Most of us have experienced sports personally, as competitors or spectators or both.

You’re probably familiar with the physical and emotional experiences of playing sports, and you may know the rules and strategies of certain sports. You may even follow the lives of high profile participants in your town or city or on the national sport scene. Most of you have watched and read about sports, and discussed them with friends and family. This book assumes that you are interested in some facet of sport, but it is written to take you beyond the scores, statistics and sport personalities. The goal is to focus on the ‘deeper game’ associated with sport, the game through which sport becomes part of the social and cultural worlds in which we live.

Fortunately, we can draw on our emotions and experiences as we consider this deeper game. Let’s use our experiences with junior sports in Australia or New Zealand as an example. When students play on a school First team or are selected for a representative team, we know that it may affect their status and the treatment they receive from teachers, fellow students and the general community, especially for those students outside the larger metropolitan areas. We know it may have implications for their prestige, their self-image and self-esteem. It may affect their future relationships, opportunities in education and the workforce, and overall
enjoyment of life.

Building on this knowledge enables us to move further into the deeper game associated with sport. For example, we might ask why people in Australia and New Zealand place such importance on sport and sport stars, and what this says about our values. We might study how sports for children and youths are organised and connected with ideas and beliefs about masculinity and femininity, achievement and competition, pleasure and pain, winning and fair play and other important aspects of our culture. We might ask how sports influence the status structure that exists among youths and how sport participants fit into that structure. We also might ask if the organisation of youth sports is influenced by corporate sponsorships, and examine youngsters’ ideas about the corporations whose names and logos are on their uniforms, facilities and scoreboards.

The assumption underlying these questions is that sports are more than just games, meets and matches. They are also important parts of our social life and they have meaning and influence that go beyond scores and performance statistics. Sports are integral parts of the social and cultural contexts in which we live. They provide the stories and images that many of us use to explain and evaluate these contexts, our experiences and our connections to the world around us.

People who study sport in society are concerned with the deeper meanings and stories associated with sport. They do research to understand (1) the cultural context and societies in which sport exists, (2) the connections between those contexts and sport, (3) the social worlds created around sport and (4) the experiences of individuals and groups associated with sport.

Sociology is helpful when studying sports as social phenomena. This is because sociology1 is the study of social life, including all forms of social interaction and relationships. The concepts, theories and research methods that have been developed by sociologists enable us to study and understand sports as they exist in our lives and as they are connected with history, culture and society. Sociology helps us examine social life in context and see connections between our lives and the larger social world. In this book, we use sociology to see sport as part of social and cultural life and understand social issues as we study sport.

Our goal in this book is to accurately represent research in the sociology of sport as we discuss issues central to current students in the courses we teach. As we consider those issues we seek information primarily from scholarly research published in journal articles and books. We use newspaper articles and other media sources for examples, but we depend on research findings when making substantive points and drawing conclusions. This means that our statements about sport and sport experiences are based, as much as possible, on data from studies that use surveys, questionnaires, interviews, observations, content analyses and other accepted research methods in sociology.

The material in this book is different from material presented in blogs, talk back radio, television news shows, game and event commentaries and everyday conversations about sport. We critically examine sports as they exist in people’s lives and the social contexts where people live, play and work. We use research findings to describe and explain as accurately as possible the important connections between sport, society and culture. We try to be comprehensively fair when using research to make sense of the social aspects of sport and sport experiences. That is why there are over 1000 books and journal articles listed as sources in this book.

This book concentrates on Australia and New Zealand, and uses many examples from those countries. However, sports take place in a global context so the authors, who place a high value on internationalising the curriculum wherever possible, have also included examples from other countries. In this way, the national contexts of sports in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere are shown as local responses to global processes, ensuring that students understand the importance of an international perspective. Moreover, the text is written for and by those interested in learning and sharing ideas and information about the power and influence of sport in society. As such, the authors welcome feedback on the text, including suggested photographic images, case studies and web sites.