The Transformation of Television Sport: New Methods, New Rules examines how developments in technology, broadcasting rights and regulation combine to determine what sport we see on television, where we can see it and what the final output looks and sounds like.

Principles and Practice in EU Sports Law provides an overview of EU sports law. In particular it assesses sporting bodies' claims for legal autonomy from the 'ordinary law' of states and international organizations. Sporting bodies insist on using their expertise to create a set of globally applicable rules which should not be deviated from irrespective of the territory on which they are applied. The application of the lex sportiva, which refers to the conventions that define a sport's operation, is analysed, as well as how this is used in claims for sporting autonomy. The lex sportiva may generate conflicts with a state or international institution such as the European Union, and the motives behind sporting bodies' claims in favour of the lex sportiva's autonomy may be motivated by concern to uphold its integrity or to preserve commercial gain. Stephen Weatherill's text underlines the tense relationship between lex sportiva and national and regional jurisdictions which is exemplified with specific focus on the EU. The development of EU sports law and its controversies are detailed, reinforced by the example of relevant legal principles in the context of the practice of sports law. The intellectual heart of the text endeavours to make a normative assessment of the strength of claims in favour of sporting autonomy, and the variation between different jurisdictions and sports is evident. Furthermore the enduring dilemma facing sports lawyers running throughout the text is whether sport should be regarded as special, and in turn how (far) its special character should be granted legal recognition.

This book assesses the transformation of football fan culture from a gender perspective. Referring to the notions of homosociality, hegemonic masculinity and performative perspectives on gender and fandom, it investigates the processes of women entering the world of football fandom. Drawing on multidimensional qualitative and quantitative research, the book analyses different aspects of female fandom, such as women’s socialisation to be a fan, building their sense of fan identity, ways of performing fandom, and gender. Also, it explores the response of male fans by shedding light on the sense-making process of a growing number of female fans in the stands and its consequences for prevailingly male football culture. This study stands out for its richness and diversity of empirical material used in order to make a significant contribution to our understanding of social dynamics related to the changing nature of female football fandom. The book is fascinating reading for researchers and students in a broad range of areas, including gender studies, sociology of sport, football, women’s studies and Central Eastern European studies. It is also a valuable resource for scholars, and football and club authorities who have an interest in understanding the development of female football fandom and its impact on the male fandom community.

Is television dead? The classic television era of the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by limited choices of programs broadcast on over the air channels to families as if they were seated around a hearth – and to a nation as if gathered around a campfire – has indeed ended. Throughout the drastic evolution of this media, thousands of studies have examined the short-term effects of television, such as the evaluation of persuasion campaigns. Yet there is scant research on the overreaching sociological impacts of television and its centrality to Western culture over the past 60 years. This compelling volume of The ANNALS is the first collection of rigorous articles devoted to studying ways in which television has impacted our values, ideologies, institutions, social structure, and culture.

Sport is a universal feature of global popular culture. It shapes our identities, affects our relationships, and defines our communities. It also influences our consumption habits, represents our cultures, and dramatizes our politics. In other words, sport is among the most prominent vehicles for communication available in daily life. Nevertheless, only recently has it begun to receive robust attention in the discipline of communication studies. The Handbook of Communication and Sport attends to the recent and rapid growth of scholarship in communication and media studies that features sport as a central site of inquiry. The book attempts to capture a full range of methods, theories, and topics that have come to define the subfield of "communication and sport" or "sports communication." It does so by emphasizing four primary features. First, it foregrounds "communication" as central to the study of sport. This emphasis helps to distinguish the book from collections in related disciplines such as sociology, and also points readers beyond media as the primary or only context for understanding the relationship between communication and sport. Thus, in addition to studies of media effects, mediatization, media framing, and more, readers will also engage with studies in interpersonal, intercultural, organizational, and rhetorical communication. Second, the handbook presents an array of methods, theories, and topics in the effort to chart a comprehensive landscape of communication and sport scholarship. Thus, readers will benefit from empirical, interpretive, and critical work, and they will also see studies drawing on varied texts and sites of inquiry. Third, the Handbook of Communication and Sport includes a broad range of scholars from around the world. It is therefore neither European nor North American in its primary focus. In addition, the book includes contributors from commonly under-represented regions in Asia, Africa, and South America. Fourth, the handbook aims to account for both historical trajectories and contemporary areas of interest. In this way, it covers the central topics, debates, and perspectives from the past and also suggests continued and emerging pathways for the future. Collectively, the Handbook of Communication and Sport aspires to provide scholars and students in communication and media studies with the most comprehensive assessment of the field available.

This book offers an introductory guide to sports TV, its history in the United States, the genre’s defining characteristics, and analysis of its critical significance for the business practices, formal properties, and social, cultural, and political meanings of the medium. Victoria E. Johnson discusses a range of examples, from textual analysis of programs such as Monday Night Football and Being Serena to examination of television rights details, to sports TV’s technological innovations and engagement of critical political debates. Johnson examines sports TV from its introduction to the ESPN+ era. She proposes that sports, as seen on TV in all of its iterations, is the central cultural forum for working through questions of community ideals, struggles over national and regional mythologies, and questions of representative citizenship. This book is an ideal guide for students and scholars of television, media, and cultural studies as well as those with an interest in television genre, sports TV history, and contemporary sport and media culture.

The sounds of spectators at football (soccer) are often highlighted – by spectators, tourists, commentators, journalists, scholars, media producers, etc. – as crucial for the experience of football. These sounds are often said to contribute significantly to the production (at the stadium) and conveyance (in televised broadcast) of 'atmosphere.' This book addresses why and how spectator sounds contribute to the experience of watching in these environments and what characterizes spectator sounds in terms of their structure, distribution and significance. Based on an examination of empirical materials – including the sounds of football matches from the English Premier League as they emerge both at the stadium and in the televised broadcast – this book systematically dissects the sounds of football watching.

In Urban and Visual Culture in Contemporary Iran, Pedram Dibazar argues that everyday life in Iran is a rich domain of social existence and cultural production. Regular patterns of day-to-day practice in Iran are imbued with forms of expressivity that are unmarked and inconspicuous, but have remarkable critical value for a cultural study of contemporary society. Blended into the rhythms of everyday life are nonconformist modes of presence, subtle in their visibility and non-confrontational in their resistance to the established societal norms and structures. This volume is about such everyday tactics and creativity as lived in space, visualised in cultural forms and communicated through media. Through its analysis of familiar everyday experiences, Urban and Visual Culture in Contemporary Iran covers a wide range of ordinary practices-such as walking, driving, shopping and doing or watching sports-and spatial conditions-such as streets, cars, rooftops, shopping centres and stadiums. It also explores a variety of cultural formations, including film, photography, architecture, literature, visual arts, television and digital media. This book offers new ways of thinking about visual and urban cultures by highlighting a politics of everyday life that is conditioned on concerns over visibility and presence.

This book examines the development of sport sponsorship and its impact on global public health. It argues that sport governing bodies should not continue to treat fans solely as consumers, and that a more ethical approach should be taken to sport sponsorship. Drawing on research from sport studies, marketing and public health, the book presents a brief history of advertising and marketing in sport, including the importance of tobacco in the development of sport sponsorship, before exploring key aspects of the contemporary relationship between sport and corporate sponsors, including mega-events, digital technologies and brand engagement. It offers an in-depth case study of sponsorship in the English Premier League – one of the world’s most successful sporting properties – before considering how sport might be better regulated, now and in the future, to better protect the interests of fans and other stakeholders from a health perspective. The book features a number of insightful images showcasing sport sponsorship in connection with tobacco, mega-events, alcohol, junk food and drink, and gambling over the years. Addressing a topical and hugely important issue, this is important reading for students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers with an interest in sport business and management, the ethics of sport, physical activity and health, event studies, marketing or public health.

This book provides the first detailed account of the formative decades of BBC televised sport when it launched its flagship programmes Sportsview, Grandstand and Match of the Day. Based on extensive archival research in the BBC’s written archives and interviews with leading producers, editors and commentators of the period, it provides a ‘behind-the-scenes’ narrative history of this major institution of British cultural life. In 2016 the BBC celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its television coverage of England’s World Cup victory. Their coverage produced one of the most oft-played moments in the history of television, Kenneth Wolstenholme’s famous line: ‘Some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over ... it is now!’ as Geoff Hurst scored England’s fourth goal, securing England’s 4-2 victory. It was a landmark in English football as well as a watershed in the BBC’s highly professionalised approach to televised sport. How the BBC reached this peak of television expertise, and who was behind their success in developing the techniques of televised sport, is the focus of this book.