Sport

Contributing to Community

Sport's contribution to community building occurs in three ways. The first is by the creation of a distinct sport-based community, in some ways separate from the other groups that people belong to, but nonetheless a meaningful part of their everyday lives. In this sense, sport provides integrative functions at the interpersonal level, such as the bonds that members of sport teams forge and the boundary they recognize between themselves, as members of a group in pursuit of common goals, and outsiders. Another example of integration at the interpersonal level occurs in sport-fan communities, which not only serve as expressions of individual identity but also facilitate encounters with others who share meaningful attachments to teams or athletes. For example, at sport events or at organized fan functions, individuals exchange information, express opinions and emotions, and relive shared memories. The process of these encounters constructs a sense of shared history for community members and maintains the community as an active part of individuals' identities. The Internet has enhanced both the formation and the visibility of sport-fan groups and in some ways has contributed to their legitimacy as a community. Thus the Internet provides another way for individual sport fans to consume sport and to form recognizable associations to fan-based groups regardless of geographic location.

The second way that sport contributes to community is by its ability to promote a particular place and to foster a sense of solidarity based on territory at local, national, and even global levels. The motivation for connecting sport and community in this way is usually the quest for recognition and prestige and is often backed by government, business, or both. For example, even in small towns, local chambers of commerce may sponsor signs announcing that the town is the “home of the champions” in some sport. Government subsidies of high school and college sports in the United States are anchored, in part, in the belief that success in amateur sport reinforces community pride and brings recognition and prestige to the entire state. This rationale extends to professional sport as well. One reason that state and local tax monies are invested in professional-team sport franchises in North America is the belief that the franchise is a catalyst for community building; the franchise is thought to express the notion that the city deserves “big time” status.

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