Sport and Commodification: A Reflection on Key Concepts

Studies of the impact of structural changes in sports organizations on the nature of fan cultures have been an important part of the sociology of sport in recent years, and such studies have come to rely on the concepts of class, commodification, and consumption. This paper suggests that although such concepts are indeed important, their contentiousness and complexity are not always acknowledged, and that the concepts may therefore acquire an overgeneralized and taken-for-granted set of meanings. The paper uses examples from studies of football fan cultures in Britain to highlight some of the potential problems with this, before going on to outline some additional and alternative approaches to these terms, and to make suggestions as to how these might be incorporated into future research.