Sport and imperialism today: time for an(other) anti-imperialist front

Abstract

Although the historical relationship between imperialism and sport has been well documented, imperialism is often relegated to the past and thus rarely used to characterize the contemporary political-economic conditions underlying the global sport industry. Formal empires might have become obsolete, but as Marxist economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik argued, the strength of present-day imperialism is precisely its invisibility. Drawing upon Marxist traditions of conceptualizing imperialism as an economic relationship complemented by cultural and ideological arms, this paper situates the sport industry within the imperialist global political economy and highlights patterns of sport serving cultural/ideological purposes for imperialism. Highlighting the importance of forming an internationalist, anti-imperialist alliance amongst athletes, workers, educators, and scholars alike, I present a number of interventions to be considered by sport scholars and educators in the imperialist metropole.