The stratification of professional sports following: social position and the consumption of major professional sports leagues in Canada

Gemar, Adam

doi:10.1080/02614367.2019.1599046

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The dip in women's following of these leagues from 1995 to 2000 is potentially a product of two NHL franchises, the Winnipeg Jets and the Quebec Nordiques, leaving in 1995 for Phoenix and in 1996 for Colorado, respectively. Because it has previously been found that women are more likely to only follow the NHL (Gemar, 2019a), this change in the sporting landscape of Canada likely impacted women following to a greater degree.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's consumption of men's professional sport in Canada: Evidence of the ‘feminization’ of sports fandom and women as omnivorous sports consumers?

Gemar

Pope

2021

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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Women sports fans have been substantially understudied compared to their male counterparts. While a growing number of studies seek to redress this, there remains a stark absence of quantitative approaches that would allow investigations regarding patterns of women’s sporting consumption and historical trends in the potential growth of this fandom. Using large-scale survey data from Canada from 1990 through to 2015, and employing quantitative methods of latent class and regression analysis, this study seeks to redress these issues by testing the ‘feminization’ thesis of increased women’s sporting fandom over the past three decades. In addition, we consider whether women’s fandom has become increasingly ‘omnivorous’ over this time period and the nature of this consumption today. Results show support for the feminization thesis. These findings are significant as through the use of quantitative methodologies we evidence the narrowing gender gaps in professional sports following between men and women, and women’s increasingly omnivorous consumption of sports. However, we find substantial gender gaps and inequalities in omnivorism by which the evidence suggests increased socio-economic and cultural barriers to omnivorous consumption of sport for women. We suggest that these women omnivores may be able to utilize their sporting knowledge in an instrumental way for benefits in various social settings, especially workplaces. It is hoped that this article will pave the way for further quantitative studies on women sports fans across different contexts.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's consumption of men's professional sport in Canada: Evidence of the ‘feminization’ of sports fandom and women as omnivorous sports consumers?

Gemar

Pope

2021

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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“…I employ the method of latent class analysis (LCA), popular in recent work on sport (e.g. Gemar, 2019bGemar, , 2020cWiddop and Cutts, 2013;Widdop et al, 2016). In the case of this analysis this is direct sports participation Binomial logistic regression analysis is then performed to identify the general socio-economic and/or demographic make-up of each cluster.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The social patterning of sport: Regular sports participation and stratification in Canada

Gemar¹

2020

Preprint

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The participation in different forms of leisure has often been ascribed the power to reflect and reproduce social inequalities. While some came before, this intellectual endeavor increased substantially with the seminal work of Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction. While Bourdieu’s writings on culture did not neglect sports, sport is often neglected in subsequent studies of culture. Most of the subsequent theoretical and empirical work on culture has focused upon music and the arts, many also arguing that Bourdieu’s work is now dated. This paper seeks to provide an updated and comprehensive re-examining of sports participation. For these investigations, I use large-scale survey data and various statistical methods to test the relevance of the Pierre Bourdieu’s foundational theories and explain these patterns. The findings show direct sports participation relying primarily on dispositions towards the body which are stratified by education and income, especially for the most elite sports. These results therefore highlight the contemporary relevance of Bourdieu’s theories of the relationship between sports, social class, and the stratification thereof.

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“…While marketing studies of sport frequently use quantitative methods of analysis, there is little quantitative work that is employed in sociological studies of professional sports broadly or in Canada specifically. While there are indeed two studies from the author that fill some of these gaps in the literature (Gemar, 2019a;Gemar, 2019b), the first of these studies relies on data from 2005.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sport as Culture: Social class, styles of cultural consumption, and sports engagement in Canada

Gemar¹

2021

Preprint

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The consumption of culture has often been ascribed the power to reflect and reproduce social inequalities. However, most work in this area has focused upon music and the arts. Sport is an important element of culture that can and should be studied in a similar fashion as others (Bourdieu, 1978). This thesis thus seeks to bring the theoretical frameworks and analytical tools of sociologies of culture further into the realm of sport. Substantively, this thesis provides an updated and comprehensive re-examining of the relationship between direct sports participation and social stratification in the relatively unexplored national context of Canada. I also innovatively provide an examination of the relationship between social stratification and professional sports consumption. Finally, this thesis fills a gap in the literature by analysing where the consumption of sport fits within broader cultural lifestyles. For these investigations, I use large-scale survey data and various statistical methods to test the foundational theories of Pierre Bourdieu, the ‘omnivore’ thesis, and individualisation arguments of social action to explain these patterns. The findings show direct sports participation relying primarily on dispositions towards the body which are stratified by education and income, especially for the most elite sports. They also show the two most selective omnivorous profiles for professional sport, rather than the most omnivorous, with the highest levels of education and income. This thesis thus sheds doubt on the omnivore thesis within sport, while also showing elements of individualisation regarding age and sex differentiation in consumption. Sports consumption in Canada thus cuts across all three theories of the relation between socio-economic position and sport. These more delimitated consumption profiles contrast with the general adherence to the omnivore thesis within broader cultural lifestyles. This therefore suggests that sport may be a cultural domain where general omnivores practise more distinctive consumption.

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The stratification of professional sports following: social position and the consumption of major professional sports leagues in Canada

Cited by 13 publications

References 32 publications

Women's consumption of men's professional sport in Canada: Evidence of the ‘feminization’ of sports fandom and women as omnivorous sports consumers?

Women's consumption of men's professional sport in Canada: Evidence of the ‘feminization’ of sports fandom and women as omnivorous sports consumers?

The social patterning of sport: Regular sports participation and stratification in Canada

Sport as Culture: Social class, styles of cultural consumption, and sports engagement in Canada

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