The globalization of multi-media societies has had the effect of rapidly diversifying live sport spectatorship experiences. This trend possibly dates to the inter-war years when political announcements, news flashes and
international sports competitions (e.g., world championship boxing) were recorded and delivered to live audiences in public theatres. In the post-war era radio commentaries became the standard means by which the general public could experience live sport. The television era dates to the 1960s and 1970s and the development of both public television broadcasts of domestic and international sports. There soon followed the development of satellite television in 1979 (Halberstam, 1999).
Since these developments, the course of change has been rapid (Figure 6.2). The televising of live sport allows for mass sport spectatorship from the convenience of one’s private living room. It has also allowed for the installation of large projection screens in private (e.g., exclusive clubs) and public (e.g., pubs and sports bars) spaces (Weed, 2007). Wider experiences of live sport extend to downloading video clips of significant passages of play (as in the case of the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan) via cellular phones and SMS/TXTscore updates as well as video streaming and live blogs mediated via the Internet.
Perhaps the most intriguing variation of live sport spectatorship, one that has not yet fully unfolded, is the phenomenon of big screen live sites. Elec- tronic scoreboards, replay screens and closed circuit television in the major stadiums of the world are recognized as the forerunners of the big screen.
Regional/
national International
Field of competition
Stadium Local
Global SMS/TXT
(video clip download)
Internet (video streaming, you-tube,
score updates)
Television (Free to air, satellite television, pay-per-view in private and public spaces)
Satel lite stadia
Temporary arenas in public spaces (e.g., big screens)
Local iconic sites
Regional/national tourism destinations
Places of home support
FIGURE 6.2 Spectator
experiences of live sport in a globalized multi-media society.
Theorizing Live Sport Spectatorship in a Globalized Multi-Media Society 119
While big screens have become commonplace in major stadiums, their use in public spaces is a relatively recent but rapidly diversifying development.
During the 1991 Rugby World Cup in Britain and France, the success of the Manu Samoan rugby team in qualifying for the quarter-finals gave rise to an upsurge in national pride and spectator interest in the south sea islands of Western Samoa. Lack of access to television coverage resulted in the hasty installation of a big screen at Apia Park in the Samoan capital. Apia Park was full of viewers in the middle of the night when Samoa famously defeated hosts Wales in the RWC quarter-finals. This is an early example of the
‘satellite stadium’ phenomenon (see Figure 6.2), in which big screens are erected in stadiums or arenas that are local to or, in this particular case, far removed from the place of competition.
More recently the big screen spectator experience has evolved further into the temporary construction of viewing facilities in public spaces to essentially extend the stadium spectator experience to non-ticket holders. This has proved an effective means of overcoming the constraints of limited stadium spectator capacities. Again, various manifestations of the big screen phenomenon have emerged in a comparatively short space of time and at a range of spatial levels. Most immediately, the development of big screen viewing venues in local precincts has allowed destinations to maximize the involvement of spectators in large-scale sports events. ‘Live sites’ have been developed to provide not only a place to watch live sport in close proximity to the actual contest itself but also a place of pre- and post-competition enter- tainment for the full range of sport spectator types (seeTable 6.1).
A corollary of this course of development that has emerged in recent years is the deliberate and strategic decision to situate big screen spectator facilities at iconic local sites. The televising of live sports taking place at recognisable and iconic sites has come to be seen as an effective way of generating destination awareness and place promotion, while contributing to the development of a unique sense of place. Images of marathon runners crossing London Bridge or running through Central Park (New York) and Olympic triathletes sprinting to the finish line at the steps of the Sydney Opera House are examples of this form of place promotion. Situating big screens and public viewing facilities at iconic sites may contribute to the same end. To date the most advanced example of these aspects of the big screen phenomenon was achieved during the hosting of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany (see Case study 6.2). While temporary big screen spectator facilities were con- structed in many German host cities during the month-long event, the creation of ‘Fan Mile’ in Berlin, set amongst some of the great iconic monuments of the German capital (e.g., The Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column), captures much of the potential of the big screen
spectator experience. Indeed, while 74,228 spectators watched Germany play Italy in the World Cup semi-final at the Olympiastadion (Berlin), a further one million fans watched the game live on big screens among Berlin’s urban icons, which had been transformed into the setting for the Fan Mile.
C a s e S t u d y 6 . 2
Spectator experiences during the Germany 2006 FIFA World Cup
Preparations for the 2006 FIFA World Cup hosted by Ger- many involved the construction of a number of new stadiums to host World Cup games. It also involved the development of a range of related attractions to encourage the interest, participation and support of the German people as well as to foster international tourism associated with the event. Frankfurt’s ‘official overture to the World Cup’ involved 300,000 people gathering on the banks and bridges of the River Main in Frankfurt on Saturday 3 June to watch the
‘Skyarena show’, which featured spectacular lighting effects and images being projected onto the city’s skyscrapers to a musical accompaniment. Aside from the twelve cities that actually hosted World Cup football games, numerous other cities and regions played host to world cup teams.
Trinidad’s ‘Soca Warriors’ were based in Rotenburg- Wu¨mme, for example, and the Swedish national team in Bre- men, where official welcomes were held with strong local/
regional support. Such were the levels of public support engendered from the start of the tournament that teams such as Ghana were also farewelled by 3,000 supporters in the marketplace of Wu¨rzburg after being knocked out of the final sixteen by Brazil.
During the course of the event non-ticket-holding fans were catered for as an important element of the overall spectator audience. In Berlin the Fan Mile dominated the Strasse des 17 Juni between Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column from 7 June to 9 July 2006. On 7 June 2006 the first event hosted on Berlin’s fan mile was a welcome party followed by the kick-off of the World Cup’s opening match. Football fans were entertained by musicians from the countries represented by teams at the World Cup, including Nelly Furtado (Portugal), Ronan Keating (Ireland) and the Berlin German Opera Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Football World Cup
legends such as Pele´ (Brazil), Sir Bobby Charlton (England) and Paul Breitner (Germany), among other celebrities, attended the event. Fan Mile also featured the Adidas Arena, a 1:10-scale version of the Olympiastadion, which was located temporarily by Spreebogen Park in front of the Reichstag building to provide up to 8,000 fans with public viewing, shops, a cultural entertainment programme and catering. During the World Cup hundreds of thousands of fans gathered in the heart of Germany’s national capital, surrounded by Berlin’s historic monuments, to watch matches live on giant screens and savour the football party atmosphere. One million people congregated in Berlin’s Fan Mile on 4 July 2006 to watch the FIFA World Cup semi-final between Germany and Italy on twenty-two giant screens.
Similar efforts were invested in other German cities to accommodate high levels of domestic and international spec- tator interest in the event. Over 15,000 fans followed the match between Germany and Ecuador on giant screens at Leipzig’s Augustusplatz on 20 June 2006. In Frankfurt fans from all over the world watched World Cup games in temporary arenas constructed on the banks of the River Main. They watched World Cup games on giant screens situated in the middle of the river on 22-m-long hydraulic poles (televised images were projected to viewing audiences on both sides of the river).
As such, ticket-holding fans who were able to attend games live were outnumbered by spectators watching the same games, at the same time, on giant screens located in a number of local and regional public spaces.
The development of big screen spectator precincts at local and recognizable urban sites has spawned some interesting variations of the big screen phenomenon. One such variation is the development of non-local live spectator sites. The development of temporary viewing facilities allows for sports competitions to be transformed from a local/stadium event into wider regional or national sport spectatorship events.
Theorizing Live Sport Spectatorship in a Globalized Multi-Media Society 121
This creates significant opportunities for tourist destinations where large, multi-national and mobile tourists are tempo- rarily based. While many non-urban tourist destinations are unlikely or unable to host live stadium sport, the big screen has emerged as a means by which to capitalize on tourist interests in sports events. This may also be a strategic response to minimize the diversion effects of prominent sports events that may compete with traditional tourist desti- nations for visitor attention. A further variation of big screen spectatorship at a wider spatial level is the creation of tempo- rary spectator precincts in home countries of nations competing in world championship events. Thus, during the 2006 FIFA World Cup campaign it was common for big screen live sites to be developed both in existing stadiums and public places such as Trafalgar Square (London), Feder- ation Square (Melbourne) and Circular Quay (Sydney).
It is, therefore, important to recognize that the spectatorship experience has expanded far beyond the spatial limitations and elitist confines of the stadium experience (Hede & Alomes, 2007). This expansion of real-time sport experiences has effec- tively democratized both public access to experiencing sports events and destination capacities to leverage or ‘host’ (via the creation of temporary viewing facilities and live sites) sports events. Herein lie both challenges and opportunities for tourist destinations that exist and compete within the context of glob- alized and multi-media societies. The domain of stadium sport as well as new and emerging spectatorship phenomena is interesting to theorize. It would appear that connoisseur sport spectators are those who give priority to live spectatorship in the stadiums and arenas where elite sports contests take place (Standeven & De Knop, 1999). Those who are unable to access limited tickets may choose to travel nonetheless to the place of competition to experience the contest in other ways. This may represent a sizeable group of spectators in the case of historic or important sports events. Thus, the emphasis on spectatorship, which has historically focussed on the highly constrained setting of a stadium, has clearly diffused to alternative forms of live spectatorship in public spaces (Beauchamp, 2008).
While the stadium remains exclusive in terms of ticket- holder access, the spectator experience has rapidly evolved,
particularly in less constrained public spaces. This course of evolution is yet to be fully embraced in event management and event bidding processes. In theory, it is conceivable that the development of spectator facilities in dedicated, temporary venues in public spaces will become a legitimate part of the strategic event development process. If so, the historical focus on stadium capacity, the need for infrastruc- tural investment and the prospect of archaic, monolithic and uneconomic stadium legacies following mega sports events may be unlocked. Temporary spectator facilities, the use of public spaces and a focus on remote spectator experiences may be key elements of sustainable stadium development.
It is interesting to theorize that spectatorship in public spaces may become part of the event bidding process, as a means to reduce the burden of stadium/infrastructure investment. It may also be seen as a means to improve equity in the international event bidding process by affording small, poorer and/or peripheral nations and destinations an opportu- nity to realistically bid to host sports events despite more modest stadium infrastructure. Such a strategy may be sup- ported by innovative means to create unique visitor and spec- tator experiences through ancillary entertainments aimed at the creation of atmospheres of local festival or carnivalesque (Giulianotti, 1995). The interspersion of the experience of sport with authentic experiences of place through music, atmosphere, food and beverage and personal interaction offers avenues of opportunity in terms of place competition and place promotion. The use of iconic urban monuments and historic sites is now established as a prominent element in this mix (Chalip, 2002). While improving equity in bidding for international sports events, such strategic developments could also form part of the leveraging strategy for major sports events.
The extreme of this theorization is a major sports event played out in a modest or empty stadium, with large and dispersed audiences experiencing the sport competition at specifically selected sites where temporary facilities are con- structed. Such sites could include regional tourism or urban destination live sites (Hede & Alomes, 2007) at a range of spatial scales. Variations of this scenario include the use of local blackouts (withdrawn or delayed local television
CONCLUSION
The globalization of sports and tourism has had various implications for sport spectatorship as a tourism activity. While multiple and flexible fandoms have emerged, the entrenchment of team loyalties based on social and cultural meanings is also evident. Sport spectatorship in association with tourism experiences in places of competition has become an important means by which to build a sense of national, collective or personal identity in times when globalization has brought unprecedented change to the reference points that once framed peoples’ lives. One consequence has been that the identities of individuals or groups of sport spectators have given rise to the search for unique personal or social experiences. This runs counter to the packaging and commodification of sports experiences and promotes the need for sociological insights into the nature of sport tourism experience.
Sport spectatorship offers the potential for unique experiences to be derived from social and cultural interactions, which represent the synergistic interplay of intense sporting activities and the coming together of spectators from ‘home’ and ‘away’ in a setting that is place-situated and bounded in space and time. The uniqueness of these social experiences represents a counter to the high mobility and transportability of sport in a globalized world. Thus sports stadiums, be they modern or retro (see Chapter 11, Modern landscapes and retro parks), can be reproduced in any part of the world. However, it is the social experience, which is place-situated and socially/culturally constructed, that lies at the heart of the sport tourist coverage) to promote stadium ticket sales. However, even
given this broadcast blackout practice, elite sport has in a number of cases been played in front of rows of empty seats in cases of stadium closure due to fan violence or threats of security disruption. Such scenarios invoke consid- eration of the potential for remote and big screen spectator- ship to allow, for example, developing countries (where stadium facilities are otherwise inadequate) to host major sports events. This does highlight the transportability of sports, which may be seen as both an opportunity and a threat. This may be seen to erode sport tourism as a composite of activity, people and place if place is seen to be expendable or reproducible through the development of
live sites. The counter view is that it heightens the need for place to be central to the experience of sport (Morgan, 2007; Weed, 2007).
Selected references
Beauchamp, P. (2008). Event Horizons Expanding. Sunday Herald, September 17, pp. 73.
Fanfest Berlin (2006) http://www.berlin.de/fifaw2006/
english/fanfest/index.php. (accessed 17 November 2006)
Hede, A. and Alomes, S. (2007). Big Screens: Exploring Their Future for the Special Event Sector. 4th Interna- tional Event Research Conference. Melbourne, Australia.
Conclusion 123
spectator experience. Herein lies a key element of sport tourism that, despite (and perhaps because of) globalization and contemporary mobility, cannot be spatially transplanted. The diverse (and diversifying) ways in which live sports may otherwise be experienced present both opportunities and threats to tourism destinations.
C H A P T E R 7
Recreational Sport and Serious Leisure
Chapters 5 (Globalization and the mobility of elite athletes) and 6 (Specta- torship and spectator experiences) explored the travel activities of elite athletes and the spectators who follow them. In contrast, this chapter examines the travel practices of recreational athletes. In doing so, recrea- tional sport is considered to fall under the broad rubric of leisure. It involves freely chosen participation in sport activities primarily for the intrinsic rewards associated with it. While ‘having fun’ is often the primary reward/
motivation for this involvement, there are also more serious motivations/
rewards that will be considered. This chapter opens by considering whether travel is a benefit or cost in terms of recreational sport. A leisure constraint framework is used to explore this question with a focus on the negotiation of constraints. Negotiation is then considered in the context of serious leisure and sport subcultures. The chapter closes with a discussion of issues related to identity and commodification.