All Things Sports

For generations, sport has often been seen as a unique element of society. Especially in its early days, sport was seen as a form of entertainment and nothing more. It was merely an activity that one could do for fun, something for children to do whilst playing on a hot summer’s day. However, as society has evolved, so has sport. Sport has become a cultural phenomenon across the world and with this evolution has come the role of government. That is because sport has become so large and so popular that the government and policy have had to get involved. The role specifically should be limited to oversight regarding participation and governing bodies, handling big events, and intervening when sports and politics overlap. 

First, it is important to understand that sport policy analysis as a whole is a relatively novel concept. Due to the fundamental nature of sport, it wasn’t seen as a topic for discourse analysis or policy. According to the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Sports Issue and Politics written by Barrie Houlihan, Daniel Blyoce, and Andy Smith , this was partly because of demand(Houlihan et al., 2009). They argued that since a very small portion of articles utilized the tactics of policy analysis to analyze sport policy and the government’s role in sports(Houlihan et al., 2009). However, they also mentioned that “ a relatively high proportion of articles…” had been talking about areas intertwined with the government(Houlihan et al., 2009). These issues included gender equality in sports, environmental impacts, and spectator violence. All of these issues have something to do with both sport and government. Here it is useful to examine gender equality, one of the overlapping issues to demonstrate this point. In the realm of sport, the discrepancy in most major metrics such as pay, popularity, and attendance, in most major sports has been the subject of intense debate. However, the government has a role to play here. That is because gender equality is something that also overlaps with the greater society and is something that can be achieved through governmental action. The issue overlaps between sport and society and thus the government has to act as the connector.

The best example of this is the United States Women’s Soccer team. They are a team that has actually broken the norm and generated more money, viewership, and success than their male counterparts.  However, until very recently, they got paid significantly less for being significantly more successful. That is where the government stepped in. By the end of 2022, both the houses of the United States Congress had approved legislation that would guarantee equal pay for both teams. Although there had already been a deal reached between the US Soccer Federation and the Women’s team, this made it permanent. No deal could change the fact that women and men were going to get paid equally. That was done by the government. Not only does this set the precedent for women’s sports at large, it also sets the precedent for society at large. With the government choosing to enact policy, they themselves set the standard for the rest of society to follow. The women’s soccer team has inspired women across the country and shown all of society should and will get paid what they have rightfully earned. This goes to other issues as well that could be talked about in greater depth at another time. Overall, there was an issue that overlapped between both sport and government and this was where policy and government had a role to play. This issue wasn’t something that affected sports alone and thus they had to get involved.

Reference:

Houlihan, B., Bloyce, D., & Smith, A. (2009). Developing the research agenda in sport policy. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 1(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940802681186