Functionalism In Sports

In an era where almost anything can be accessed with the touch of a button, any time, anywhere, for the right price, the value of goods is increasing exponentially. Athletes evolving in this wealth driven period of time are commodities in their own right, their talent profitable in more ways than just through competition in their selected fields. When a New Zealander hears the name Steven Adams many words may come to mind; home town boy with big dreams, basketball or even tall, but rarely would the word ‘brand’ be the foremost thought. This word eloquently describes what he is, in signing a one hundred and forty million dollar, four-year contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder; Adams became the highest paid Kiwi sportsman in history (Hinton,

Athletes and their selected sports are currently viewed as traders in a market, these goods are “commoditised when [they] change from a good possessing only use value… to a good that also possesses value as an exchangeable item” (Walsh, 2001, p. 55). Commodification of teams and individual athletes is seen when performance is rewarded with the increased value of clubs, players and tickets to events. This also occurs off the playing field in the form of sponsorship, media contracts and club merchandise. The aforementioned Steven Adams new four-year contract is worth more than players who have consistently contributed high statistics in games yet, his appeal to the Thunder is his potential to bring more to the sport than just his skill. In addition to his work ethic and selflessness, as an entity he brings with him an entire country of viewers, prepared to spend big money watching games, buying apparel and supporting the Oklahoma City

Hegemony through the form of commodities is instrumental in the practice of sport as athletes and the game is constructed according to the needs of publications and broadcasters. Sewart (1987) condemns “television executives [as viewing] sport as merely entertainment [who] will exert tremendous pressure upon the governing bodies of sport in order to attract even larger advertising revenues” (p.173). The Broadcasting Act of 1990 allowed the auctioning of exclusive rights to the broadcast of live games, turning the relatively costless operation of viewing sports into an act that required payment (Moor, 2007). Having controlling licence of the programming of sports grants media outlets the power to elicit changes to how and when the game is played, thus generating more broadcasting traffic and the potential for more revenue through advertising. A classic example of this is the Super Bowl, Bien (2017) reports that a “regular season halftime period might last 12 to 15 minutes. At the Super Bowl, because of the elaborate show that takes place on the field, that period can be more than twice as long.” Advertisements for the 2017 Super Bowl cost $5 million per 30-second allocation, yet this is considered a bargain as it can be guaranteed that with a viewing platform of 172 million spectators of varying demographics their message will resonate with a