Abstract
Nationalism is central to global sports events such as the Olympics and the men's football World Cup. Recognizing the unique capacity of these multibillion dollar ‘mega-events’ to stage captivating spectacles and generate intense enjoyment for vast numbers of people, researchers usually examine sport-induced nationalism in terms of the socioeconomic staging of national identities, meanings, and ideologies. And yet, few theoretical and empirical studies ask the following questions: Why are nationalist sports spectacles so emotive for so many people? How do sports fans enjoy these televised global events in concrete local settings of, for example, cafés, streets, and sports bars? This paper attempts to provide answers by drawing on Slavoj Žižek's Lacanian concept of the “national Thing” and one month of research on the 2006 FIFA World Cup on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I explore how the national Thing—a specific incarnation of social enjoyment—takes place in people's consumption of the World Cup in terms of community, belief, and anxiety.
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