Jules Boykoff - Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games

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Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games

The Olympic Games have become the world's greatest media and marketing eventa global celebration of exceptional athletics gilded with corporate cash. Huge corporations vie for association with the Olympic Image in the hope of gaining a worldwide marketing audience of billions.

In this provocative critical study of the contemporary Olympics, Jules Boykoff argues that the Games have become a massive planned economy designed to shield the rich from risk while providing them with a spectacle to treasure. Placing political economy at the center of the analysis, and drawing on interdisciplinary research in sociology, politics, geography, history, and economics, Boykoff develops an innovative theory of celebration capitalism, the manipulation of state actors as partners that drives us towards public-private partnerships in which the public pays and the private profits. He argues that the Athens Games in 2004 marked the full emergence of celebration capitalism, with London 2012 representing its quintessential expression, characterized by a state of exception, unfettered commercialism, repression of dissent, questionable sustainability claims, and the complicity of the mainstream media.

Controversial, challenging, and forthright, this book opens up a fascinating new avenue for understanding the contemporary Olympics in the context of global capitalist society. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the Olympic Games, the relationship between sport and society, or global politics and culture.

Jules Boykoff is Associate Professor of Political Science at Pacific University, USA. His writing on the Olympics has appeared in academic outlets like Contemporary Social Science and Human Geography, as well as publications like the Guardian, New Left Review, and the New York Times. He has written across academic disciplines for more than a decade, publishing peer-reviewed articles in fields such as political science, sociology, geography, environmental studies, and history.

Routledge Critical Studies in Sport

Series Editors
Jennifer Hargreaves and Ian McDonald
University of Brighton

The Routledge Critical Studies in Sport series aims to lead the way in developing the multi-disciplinary field of Sport Studies by producing books that are interrogative, interventionist and innovative. By providing theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded texts, the series will make sense of the changes and challenges facing sport globally. The series aspires to maintain the commitment and promise of the critical paradigm by contributing to a more inclusive and less exploitative culture of sport.

Also available in this series:

Understanding Lifestyle Sports
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Why Sports Morally Matter
William J. Morgan

Fastest, Highest, Strongest
A critique of high-performance sport
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Sport, Sexualities and Queer/Theory
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Physical Culture, Power and the Body
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Patricia Vertinsky

British Asians and Football
Culture, identity, exclusion
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Culture, Politics and Sport
Blowing the Whistle revisited
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Olympic Media
Inside the biggest show on television
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Marxism, Cultural Studies and Sport
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The Gay Games
A history
Caroline Symons

The Cultural Politics of Lifestyle Sports
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Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games
Jules Boykoff

Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games

Jules Boykoff

First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2014 Jules Boykoff

The right of Jules Boykoff to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Celebration capitalism and the Olympic games / edited by Jules Boykoff.
pages cm. -- (Routledge critical studies in sport ; 11)
1. Olympics--Economic aspects. 2. Olympics--Marketing. 3. Capitalism. I.
Boykoff, Jules.
GV721.5.C38 2014
796.48--dc23
2013005377

ISBN: 978-0-415-82197-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-37042-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby

For Kaia and Jessi

Contents

Thank you to the following people for their assistance, feedback, and encouragement during the writing of this book: Thomas F. Carter, Julian Cheyne, Janice Forsyth, Tina Gerhardt, Paul Gilchrist, Jacqueline Kennedy, Isaac Marrero-Guillamn, Tom Mertes, Kaia Sand, Alan Tomlinson, Paul Watt, and Dave Zirin. Big thanks to London-based photographer Martin Slavin for providing the cover image for this book as well as two black-and-white snapshots that appear in the text. Thanks also to Peter Fussey for providing a photograph in .

Thanks to Jennifer Hargreaves and Ian McDonald for believing in this project and for helping me see it through to completion. I am super-grateful for their careful attention to detail and their wise advice. Thanks also go to Simon Whitmore and Joshua Wells at Routledge for their patience, judgment, and good cheer. And I owe the University of Brighton a debt of gratitude for hosting me as a visiting scholar in spring 2012. Also, a shout-out goes to Matthew Yasuoka for reliable research assistance.

Some ideas in this book had a previous life in Capitalism Nature Socialism, CounterPunch, the Guardian, New Left Review, the New York Times, and Red Pepper. This research project was supported by a Graves Award in the Humanities and a Pacific University faculty development grant.

Infinite, infinite thanks to Kaia Sand and Jessi Wahnetah for your love, support, moxie, and joie de vivre. This book is for you.

On July 6, 2005 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics to London. The city had scored a stunning upset, edging out frontrunner Paris in a nail-biter vote. Across the British political spectrum euphoria was in the air. Charles Kennedy, Member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Democrats, exclaimed, This is fantastic It will unite the country just as it united the three main political parties in its support.

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