Maarten van Bottenburg

A Conceptual Framework for Analysing Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success

Abstract Although an increasing number of nations invest large amounts of money in sport in order to compete against other nations, there is no clear evidence that demonstrates how sports policies can influence international sporting success. This paper provides an overview of important determinants that can lead to nations enjoying international sporting success. The literature reveals that more than 50% of the determinants of success are macro-level variables that are beyond the control of politicians. The meso-level contains factors that can be influenced by sports policies. An empirically founded theory on the policy factors that determine elite sporting success has not yet been developed. In this paper a conceptual framework will be presented that can be used for making trans-national comparisons of elite sports policies. Nine policy areas, or ‘pillars’, that are thought to have an important influence on international sporting success are logically derived from the literature.

De-Sportization of Fighting Contests The Origins and Dynamics of No Holds Barred Events and the Theory of Sportization

On the basis of an empirical analysis of the emergence, spread and transformation of No Holds Barred fighting contests during the 1990s, we argue that Norbert Eliass model of sportization represents a fruitful but not sufficiently differentiated framework for understanding the recent development of combat sports and fighting contests. Although the martial arts in the 20th century provide striking examples of processes of sportization and para-sportization, the rise of No Holds Barred events in the 1990s represented an opposing trend, a process of de-sportization . The analysis of No Holds Barred contests demonstrates that both sportization and de-sportization trends depend primarily on the interests of the organizers, and in particular on the degree to which they rely on the perspectives of practitioners, spectators, or viewers. The decisive factor for the predominance of the latter perspective was the formation of a new and poorly regulated market for visual material, which emerged with pay-per-view television. This allowed media entrepreneurs to commercialize non-sanctioned events, which depend primarily on the demands and fantasies of viewers who are less interested in the specifics of particular sports or games than in the antinomian excitement produced by the transgression of the rules and conventions of ordinary life. The case of No Holds Barred fighting thus suggests that new markets for visual material are likely to become an important factor in the development of spectator sports and sport-like forms of entertainment. It also suggests that regulatory regimes are an essential feature for the actual outcome of the changes that these new markets may bring about. Public pressure eventually led to the disappearance of No Holds Barred events from the major US cable television networks and from the full contact fighting scene in most Western European countries. In response, various initiatives worked towards a re-sportization of the matches, a process that has led to the transformation of No Holds Barred tournaments into Mixed Martial Arts matches.

The indoorisation of outdoor sports: an exploration of the rise of lifestyle sports in artificial settings.

During the last 20 years, a remarkable new type of service has been developed in the world of sports, which can be described as the indoorisation of outdoor sports. Typical outdoor sports like climbing, skiing, surfing, rowing and skydiving, which used to be exclusively practised in a natural environment of mountains, oceans, rivers and the air, are now being offered for consumption in safe, predictable and controlled indoor centres. The present article emphasises the rise of indoor lifestyle sports, such as rafting, snowboarding, skydiving and surfing. It discusses the conditions under and ways in which commercial entrepreneurs in the Netherlands have created this market, the meanings that they have ascribed to their centres and the dilemmas with which they have been confronted. It is argued that the rise of this economic market cannot be understood if it is solely interpreted as the result of economic, technological or natural developments. These economic activities were also embedded in and influenced by shared understandings and their representations in structured fields of outdoor sports, mainstream sports and leisure experience activities. A better understanding of the indoorisation of outdoor lifestyle sports can be achieved by recognising how these structures and cultures pervaded the rise of this new market.

Scrutinizing the sport pyramid metaphor: an examination of the relationship between elite success and mass participation in Flanders

Many governments use the trickle-down or demonstration effect to justify their high investments in an elite sport. The assumption is that elite success increases mass participation. Evidence of a relationship between elite success and mass participation is fragmented, and previous studies have mostly failed to demonstrate a connection. Nevertheless, many authors assert the need for more research on this relationship. This study examines the effect of elite sport on mass participation. The study uses Pearsons correlations to analyse the relationship between membership data and athlete success (using the elite sport index) in Flanders over the past 15 years. The membership figures from Flanders were compared with figures from the Netherlands to identify the common trends. Analysis across 20 sports revealed no consistent relationship between membership levels and success. Positive correlations were notable in Flanders in four of the eight sports in which elite Flemish competitors achieved significant international successes during the study period (athletics, gymnastics, judo and tennis). The analysis suggests that a trickle-down effect is not likely to occur automatically but might be found under specific conditions. This leads us to call for new studies that bypass the question of whether there is such a relationship and concentrate on why, how and when this relationship occurs.

Thrown for a Loss. (American) football and the European Sport Space

This article discusses the cultural insignificance of football in Europe despite the receptiveness of Europeans to American popular culture in general. It is argued that this anomaly can be explained by a sociohistorical perspective on the differential popularization of sports and the changing social structure in which sports are being diffused. In doing so, it is shown that football only entered the European sport space after 1980 and that the attempts by the National Football League to launch football as a spectator sport will fail without a basic foundation at a grassroots level.This article discusses the cultural insignificance of football in Europe despite the receptiveness of Europeans to American popular culture in general. It is argued that this anomaly can be explained by a sociohistorical perspective on the differential popularization of sports and the changing social structure in which sports are being diffused. In doing so, it is shown that football only entered the European sport space after 1980 and that the attempts by the National Football League to launch football as a spectator sport will fail without a basic foundation at a grassroots level.

The effects of sports sponsorship: A review and research agenda

Investments in sponsorship strongly increased during the last decades. Therefore, it is valuable to determine which factors determine sponsorship effectiveness. This paper presents a literature review that forms the foundation for the development of an integrated framework of sponsorship outcomes. This paper extends previous conceptual work in that all kinds of sponsorship effects are considered, not only brand equity effects. Furthermore, recent findings and insights are incorporated. It can be concluded that although empirical research on sponsorship’s effects advanced, several areas remain unexplored, in particular the effects of sponsorship on the relations between sponsor and stakeholders. Opportunities for further research have been translated in specific research propositions.

Mixed Methods in Emerging Academic Subdisciplines The Case of Sport Management

This article examines the prevalence and characteristics of mixed methods research in the relatively new subdiscipline of sport management. A mixed methods study is undertaken to evaluate the epistemological/philosophical, methodological, and technical levels of mixed methods design in sport management research. The results indicate that mixed methods research is still rarely used, poorly legitimized and often weakly designed in this field. Our conclusions lead to the hypotheses that the more central a research field is, the higher the prevalence of mixed methods, and that mixed methods only slowly trickle down from central to more peripheral subdisciplines. Implications of the research findings for both mixed methods scholars and sport management researchers are discussed, and directions for future research are proposed.

Sport policy in the Netherlands

This article reviews developments in Dutch national sport policy. It focuses on the changing role of national and local governments and umbrella organizations of sport. The article further analyzes the relationship between elite sport policy and grass roots sport policy, showing an increasingly powerful advocacy coalition for elite sport. It ends with a discussion of current trends and challenges in Dutch sport policy.

Informalization or de-sportization of fighting contests? A rejoinder to Raúl Sánchez García and Dominic Malcolm

In their article on the international development of ‘Mixed Martial Arts’, Raúl Sánchez García and Dominic Malcolm (2010) raise several important questions. The issues at stake, especially those pertaining to the regulation of violence, are all the more important, since they are central not merely to the study of fighting sports and martial arts, but to the entire domain of the sociology of sport and leisure. In this rejoinder, we will briefly respond to the main criticisms the authors raised in relation to our earlier analysis (van Bottenburg and Heilbron, 2006), raising a few questions about their alternative account as well as more general theoretical issues. Both of our articles aim to explain the emergence in 1993 of ‘Ultimate Fighting Championships’ (UFC) and the subsequent spread and transformation of these fighting contests. A first issue in the interpretation of this development concerns the level of actual violence involved. According to Sánchez García and Malcolm our analysis is predicated on an ‘exaggerated portrayal’ of the level of violence (p. 46). The question here, it seems to us, is not to establish the exact level of violence, as measured by the number of deaths for example, but rather to compare the practices of ‘ultimate fighting’ to those of the established fighting sports from a developmental perspective. Anyone who has studied a sufficient number of videotapes of the ‘ultimate’ or ‘cage fighting’ contests of the 1990s can conclude that they were significantly more violent than the existing regular fighting sports. It is quite puzzling that Sánchez García and Rejoinder

Creating sport consumers in Dutch sport policy

This article deals with the tension between the association logic and the market logic that appears in the domain of voluntary sport clubs (VSCs). We present a qualitative analysis of sport policy texts of fifteen Dutch national sport organizations (NSOs) and the national umbrella organization to examine how they discursively construct the market logic with respect to their policies towards VSCs. In this article, we argue that although there is no empirical evidence for an increasing consumerist attitude among Dutch sport participants, the policy makers of Dutch NSOs nevertheless pressure VSCs to modernize their activities according to a consumer logic that contrasts with their traditional values. We found that their policy texts construct a consumerist discourse by (1) identifying societal changes that are closely linked to consumerism as a possible threat for the future development of sport clubs and by (2) presenting the emergence of the consumer as a window of opportunity if sport clubs succeed in treating their members as such. We discuss the implications of portraying members of VSCs as consumers and conclude with a research agenda.