Communal and Corporate Transformation: Hayward Magic in the Era of Globalized Sport Culture

Abstract

The following is a history of Hayward Field at the University of Oregon, including the rise of the term ‘Hayward Magic’ and the repercussions for that communal understanding of place as the field is torn down and built anew in order to host the US Olympic Trials for Track and Field in 2021 and the Track and Field World Championships in 2022. Hayward Magic is an example of what geographers call sense of place, created by collective emotional attachment to the site that served as the birthplace of North American running culture. Not only a narrative of ‘magic’, but also commercialization and a shifting of sport culture towards a commodified professionalism are reflected in the physical sportscape of Hayward Field. Hayward’s demolition is symptomatic of a complete rupture from the 1880s–1990s era of amateurism, as well as 1990s–2010 early decades of professionalism aligned with greater globalization of sport, to a new intensively commercialized professionalism in which track performances are inextricable from multinational corporations in a totalizing way, a stage referred to as Next% professionalism.