Impact of Globalisation on Sports - Essay Example

27-12-2006. Impact of globalisation on sports,specially football. The world is changing everyday. Our world is gradually becoming one single huge market. Some people say that the world has become a village. Globalization refers to the process that is characterized by: The expansion of telecommunications and information technologies, The reduction of national barriers to trade and investment, Increasing capital flows and the interdependency of financial markets. Globalization promotes on increasing mobility of people although the control over migrations is greater than ever (air traffic has never been so important in the worlds history), global alliances among companies are more and more common. It is possible to chat through computers with people from virtually any country in the world. Ultimately globalization affected almost every part of the globe and almost each countries social and cultural aspect. The universal declaration of human rights, the international covenant of Economic, social and cultural rights and the revised European social charter, as well as the community charter of fundamental social rights of workers and European union charter of fundamental rights are some of the international and regional instruments that are particularly relevant to the issue of globalization. Globalization provides new dimension to citizenship global citizenship. Global citizenship means to be more critical of what we consume and in which conditions products have been produced and to be more aware of global issues such as poverty effecting the world, environmental problems or violence. Additionally, some people agree that social and cultural globalization means the opposite of homogeneity, that on the contrary new practices and identities are created as a result of the processes of interaction. Despite of the increasingly technological developments between haves and have-not's, is one of the major drawbacks of this trend. One of the positive consequences of opening up of the borders and development of different modes by communication such as Internet, it has become easier to communicate and move across to globe. People from one geographical area can easily reach out or communicate and in result transfer their social and cultural ethos. This affected the populations across the globe. Cultural assimilation is very common nowadays. People are sharing and learning from one another and became informative about others. Social and cultural issues are the major part of any countries population. Due to globalization these issues are the major factors, which has changed considerably. Though some concepts like dominant culture or cultural ethnicity or identity possess several problems in the societies and may have negative impact. Globalization has some negative impacts also. It has a negative impact on sovereignty of a nation. Due to continuous intervention of information's through media like satellite TV, Cable TV, Internet etc. Decision making of Governments, has been influenced. Government has lesser control over key decision making like economy, trade, finance etc. and consequently affect the people. Institutional structures have been changing day by day. An influence of a country affects the other due to information flow. Sovereignty of the states has been reduced quite appreciably. Most of the time globalization has been depicted as the economic phenomenon rather than a concept that is affecting the overall condition of population. Now Economic considerations are overlapping the political and social aspects. In running a government, intergovernmental agencies, MNC's, different organization influencing considerably therefore resulting that economic and financial dimensions taking centre state and the fundamental social and cultural issues such as social health, environmental aspects going backstage. So it has been very evident that globalization is a process or phenomenon that have impact on almost every aspect of people social and cultural life. In social and cultural life of people all over the world it has notable impact on sports also. The economics of sport also been affected by globalization. It has been a process started with liberalization of trade and economic, ultimately affected social, cultural, environmental issues. Sports are also integral part of any society. It's a part of entertainment (or supposed to be) industry on the whole. Globalization affected every aspect of sport. Emergent world economic sites of the post war ear gained international visibility with the Tokyo Olympics (1964) and Mexico City Olympics (1968) and Men's Soccer world cup (1970). Such events market and promoted global integration. All the summative of course, the 1980 and 1984 Olympics were dominated by superpower assertiveness, with Moscow an advertisement for state socialism, and Los Angeles for private enterprise. Following the emphasis on Catalonian cultural and economic resurgence at Barcelona in 1992 and reassertion of American corporate capitalism at Atlanta 1996. The main pitch for Sydney was that Sydney should be regarded by US and European capital as the ideal regional location for jumping on into South East Asia. The peace corps was once close to being remained the sports corps and emergent states routinely utilize sport to demonstrate the benefits of nation building. To many critics, sports manifest, nationalism has marked dependency, with indigenous pastimes displaced by those of the colonizes the process of competition ranking and nationalization inscribes a deep structure of western culture. The sporting corollary of the general trend towards MNC's economic domination is the pre eminences of privately owned teams rather than nationally representative ones. Economic, political, technological and cultural changes have forged new relations of TV, Sport and nation. What constitutes a national game or a contest between representatives of local, regional and national identities is subject to constant self or emulation. In 1970's cricket and 1990's rugby league corporate media takeover of the very sports themselves produced brief but tumultuous schisms, new discourses of tradition and modernity and a vigorous contest over the right to claim national representative status. The immediate cause of these dramatic events was a contest over free to air TV rights between public and private networks (in the cast of cricket) and competing media proprietors. So the phenomenon of globalization as truly worldwide operation of multinational capital and claming that the sport experience must be a weightily one of wider deliberations on globalization, because it intricate nationalism, public policy the media and contemporary cultural industrialization. Just as a sport manages to be a global phenomenon when it stand from the nation so the nation as embodied in sovereign politics, continues to be the critical unit of international commerce. And just as most of the money in so-called global sport circulates between western Europe Japan and the US-Western Europe-Japan triad's continuing significance is clear in sporting terms, too they are responsible for well over 90% of the money expended on the right to telecast the 2000 Sydney Olympics. These investments centre on the division of Labour. What began as a cultural exchange based on empire has turned into one based on capital. Sports appears to be an obvious example such as hockey gear is financed by Canada, designed in Sweden, manufactured in Denmark, Japan and the US and distributed across North America and Northern Europe, while Canada's sporting goods industry has internationalized. Sports industries are growing and becoming professionally managed. Local manufacturers market share dropping down. So globalization has overall impact on sports, may its economic, social, cultural or any other aspects. In the late 1970's Bourdier Suggested it was useful to think about the practice and consumption of sports as a form of supply that meets a specific social demand. Globalization impact on both the supply of and demand for sport. The contestation of sport games has come to be challenged if not dominated by football in social fields, which are no longer exclusively based on their locally distinguishable past. Recent contributions to the debate about sport and globalization include Bairner (2001), Miller et al. (2001), Silk and Andrews (2001), Hargreaver (2002), Houlihan (2003) and Rowe (2003). Whereas the first three tend to focus on sport's contribution to global culture, the instrumentalisation of sports in globalizing processes, and the response to globalization in terms of the shaping of local identities the last three authors suggest, that there has been an over enthusiastic welcome for the concept. Hargreaves (2002:37) suggests that the lack of empirical demonstration has compromised some of the most theoretically sophisticated arguments. Whilst Miller et al. (2001) drew attention to the economic, ideological, political and cultural dimensions of globalization in their study of sports, rather than see these as working coherently and consistently to the same rhythm however, Hargreaves (2002:33) suggests that multiple factors cut across each other and act according to different times and logic: "the globalization of sport is uneven and exhibits great variation" somewhat ruefully Robertson (2000: 462) notes that it has been in the discipline of business studies that research has pointed out that "global marketing requires that each product and service requires calculated sensitivity to local circumstance, identities, practices and soon". He concludes that this approach to the practical implications of globalization teaches us that globalization is not an all-encompassing process of homogenization but a complex mixture of homogenization and heterogenization. Identity and sport have often been linked to each other. Houlihan (2003) notes that sports have become a vehicle for the demonstration of differences in the globalization world. Whilst economic factors dominate discussions of contemporary sports, he argues that sport culture has some autonomy from these factors. He states that there is a danger of reading too much significance into the fact that such a high proportion of the world's population watches some parts of the Olympic games or the soccer World cup. Leys (2001) focuses on non- market field to be transformed into a market and focuses his attention of public health prices and broadcasting, we must all sports and especially football to his list of domains increasingly targeted by global capital in the past decade. Not all sports could fit this list of requirements, but football certainly does. There may be extra economic attachments to football teams. But certainly people want to spend money on the sport and the work force has never been more ready and willing to act as agents of capital in advertising and marketing. Whilst market forces attempt to gain influence over previously non-market sectors of the economy. In the age of globalization they also transform ideological conceptions of self and identity. Guibernau (2001) provides an excellent account of the challenges to national identity in a global age. National identity is a type of collective identity, expressing bonds of solidarity and shared identity between members of a community. National identity is a complex type of cultural identity that can combine a transcendent feeling of continuity overtime with a sense of differentiation from others. Nation states try to homogenize populations through five main strategies (Guibernau, 2001); the creation of distinct images, the creation of specific symbols and rituals, entitlements provided through citizenship, the creation of common enemies (Real, potential and invented) and through the control of the media and education system. As a politically usable resource, sport can contribute to each of these strategies. Hence when it comes to sport, As Rowe (2003) argues, it may be that the globalizing imperative if there is one can be reversely compromised. Through technological change the media, weather television radio, film of new media (internet satellite TV) generates globalization and increased visibility of difference. Boyle and Haynes (2002) remark sport remains 'an important cultural, political and commercial market of boundaries identities and markets. Writing in the Economist's annual review of world wide economic trends fashion guru Giorgio Armani notes that " The Olympics will make 2004 the year that sports men and women become the new fashion icons on a par with Hollywood in influence. David Beckham has done raise the profile of footballers as fashion and style beacons but back in 1995, I put England's goalkeeper David James on the catwalk and billboards and now it is my pleasure to fess the England football team. Football has long been the global game, but its gladiators are proving that they can be stylish as well as supreme athletes. Get ready to see footballers, tennis players, athletes and other also competing as fashion ambassadors." (Armani 2003: 125). Linking the deterritorialised language of fashion with global sport is only one among various strategies that guarantee footballs prime position as the globalizing world's dominant media sport and new media content. The proliferation of sports on television and other media/ entertainment mechanisms has deeply tainted the public face of football. More business-oriented commentators on sport provide a compelling list of associated developments. Westerback and Smith (2003) identify the blurring of what is sport and what is entertainment, the vertical and horizontal integration of sports and sport properties, and the integration and consolidation of sport leisure, recreation, television film and tourism into elements of the entertainment industry, as just a few of the key trends. The consequences include a growth in the economic effects and impacts of sports, the ongoing increase in the value of genuinely global sport properties, including athletes and players themselves, and the convergence of economics power in sport ownership. These effects link up with the defragmentation of sport governance and the simultaneous professionalisation and marginalization of smaller sports leagues, the gap between the sport enterprises that are globally successful and these, which remain domestically viable, will grow (Westerback & Smith, 2003). As a fewer and fewer hands will own more and more sports which are modeled according to western sports, the ultimate consequences will be a world wide increase in capitalism as the pre eminent economic philosophy and of sport as an effective vehicle to achieving wealth. It is undoubtedly understandable that sport has become more commercialized in the past 25 years. Equally it is almost pass to say that contemporary football is big business. TV sport throughout the world is dominated by football. There is football and then the rest, outside of the USA & Canada. FIFA's empire has grown accordingly. The sport goods industry is dominated by Nike, Addidas and the football kit rivalry were regularly occurs at world cup. As Rupert Murdock referred to it -'a bettering ram' for opening up new market (Cashmore 2003). In the contemporary form, sport is influenced most by business for example as an advertising and promotional vehicle by government (as a vehicle for expressing national and ideological progress) and by the mass media (as a form of content able to generate large regular and loyal audiences or readership and hence advertising revenues). Like all modern sports that emerged as a powerful cultural device in the countries that spearheaded the path towards modernity, football was disseminated along the lines of colonial rule and hegemonic power, finally reaching the shore of even the most distant place. In different societies responses to globalization have been diverse- indigenization, re invention of tradition and relocation have all taken place. Some aspects of globalization receive serious resistance but the football certainly not. Governing sport used to be simple. National and international bodies were created to codify the rules, to create the first organized tournaments, to encourage and to facilitate international exchange. But the rapid globalization and commercialization of sport involves a whole host of competing interests. Increasingly key questions in governing sport cannot be solved domestically or even by international sporting bodies alone. Globe-trotting talent means that the African Nations Cup affects Leeds United fixtures. Effective action on drugs needs unannounced testing during training - that means international agreement from keeping track of athletes to special visa regimes for the IAAF's "flying squad" drug-testers. The headline controversies feed into a wider debate about whether sporting bodies have the capacity to deal with the new challenges - of agents and player power, the growing role of the courts, with sponsors, new media rights and technological advances both fair and foul. The post-1989 age of democracy and accountability may have found the Achilles' heel of sports' traditional structures - even if these seem as well entrenched as the Berlin Wall or the post-war Italian elite. The focus has shifted from the impact of global politics on sport to issues about the governance and politics of sport itself. It may in fact have been easier to govern sport in the age of extremes. Now that it is over, those governing sport have lost their political cover. Sport's global transformation has put them in the spotlight: they are no longer seen as (relatively) innocent pawns in the global political game. Despite the global revolution they have unleashed, sporting organizations have remained highly resistant to change. It may well take yet more crises before some respond - but we can be confident that no change will mean new crises erupting. And there are positive signs of an emerging new agenda in sporting governance - for example, in the way that the English Football Association is seeking to transform itself, in the lessons to be learnt from southern hemisphere rugby's confidence in adapting to change, and in the reformist manifesto of UEFA President and defeated FIFA candidate Lennart Johansson. But reform will not be easy - and all of sport's stakeholders have a responsibility to work out how they can best contribute constructively. The global era presents fundamental challenges for sporting governance - but also the opportunity for sport to become the force for internationalism, which it dreamt of being at the start. If we can find better ways to work together to protect and promote sport's core values we will be able to renew and pass on the magic of sport to future generations. References: 1. . 2. http://www.eycb.coe.int/compass/en, accessed on 26 December, 2006 . 3. Armani. (2003),'Luxuries forever in the world in 2004', London: The economist publications, 125. 4. Bairner, A. (2001), Sport, Nationalism and Globalization, Albany, NY: State university of New York press. 5. Boyle, R. and Haynes, R., (2000), Power Play: Sport, the media and popular culture, London: Long man. 6. Cashmore, E. (2003), Beckhem, Cambridge:polity. 7. Guibernan, M.(2001), Globalization and nation state in M. Guibernan and J. Hutchinson(eds.) Understanding nationalism, Cambridge; polity. 8. Hargreaves, J. (2002), Globalisation theory, Global sport and nations and nationalism in J. Sugden and A. Tomlinson (eds.) Power games: A critical sociology of sports, London: Rout ledge. 9. Houlihan, B. (2003), Sport and globalization in B. Houlihan (ed.) Sport and society: A student introduction, London, Sage. 10. Katwala, S. (2000), Democratizing Global Sport, accessed from Read More