Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

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Barn- och ungdomsidrott till salu: Om begär, immateriellt arbete och kommersialisering
Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, GIH, Department of Movement, Culture and Society.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9841-2788
2022 (Swedish)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)Alternative title
Child and youth sport for sale (English)
Abstract [en]

In recent decades scholars have noted a trend in Swedish child and youth sport, namely that businesses are emerging parallel to the Swedish Sports Confederation (SSC), Sweden’s leading ideally driven sports organisation. Despite this recent trend of businesses starting to organise child and youth sport, research on the phenomenon is as yet scarce. This is also true for the overarching research area of the commercialisation of youth sport. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to analyse how commercially driven child and youth sport in Sweden functions and how leading representatives from child and youth sport businesses perceive Swedish child and youth sport.

The thesis consists of four sub-studies. Three of the studies are based on data from different child and youth sport business websites, while the other is based on data from interviews with leading representatives from different child and youth sport businesses.

The results identify four different commercial de-territorialisation processes that have been established, or territorialised, in Sweden. These four de-territorialisation processes consist of businesses that target their services to different potential customers groups. They also identify how the different businesses produce immaterial values regarding child and youth sport in order to attract potential customers. These values are enunciated differently depending on the kind of de-territorialisation processes the businesses stem from. Furthermore, the thesis illustrates that in their website images the businesses often visually represent their ideal customers as white boys and girls who are actively pursuing some kind of sport. It also shows that the leading business representatives position themselves and their services as passionate sport enthusiasts, child and youth sport actors and actors in a changing society.

The conclusion is that the commercialisation of child and youth sport functions in four different ways and creates boundaries between ideally- and commercially driven sport. The challenge for ideally driven sport is to keep control over sport as a social and cultural product. This is especially important in a post-industrial society, where businesses aspire to take control of the social and cultural content of sport and make it profitable

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH , 2022. , p. 106
Series
Avhandlingsserie för Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan ; 26
National Category
Economics and Business Sport and Fitness Sciences
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-7152ISBN: 978-91-986490-8-6 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:gih-7152DiVA, id: diva2:1703755
Public defence
2022-11-11, Aulan, Lidingövägen 1, Stockholm, 13:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2022-10-14 Created: 2022-10-14 Last updated: 2022-11-11Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Commercialization processes within Swedish child and youth sport - a Deleuzioguttarian perspective
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Commercialization processes within Swedish child and youth sport - a Deleuzioguttarian perspective
2022 (English)In: Sport in Society: Cultures, Media, Politics, Commerce, ISSN 1743-0437, E-ISSN 1743-0445, Vol. 25, no 12, p. 2397-2414Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In the Nordic countries sport has a particular connection to civic society, and this is reflected in the Nordic governments 'sport for all' policies. The region also includes large voluntary non-profit sport organizations with an implicit monopoly on competitive sport. During the last decade scholars in Sweden have noted that commercial entrepreneurs have emerged in the child and youth sports landscape. However, empirical research on this phenomenon is scarce. Hence, in this article the aim is to map different commercial businesses and the services they offer on their websites. We make use of a Deleuzioguttarian inspired theory and method and a post-qualitative research practice, which is informed by an ontological (re)turn to realism(s) in social theory. We present four different commercial de-territorialization processes and discuss how they affect the Swedish Sport Confederation in different ways.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2022
Keywords
Child and youth sports, commercialization entrepreneurialization, desire, de-territorialization, PHYSICAL-EDUCATION, POLICY
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-6771 (URN)10.1080/17430437.2021.1944114 (DOI)000669143900001 ()
Available from: 2021-08-19 Created: 2021-08-19 Last updated: 2022-12-02
2. Selling youth sport: the production and promotion of immaterial values in commercialised child and youth sport
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Selling youth sport: the production and promotion of immaterial values in commercialised child and youth sport
2023 (English)In: Sport, Education and Society, ISSN 1357-3322, E-ISSN 1470-1243, p. 565-578Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The contexts in which young people participate in sport are diverse. In Scandinavia, as in many other countries, child and youth sport is mainly organised in non-profit, membership-based and voluntary driven sports clubs. In Sweden, this model is now challenged by commercial businesses providing child and youth sport services. The overall aim of this article is to provide empirically based knowledge about these ongoing and largely unexplored commercialisation processes. The focus of the article is to illuminate how commercial businesses produce immaterial values through the promotion of sport services. In this article, we have explored the cultural and social values produced and promoted by commercial businesses in youth sport. Drawing on the website communications of eight commercial businesses from four different commercial strands, we use the concept of immaterial labour to consider the values produced when child and youth sport is turned into a desirable product on the market. The values generated from the texts on the selected websites are the immaterial values of (i) competence, (ii) individually adjusted training and, (iii) happiness. These values are enunciated differently by the businesses in the different strands. We situate the findings in relation to western social and cultural values and discuss the potential consequences of these value productions for contemporary ideas about youth sport and the way it should be organised.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2023
Keywords
Immaterial labour, competence, individualization, happiness, affect, desire, PHYSICAL-EDUCATION, NEOLIBERALISM, PRIVATISATION
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences Pedagogy
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-7031 (URN)10.1080/13573322.2022.2057462 (DOI)000777078600001 ()
Conference
Jun2023, Vol. 28 Issue 5, p565 14p.
Available from: 2022-04-26 Created: 2022-04-26 Last updated: 2023-06-26
3. Looks, Liveliness, and Laughter: Visual Representations in Commercial Sports for Children
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Looks, Liveliness, and Laughter: Visual Representations in Commercial Sports for Children
2023 (English)In: International Journal of Sport Communication, ISSN 1936-3915, E-ISSN 1936-3907, Vol. 6, no 2, p. 178-186Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In contemporary society, visual information is influential, not least when businesses are communicating with potential customers. It represents and influences how people understand phenomena. In sports, much attention is directed toward how media represent elite sports and sport stars. Less attention is directed toward children's sports. The aim of this article is to explore and analyze visual representations of children on sport businesses' websites. The sample contained 697 images of sporting children, on which an interpretative content and discourse analysis was conducted. The study shows that the ideal customer emerging on these sites is a White, physically active, able, and slim boy or girl. Consumer culture seems to reproduce and preserve existing normative frameworks rather than producing alternative norms and ideas in children's sport. Moreover, dilemmatic images of children both as competent and as innocent develop, displaying a childhood that should be both joyful and active but also safeguarded.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Human Kinetics, 2023
Keywords
symbolic persons; gender; Whiteness; values; norms
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences Educational Sciences
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-7150 (URN)10.1123/ijsc.2022-0202 (DOI)000942573400001 ()
Note

At the time of Jesper Karlsson's dissertation this article was a submitted and revised manuscript.

Available from: 2022-10-14 Created: 2022-10-14 Last updated: 2023-06-26Bibliographically approved
4. Kommersiella idrottsentreprenörers positioneringar i relation till barn- och ungdomsidrott
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Kommersiella idrottsentreprenörers positioneringar i relation till barn- och ungdomsidrott
(Swedish)Manuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences Business Administration
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-7151 (URN)
Note

Vid tiden för Jesper Karlssons disputation var detta manuskript inskickat till förlag.

Available from: 2022-10-14 Created: 2022-10-14 Last updated: 2022-10-14Bibliographically approved

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