PHYSICAL CULTURE AND SPORT STUDIES AND RESEARCH

DOI: 10.2478/v10141-009-0027-8

Sociology of Sport:
Conceptual and Topical Issues

Aleš Sekot

Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

This paper is intended to encourage students and readers in general to

think more critically about sports and how they are related to
contemporary society. We emphasize socialization impacts of sports as
well as increasing process of organization, commercialisation, and
globalisation of sports. Sports are social constructions and particularly in a
form presented in mass media are an integral part of modern way of life. It
carries pleasure as well as sadness for millions of people. Sports are
institutionalised competitive activities that involve rigorous physical
exertion or the use of relatively complex physical skills by participant
motivation, by personal enjoyment and external rewards. Global aspects of
contemporary sports are discussed from the point of view of their
technological, economical, medial and ideological dimensions.

KEYWORDS sport, socialization, culture, leisure, globalisation, top sport, mass media

Sociology is the systematic study of social behaviour and human groups. It focuses primarily on
the influence of social relationships upon people’s attitudes and manners and on how societies are
established and how they change. One major goal of sociology is to identify the underlying, recurring
patterns and influences on social behaviour. In contrast to other social sciences, sociology emphasizes
the influence that society has on people’s attitudes and demeanour and the ways in which people shape
society. Sociologists are concerned with social issues, social relationships, social organizations, and
social change. Their overall goal is to enable people to understand, control, and change their lives and
human needs among all categories of people to be met at both individual and group levels (Yiannakis,
Melnick 2001).
Sociology is very helpful when it comes to studying sports as social phenomena. It provides
concepts, theoretical approaches, and research methods to describe and understand behaviour and
social interactions as they occur in particular social and cultural contexts. It enables us to “observe“
conducting social groups and how this is connected with history, politics, economics, and cultural life.
Sport is a part of social and cultural life and helps us to describe and understand social issues in
a given cultural, social and political context. When people are asked, “What is sport?” they say: “Well,
that depends on whom you ask, when you ask, and where you ask”. They explain that not everyone has

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the same way of looking at and defining sports and that ideas about sports vary over time and from one
place to another. In cultures that emphasize cooperative relationships, the idea that people should
compete with each other for rewards might be defined as disruptive, if not immoral. For people in
cultures that emphasize competition, physical activities and games that have no winners may seem
pointless. This means that any definition of sports reflects the structure and organization of
relationships and social life in a particular society at a particular point in time.
Social science faces a plurality of conceptual spectrum relating to sports, physical culture and
kinetic activities. Qualitative changes in sports alone have updated new concepts such as physical
recreation, sport management, professional sport, high performance sport, elite sport, etc. Given that
conceptual plurality is rooted in a different theoretical attitude toward sport as a social phenomenon,
this reflects contemporary changes in value orientation, the nature of the socialization process,
operation and behaviour of the mass media, system of sponsorship, new aspects of marketing
communication, attitudes towards violence in sports, relation to race, ethnicity, money, politics and
family life. Children all around the world grow up with vivid images of televised sports and sport
figures, they play video games based on these sports, and they are encouraged to participate in sports
by their parents, teachers, and the elite athletes who are often presented in their lives as a new sort of
admired celebrity.
Each sociological theory provides a framework, which can be used to help us understand
sports as social phenomena. For example, the functionalist theory offers an explanation for the positive
consequence associated with sporting involvement in the lives of both athletes and spectators. The
conflict theory identifies serious problems in sports and explains how and why players and spectators
are oppressed and exploited for economic purposes. The theory of social interaction suggests that an
understanding of sports requires an understanding of the meanings, identities, and interactions
associated with sporting involvement. The critical theories suggest that sports are concerned with
social relations and culture in complex and diverse ways and that sports change as power and
resources shift and as these changes take place in social, political and economic relations in society.
The feminist theories have taken a critical approach that emphasizes gender as a category of
experience and sports as sites for producing, reproducing and transforming ideas about gender and the
structure of gender relations in society. The figurational theory identifies the complex and long-term
social processes through which modern sports have emerged and have changed in various contexts,
cultures and societies (Coakley 2001, p. 30-54).
We define sport as an institutionalized motoric activity requiring systematic physical exertion
motivated through desire to improve physical shape, specific personal experience or intended result,
performance, victory and reward (Sekot 2006, p. 23). It is evident that historical development for
participation in organized, competitive sports has not been equally distributed by social class, gender,
race, ethnicity, age or ability. In the most highly economically developed societies we now face rapid
growth and popularity of high profile competitive sports, in nature predominantly secular, specialized,
rationalized, with typical features of bureaucratization, quantification and intensive orientation on
setting and breaking records. Organized sports in most developed countries have become a
combination of business, entertainment, education, morality, training, masculinity rituals, technology
transfer, professional mobility, declaration of identity, and endorsements of allegiance to nations,
teams or corporate sponsors. However, sports are also leisure and recreational activities through which
people seek physical challenges and exciting experiences, seldom available in the rest of their lives.
Becoming involved and staying involved in sports occurs in connection with the general
socialization process in people's lives. The decision to play sports is influenced by the availability of
opportunities, the existence of social support, the process of identity formation, and the cultural

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context in which decisions are made. When we consider sports and socialization, we mean to respect
the fact of various impacts of given different sports on different experiences and consequences. It is
evident from the context of what occurs in connection with power and performance sports, that it is
quite different from what occurs in connection with pleasure and participation in recreational sports.
The former emphasise performances, winning, championships, records and rewards, while the latter
derive pleasure from wellness and satisfaction of a magnificent physical and mental condition. The
visibility and popularity of power and performance sports today in many societies are related to issues
of power and ideology: These sports fit the interests of people who have the power and wealth to
sponsor and promote sports.
Because popular beliefs have emphasized sporting participation as a character-building
experience, it is for some people surprising that high performance sports are spoiled by an existence of
brutality and doping substances used among athletes or spectators. So we speak about deviance based
on ignoring or rejecting norms, and we face deviance based on the unquestioned acceptance of norms.
Both attitudes are derived from the uttermost exertion of reaching the best results, of winning, of
receiving the best imaginable reward. But we also face deviance off the field and away from sports.
Since the 1950s, an increasing amount of free time and sporting participation of children has
occurred in organized programs supervised by adults. Both parents, working outside the home,
believed in the positive impact of organized and adult-supervised after-school and summertime
programs. At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of elite sports training facilities
dedicated to producing highly skilled and specialized athletes who can move up through increasingly
difficult levels of competition. As organized programs have become increasingly exclusive, structured,
performance oriented, and elitist, some young people have sought alternatives, which allow them to
engage freely in physical activities on their own terms. Young people, playing on their own, are
interested in action, scoring, personal involvement, and challenging or exciting experiences and
opportunities to reaffirm friendship during games. The personal experience of children in these two
sport forms are usually different. Informal sports are generally action-centred, while organized sports
are rule-centred. Playing informal sports clearly involves the use of interpersonal and decision-making
skills. Playing organized sports involves the personal ability of learning the rules and strategies used in
activities that are highly visible and important within the given culture (Sekot 2006).
Sports and leisure are two phenomena of mutual dependence. Sociologists discuss the
character and nature of leisure and mention the position of informal participant sports in the context of
recreational activities and sport tourism. The position of sport in the context of structure of values is
discussed too.
The phenomenon of sport has been strongly transformed during the past two or three decades,
mostly as a consequence of the process of commercialization and medialization of elite professional
sports. Sports nowadays are generally presented and deal with a consumer product in the course of the
market regulated process. Executives of sponsor organizations use top sporting events as vehicles for
delivering a cultural message they want people in the world to hear. They want people watching the
Olympic Games to agree that competition is the best way to allocate rewards in life and that successful
and powerful people (and corporations) really deserve their money and power. Marketing specialists
of such global corporations also want to develop an approach to life that associates pleasure with
consumption and social status with corporate logos. The market economy in such a context wants to
establish consumption as a way of life, as a foundation for culture itself. Its profit and power depend
upon it, and marketing strategies use it mostly in power and performance elite sports (Slack 2004).
Speaking in the mass media about sports means in most cases speaking and hearing about high
performance elite sports. Forgoing facts reflect the value orientation of sport to commercialization and

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changes in sport as a successive process of transition of sport into an entertainment domain of mass
culture. It is steadfastly more and more evident that whilst mass culture adulterates an individual and
societal process of spiritual development, top elite sports intensify consumable attitudes to sport and
kinetic activities. The commercial frame of top sports has a negative impact on the general human
ability to be involved, indulged and entertained in a complex of active spiritual and physical
developments of the personality. Some scholars in this context openly discuss the “marriage between
television and sports” (Cashmore 2003).
Sports have not only grown in scale and popularity, but have become modified into a virtual
theatre. An effort by commercial TV stations to drag sports toward popular entertainment and record-
breaking viewing figures is of great marketing importance. Both television and spectators of elite
sports transformed each other: Television validating its place as a premier electronic medium and
sports mutating into an entertainment medium on a market par with show business. The demographic
profile of the viewers is attractive enough to a certain class of advertisers, whose willingness to pay
some of the advertising fees in the industry has propelled the growth of network television revenues
from the attractive sporting events. A futuristic scenario of commercial mass media means: When
people refer to the spectators, they mean the people watching television at home. The commercial
model of sport is very demanding on time, mostly absorbed not in active sporting activities, but in
passive watching of these events (Jarvie 2006, pp. 131-150).
The colourful arena of sport is in some context connected also with phenomenon of violence:
on the sports field as well as off it. This fact is undoubtedly directly or at least indirectly connected
with the fact that professional top-performance sports often lay the emphasis on the difference in
dimensions of strength and power, lays stress on control of other people and adore a status derived
from victory over the opposition. In addition it tolerates behaviour and actions that are usually
punishable outside the arena of sports. The growing existence of violence among spectators evokes a
number of questions. The perhaps most cardinal one is: Does sport provoke violence in
spectators/viewers? In this respect it must be pointed out that sports events attract hundreds of millions
of spectators worldwide, in the medial form sport actually involves in some cases billions of viewers.
From this point of view it is necessary to distinguish between TV viewers and the direct audience of a
sporting event. Isolated cases of striking mass violence by sports fans are rather exceptional today. But
if this occurs we usually face serious manifestations of social deviations. In this respect, also the
possible limits of the systematic efforts of sporting events organizers and the police to prevent
negative phenomena in the field of sports are actualized. But in many cases and in many places the
existence of deviations in sports highlights the obvious or hidden problems of the respective sport
branch and in a wider context also the limitations of the reference framework of relevant social,
economic and political structures. The danger of sport brutality, especially in the form of sport
sectarianism non-impartial mass behaviour of fans particularly on the part of “flag bearers” or
“hoolifans” , suggest what practices a crowd bereft of rationality might use if they held real power.
Global aspects of contemporary sports are discussed from the point of view of their
technological, economical, medial and ideological dimensions. This is the reason why we also discuss
very important actual problems of given relations between sport and globalisation in the context of the
newly emerged process of sport mobility. At that period of European history we have to remark an
occurrence of sport labour migration and issue a reminder of related problems of production of
indigenous sporting talent and respective exploitation of people from non-EU societies. This
movement of people changing their professional place or even their place of residence involved
athletes, but also included coaches, officials, administrators and sport scientists. We can postulate
questions about attractiveness of given component sports for migrants, about what professional

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athletes mostly experience along their journeys, and what the impact on the host and origin countries
is. At the same time we are convinced that for most sport migrants their status and market value is
derived from the ethos of hard work, differential rewards and win-at-all-costs approach. The crucial
topic of mutual relations of sports in the context of globalization is discussed also from an political
and ecological perspective. In such a context it must be reiterated that the media have a significant
impact on our society and that they affect our emotions and create our admired stars, icons and heroes
(Smart 2005, Sekot 2008).
Sociology is also concentrated on future trends of complex phenomenon of sport. The growing
importance of sports in society makes it more necessary for us to take a closer and more critical look at
how sports are defined, organized, played and presented. As we do this, some scholars will call for
changes in dominant forms of sports or even reject those forms and call for new and alternative sports.
But we should not expect widespread revolutionary changes in the near future. Changing sports
remain a difficult challenge. Changes reflect the visions that people have about what they want sports
to be in the future. Changes in sports can be made within sport itself, in connection with opposition
groups, through efforts to create new and alternative sport forms, and indirectly by making changes in
the society in which sports exist. Regardless of the vantage point, we must try to view the active
recreational sports as an integral part of the all-around personality of modern society, and an integral
part of one's leisure and structural values. We can also suppose gradual improvement of the European
cooperation in multifarious levels of sports as a powerful phenomenon of intercultural cooperation.
Despite the immense growth of opportunities in different levels and forms or sports in
contemporary global context we face the fact that sport in general has never been equally distributed by
social class, gender, skin color, ethnicity, age, or ability. In most Western cultures, the organizational
sport as a socio-cultural phenomenon is usually associated with today’s high-profile organized sports.
Sport participation is more likely to have positive effects on people’s lives when it is
associated with opportunities for testing and developing identities apart from playing sports, and
contributes to formation of new relationships, challenges, competences and responsibilities including
those outside of sports. Neither explicitly good nor bad socialization outcomes occur automatically in
connection with sport participation. In fact, the impact of all our experiences in sports is mediated by
the social and cultural context in which we live.
Playing sports is a social as much as a psychical experience. The socialization that occurs does
so through social relationships. Sports come in many forms, socialization processes related to power
and performance sports are different from experiences related to pleasure and participation sports.
Power and performance models of sports are highly organized and competitive and emphasize:
1. Use of strength, speed, and power to push human limits and aggressively dominate opponents in
the quest for victories and championships.
2. The idea that excellence is proved through competitive success and achieved through intense
dedication and hard work, combined with making sacrifices, risking one’s personal well being and
playing even under the influence of pain.
3. The importance of setting records, defining the body as a machine, and using technology to control
and monitor the body.
4. Selection systems based on physical skills and competitive success.
5. Hierarchical authority structures, in which athletes are subordinate to coaches and coaches are
subordinate to owners and administrators.
6. Antagonism to the point where opponents are defined as enemies.

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The pleasure and participation model of sports in accordance with its nature involves competition, but
the primary emphasis in on the connection between people and personal expression through
participation, emphasizing:
1. Active participation revolving around a combination of types of connections – connections between
people, between mind and body, and between physical activity and the environment.
2. An ethic of personal expression, enjoyment, growth, good health, and mutual concern and support
for team-mates and opponents.
3. Empowerment – not power – created by experiencing the body as a source of pleasure and well-
being.
4. Inclusive participation based on an accommodation of differences in physical skills.
5. Democratic decision-making structures characterized by cooperation, the sharing of power, and
give-and-take relations between coaches and athletes.
6. Interpersonal support around the idea of competing with, not against; opponents are not enemies,
but those who test each other (Coakley 2001).
In fact, some people play sports that contain elements of both forms and reflect many ideas
about what is important in physical activities. However, power and performance sports remain
dominant today in the sense that they receive the most attention and support. Not all sports are the same
when it comes to socialization. The emphasis on performance is also tied to the development of elite,
specialized training programs. Organized programs in gymnastics, figure skating, ice hockey, football,
tennis, and other sports now boast an explicit emphasis on making children into headline-grabbing,
revenue-producing sporting machines. Children in these programs may become “symbols of striking
consumptions”: for the parents, who pay the bills and brag to friends about the accomplishments of
their children. And children of that sort become child laborers, because the livelihoods of coaches and
other adults depend on their performances.
Increased interest in alternative sports reflects a liking for freely physical activities on boys or
girls' own terms. Because organized youth sports are the most visible settings for children’s sport
participation, these unstructured and participant-controlled activities are referred to as alternative
sports. Alternative sports encompass an infinite array of physical activities done individually or with
groups. Their popularity is based, in part, on children’s reactions against the highly structured
character of adult-controlled, organized sports.
Playing informal sports clearly involves the use of “important civilizing functions” cultivating
interpersonal and decision-making skills: children must be creative to organize games and keep them
going. Informal sports provide experience involving cooperation, planning, flexibility, and
improvisation.
Playing organized sports, on the other hand, involves a different set of experiences. In
improving their ability to manage their relationships with adult authority figures, children also learn
the rules and strategies used in activities that are highly visible and important within the culture, and
through their participation they often gain status, which carries over into the rest of their lives. When
they play organized sports, they see bureaucracy and hierarchy in action, and they become acquainted
with forms of rule-governed teamwork and adult models of work and achievement. But children may
in that setting view the world in passive terms, as something that is given rather than created. If this is
true, children may grow up thinking they are powerless to change the world in which they live.
Organized youth sports require time, money, and organizational skills, and these usually come
from parents. Therefore, playing organized sports is often a family affair. Children make choices
about playing sports, but they have little control over the context in which they make their choices.

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Many factors, including parents, peers, and the general social and cultural context in which they live,
influence the alternatives from which they choose and how they define and give meaning to their
choices. For example, athletic ability, coolness, toughness, and being “smooth” in social relationships
are mostly determinants of the popularity of the boys. Very high or very low academic performance
often subvert popularity among them. The popularity of the girls depends primarily on their families’
social status, the freedoms granted to them by their families, their physical appearance and grooming
behavior, their abilities to manage relationships with boys and female peers, and their grades in school.
Boys are more likely than girls to think they are better then they actually are when it comes to
sport skills. This has an effect on their self-confidence and their willingness to use and test their bodies
in active ways and voluntarily participate in physical activities. The girls drop out of sports at higher
rate than the boys do.
Many of the worst problems in youth sports occur in high-performance programs. It seems to
be useful to change their policies, procedures, and rules to account for the rights and interests of
children and to create less controlling sport environments, designed to promote children’s growth,
development, and empowerment (Coakley 2001, p. 109-133).
Sports have been used throughout history as forms of public entertainment. However, sports
have never been so thoroughly commercialized as they are today. Never before have economic factors
so totally dominated decisions about sports, and never before have economic organizations and large
corporate interests had so much power and control over the meaning, organization, and purpose of
sports. Sports are not simply another big business. They are one of the fastest-growing industries in the
U.S.A. and many other economically highly developed countries.
Because of the importance of economic factors in sports, we face the following questions:
1. Under what conditions do commercial sports emerge and prosper?
2. How does commercialization influence the meaning, organization, and purpose of sports?
3. Who are the people who own, sponsor, and promote sports, and what are their interests?
4. How much money do athletes make, and what is their legal status in various sports?
Commercial sports grow and prosper best under certain social and economic conditions:
1. They are most prevalent in market economies, where material rewards are highly valued by those
connected with sports, including athletes, team owners, event sponsors and spectators.
2. Commercial sports usually exist in societies with large, densely populated cities, because they
require a large concentration of potential spectators.
3. Commercial sports require that people in society have time, money, transportation, and media
connections to attend or to tune into sports events through the media (mass cultural in nature).
Commercial sports are a luxury, and they prosper only in societies where the standard of living is
high enough that people can afford to use the resources of playing and watching events that have
no tangible products.
4. Commercial sports require large amounts of capital to build and maintain stadiums and arenas in
which events can be played and watched.
5. They are most likely to flourish in cultures where lifestyles involve high rates of consumption and
emphasize material status symbols.
The market economy always privileges the interests of those who have the power and
resources to influence which sports will be selected for promotion and coverage. When wealthy and
powerful people are interested in a sport, it will be covered, promoted, and presented as if it had
cultural significance in society. When sports promote the idea that success is achieved only through
hard work and dedication to efficiency, people have their beliefs and expectations reaffirmed, and they

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are willing to pay for that reaffirmation. And this is why athletes make so much money today – they
reaffirm a success ideology, which reproduces privilege among powerful people around the globe
(Slack 2004).
Commercial sports have become global in scope for two reasons. First, those who control,
sponsor, and promote sports are looking constantly for new ways to expand their markets and
maximize their profits. Second, transnational corporations with production and distribution in multiple
countries can use sports as vehicles for introducing their products and services all around the world:
sport organizations look for a global market.
The orientation associated with many spectator sports today has shifted from the aesthetic to the
heroic. Aesthetic orientation emphasises beauty and pleasure of movement, mastery of technical skills,
willingness to explore limits, commitment to staying active and involved as a participant; heroic
orientation emphasises danger and excitement of movement, style or mastery of dramatic expression,
willingness to go beyond limits, a commitment to victory and success of the team or sponsor.
At the present time in many affluent countries recently-built stadiums resemble shopping
malls, and some fans define their attendance as a shopping opportunity. The people who attend games
are a captive audience, and team owners want to capture as much of their entertainment money as
possible. This fan has fallen for the lure of consumption to the point that he or she is less interested in
the game than in buying products to prove his or her attendance at the game (Sekot 2008, 121-135).
When sports become popular community activities, government involvement often increases.
Many sports require sponsorships, organization, and facilities – all of which depend on resources that
only few individuals possess on their own. For this reason many people see government involvement
in sports as a necessity. The nature and extent of government involvement in sports vary from one
community and society to the next, and government involvement occurs for one or more of the
following seven reasons:
1. To safeguard public order;
2. To maintain fitness and physical abilities among citizens;
3. To promote the prestige and power of a group, community, or nation;
4. To promote a sense of identity, belonging, and unity among citizens;
5. To reproduce values consistent with the dominant ideology in a community or society;
6. To increase support for political leaders and government;
7. To promote economic development in the community or society.
Some governments have attempted to safeguard the public order by sponsoring sporting events
and programs for at-risk youth. Sport, it is argued, can be used to keep them off the streets and thereby
control crime rates, vandalism, loneliness, and alienation. And: Sports have often been used in military
and police training, so that soldiers and police will be more effective protectors of public order. Nations
with government-funded health insurance programs often promote and sponsor sports to improve
physical health in the general population and thereby reduce the cost of health services. Many people
believe that sport participation improves fitness, fitness improves health, and good health reduces
medical costs and improves professional and personal achievement. Government officials use
international sports to establish their nation’s legitimacy in the international sphere, and they believe
that, when athletes from their country or nation win medals, their national image is enhanced around
the world. This belief is strong and many governments now offer their athletes financial rewards for
winning medals in the Olympics. Many government officials are convinced that sports create more
than temporary good feelings of togetherness, trying also to maintain the idea of loyalty, discipline,
determination, and the ability to keep working in the face of hardships and bad times.

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Sports are social constructions, they change as ideas and relationships change in sports and in
society. Regarding the future development of sports we believe power and performance sports will
continue to be the most visible and publicized sport forms in the near future. The sponsors of these
sports know very well that it is good for them to be associated with people and activities that stress
efficiency, organization, competition, hard work, and the endurance of pain for the sake of progress.
As long as the rewards of sponsorship go to those who are successful in power and performance
sports, these sports will continue to thrive, and the athletes who play them will continue to be cultural
celebrities who are paid to endorse the values of the sponsor. Power and performance will remain
dominant in most cultures for many years to come, those with power and influence want it to be so.
Spectators will again be encouraged to identify with sporting celebrities and their teams and to express
their identification through the consumption of licensed merchandise and other products. Questions
will be raised about using technology and pushing the limits in sports. Using technology means that
athletes reach their potential, so they become machinelike. But this ultimately subverts natural
creativity, freedom, spontaneity, and expression among athletes: some athletes resist in performance
sports (Coakley 2001, Sekot 2006, 2008).
Entertainment and consumption will be the major organizing principles for the future.
Financial profits and economic expansion will be the goals of most sports. The emphasis on
entertainment will fuel the success of professional sports in forms of “sportainment”. Corporate
conglomerates will buy teams and link them to their media, entertainment, and Internet divisions.
Sport equipment manufacturers will continue to sell the idea that involvement in sports requires highly
specialized and expensive equipment and clothing. Wealthy people will use sports as contexts for
announcing their status and identities through appearance and visual display as much as through their
physical abilities. But despite all such predictions it is to be believed that leisure pleasure sport will be
an integral part of the lifestyle of masses of people to improve human wellbeing and quality of life as a
form of everyday healthy activity compensating the demanding goals and objectives of our lives.

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Jarvie, G. (2006). Sport, Culture and Society. London and New York: Routledge.
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Sekot, A. (2006). Sociologie sportu. Brno: Paido a Masarykova univerzita.
Sekot, A. (2006a). Sociology of Sport: Topical Issues. Brno: Paido a Masarykova univerzita.
Sekot. A. (2008). Sociologické problémy sportu. Praha: GRADA Publishing.
Slack, T. (2004). (Ed.) The Commercialisation of Sport. London and New York: Routledge.
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