31 Sports Cultures

Dr. Rahul De

Introduction to sporting cultures:

This module focuses on sporting cultures within the era of televised sports. The mass consumption of sports can be traced back to gladiatorial battles and Olympics in the Roman era to newspaper coverage of football, horse racing and boxing in the early twentieth century. However, this module will focus on sports coverage in the late twentieth century and will argue that there were certain specific cultural processes which have made sports globally popular in this era. Sporting cultures in the televised era have become immensely profitable especially for the mass media platformsthrough which it is accessed by viewers. As a consequence, media outlets have packaged (ID1) ‘sports’ to be bought and consumed by viewers. This module will not delve into the economics of contemporary sports cultures but concentrates on how meaning is generated and appropriated within these cultures. It will do so by studying sporting cultures through two different frames, namely, production and consumption.

Production of sporting cultures

The mass media packages and constructs sporting cultures to be consumed in particular ways by the audience. They do so by constructing meaning around sports through various narratives and rhetorical strategies. Moreover, the mass media uses images, signs and symbolic goods which breed desire amongst consumers, which is fulfilled by consuming sports. By focusing on the process of mass media’s production of sports cultures, I want to concentrate on the strategies through which people are persuaded to consume ‘sports’ as a commodity. In this module I will explain how meaning is produced around ‘sports’ to persuade consumers to desire it. We will study the process of producing sports through the following sub-processes – 1) the role of experts who ‘decode’ the game, 2) sports celebrities, 3) sports as entertainment/spectacle and 4) branding.

1) Sports ‘experts’: Sports coveragehas traditionally been the realm of ‘experts’ (ID2) who are knowledgeable about the technicalities of the game and writeto inform both the casual and the avid fan. Some of the most famed sports reporters were known not only for their knowledge of the game but their ability to convey the atmosphere of the match to fans in their homes. Neville Cardus and CLR James are consideredas exemplary cricket writers, while Don Duphy single handedly created a new style of quick-paced, blow-by-blow commentary coverage of boxing matches. The role of experts reporting sports before the advent of television coverage was very different as they had to recreatethe sporting action to fans not present at the venue. These fans watched the sport through the eyes of the expert. The contemporary fan however, can watch his favorite sports inthe comfort of his home on television. The role of the expert is thus very different in the televised era. The expert does not describe the passage of play but instead decodes the images that the fan views. His/herrole is to not onlyexplain what the fan is watching but to ensure that the fan remains interested in the action on the field. Sports experts in the contemporary era cannot limit themselves to describing the sports action itself, but must also drum up excitement about a match, and draw attention to the interesting and meaningful parts of the match. Further, experts now provide television viewers intimate access to the match which is not available to viewers at the stadium. Theynow provide technological aids like slow motion replays and hawk eye to break down the action, conversation with players discussing strategies and form, and close analysis of the pitch and match conditions. Sports experts now aid television audiences to get a closer view of the match from the comfort of their homes. (example of aids used by experts in A/V section)

Moreover, experts address different kinds of fans: the avid watcher, the casual fan and the novice. This is why we see a panel of experts covering a sport instead of a single commentator.Such a panel would include: former players who help break down the technicalities of the game and who append their commentary with personal experiences.Examples of these former players now functioning as experts include Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri’s coverage of cricket or Vijay Amritraj covering Wimbledon tennis.Secondly, these contemporary panels also include experts who haven’t played the game but have been affiliated with it for the long time like Harsha Bhogle in cricket, or John Dykes, who hosts the popular show on ESPN called football focus.Thirdly, the ‘mediating’ presenter who mayhave no prior association with the sport, but is present on the panel to ensure that discussions are held in an easily viewable format, like VJ Gaurav and Archana Vaidya’s coverage of the Indian Premiere League.Lastly, the expert panel may also include members who are positioned to appeal to segments of the audience who were not previously targeted. Mandira Bedi’s coverage of IPL 2008 for instance, can be seen as an attempt to attract female viewers, and former Indian footballer Baichang Bhutia’s involvement in the television coverage of the football world cup of 2010 helpedattract Indian fans. This diversepanel of experts isinvolved in making the viewing of sports a pleasurable experience and ensures that diverse segments of audiences relate to the program.

2) Sports Celebrities: (ID 3) Sports is presented in terms of stars and narratives. The media narrativizes the events of sports, transforming them into stories with stars and characters like heroes and villains. A ’celebrity’ sportsman can be defined as someone who is made very intimate to the viewer/fan through the circulation of his/her image that is constructed and manipulated by the media. Though the viewer/fan may never meet the ‘celebrity’ sportsman personally or ‘face-to-face’, he/she still feels ‘intimacy’ with the ‘image’ of the sportsman constructed and proliferated by the media in the form of pictures (those that are publicly commissioned but also ‘secret’ and ‘private’ ones), personal life stories, interviews, etc. The popularity of the celebrity ‘image’ is constructed by proliferating this image in multiple media platforms. The more coverage an image gets, the easier it is to recall the player. Moreover, the popularity of a sports celebrity is directly related to the diversityof images associated with them. It is hard to determine what aspect of Dhoni’s media-constructed image his fans like: the long-haired, rebellious, bike-obsessed Dhoni, the swashbuckling, six-hitting batsman, the cool, calm captain or the married and respectablyaged Dhoni. What makes Dhoni such a popular cricketer is that fans from very diverse backgrounds can identify with him.

With the plethora of sports being shown on TV, most fans don’t support teams anymore but instead follow the lives and careers of individualplayers. For instance, fans tend to support Manchester United because David Bekham played for themor the Chicago Bulls because Michael Jordan played for them.David Bekham and Michael Jordan become ‘iconic’ or are the ‘signs’ around which the image of the whole team is understood. Thistrendof individual playersbeing celebrated for various reasons in the world of sports is not a coincidence, but a consequence of the packaging of sports for audiences. For diverse sets of audiences that view sports, celebrities function as an easy method for fans to identify with certain players and the teams they play for. Moreover, celebrities who are more ‘familiar’ than the average player/team can make the watching of any match pleasurable, even those that involve teams that may be unknown to the viewer.

The image of a player is constructed by the media through several narratives. A narrative can be thought of for our purposes here as a means of representation employed by a particular speaker/speakers whoorders a set of events for an audience. Each narrative about a celebrity sportsman highlights his/her unique features, and each player characterized by a specific narrative embodies these features. These celebrity sportsman narratives can thus be thought of as ‘creating’ the people they describe. While one narrative can be used to describe many different players, the mark of a popular player is one who has multiple narratives associated with him/her. The most popular celebrity sportsmannarrative is one that tells the tale of a great player who arosefrom conditions of grim poverty and malnutrition. Such narratives focus on the grit and determination of the player whowas able to succeed in spite of great adversity. The two most iconic examples of such narratives would be Pele and Muhammad Ali. Another popular celebrity sportsman narrative is that of the child prodigy/ genius whose skill is unexplainable. Such players are ‘born to become’ players and dominate the field. These players are seen as possessing an ‘innate’ talent or skill, thereby erasing the effects of heredity, infrastructural resources like trainers, coaches and other factors that may indicate a ‘cultivation’ of sporting skills. Usually, each era is marked by one player of such kind. One of the most identifiable players constructed by such a ‘genius’ narrative is Sachin Tendulkar. It is also possible for a player to be celebrated by negative narratives. Maradona and Lance Armstrongwere considered champions of their sports who ruined their careerson account of relying on ‘artificial’ methods like doping. Such ‘negative’ narratives usually revolve around accounts of the genius who couldn’t handle the pressures of being a top sportsman and was tempted to cheat. These narratives that ‘create’ different kinds of sports celebrities (the genius, the mythical and elusive, the doper, and the underdog) are crucial in determining audience/fans’ reaction to celebrity ‘images’. A player’s ascent to a sports celebrity status is reduced to individual qualities such as determination, innate ability, egoism, cheater, to position a sport-star as a deserved benefactor or fans’ affection or chagrin. Examples of positive and negative narratives are provided in the further reading section.

3) Sports as entertainment/ Spectacle: As the market for sports expanded, sports programmers have started competing with major television shows for a share of their audiences. A sports program in today’s era must compete with TV soaps, reality shows, and the latest movies for the audience’s attention. Sports programmers have reacted by packaging sports as ‘entertainment’ and by ensuring that it delivers the thrill that other entertainment programs provide. This involves presenting the game as a spectacular display and introducing a sense of drama into the narration of action on the pitch. John Fiske (84) has argued that the spectacular involves an exaggeration of the pleasure of looking. It exaggerates the visible, magnifies and foregrounds the surface appearance, and refuses meaning or depth. The IPL provides a good example of the spectacular nature of sports presentation, with its circus-like environment that is created at each match. Each IPL match begins with performances by famous pop stars, while Bollywood celebrities watch the proceedings from the VIP box, every boundary is celebrated with sound effects, fireworks and dancing cheerleaders and players and fans in turn respond to this spectacle by celebrating with fervor at every crucial phase of the game. The on field spectacle is complemented by advertisements which celebrate the thrill of watching matches. By privileging the audience over the player, these ads create the sense that the players perform for the audience, not unlike a circus. In the IPL 5 Advertisement (image provided in A/V section and video provided in further readings section) the players are constructed as circus rides, to be enjoyed by the rider/spectator. Further, each ride representing a player highlights a specific skill of the player, accentuating the fact that players use their ‘freakish’ skills to entertain the audience. This celebration of excess culminates in the highlights package shown at the end of the match which condenses the whole match into its most exciting moments. The consequence of this exaggeration of visual material is that there remains little meaning behind the spectacle. The only memory of the match for the fan is the few spectacular moments reminisced through the highlights. Most Indian cricket fans remember Dhoni’s game-winning six in the world cup final of 2011 or Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes in an over during the winning of the world cup T20 of 2007.

The construction of a spectacle is complemented by adding a sense of drama to the match. This is usually achieved through narratives creating intense and bitter rivalries between the competing teams. India-Pakistan matches or Ashes matches are constructed for the viewer as intense rivalries whose histories exceed the players on the field. Each player is not only playing to win the match but to uphold the honor of hiscountry. This rivalry is highlighted by re-counting previous electrifying encounters between these teams. An India-Pakistan match for instance, usually involves recounting painful memories of Javed Miandad hitting a six on the last ball of the match or Sachin’s single handed demolition of the Pakistani pace bowling attack in the 2003 world cup. The history of rivalry, continuously recreated in the audience’s memory, gives significance to eachmatch between these teams irrespective of the significance of the match in the contemporary moment. The rivalry between footballing giants Real Madrid and Barcelona is constructed as a rivalry of: nationalities with the former representing the cosmopolitan capital and the latter represents the dissenting culture of the Catalonians, club philosophies with the former preferring to buy the best players in the world and the latter preferring to produce their own stars from their youth academy, and playing styles with the former preferring quick-paced, attractive counter-attacking football and latter playing a conservative, possession based football. As a consequence matches between the two clubs referred to as ‘El-Classico’ are constructed as a match between two contesting philosophies and identities.

The construction of the match as a spectacle makes the process of viewing more entertaining and thrilling. The viewer does not watch the match solelyto enjoy seeing the game but alsoto experience the thrill and drama introduced into the match with the aid of the strategies discussed earlier.

4) Branding: Sports celebrities are not just celebrated for their sporting achievements but are constructed and made popular as brands that helpsell not only the sport but other products as well. John Frow (2002) argues that a brand is not a singular object but a product range distinguishable from other objects. When a player reaches the stature of a brand then he/she is associated with a range of products, where the characteristics of the player are associated with/transferred onto the product. A brand is a set of meanings and values attached to a standardized product togenerate desire. For instance, Virat Kohli’s image (example provided in A/V section) as youthful,mischievous, stylish, as having boyish charm andenjoying popularity with women, coupled with his intensity on the field, has made him one of the leading youth brands in India. Consequently, he endorses diverse youth-targeted products such as Fastrack watches, Celkon cell phones, Clean hair care products and Fair and Lovely face cream. Rahul Dravid, known for his consistency and reliability, is associated with products such as Max Life insurance and Bank of Baroda. Vishwanathan Anand, (example provided in A/V section) known for his cerebral skills, is associated with the computer institute NIIT. Branding allows manufacturers to associate their products with characteristics of their brand, to target specific audiences. While Virat Kohli or Dhoni would attract youth audiences, older players such as Rahul Dravid or Vishwanathan Anand appeal to middle-aged, married audiences. Brands however are not attached to products, and the characteristics of a brand can be transferred from one set of products to another with ease. This transferability of a brand allows the transference of brand loyalty from one product to another. A whole industry of advertising and public relations executives has been created to ensure that brands remain recognizable and remain in public memory. This requires constant media coverage of a brand on and off the field so their image is easily recallable.

As Brands grow, they can acquire semantic autonomy and can transform into a self- signifying product through the force of memory. Michael Jordan’s multiple championship winning runs in the 1990’sand high flying antics on the court made him the global face of the NBA and Nike. Jordan’s ability to ‘fly’ in the air led to the creation of his signature shoes by Nike called Air Jordan, which ‘sold’ Jordan’s ability to be airborne to anybody who wore those shoes. Over his 15 year association with Nike, Jordan related products have reportedly surpassed the 3 billion mark.At some point, Brand Jordan became such a recognizable brand that Jordan broke his Nike contract to create his own line of accessories and products known as Air Jordan. Brand Jordan did not require its affiliation to Nike and the NBA to be recognized, instead it was popular enough to sell commodities named after itself.

The life of a brand is not restricted to on field performances alone but is dependent on the recognizability of the brand in collective public memory. David Beckham for instance, was singlehandedly responsible for the global support garnered today by Manchester United. This was made possible by Beckham’s image as a style icon, whose popularity rose with his marriage to a pop star of international fame and the overt ‘fashioning’ of his body through multiple tattoos and diverse hairdos. Beckham’s visual currency did not depend on his playing prowess but on his stylish appearance and celebrated lifestyle. A brand is therefore not restricted to a narrative or an image but is an assemblage of multiple meanings which can be used to sell a diverse range of products.

Consumption of sporting cultures:

The process of consumption of sports is interwoven with desire/wish fulfillment of the fan. A fan can consume the meanings that are packaged around ‘sports’ or can appropriate/subvert the meaning. The mass media provides many platforms through which fans can consume sports. Consumption could be restricted to watching the presentation of the match on television, reading reports about a match or reading interviews or analysis about certain player/matches. Sports can also be consumed through collecting symbols of the sport like fan collection of posters, signatures and player cards or through purchase of team merchandise or player endorsed accessories. However, fans can appropriate elements of mass produced fan cultures and place it into a new culture creating new meanings. Such a process is referred to as Bricolage (ID 4). One of the most easily recognizable example of such sub-cultures is fantasy league. Fantasy league is a game played between friends or social groups, where each player constructs a team consisting of players of their choice, and the performance of their team depends on the performance of their players in real matches. The performances are measured through statistics such as number of runs scored, number of wickets taken, bowler economy rates etc. These statistics are provided by experts to improve fans understanding of the game. However, in fantasy league games, statistics become the game and a player is valued for his statistical output and not his ‘image’ or ‘performance’ on the field. Yusuf Pathan may be preferred to Sachin Tendulkar because he performs better in the statistical categories that are valued in a fantasy league. Even though Sachin might be considered a more skilled player on the field, Pathan may be preferred over Sachin in the fantasy game due to his statistical superiority. Fantasy leagues provide an example of consumption of sports by appropriating meaning from the dominant presentation of the game.

Fans consume sports to shape their identities and indicate their social relations and group affiliations. Thus consumption is related to the sense of self and identity.Fans choose their allegiances to players and teams to construct a sense of self for the individual and to differentiate them from others. Consumption however, is not restricted to choosing a favorite player or team.Instead, a fan must perform his/her fandom to indicate the extent of his/her support and loyalty. This could be done in multiple ways: donning favorite team colors, wearing shoes endorsed by favorite players, sporting hair cuts and tattoos of one’sfavorite player. However, this performance of fandom is not restricted to accessories alone but also comprises fans’show of support in the stadium. Being a fan involves active, enthusiastic, participatory engagement with one’s favorite team/player. Fans thus need to show their excitement and fervor at the match through various rituals (video of fan rituals provided in further reading section). For instance, fans participate in the matches they are watching by painting their faces, holding banners, singing team anthems, doing a mexican wave, chanting and shouting at players and haveat times even been known to engage in disruptive behavior like making fires or throwing objects on the field. The performance of fandom becomesfrenetic when the TV camera pans out to the crowd.Fans tend to exaggerate their fandom to get the camera’s attention. Sometimes fans can become famous for their own dedication in watching the game and can be constructed as the ‘fanatical fan’ that others should aspire to be like. Chacha cricket for instance, is easily identifiable at any cricket match played by Pakistan.Similarly, Sudhir Gautam (image provided in A/V section) has been following Sachin Tendulkar all over the world for over a decade. Television spectators will frequently be provided frames of cricket chacha or Sudhir celebrating a wicket or a boundary to indicate the intensity of the game which is matched by the devotion of the fan towards the game.

The performance of fandom on the field can be appropriated by the media to establish an ‘entertaining’ and ‘exciting’ atmosphere at the game, to sell particular kinds of products/merchandise and to offer particular ways of seeing, participating in and enjoying the game. However, fans often subvert the status quo by refusing to adhere to the boundaries constructed culturally for the ‘players’ and ‘viewers’. Fans, for instance, can only be admitted into the stadium on the understanding that they will not attempt to disrupt the outcome of the game/sport. But there exist several reported cases of fan ‘disruption’ (examples provided in A/V section), where fans subvert their role as ‘consumers’ and instead attempt to directly interfere with the game proceedings. Examples include throwing objects on the field, streaking, shouting and discouraging players, or betting on the outcome of a match. Fans can therefore appropriate sporting cultures and create meanings that destabilize the boundaries of producer and consumer.

Instructional Design: Glossary

1) Packaging of sporting cultures: refers to the processes that construct particular meanings in sporting cultures through various mass media’s like TV shows, newspapers, magazines and online content. The packaging of meaning and opinions translate into the sale of sports as a commodity and becomes an integral part of consumer cultures.

2) Sports ‘experts’ are a class of sports professionals, like retired players, coaches, journalists, who have legitimacy to interpret sports for the audience. This legitimacy comes from their prior association with the sport.

3) Sports ‘celebrities’ are identifiable individuals constructed through certain images and narratives with whom the audience is expected to possess (or develop) some kind of affective attachment.

4) Bricolage can be understood as the process through which elements are appropriated from a particular culture only to be put together in a different context where their original meaning is transformed or reinterpreted.

Audio-visual quadrant (multimedia links)

1. Technological aids used by ‘experts’ to decode the game:

2. Advertisement constructing Virat Kohli as cool youth icon:

3. Advertisement conflating Anand’s ‘cerebral skills’ with product he is selling:

4. IPL 5 Advertisements constructing tournament as a ‘circus’:

5. Picture of iconic cricket fan ‘Sudhir Gautam’ watching a match

6. Fans disrupting match

Reference:

• Andrews, David L. & Jackson, Steven J, eds. Sports, Culture and Advertising: Identities, commodities and the politics of representation. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
• Andrews, David L. & Jackson, Steven J, eds. SPORTS STARS: The cultural politics of sporting celebrity. New York: Routeledge, 2001. Print.
• Boothroyd, Dave. “Cultural Studies and the Extreme.” New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory. Ed. Birchall, Clare & Hall, Gary. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2009. 274- 292. Print
• Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 1989. Print.
• Frow, John. “Signature and Brand” High-pop: making culture into public entertainment. Ed. Collins, J. London: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 56-74. Print.
• Tomlinson, Alan & Young, Christopher, eds. National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics, and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup. Albany: State university of New York Press, 2006. Print.
• Sandvoss, Cornel. AGAME OF TWO HALVES: Football, Television and Globalization.
• New York: Routeledge, 2003. Print.
• Schirato, Tony. Understanding Sports Culture. London: Sage, 2007. Print.
• News report demonstrating ‘genius’ narrative about Sachin Tendulkar: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/cricket/24934482
• News report demonstrating negative narrative about Lance Armstrong: http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/12/23/2013-in-sportlance-armstrong-finally-admits- he-was-a-cheater-just-a-very-good-one/
• IPL 5 advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n06jsQb_ME
• Montage shots of fans celebrations from different football grounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1-2ltPkO-A