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This article connects the exploitation experienced by athletic laborers to sports fandom by theorizing athletic labor as a form of social reproductive labor. The work of athletes in high-performance spectator sport contributes to the affective reproduction of spectatorial subjects required by capitalism, albeit at a great cost to the laboring athlete. This intervention advances Marxist scholarship on the sociology of sport by extending the literature on social reproduction and labor into an entirely new and necessary sphere. Framing athletic labor as a form of social reproduction reveals that high performance spectator sport is more central to the political economy of late capitalism than is often understood and that sport is a more exploitative and dehumanizing site of labor even than conventional Marxist analysis has suggested.

The following opinion piece concerns a reading of the work of Angela Davis and its application to the research on sport and social inclusion. It has the following aims: first, we use her work to argue that racism, as constituted via economics, helps to construct gender; second, we suggest that research on sport and social inclusion would do well to consider the work of Davis in forming a more complex reading of what it means to invite the participation-or inclusion-of women and girls in sport, both racialized and non-racialized.

In this article, we explore the efficacy of sport as an instrument for social inclusion through an analysis of the film Bend it Like Beckham. The film argues for the potential of sport to foster a more inclusive society in terms of multiculturalism and gender equity by showing how a hybrid culture can be forged through the microcosm of an English young women's football club, while simultaneously challenging assumptions about traditional masculinities and femininities. Yet, despite appearances, Bend it Like Beckham does little to challenge the structure of English society. Ultimately, the version of multiculturalism offered by the film is one of assimilation to a utopian English norm. This conception appears progressive in its availability to all Britons regardless of ethnicity, but falls short of conceptions of hybrid identity that do not privilege one hegemonic culture over others. Likewise, although the film presents a feminist veneer, underneath lurks a troubling reassertion of the value of chastity, masculinity, and patriarchy. Bend it Like Beckham thus provides an instructive case study for the potential of sport as a site of social inclusion because it reveals how seductive it is to imagine that structural inequalities can be overcome through involvement in teams.