Sport, Advertising and Global Promotional Culture

Book excerpt: This book explores the intersection of contemporary sport, advertising, promotional culture and wider society. Arguing that advertising and promotional culture remain key driving forces in relation to social structures and systems that contribute to enduring patterns of economic and other forms of inequality, this book examines how sport and related areas of social life continue to be transformed by these forces. Presenting in‐depth international case studies covering topics such as Nike’s sign economies, the sports‐gambling‐media complex, sportswashing/greenwashing, radical politics in sport advertising, sport and corporate nationalism, and girls’ empowerment and transgender exclusion in sports, this book sheds critical new light on some of the most important themes in the study of global consumer culture in the emerging era of surveillance capitalism. Overall, this book examines sport advertising through the lens of the circuit of cultural commodification – including production, representation, consumption and regulation – in order to provide insights into the formation, complexities and contradictions of social identities, commodities and brands. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology, culture and politics of sport, or cultural studies, media studies, and the wider politics and social significance of late‐stage capitalism.