Fifteenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Melbourne, Australia’s second biggest city, has re-invented itself as a ‘global’ sporting city in late 1980s. Such re-invention was articulated by politicians, media tycoons, and property developers to create a services-based economy post de-industrialisation (Heenan, 2020). Mega-sporting events, such as the Australian Open, have relied consistently on governments, of different political orientations, to give monies to subside sporting events and venues. This paper contends that the subsidisation of sports events and venues is a part of a political economy in which sporting organisations continually lobby for more monies and control over public space, in the name of sport and community, while architects and developers stand by to Lego-scape surrounding parklands. As with other cities around the globe, Melbourne has been transformed by this type of sport-gouging that has seen public monies and space funnelled into private and not-for-profits’ hands. There seems little sign that this gouging will abate. As this paper suggests, such gouging stems from an entrepreneurial clique of politicians, sporting administrators, media and property developers acting for self rather than community interests. This clique has successfully manufactured the misconception that sport is the primary expression of White Australian nationalism with its catch-cry, ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi! Oi! Oi!’. As this clique leveraged on sport as expression of Australian nationalism, these sport events also worked to sustain existing class, race, and gender-based inequalities.

Presenters

Lucas Moreira dos Anjos Santos
Lecturer, Monash Intercultural Lab, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Victoria, Australia

Sam Duncan
Assoicate Dean, Higher Education, Sport, Holmesglen Institute (Associate Dean) and Swinburne University of Technology (Adjunct Research Fellow), Victoria, Australia

Tom F Heenan
Lecturer, Monash Intercultural Lab, Monash University, Victoria, Australia