Global Sports Commodity Chains and Asia's New Interregional Division of Labour

Abstract

The Asian economic region has become centrally important to the sporting goods industry for two main reasons. First, Asia is emerging as an increasingly important sales market for the global sporting goods industry, and second, it is supplying the vast majority of sporting goods to the global athletics market. Using key data combined with case studies of global sporting goods brands positioned centrally in production networks, I will provide quantitative insight into the global sporting goods market and the role of Asian capital and Asian labour. There is clear evidence that the development of shifting production networks to and within Asia can be traced back to state initiatives and the context of international political economy. However, these shifts are increasingly processed and transformed by corporate players for their very own interests. My analysis situates the newly established patterns of intraregional labour division in the production of sporting goods into the contexts of the regional economic integration, Asian modernities and general assumptions about the sustainability of export-driven growth.