Sports geography: new approaches, perspectives and directions

Abstract

Within some disciplines, for example sociology, management, history, media and cultural studies, strong trends on sports research have been established. In some disciplinary spaces, however, interest in sport has content and context has been less marked. Notwithstanding sports inherently geographical characteristics (in particular, concerns with time, space, communities, mobilities and identities) and-with researchers interested in similar phenomena from geopolitics, socialization and habitation, migration and structural and ideological forces, there are a limited number of books addressing sports geography. Early work, for example, was useful in acknowledging the relevance of 'sportscapes'. Seminal work in this regard was Philip L. Wagner's (1981) synopsis of how sports contribute to culture, place, and societal relationships, Martin Barry Vinokur's (1988) look at sport and politics, and Charles Fruehling Springwood's (1996) account of place, time and the imagination of baseball. In addition to work published by John Bale (see Bale, 1982, 1994; Bale and Maguire, 1994), these works established meaningful conceptual and practical connections between geography and sports setting. Further adding to this scholarship was Karl Raitz' (1995) edited book which made a substantial contribution to the earlier work on sport and geography by focusing on landscapes of sport and how this impacts participation and involvement. It is, however, arguably John Bale's (2003) text Sports Geography that has been one of the most cited and useful bases for this topic area. What defines Bale's book is both its comprehensive approach to the establishing sports geography as a legitimate domain of academic inquiry, and the extent to which it outlines synergies and disjunctures between formative geographic processes and principles (e.g. globalization, diffusion, regional analysis, location, social welfare, place and geographical imaginaries) within the historical and contemporary structures and landscapes of dynamic sport spaces. Respecting this body of scholarship in establishing foci, debates and momentum, there remains room for much development, new insight and critical directions as more work continues to inform the sub-field of geography. Building on these points and to expand on the foundation of research written in previous decades, there is a need to bring together a contemporary collection of papers that look at pressing issues impacting places concerning the role of sport in society. What is needed, we believe, to augment the aforementioned seminal works are fresh inductive approaches narrating experiences of sporting participants to reiterate senses of place, community and identity linking the production of new case-specific and critical knowledge that has since been expanded in more recent scholarly commentary. Furthermore, reflecting trends within our own parent disciplines, and wider work with

Sport Clusters and Community Resilience in the United States

“…Sport, like geography, needs to study spatial variations in the impact that sport industries and sporting activities have on the landscape (Wise & Kohe, 2020). According to the sport value framework (Woratschek et al, 2014), sport organizations and facilities create value propositions in the configuration of a value network in a certain community, and sport customers co-create value by integrating resources inside and outside the network.…”

‘You can rent it for a while, but it is our house’: Sports fans’ experience of returning ‘home’ to a new multipurpose stadium

“…They exhibit a socio-geographic character that is often emblematic of the fans’ community (Giulianotti, 1999b: 70). However, to date scholarship has typically overlooked the relationship between sports enthusiasts and stadium spaces (Richards and Parry, 2020; Van-Ingen, 2003; Wise and Kohe, 2020). There are of course notable exceptions, including the work of Bale (1993), whose book Sport, Space and the City has been credited with the development of sports geography as a discipline (Wise and Kohe, 2020; see also Giulianotti, 2005).…”

“…However, to date scholarship has typically overlooked the relationship between sports enthusiasts and stadium spaces (Richards and Parry, 2020; Van-Ingen, 2003; Wise and Kohe, 2020). There are of course notable exceptions, including the work of Bale (1993), whose book Sport, Space and the City has been credited with the development of sports geography as a discipline (Wise and Kohe, 2020; see also Giulianotti, 2005). Since this books’ publication, stadium spatial arrangements have been more closely examined, developing an interesting and growing body of research exploring the increasingly complex role these spaces play in the context of modern urban societies.…”

“…Understanding how stadium landscapes are constructed and used, how their elements relate to the broader local fan community is to understand a good deal about the culture, values and concerns of the people who use it (Raitz, 1987). Yet despite the unique role sports stadiums play in shaping and creating memorable match-day experiences, theorising this space remains underdeveloped within sports scholarship (Wise and Kohe, 2020). This research explores contemporary stadium design and use from a fan perspective, by examining the factors that enhance and inhibit the match-day experience in a newly built multipurpose and shared stadium space.…”

Running Rotterdam: on how locals’ participation in running events fosters their sense of place

“…Furthermore, in addition to research on running (events), the paper draws on insights from a range of-to date partly separately evolving-scholarship including sports geography, literature on tourism, and festivals and community building. In doing so, it responds to recent calls to reinvigorate scholarship on the role of sport in society and on its impact on place through a combination of perspectives and a focus on senses of place, community and identity (see Wise and Kohe 2018). Empirically, the paper focuses on the Dutch city of Rotterdam and draws on extensive fieldwork (qualitative surveys, in-depth interviews, social media analysis and participant observation) conducted before, during and after the 2018 edition of the NN Marathon Rotterdam, and two smaller scale, non-commercially oriented running events organized in late 2017 by the Rotterdam Running Crew, an open running club organizing monthly running events that pass through 'special places in Rotterdam'.…”