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Extensive qualitative research shows that, even at its best, media coverage of women athletes tends to be ambivalent, meaning that it juxtaposes positive descriptions and images with descriptions and images that undermine and trivialize women's efforts and successes. However, researchers have rarely explored the implications of nationalism — in particular during global sports events — for coverage of women's sport. This analysis of media coverage of Cathy Freeman during the Sydney 2000 Olympics points to an instance in which gender lost its place as the primary media framing device because of Freeman's importance as a symbol of national reconciliation.

Recently, the Winter Olympic Games in Russia and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in Brazil have drawn attention as much for politics as the excitement of the competitions. Russia's pursuance of discriminatory homosexual policies made it the target of international rights groups; Brazil's exploitation of the poor for the sake of hosting the World Cup led to several high-profile protests ahead of the event. These large-scale international sporting competitions provide a ready-made platform for naming and shaming states that may have dubious human rights records. The question remains as to whether or not the shaming of these host states by international groups effectively changes a state's behavior. This paper argues that states facing increased global media attention while hosting an event are likely to substitute repression of physical integrity rights with repression of civil and political rights in an effort to maintain favorable appearances internationally. However, I find support for both physical and expressive rights improving in states when shaming is conditioned on the selection to host an international sporting event.

Forty years ago, a South African rugby tour in the United States became a crucial turning point for the nation's burgeoning protests against apartheid and a test of American foreign policy. In Flashpoint: How a Little-Known Sporting Event Fueled America's Anti-Apartheid Movement, Derek Charles Catsam tells the fascinating story of the Springbok's 1981 US tour and its impact on the country's anti-apartheid struggle. The US lagged well behind the rest of the Western world when it came to addressing the vexing question of South Africa's racial policies, but the rugby tour changed all that. Those who had been a part of the country's tiny anti-apartheid struggle for decades used the visit from one of white South Africa's most cherished institutions to mobilize against both apartheid sport and the South African regime more broadly. Protestors met the South African team at airports, chanted outside their hotels, and courted arrests at matches, which ranged from the bizarre to the laughable, with organizers going to incredible lengths to keep their locations secret. In telling the story of how a sport little appreciated in the United States nonetheless became ground zero for the nation's growing anti-apartheid movement, Flashpoint serves as a poignant reminder that sports and politics have always been closely intertwined. ; https://falconcommons.utpb.edu/utpb-facbooks/1025/thumbnail.jpg

The study is an empirical view of the important issue of the business effects of the mega-sporting events (MSEs), like the Olympic Games, on which there are favorable and unfavorable views, the design of the study is to go through different views and find out the effects from knowing or knowledgeable persons of the event with the help of a sample of 155 respondents drawn randomly from across the continents in the form of opinions on the positive and negative effects of the MSEs through a questionnaire, containing questions on economic development, infrastructure development, environ¬ment, lifestyles, etc., and their favorable and unfavorable responses were elicited. The data collected have been analyzed in terms of the characteristics of respondents and their negative and positive responses on the Olympic and FIFA. The findings on the whole of study show that the hosting of the MSEs has positive effects on the economy and society of the host cities through the influx of tourists, infrastructure development, and image promotion of the country, among others, notwithstanding the certain drawbacks in terms of environmental disturbances, and some inconveniences to the locals.

We are living in a time of great panic about "sex trafficking"--an idea whose meaning has been expanded beyond any real usefulness by evangelicals, conspiracy theorists, anti-prostitution feminists, and politicians with their own agendas. This is especially visible during events like the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, when claims circulate that as many as 40,000 women and girls will be sex trafficked. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Brazil as well as interviews with sex workers, policymakers, missionaries, and activists in Russia, Qatar, Japan, the UK, and South Africa, Gregory Mitchell shows that despite baseless statistical claims to the contrary, sex trafficking never increases as a result of these global mega-events--but police violence against sex workers always does. While advocates have long decried this myth, Mitchell follows the discourse across host countries to ask why this panic so easily embeds during these mega-events. What fears animate it? Who profits? He charts the move of sex trafficking into the realm of the spectacular--street protests, awareness-raising campaigns, telenovelas, social media, and celebrity spokespeople--where it then spreads across borders. This trend is dangerous because these events happen in moments of nationalist fervor during which fears of foreigners and migrants are heightened and easily exploited to frightening ends.

The economic benefits of hosting mega‐sporting events are often exaggerated. Ex‐ante impact studies typically overestimate the gains and underestimate the costs involved. It is therefore difficult to explain in economic terms the intense competition among cities to hold such events.

Even after gaining independence, South Sudan has experienced repeated outbreaks of conflict. Under these circumstances, national sports events have been held under the theme of "Peace and Social Cohesion." This paper aims to verify the role that national sporting events play in promoting social capital among the athletes who participated in the event. The finding of the paper shows that by creating a safe space for peaceful coexistence during the sporting event, athletes were able to overcome their anxiety toward other ethnic groups, and through their interactions with other athletes, develop mutual respect and friendships. This, in turn, led to a reduction of their prejudice toward other ethnic groups and to greater trust and networks among athletes. As the paper suggests, sports events may help to promote social capital for ethnic reconciliation by providing a safe space for peaceful coexistence in South Sudan.

AbstractThis study explores the leadership style of the founder of a cause‐related sporting event and investigates the effects of this style on motivating volunteers. The National Kidney Foundation Surf Festival, established more than twenty‐five years ago to benefit people with kidney disease, was selected as an extreme case because of the event's longevity and success. Data were collected through semi‐structured personal interviews, document analysis, and personal observation. Results indicated that the founder is a servant leader. Three key themes of servant leadership, and its influence on volunteer motivation, emerged from the data: generating a shared vision dedicated to helping others, building a caring and loving community, and creating the freedom and resources for followers to become servants themselves. Our findings also indicated that the spiritual and moral tenets of servant leadership are applicable to secular nonprofit organizations.

[EN] Social media platforms have had a significant impact on the public image of sports in recent years. Through the relational dynamics of the communication on these networks, many users have emerged whose opinions can exert a great deal of influence on public conversation online. This research aims to identify the influential Twitter users during the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships using different variables which, in turn, represent different dimensions of influence (popularity, activity and authority). Mathematical variables of the social network analysis and variables provided by Twitter and Google are compared. First, we calculated the Spearman¿s rank correlation coefficient among all users (n = 20,175) in pairwise comparisons. Next, we performed a qualitative analysis of the top 25 influential users ranked by each variable. As a result, no single variable assessed is sufficient to identify the different kinds of influential Twitter users. The reason that some variables vary so greatly is that the components of influence are very different. Influence is a contextualised phenomenon. Having a certain type of account is not enough to make a user an influencer if they do not engage (actively or passively) in the conversation. Choosing the influencers will depend on the objectives pursued. ; Lamirán-Palomares, JM.; Baviera, T.; Baviera-Puig, A. (2019). Identifying Opinion Leaders on Twitter during Sporting Events: Lessons from a Case Study. Social Sciences. 8(5):1-18. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8050141 ; S ; 1 ; 18 ; 8 ; 5 ; Abeza, G., Pegoraro, A., Naraine, M. L., Séguin, B., O', N., & Reilly, N. A. (2014). Activating a global sport sponsorship with social media: an analysis of TOP sponsors, Twitter, and the 2014 Olympic Games. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 15(3/4), 184. doi:10.1504/ijsmm.2014.072010 ; Agre, P. E. (2002). Real-Time Politics: The Internet and the Political Process. The Information Society, 18(5), 311-331. doi:10.1080/01972240290075174 ...

Through this paper, the authors seek to delineate the contentious issue of legalization of gambling on sporting events in India within the circumscribing limits of the thriving legislative framework. Adopting a sequential examination of the issue in hand, the authors having engaged in an exhaustive analysis of the Indian Gambling Laws endorsing the objectives of inclusivity proceed towards a comprehensive illustrative perusal of arguments espousing for and against the cause of the issue in hand. Sensitive to the ideological force guiding the movement for the Pro- Legalization Agenda, the paper in its latter half makes a concerted effort to propose constructive structural solutions for the concretization of the change argued for before concluding the matters clarifying the authors stance on the issue vis-à-vis underscoring the "Legislative Dynamism" argument.