GLOBALIZATION AND SPORT: SKETCHING A THEORETICAL MODEL FOR EMPIRICAL ANALYSES

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Abstract
This article outlines a theoretical model for the analysis of the impact of sport globalization on national sport systems based on an extensive review of the literature on globalization in general and of globalization of sport in particular. In the first section of the article, working definitions are provided. The second section presents each issue composing the “web of issues”; these issues are defined, and empirical data related to sport are used to support the discussion. The model is an attempt to regroup and consider all of the important factors in the tensions between the local and the global. Two central questions cut across the issues raised in the web: (a) how sport is contributing to and being transformed by globalization and (b) how the globalization of sport affects sport at the nation-state level. The article concludes that globalization transforms sport by inducing trends of homogenization as well as national diversity; sport also contributes to globalization in that it is a vehicle for global mass consumption culture.