originally published in May 2002
I guess I will start by answering the obvious question: why I am dedicating this series of essays and images to the study of sports fandom and sports culture?
As the traditional cultural structures of legitimation (religion, politics, labor etc.) lose their cultural potency, it is important to look at how we as individuals adjust and where we find new forms of self definition. While it is clearly not replacing religion or creating a new politics, sport must be recognized as one of the centers, if not the center, of contemporary culture. Sport is everywhere. The sports industry is the largest cultural industry we have. Not only is sports itself a multi-billion dollar industry but it reaches out into marketing, fashion, charity, music, politics, and the list goes on. As David Rowe puts it, "If cultural factors are emerging as central to the economic processes- and most contemporary analyses suggest that they are- then sport and sports media, as cultural goods par excellence, are clearly a central element in a larger process (or set of processes) that is reshaping society and culture"(67). So, as society and culture are reshaped by sport, we must take the time to re-analyze our position as individuals- more specifically as sports fans- in a new culture.
For years, the sports fan has been rejected by "official" culture. Joli Jenson explains this systematic dismissal: "Like primitives to be saved by missionaries, or explained by anthropologists, we too easily use social and psychological inquiry to develop and defend a self-serving moral landscape...If we continue to subscribe to the dominant perspective on fandom- pathology- inquiry on fandom cannot help us understand how we engage with the world. Instead, we will continue to conceptualize the fan as desperate and dysfunctional, so that he or she can be explained, protected against, and returned to 'normalcy'"(25). Instead of generalizing fandom based on the outrageous and sometimes criminal behavior of a few, we must focus in and look at the fan as an individual and realize that fandom is one of the few unifying and common features of our decentered society.
At a time when the veil of "official" culture has been pulled back, it is ever more important to look at the cultural force of sports fandom to understand who we are in relation to the world around us. Fandom is essential to our sense of self. "I think that what we today describe as a 'fan' is the contemporary articulation of a necessary relationship which has constituted the popular, involving relationships to such diverse things as labor, religion, morality, and politics" (Grossberg 63). In other words, it is no longer possible to turn our heads away from popular culture, specifically sports fandom, as critical to our understanding of ourselves.
The goal of this collection is to discuss the general state of our culture and to illustrate how sports fandom has become integral to defining not only our culture as a whole but who we are as individuals.
I guess I will start by answering the obvious question: why I am dedicating this series of essays and images to the study of sports fandom and sports culture?
As the traditional cultural structures of legitimation (religion, politics, labor etc.) lose their cultural potency, it is important to look at how we as individuals adjust and where we find new forms of self definition. While it is clearly not replacing religion or creating a new politics, sport must be recognized as one of the centers, if not the center, of contemporary culture. Sport is everywhere. The sports industry is the largest cultural industry we have. Not only is sports itself a multi-billion dollar industry but it reaches out into marketing, fashion, charity, music, politics, and the list goes on. As David Rowe puts it, "If cultural factors are emerging as central to the economic processes- and most contemporary analyses suggest that they are- then sport and sports media, as cultural goods par excellence, are clearly a central element in a larger process (or set of processes) that is reshaping society and culture"(67). So, as society and culture are reshaped by sport, we must take the time to re-analyze our position as individuals- more specifically as sports fans- in a new culture.
For years, the sports fan has been rejected by "official" culture. Joli Jenson explains this systematic dismissal: "Like primitives to be saved by missionaries, or explained by anthropologists, we too easily use social and psychological inquiry to develop and defend a self-serving moral landscape...If we continue to subscribe to the dominant perspective on fandom- pathology- inquiry on fandom cannot help us understand how we engage with the world. Instead, we will continue to conceptualize the fan as desperate and dysfunctional, so that he or she can be explained, protected against, and returned to 'normalcy'"(25). Instead of generalizing fandom based on the outrageous and sometimes criminal behavior of a few, we must focus in and look at the fan as an individual and realize that fandom is one of the few unifying and common features of our decentered society.
At a time when the veil of "official" culture has been pulled back, it is ever more important to look at the cultural force of sports fandom to understand who we are in relation to the world around us. Fandom is essential to our sense of self. "I think that what we today describe as a 'fan' is the contemporary articulation of a necessary relationship which has constituted the popular, involving relationships to such diverse things as labor, religion, morality, and politics" (Grossberg 63). In other words, it is no longer possible to turn our heads away from popular culture, specifically sports fandom, as critical to our understanding of ourselves.
The goal of this collection is to discuss the general state of our culture and to illustrate how sports fandom has become integral to defining not only our culture as a whole but who we are as individuals.