three steps: (1) identifying the problem and analysing
its dimensions; (2) proposing an alternative with consideration
for our individual and collective agency; and, (3) explaining
how the proposed alternative addresses the original problem
along with any potential unintended consequences. One of the
enduring challenges facing women’s professional sport is inequity
in terms of access, resourcing, media coverage, sponsorship and
salaries. Without doubt, the evidence concerning the barriers to
and inequities of access, resourcing, media representation and
sponsorship of women’s sport is overwhelming. Yet, with respect
to the first step of creating alternative futures, not everyone would
identify all of these issues as systemic problems but may instead
regard them in reductionist terms of supply and demand. That
is, within a market-driven system, critics have noted that those
who own and hold the power to produce sport, tend to argue that
the consumer decides what content they will watch, what they
are willing to pay, and which sponsors they are willing to support
(Cooky et al., 2013; Kane et al., 2013; Bruce, 2016). The market
forces perspective enables sport organisations to defend greater
levels of investment in men’s sport, enables sports media to
defend the overrepresentation of men’s sport across a broad range
of communication platforms, and enables sports brands to justify
significantly more financing and market profile of men’s celebrity
athletes, teams and events. In short, for those who adopt a market
perspective, the central issue is not gender equality but simply
part of the realities of global sport business. Within this scenario,
and drawing upon the alternative futures framework outlined
above, one logical step would be to try and develop the market
for women’s professional sport. Indeed, this process has been
unfolding in different sports and at different rates over the past
three decades. Yet, challenges and barriers to the advancement of
women’s professional sport remain, because existing alternatives
have failed to address the systemic roots of inequality (Fink, 2015;
Cooky and Messner, 2018). Next, we discuss the implications of
proposing alternatives and exercising agency for women’s sport.
While Covid-19 has impacted on all sport, there is evidence
to suggest that it has had a particularly negative impact on
girls’ and women’s sport. In part this is due to the pre-existing,
historical inequities in support, profile, funding and resources.
Of course, these constraints were not caused by the global
pandemic but were, instead, exacerbated by it, owing to the
prioritisation of men’s sport and its privileged location within
the sport-media complex. That is, since men’s sport is currently
the key driver of the global sport economy, it was viewed and
treated as an “essential” industry by governments, broadcasters
and corporate sponsors. What is perhaps most unfortunate is the
fact that there were pockets of women’s sport that were beginning
to thrive with respect to participation and spectator numbers,
media coverage and corporate sponsorship (Willson et al., 2018;
Toffoletti and Palmer, 2019; Pavlidis et al., 2020). On this note
there is some optimism. For example, Rebecca Sowden—a former
New Zealand football (soccer) international representative who
now operates her own marketing and sponsorship company,
Team Heroine2– offers five key predictions for the future of
women’s sport including: (1) more player-led content, (2) more
collective action, (3) different ownership models, (4) individual
athlete and team activism, and (5) a rise in long-term sponsorship
deals. In and of themselves, these predictions are neither naïve,
nor impossible, but it is important to locate them within a socio-
historical context that has long privileged male sport. Notably,
some of Sowden’s predictions constitute aspects of the second
step in the alternative futures framework; that is, proposing and
enacting alternatives. Moreover, it is important to emphasise that
many of the intended benefits of these initiatives are beginning
to be realised. For example, the expansion of media networks
that are seeking novel content has offered new opportunities for
women’s sport. Likewise, social media has created new spaces for
promoting events and sharing information about women’s sport
(Thorpe et al., 2017).
With respect to collective action, consider “The Fan Project”3,
which was launched on February 3, 2021 as part of the USA’s
National Girls & Women in Sports Day. The aim of the Fan
2http://www.teamheroine.com
3http://www.thefanproject.co
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
Project is to increase the visibility of women’s sport via media
coverage and lobbying of corporate sponsors. According to
Sowden, The Fan Project “is a good example of collective action.
. . . All the top women’s sports leagues have basically joined forces
and are asking fans to download their Facebook and Twitter
data to them so they can shape conversations, and take it to
the networks and sponsors to show how much interest there is”
(Stanley, 2021). The Fan Project was ostensibly prompted by a
“problem” or shortcoming highlighted by a male broadcasting
executive, who claimed, “If we had more data that proved fans
will watch women’s sports we’d give the games a lot more air
time” (The Fan Project, 2021a). The response by The Fan Project
was to give executives and broadcasters precisely what they
asked for. In terms of justifying why the proposed alternative
addresses the problem—Dawson’s third step—The Fan Project
explains its vision for the future as follows: “The more visible
that women’s sports are, the greater their power is to inspire the
next generation. With your data, we’ll unlock the power to push
executives to increase coverage of women’s sports to 10% of all
sports coverage in 10 months’ time. Only when women’s sports
are seen can they inspire” (The Fan Project, 2021a). The Fan
Project regards the validation of fans’ interest in and desire for
more women’s sports, as a step towards achieving more gender
parity in sports. They claim that “[e]quality in sports isn’t just
right—it’s smart business” (The Fan Project, 2021b). We are,
however, less optimistic that the alternative proposed by the Fan
Project will have a marked effect on the future of the global
business of sport. We will return to this point later on.
The Fan Project is just one example of an attempt to transform
women’s sport. With respect to new ownership models within
sport there are also positive signs. For example, tennis star Naomi
Osaka has recently become a co-owner of the North Carolina
Courage, defending champions of USA’s National Women’s
Soccer League (NWSL). Similarly, a new NWSL franchise, Angel
City FC, will enter the competition in 2022. This new team is co-
owned by former USA Women’s football star Mia Hamm, and
others including, actresses Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria.
What these examples highlight is a potential cultural shift in
how women’s sport is structured, produced, represented and
consumed. Given that women make up 50% of the world’s
population and have increasing political, economic and cultural
power (at least in the West), there is an opportunity to use
their collective influence (and consumer power) to enact change.
However, cautionary notes remain, and in this final section
of the discussion, we turn our attention to the third step
in the alternative futures framework, namely justifying how
the proposed alternative addresses the original problem and
identifying any potential unintended consequences.
Given the enduring challenges faced by women’s professional
sport, it would be expedient to accept that any increase in
awareness, access, support and investment in women’s sport is
positive. On this account, women’s sport has made significant
advances including: increasing power through positions on the
boards of major sport organisations and media companies,
and increasing visibility with respect to improved quantity
and quality of media coverage, which has, in turn, attracted
more corporate sponsorship. Moreover, there are increasing
opportunities for young girls to participate in sports that had
previously been defined or perceived as “male” sports with
participation rates soaring in codes such as soccer, ice hockey and
rugby. However, heeding Dawson’s (2016) advice, it is important
that we engage in prolepsis as a way of envisioning the future in
order to anticipate potential unintentional consequences. Here,
it is important to acknowledge that as things currently stand,
women’s professional sport operates within the same consumer
capitalist, market-driven, system as men’s sport. On one hand,
the men’s model of professional sport provides society with large
scale spectacles, such as the Super Bowl or Olympics, where we
can witness elite athletes continually pushing the boundaries of
what the human body can achieve. Moreover, such events and
the celebrity athletes and teams that are showcased provide role
models, a sense of community and even nationalism. Yet, there
are negative counterparts to all of these positive attributes of sport
including many of those listed at the beginning of this paper:
doping, exploitation, corruption, ethnonationalism, diplomatic
conflict, and violence and injury.
If we take the example of The Fan Project’s proposed
alternative of encouraging supporters to share their social media
data with the aim of encouraging network executives and
sponsors to invest more and offer more equitable resourcing to
women’s sport, there is no indication that this shift will address
the deep-rooted problems currently facing the contemporary
global business of sport. The Fan Project’s alternative, albeit
commendable, does not propose a radical break from the status
quo. Rather, it attempts to cast women’s sport in the same mould
as men’s sport and, in so doing, reinforces consumer capitalism.
It is our contention that gender inequality (and other forms
of discrimination and oppression) are rooted in the consumer
capitalist model that dominates the global business of sport, and
it is not the case that the myriad challenges within women’s sport
will simply be resolved if it were afforded the same privileges
as men’s sport. While the alternative proposed by The Fan
Project may lead to some reforms in the short-term, we argue
that its justification for the alternative falls short of Dawson’s
(2016) requirement that in order for a proposed change to
engender a viable social alternative, it needs to offer a convincing
improvement on the status quo. If it fails to do so, it is, at best,
change for change’s sake. At worst, it reinforces the systemic fault
lines that give rise to social problems in the first place.
Peering into the future, we might ask whether the
advancement of women’s professional sport within the current
model is the best way forward? Is there a risk that if elite
women’s sport follows the men’s model, it will face the same
problems, but have less resilience given its shorter history and
longevity? If so, what alternative future for women’s sport might
be envisioned? Thinking about the future is not just about
planning ahead. It requires familiarity with our immediate
realities (i.e., the present), but also—crucially—with the past.
Awareness of all three dimensions of time allows us to ascertain
whether what might eventuate in the future is an altogether
new occurrence, that is, a rupture from the past, or whether
it is simply a contemporary occurrence of something that has
happened previously. Without this distinction, it becomes easy
to confuse what is “now” with what is “new.” In addition to a
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Jackson and Dawson Global Sport and Alternative Futures
robust understanding of past and present, crafting an alternative
future requires a radical imagination; an ability to envision and
enact a social reality that has yet to emerge. Our discussion began
with a nod to Orwell, and we would like to end by extending
his insights even further by suggesting that we need to concern
ourselves with making the future in the present; producing in
the here and now the world that will be inhabited tomorrow
and remembered in the distant future. Arguably, it is in all our
interests to think about the kind of world we desire in the future,
based on what we know about the past, and then begin, in the
present, to create it. By extending Matt Dawson’s (2016) futures
framework to include concepts such as ‘absences and emergences’
(Santos, 2006), “alternative conceptions of time” (Marcuse, 1969;
Toffler, 1970; Winter, 2020) and “prefiguration” (Boggs, 1977;
Maeckelbergh, 2011; Yates, 2015), we suggest that crafting
alternative futures is much more than an aspirational task. We
agree with (Schultz, 2016, p. 15) that, “[t]he future is not just
happening but it is made, and there are choices,” and, drawing
on examples from the world of sport, we argue that building
alternative futures is a highly pragmatic and, indeed, urgent
undertaking that requires a collective and coordinated effort.
Conclusion
This analysis has highlighted the unique and powerful status
of sport in society and within the brave new world of global
business. The power of sport emerges, in part, from the Great
Sport Myth (Coakley, 2015) and the concept of “sporting
exceptionalism” which, in combination, creates a halo around
sport that is used and maintained by powerful individuals
and groups to protect their interests. This is achieved by
upholding particular structures and values of sport and by
framing narratives about sport as being in the public interest
but ultimately at the expense of the average citizen. Using the
case study of professional rugby and its location within the wider
context and structures of World Rugby, we highlighted some of
the opportunities and challenges facing one particular country,
New Zealand, as a small nation located on the peripheries of both
geography and political power. We then combined Dawson’s
“sociological alternatives” and Jarvie et al’s notion of sport as
a resource for the future, to offer a framework to think about
the future of global sport business. Here, we used the example
of women’s professional sport to illustrate his three key steps
for an alternative future, while also signalling some of the
risks associated with following the hegemonic male model of
consumer capitalist sport with all of its problems and limitations.
Conceptualising alternative futures is challenging because it
requires us to consider possibilities that are not yet known.
Indeed, the more dominant or hegemonic any existing social
system, including sport, the more difficult it is to consider, let
alone, enact an alternative future. Yet, there are lessons to be
learned and enormous potential value in applying the concept
of alternative futures and contemplating how it might contribute
to new structures, policies, and programmes that will positively
transform global sport business. Future research in this area may
wish to focus on some of the key challenges identified in this
analysis in order to explore how an alternative futures framework
might help reconceptualise the problem and thereby contribute
to new solutions.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The original contributions presented in the
study are included in the article/supplementary
material, further inquiries can be directed to the
corresponding author.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual
contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
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