The Alternative Sport Push Out – A Theory of Power
Sport for many is a means of achieving money and power in a culture. While the individual who
begins to play sport at a young age does not start with this goal in mind, society has already
established which sports in that culture socialize a person most adequately to reflect the values and
ethics of that society (Coakley, 2004). As the child continues in sport adults will direct the child’s
steps in the direction of the sport where he/she is most likely to experience success. The adults in
this process are keenly aware of which sports represent power and dominance in the society and
will direct the better athletes in that direction. This is even more likely when the adults making
these decisions are not among those in society who have power. If the adult directing the child’s
steps does have power, and therefore financial resources, they may direct the child into a sport
where those without money have not yet flooded the talent pool due to high financial entrance
requirements, thus increasing the chances of success. However, because those who can afford to
play in the non-primary sports (we will further refer to these as amateur, fringe and alternative
sports) are the primary target of marketers they begin to consume more and more media time and
eventually take over the position of the primary cultural sports.
I would hypothesize that historically speaking a sport moves from fringe to amateur to secondary.
However this is difficult to define as the definition of amateur has become blurred to virtual nonexistence in the last 20 years. Many sports that are secondary in a society would be considered
much more amateur than professional. But the distinction that I would like to point out is that as a
fringe sport begins to be beauracratized the distinction of amateur is generally placed on it. Then as
it begins to move from fringe to secondary and primary there is generally a professional level that
develops.
Best athletes to primary sports
In any given society those who choose to compete in sport will naturally be both drawn and
directed to the primary sports in this society. Those with money and influence in the society will
expect that all within the society who compete in sport will compete in the primary sports as they
reflect the primary values and ethics of that society (Grey, 1999). This is of course limited by body
type. For example a male athlete who is both taller and thicker than the majority of the other boys
is likely in America to be socialized to play American football. But if the same athlete had been
born in the Czech Republic he would probably be too big to play ice hockey or football, thus he
might be drawn into a secondary sport like athletics and become a thrower. If a shift occurs in a
society where a secondary sport replaces the primary sport, then a similar resulting shift will occur
among the athlete pool competing for a spot among the primary sports. Thus in Nicaragua it would
be socially expected that a child of exceptional athletic talent would participate in the primary sport
of baseball rather than swimming which is far down the list of secondary sports for that nation
(Klein, 1999). As the child develops and shows physical aptitude others may comment, “Looks
like you have a first baseman there.” In this way Nicaragua continues to produce many top
baseball players and thus young people may hold that as a high dream to be attained. This can be
seen as both a factor of conflict theory in fighting to gain a higher social class position, and as
interactionist as the society member creates an identity in society. In the rare event that Nicaragua
produced a swimmer of Olympic medal caliber everyone inside Nicaragua and outside it would
recognize it as an anomaly.
Another example would be elite sprinters in America. Very few, if any of them set out to be
sprinters; they set out to be American football players and on the way discovered they could also
run very fast (Price, 1997; Leonard, 2000). Rarely will a sprinter choose to give up American
football to sprint. If they can do both, fine, but if they must choose then generally they will choose
the primary American sport of American football over the secondary athletics (Leonard, 2000).
(I’m using the international terms athletics and football to represent what we refer to in the United
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States as track and field and soccer respectively.) It often occurs in America that one of these dual
athletes qualifies as a sprinter for the US Olympic team. Immediately following their Olympic
showing they disappear to become a second or third string American football player. Many reasons
can be given for this observed behavior, but the underlying assumption is that the best athletes will
play the primary sports in a society and be rewarded most handsomely there (Cook, 1996). In
Price’s 1997 study of boys in middle and high school many indicated that they could be a
professional basketball or American football player - 57% of Afro-American (Black) and 41% of
Euro-American (White) youth (Price, 1997). This illustrates an interaction of conflict theory,
interactionist theory and figurational theory at work in American sport culture.
Shift from fringe to primary sport
As hypothesized above, this process of individual sport choice is affected significantly by power
and resources. Conflict and critical theories tell us that those who do not have power and resources
war against those who do to gain what they do not have. Interactionist and conflict theories tell us
that those who have power and resources will fight to maintain their power and consequently their
identities in society. If we apply this to children playing sport we see many children who come
from families and backgrounds which do not have power and resources being socialized to play the
primary sports as a means of achieving the power and resources they lack and also creating an
identity in society for themselves (Price, 1997; Goldiner, 2005; Leonard, 2000). At the same time
we may see those from the wealthy who either do not have the athletic ability to compete and
maintain their position of power and identity in the society, or who do not have the drive to
sacrifice to maintain their position by means of competing against the masses when they do not
have to. This child then takes up a secondary, or even more likely, fringe sport where the financial
entrance requirements limit the competition (Price, 1997; Stark, 1997; Wendel, 2005; Wolff, 2005;
Wheaton, 2003). The child thus maintains his position of power and his identity as he is now
unique in doing something that few others are able to do. And he is one of the best as the pool of
talent is still small and too limited by resources to be highly competitive, further maintaining his
identity and position in society (Price, 1997; Wolff, 2005). His decision to move to a new sport
because of the larger talent pool in his former sport illustrates figurational theory at work.
We might illustrate this as follows:
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There are two congruent processes occurring here, the first one quite fast and the second much
slower. As both processes are occurring concurrently it is not possible to say that one causes the
other, but the two processes are in fact fueled and affected in a causal relationship. Thus I will
explain them separately and independently, but it is to be understood that they are not in reality
separate and independent. I will also explain the second process first.
Process 2: Primary shift
Over time there is a shift that occurs of amateur, elite and fringe sports becoming secondary and
eventually even primary sports. It is difficult to say that the current primary sports lose their
position of primacy, but they do lose a part of their market share and at some point there is a market
saturation that occurs and a primary sport will fade to a secondary sport (Coakley, 2004; Jamet,
1998; Maguire, 1993; Birkley, 1993; Dunning, 1993). This is the slower of the two processes for a
number of reasons which will be outlined further on. Two contributing causes to this shift are the
desire of the powerless to have the same privileges as the powerful, and the desire of marketers to
target the top tier of resources (Price, 1997; Maguire, 1993; Leonard, 2000).
To illustrate this we will use the sport of golf. Golf is a game that is expensive, and also has limited
access based on race and gender. When a child from the powerless grows up and succeeds in the
primary sport he begins to gain the privileges of those with power. So the inner-city African
American succeeds in American football and thus as a college athlete or NFL player he now has
access to the golf course. He desires to use this access to identify himself as having arrived among
those who have power and because he desires to do something he previously could not. He may
carry this privilege even further and give his son private golf lessons to better position the son in
society. At the same time golf is appearing more and more on television. The majority are not yet
able to play it and have not yet been socialized to play it, but as media coverage increases so does
the socialization process. Those who have power have chosen to broadcast golf more so that they
can target an audience of top-end decision makers. This allows them to lure higher end advertisers
and make more money (Coakley, 2004; Maguire 1993). And it communicates to those without
power that the golf course is the goal they should strive for. Thus golf shifts over time from fringe
to amateur to elite to secondary to primary sport.
As was stated this is the slower of the two processes for a number of reasons. The conflict theory
component to the relative slowness of this process is that those who have power desire to keep
power and keep oppressing the majority who do not. They want to keep the masses entertained,
distracted (Coakley, 2004). Another way of saying this is that even though marketers have a
strategy of targeting those with wealth and power, they still want to make sure that they are
maintaining the largest part of the market even if it is not as high yield (Maguire, 1993; Stark,
1997). The interactionist and critical theory component is that for those who do not have power
and resources to have access to the amateur, elite and fringe sports there must occur adjustments in
the law and some measure of wealth accumulation (Coakley, 2004).
Process 1: Amateur, elite, fringe sport push out
This first process occurs more quickly than the second because it is almost exclusively driven by
those with power and resources, thus the barriers are more easily overcome. As the domain of the
elite gets more crowded those with power and position, who often have less athletic aptitude or
drive, begin to seek new domains to conquer, thus the fringe sport becomes secondary and a new
fringe is created (Price, 1997; Wolff, 2005; Stark, 1997; Wheaton, 2003). Many reasons can be
given for this. One reason is that the wealthy desire to maintain their position or identity in society.
A second reason is that the wealthy often are more prone to have the time and thus the desire to
play versus to really compete (Stodolska, 2004). A third reason is that they have the freedom to do
something new and different due to their resources (Stodolska, 2004).
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We could illustrate this with many new growing sports that were previously only fringe sports;
skateboarding, rollerblading, snowboarding or now lacrosse (Beal, 1999; Wheaton, 2003; Wolff,
2005). For the sake of this example we will use snowboarding. In the late-1980s snowboarding
began to appear in America. If you were a snowboarder at that time it was something special. In a
high school setting your identity would likely be, “that person who snowboards”. Those who were
snowboarding were always from the top financial tier of society and were often good, but not great
athletes in other sports (Price, 1997). When snowboarding was added as an Olympic sport those
who won the medals at the initial games were former skiers who had not quite been able to reach
the Olympic level in alpine skiing. Now that snowboarding is moving up through the secondary
sports the new rage is boardercross. In this event the snowboarders start together in a group of five
and compete down the slope side by side. Of course there are not many boardercross events yet so
those who desire to compete in it must have the financial means to travel greater distances to these
events. Thus fringe has been pushed out so that snowboarding is now a secondary sport and
boardercross is the new fringe. Those with resources maintain identity, can play, and are able to
compete in the new fringe.
A second illustration of this principle would be the sport of American football in many countries
outside of North America. Working with American football in the Czech Republic for example I
have observed that those who play come from the very upper end of society. They are generally
average athletes who have previously played another sport but could not progress past the regional
level. In a society where the purpose of sport is to produce national teams those who cannot
achieve the highest level lose their position in society as athletes. Those who have resources
however can continue to compete on a privately funded American football team. The equipment is
expensive, and there are only eight teams so travel is expensive. But now the former average
athlete is known as doing the unique and exotic sport of American football. And they only have to
practice twice per week to be one of the best versus the twice daily practices they undertook to be a
regional level player in another sport. Maguire’s 1993 study of American football in Great Britain
reveals similar types of participants, identity formation, commitment level and funding (Maguire,
1993).
We might illustrate the actual shift from fringe, to amateur, to elite, to secondary, to primary using
the United States as an example as follows:
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Examples from the USA
African American player representation in the NBA has fallen from a high of 88% in 2000 to 75%
in 2004 (Leonard, 2000; Wendel 2005). One could interpret this as African American players
beginning to exit a primary American sport, basketball, for other sports. This would be consistent
with the trend in major league baseball, another primary American sport, where African American
representation has fallen from 19% to 10% in the past seven years (Wendel, 2005). The rosters are
being filled with players from Latin America, such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic (Klein,
1999). The remaining American primary sport of American football has seen a decline to 65%
African American representation. Those with the most power and resources exit or are pushed out
of the sport. Usually these are represented by white males, and the rosters are filled with African
Americans who are hungry for power and resources long denied them. The next step appears to be
an exit or pushing out of African Americans by foreign born talent. The powerful whites have
moved to the new fringe, the African Americans move to the amateur and secondary which is
moving toward primacy. We can trace similar patterns in the former primary US sports of athletics
or boxing, which are now secondary sports. At the same time we see African Americans beginning
to dominate in tennis with Venus and Serena Williams, and an African-Asian-American in golf
with Tiger Woods. To balance this conflict theory approach we can also show a figurational and
interactionist side where NBA basketball coaches are saying the migrant athlete is more attractive
than the native athlete because they have a better grasp of the games’ fundamentals, play a better
team game and show a more authentic love for the game. So we can postulate that the entrance of
migrant athletes seems to promote the sport up the ladder toward primacy in the sending nation
rather quickly and slowly displace it from primacy in the receiving nation.
Finally, one could study the growth of new sports in a culture and their shift from fringe to amateur
to elite to secondary to better understand the changing values in that culture. The current
movements of lacrosse in the United States or baseball in the Czech Republic both represent
excellent examples of sports moving from fringe to amateur which embody the new values of the
culture (Wolff, 2005).
Conclusion
I have tried to propose a typology to examine the questions of how a sport achieves the position it
holds in society, the potential for movement from that position and the primary factors that
influence the sports movement. The interplay of conflict, interactionist, critical and figurational
social theory as they apply to sport in culture help us understand why the identified factors
influence the movement of sport from fringe to primacy and even back to secondary in a society.
Using conflict and figurational theory we have seen that the best athletes in a society will be
socially conditioned to play the primary sports in a culture. Using interactionist and figurational
theory we have seen that those with power and resources in a society will leave the primary sports
to create the new fringe sports in a society. A sports’ position in society is dynamic in that it
changes over time. Sports generally move from fringe, to amateur, to elite, to secondary,
sometimes to primacy and sometimes back from primacy to secondary in a society. This
movement happens as those with power and resources in a society work to keep their position in
society; as those without power and resources struggle to gain power and resources; and as each
group strives to carve and maintain identity in society. Marketing and media are significant
influencers in these processes.
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