Assess The Role Of Consumerism In Sports

In today’s modern society, sporting venues have become increasingly commercialised and commodified sites. From the Asics logo tattooed across the right sleeve of Nathan Lyon’s bowling arm to the silhouettes of Pumas running towards the finish line on Usain Bolt’s runners, product placement and advertising affect the way we view sport. Sporting events have the capability to transform fans into consumers without their sentience. From team sponsors, half-time ads and pitch side advertising boards, fans fall victim to product placement with little or no resistance. With that said, not all fan activity directly involves acts of consumptions. Event locations and stadiums can stimulate specific personal, cultural or social significance in fans,

At an elite level, modern sporting infrastructure and stadiums are sponsored and named after corporations, and are designed to stage and cater for wide range of sporting and entertainment events. As a result, stadiums capitalise their commercial value by hosting a number of differing events while maximising ticket sales. In order to transform sporting fans into consumers, the affliction between product placement, the sporting event and its location is consequential. For example, gambling associations and sponsors advertise throughout the entire Melbourne Cup event. Furthermore, Flemington Racecourse hosts the Melbourne Cup, which also houses a variety of betting services for event goers. Sporting sites have become sites of conspicuous consumption, where selling mechanising and other associated consumer goods around the venue is customary. At football or soccer matches, fans purchase food or clothing in the sporting arena based on product placements displayed throughout the match. Sporting sites gear towards creating an experience for paying fans to

In attempt to protect the integrity of sport in Australia, state institutions, sports bodies, national associations, and law enforcement agencies have increased incentives and safety precautions; and as a result, greater threats to the sporting industry, such as terrorism tend to be predisposed. The interplay between sport and terrorism is a prevailing danger to the sporting industry. Given the global popularity of sport and sheer size of modern sport gatherings, mega-sporting events have become high-risk settings for terrorism. Ironically, sport highlights different religions, political systems, traditions and ideologies among communities positioned against each other, resembling, in a sense, the global war of terror. While the costs of anti-terrorism measures (at an average estimate of 1-3 billion for any mega-event) may sound extreme, the most cited risk associated with security of sporting events is violence. From the 168 terrorist attacks recorded since 1972-2004, money spent on the preventing terrorism at sporting events, it would seem, is indispensable. Interplay between terrorism and sport is formidable and in effect to the 1972 Munich Olympics, 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing and the most recent 2015 Paris Attacks, sporting events attract terrorism