William McTeer

Sport and physical activity and subjective well being: national panel data for the U.S.

This study examines the relationship between participation in sport and physical activity and feelings of well being. Our previous cross-sectional survey research on this topic (McTeer and Curtis, 1990) is extended through the use of data collected at two points in time from the same respondents in a national sample of Americans. We include social involvement levels, along with other social background factors, as controls in the analyses. We expected to find a positive relationship between sport and physical activity and feelings of well being after controls. We expected this relationship to obtain for analyses for Time 1, for Time 2, and for the relationship of sport and physical activity at Time 1 and well being at Time 2. The analyses are conducted separately for males and females. At Time 1 and Time 2, the results sometimes show a modest positive relationship of sport and physical activity and well being for females and no such relationship for males. In the panel data, there is also some support for the hypothesis that involvement in sport and physical activity leads to feelings of well being for females, but none for the data for males. There were comparatively strong positive relationships of social involvement with well being for both males and females. Interpretations of the results are discussed.

Academic Attainment and Canadian Intercollegiate Athletics: Temporal Shifts

Abstract In this study the academic attainment of male and female intercollegiate athletes at a mid-sized Canadian university was examined for varying time periods in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The academic performance of the athletes is compared, in each case, to a sample of non-athletes matched on year of first enrollment, academic program at first enrollment, and gender. On various measures the findings indicate that the student athletes performed increasingly well in comparison to their non-athlete counterparts from time period to time period. This pattern was more marked for females than males. In the 2000s, female athletes graduated successfully more often than female non-athletes and were more often enrolled in Honors programs. Female athletes consistently outperformed male athletes in all three time periods. We conclude by discussing the structure and culture of intercollegiate sport in Canada in order to broach the question of why the intercollegiate sport experience at this Canadian university has not hindered academic success. Comparisons with findings from American studies are ventured to offer a preliminary cross-cultural analysis of American/Canadian differences in intercollegiate sport culture.

Winston/NEXTEL Cup: the triumph of the spectacle

This paper develops theoretical arguments accounting for the broad spectator appeal of the Winston NEXTEL Cup automobile racing series and its dramatic growth in popularity and subsequent expansion in North America. We suggest that this spectacular spectatorship phenomenon is a reflection of economic and cultural forces that have shaped it and which are symptomatic of a more generally intensified corporate infiltration into the sporting realm. Our arguments take extant sociological explanations for the generalised popularity of contemporary spectator sport as their point of departure. Demographic shifts in the socio-economic and gender backgrounds of the developing fan base are then juxtaposed with features of stock car racing which make it attractive to both live audiences and those viewing the event on television. NASCAR, the organiser/owner of the Winston/Nextel Cup racing series, it is suggested, is symptomatic of broader trends within the sport-media nexus within which the financial logic of consumer capitalism supersedes the cultural roots of the sport as it was originally constructed. We conclude that the socially constructed structure of the race events themselves cannot be extricated from the economic logic of the media production values which drive the spectacularisation of the sports development as a major sport brand.