The social aspects of sport

Abstract

In this paper we evaluated the basic viewpoints on the mutual relations between contemporary sport and society. Sport is a global social phenomenon which is determined by a variety of different processes, including: the fast development of the industrial society and capital, an increase in leisure time, the development of a liberal democracy and the media. A special feature in these relations is the overall globalization process in today’s world. The basic structure of this paper is made up of two functional parts. In the first part we indicate the dominant theoretical‐methodological paradigms in studying sport in social sciences, especially sociology: functionalism, conflict theory in society, interpretive and postmodern theory. In the second part of the paper we analyze the dialectics of contemporary relations between sport and society, where special attention is dedicated to the distribution of social power between sport, capital and the media at the local and global level. At the local level especially, there is a pronounced influence of politics on sport, which is realized through various mechanisms of government power, as well as other political subjects. The most solid bonds between sport and society on both levels are maintained by capital and the media, which know no boundaries. Through ownership and mechanisms of financing sports clubs and associations, athletes and athletic events, an entire network of capitalist relations in sport was created. Sport has become one of the most important factors of television programs, the internet and social networks, which has led to an enormous growth in profit and popularity of sport, but also to great changes in the social relations between people.