Competitive balance is a key concept in sports economics. It postulates the necessity of sporting equilibrium between playing strengths to generate outcome uncertainty and thus fan demand. When looking at national teams, policy and political factors can help explain competitive balance. This...

Mega sports events offer chances for hosting nations to build up their soft power by branding their countries as vibrant, confident and unique places, opening doors for strong cultural exchanges. This paper addresses key questions of cultural diplomacy in international sporting events contexts...

This collection of eight papers offers insights into the gendered narratives of sports media coverage. The contributions focus on a variety of countries and sports, on universal trends, as well as on culture and sport-specific variations. A specific emphasis is on the 2012 Olympics, which have been ...

The aim of this article is the presentation and interpretation of the coverage of female football players in the largest German boulevard paper (tabloid) during the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. Main issues are the ways in which the players are portrayed and women's football is 'framed'. In...

Combining results from four separate studies of gender equality in Canadian interuniversity sport, which were conducted biennially across four academic years (2010-11, 2012-13, 2014-15, and 2016-17), this paper analyses gender inequality in both athletic participation opportunities and leadership...

This article deals with the images, metaphors and narratives in the media coverage of doping in the United States. It presents a case study with a focus on Marion Jones, the most celebrated track athlete of the turn of the millennium, and her husband, C.J. Hunter, a shot put world champion...

Despite efforts to increase female participation and representation in sport, there has been little scholarly focus on sportswomen's financial wel-being. The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature and to contribute to broadening theoretical understanding of subjective...

Female apologetic behaviour in sport includes any behaviour by female athletes that emphasizes a female athlete's femininity. This behaviour is in response to the masculine and/or lesbian stereotypes associated with female sport participation. Female apologetic behaviour is commonly found in the...

Following an introduction on sports development in Japan, this chapter discusses: the participation of girls and women in school sports; the participation of women in out-of-school sporting activities; and the influence of the social structure on sports participation with respect to girls and...

Soft power refers to the ability to advance interests through persuasion without coercion and has often been described in its capacity to aid foreign policy. Within the sports realm, sport diplomacy has emerged as a way of strengthening diplomatic, social, and political relations. The extended...