Agency for Change
From the Couch to the Playing Field: How Innovative Events Inspire Increased Participation in Sport and Recreation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katharine Bloom, Peter Smolianov, Steven Dion, Christopher Schoen, Stuart G McMahon, Christina O'connor, Brett Bodzinski, Nick Salamida
The continued impact of a sedentary lifestyle, associated illnesses due to inactivity, along with the impact of a relationship the sport industry has with public health and public health advocacy has been reviewed by many authors. One specific focus area includes free and mass-participation events. The objective of free mass-participation events hosted by Salem State University (SSU), i.e. the 2016 Wellness U Multisport Festival and the 2017 and 2018 Generation Games, was to involve SSU students studying sport and recreation management in the development and implementation of new sporting event solutions targeting these social concerns. Students and faculty from the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where Generation Games originated, traveled to SSU in both 2017 and 2018 to join the SSU faculty and students in the management of the events as part of an annual international exchange program and partnership with the city of Salem, Massachusetts. This paper shares SSU’s experience in implementing the projects, while discussing implications for the community and the university as a whole. Surveys of event participants were collected, yielding suggestions for future endeavors to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of attracting and retaining more participants in free mass-participation events.
Motivating Factors of National Senior Games State Participants
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sandra Shawver
The purpose of this study was to identify motivating factors of senior adults who competed in the 2015 National Senior Games Association (NSGA) state games. The NSGA conducts local and/or state multi-sport competitions serving as qualifiers for the National Senior Games” (NSG) which are held biannually. Challenges facing the NSGA at these events include the decline in community and corporate partners and reaching their target demographic through multiple marketing platforms. Three hundred and ninety-three individual’s aged 50-94 participated in the study by completing an online survey. The survey included demographic, psychographic information and the Sport Motivation Scale-6 to determine specific motivation levels based on gender and the state of participation. Generalized demographic information (N=393) showed that participants ranged in age from 50 to 94 the majority were college graduates and the majority (75%) of participants take part in the senior games to compete and challenge their abilities. Understanding what the motivation is for getting and staying involved will allow the autonomous organizations to better market their product and subsequently positively impact more seniors’ lives. The findings presented in this study may be the initial stepping stone for states to review present practices and consider new or different avenues to introduce more seniors to the NSGA.
Cultural Racism, Neo-Nationalism, and Globalization in Contemporary North American Sport: Right-wing Student-Athletes’ Responses to the NFL Players’ National Anthem Protests
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kenneth Sean Chaplin
The intersection of cultural racism, neo-nationalism, and globalization in contemporary U.S. North American Sport is examined via a focus on right-wing student-athletes’ responses to the NFL Players’ National Anthem Protests. Symbolic Interactionism and cultural studies is used as theoretical and methodological frameworks; two focus groups and thirty two in-depth interviews were conducted, of which eight comprise the population sample in this study. Our findings show discussions of race and racism were avoided, neglected, and guised by an exclusive forms of racialized, white privileged, nationalism. Conservative, exclusive, moral arguments root in neo-nationalistic hegemonic patriotism were also invoked. Support for, and assumptions about, U.S. corporation’s rights to sanction protests, along with the ostracization and exclusion of protesters from local U.S. markets were induced as solutions to protests. While student-athletes’ held beliefs about the freedoms and rights of all Americans to protest, in practice these beliefs faded due to cultural racism embed in neo-nationalist approaches that (Trump)ed the freedoms and rights of protesters. Student-athletes’ desires for increased national control over local markets were also invoked. We conclude with a discussion about the impact of cultural racism and neo-nationalism on global sports markets, which offers much insight into the maintenance and perpetuation of local and national control over global injustice and inequality.
