Glitterati and Grit: The Perils and Possibilities of Sports Mega-Event Research

Abstract

Amid the whirling swirl of overlapping global crises—from extreme inequality and climate change to unaccountable elite power and securitized violence at the international and domestic levels—sport studies may, on their surface, appear superfluous. However, this article argues that critical academic scholarship on sports mega-events like the Olympic Games and soccer World Cup can, due to these events’ cultural power and global scope, be an effective way to simultaneously address the socio-structural problems that mark the 21st century. In this article, I argue that research on the cultural politics of sport can wedge open discursive space to challenge the hegemonic normative order and to potentially reap material gains from below. To that end, I delineate possible research avenues that sports mega-events stimulate, explicating the leverage they could achieve. Along the way, I argue for doing research and writing that is explicitly political. Last, leaning on recent examples of scholarship in sport studies and beyond, I assert the importance of concept building at the theoretical middle-level as well as writing critical descriptive histories.