The Political Economy of Sport

The founding fathers of the United States and signatories to the Treaty of Rome were both guilty of a glaring omission in their otherwise admirable constitutions—they forgot to mention sport. This simple omission is becoming one of the biggest headaches for legislators, the judiciary and the executive, and the problem is getting worse every year. Team sports, such as soccer and baseball, have long been the principal interest of a majority of adolescent and adult males. There are signs that this preoccupation is also taking hold of the other half of the population, and the economic magnitude of these activities is becoming substantial. According to the European Commission, sport now accounts for 3% of world trade, worth around $200 billion. The broadcasting rights to major sporting events alone now trade for dollar amounts that run into billions, while a large segment of the leisurewear market is driven by sporting icons and images. During the 1980s in the US, and in the 1990s in Europe, sport took a step forward in its penetration of day-to-day life. Perhaps because of improvements in broadcasting technology, perhaps because of the enormous increase in leisure spending power, or perhaps because, with the end of the cold war, most forms of physical conflict are now discouraged, the social significance of sport seems to have risen to a level which was hitherto unknown.