Sport sociology has a responsibility to engage critically with the accepted wisdom of those who govern and promote sport. This challenging collection of international research is a clear call for enacting the transformation of sport. The contributing authors argue that it is not enough to merely advocate for change. Rather, they insist that scholars need to take an active political stance when conducting research with the explicit purpose of attempting to transform the practices, structures, and the ways in which knowledge is produced about sport. By exposing and challenging the power relations which perpetuate discrimination and inequality within sport, it becomes possible to catalyse wider societal changes. Drawing on a diversity of topics including sport for development and peace, transnational feminism, disability sport, refugees and football activism, FIFA, the Olympics, sports journalism and digital sports media, this book makes a case for sport sociology as an agent of positive change in the hierarchies and institutional structures of contemporary sport. Transforming Sport: Knowledges, Practices, Structures provides valuable insights for all students and scholars interested in the sociology of sport and its transformative potential.

Transforming Sport and Physical Cultures through Feminist Knowledges contributes new perspectives on the entanglement of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post and decolonial ways of knowing, and how onto-epistemologies of sport come to matter. These perspectives are explored through a diverse array of topics, including, the embodiment of netball through Feminist Physical Cultural Studies; pregnant embodiment and implications of the postgenomic turn; posthumanist perspectives on women’s negotiation of affective body work and an autoethnographic account of how masculinity materialises through football; the mediation of gendered subjectivity through the digital-physical cultures of cycling; as well as how decolonial and postcolonial approaches identify the gendered and racialised relations of power in sport for development and football campaigns aimed at women’s empowerment. The thread that connects these chapters is the ‘doing’ of feminism as a generative knowledge practice that can transform ways of imagining, knowing, and affecting more equitable futures. This feminist collection contributes to the movement of ideas and transformation of knowledge within and across sport and physical cultures. Authors explore the power relations implicated in the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) from a range of disciplinary perspectives and theory-method approaches. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Sciences.

Ramifications of the convergence of sports and digital technology, from athlete and spectator experience to the role of media innovation at the Olympics. Digital technology is changing everything about modern sports. Athletes and coaches rely on digital data to monitor and enhance performance. Officials use tracking systems to augment their judgment in what is an increasingly superhuman field of play. Spectators tune in to live sports through social media, or even through virtual reality. Audiences now act as citizen journalists whose collective shared data expands the places in which we consume sports news. In Sport 2.0, Andy Miah examines the convergence of sports and digital cultures, examining not only how it affects our participation in sport but also how it changes our experience of life online. This convergence redefines how we think of about our bodies, the social function of sports, and the kinds of people who are playing. Miah describes a world in which the rise of competitive computer game playing—e-sports—challenges and invigorates the social mandate. Miah also looks at the Olympic Games as an exemplar of digital innovation in sports, and offers a detailed look at the social media footprint of the 2012 London Games, discussing how organizers, sponsors, media, and activists responded to the world's largest media event. In the end, Miah does not argue that physical activity will cease to be central to sports, or that digital corporeality will replace the nondigital version. Rather, he provides a road map for how sports will become mixed-reality experiences and abandon the duality of physical and digital.

In a world of competing public policy priorities, economic challenges and political uncertainty, sports development organisations and initiatives need to adapt to survive. This book makes the case for 'Sporting Capital' as a new conceptual model of sports participation with the potential to transform public policy and practice in sports development. The central argument presented is that a model of Sporting Capital - with its three domains of physiological, social and psychological attributes - provides a missing framework, creating a new impetus for sustained growth in community sport by joining up the levels at which sports development is planned and implemented. Touching on important issues such as youth sport, public health, volunteering, disability, ethnicity and social inequality, it examines patterns of sports participation in relation to age, gender and social class and offers recommendations for strategic policy improvements that can be implemented by practitioners working on the frontline of community sport. Sporting Capital: Transforming Sports Development Policy and Practice provides valuable insights for all those interested in sports development, youth sport, community sport, or sport and social policy.

In this inspirational yet practical book, the man Parade called “the most important coach in America,” subject of the national bestseller Season of Life, Joe Ehrmann, describes his coaching philosophy and explains how sports can transform lives at every level of play, from the earliest years to professional sports. Coaches have a tremendous platform, says Joe Ehrmann, a former Syracuse University All-American and NFL star. Perhaps second only to parents, coaches can impact young people as no one else can. But most coaches fail to do the teaching, mentoring, even life-saving intervention that their platform provides. Too many are transactional coaches; they focus solely on winning and meeting their personal needs. Some coaches, however, use their platform. They teach the Xs and Os, but also teach the Ys of life. They help young people grow into responsible adults; they leave a lasting legacy. These are the transformational coaches. These coaches change lives, and they also change society by helping to develop healthy men and women. InSideOut Coaching explains how to become a transformational coach. Coaches first have to “go inside” and articulate their reasons for coaching. Only those who have taken the InSideOut journey can become transformational. Joe Ehrmann provides examples of coaches in his life who took this journey and taught him how to find something bigger than himself in sports.He describes his own InSideOut experience, starting with the death of his beloved brother, which helped him understand how sports could transcend the playing field. He gives coaches the information and the tools they need to become transformational. Joe Ehrmann has taken his message about the extraordinary power of sports all over the country. It has been warmly endorsed by NFL head coaches, athletic directors at major universities, high school head coaches, even business groups and community organizations. Now any parent-coach or school or community coach can read Ehrmann’s message and learn how to make sports a life-changing experience.

Michel Foucault’s work profoundly influences the way we think about society, in particular how we understand social power, the self, and the body. This book gives an innovative and entirely new analysis of is later works making it a one-stop guide for students, exploring how Foucauldian theory can inform our understanding of the body, domination, identity and freedom as experienced through sport and exercise. Divided into three themed parts, this book considers: Foucault’s ideas and key debates Foucault’s theories to explore power relations, the body, identity and the construction of social practices in sport and exercise how individuals make sense of the social forces surrounding them, considering physical activity, fitness and sport practices as expressions of freedom and sites for social change. Accessible and clear, including useful case studies helping to bring the theory to real-life, Foucault, Sport and Exercise considers cultures and experiences in sports, exercise and fitness, coaching and health promotion. In addition to presenting established Foucauldian perspectives and debates, this text also provides innovative discussion of how Foucault’s later work can inform the study and understanding of sport and the physically active body.

within and across sport and physical cultures. Authors explore the power relations implicated in the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being and various embodied practices) from a range of disciplinary perspectives and theory-method approaches.