Introduction
As a case study for the essay, British Sport was chosen. The UK is a country with a rich and versatile history. Sport has an important place in its development, especially when it comes to football, which was invented in this country. In the last few decades, with the advent of new television technologies that have become accessible to most of the world’s population, everyone can watch football matches. This fact does sport and, in particular, English football not only a means for recreation but entertainment. This essay will discuss the features of the entertainment element in modern sports on the example of British Sport. A specific English sports organization, The English Premier League, was chosen for an accurate analysis. Consisting of some of the best clubs and with a significant number of fans, this football league is an example of sport as entertainment. The purpose of the essay is to study concrete examples and factors of entertainment influencing on sports. The historical and contemporary developments that have changed football will be discussed in the essay. A special place will be considering how sport as entertainment operates in Britain.
Case Study Concepts and Context
Before describing the case study and other elements of the essay in more detail, it is essential to explain what the sport as entertainment is and to understand its peculiarities and characteristics. Sport as entertainment is a powerful tool for attracting money to this human activity. Events from the world of sporting entertainment, such as the finals of the football championships, World Cup, UEFA football competitions, and the domestic championships of each country, become the year’s main events. In order to apply the entertainment element to sports, television, architecture, pyrotechnics, music, and many other components are used. That makes a sports event a real show. One example of using sport as entertainment is the service DraftKings. With its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, this service positioned itself as the most significant fantasy sports service (Pedersen & Thibault, 2021). According to Pedersen et al. (2021), “its service allows users to enter daily and weekly fantasy sport-related contests and win money based on the individual player and team performances” (p. 302). A better understanding of the concept of sport as entertainment will help consider the case study of the essay.
The importance of the choice of sport as the subject of this essay stems from the presence of this human activity in everyday life. In the modern world, sport plays an essential role in maintaining the hope and spirit of people worldwide. As Thelwell and Dicks (2018) state, “the value and importance placed on sport within modern society can be evidenced by the deeply engrained fandom, multi-billion-dollar sport entertainment franchises, and round-the-clock access sports news coverage” (p. 185). British football is an example of a sport with such a characteristic. The English Premier League was chosen for a detailed review of British football. This choice is due to the incredible popularity of the football league worldwide, as well as its history and football teams. The EPL features some of the world’s most popular teams, such as Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and others (Cox et al., 2020). The international community’s interest and the entertainment element in this football league and British football were essential factors in choosing the case study for the essay.
Football leagues and high-level competitions were chosen as the historical development of football in Britain. This story dates back to 1892 in Singapore when this country was a British colony (Leng & Keat, 2015). According to Leng and Keat (2015), “with the establishment of the Singapore Amateur Football Association (SAFA) in 1892, local leagues such as the Football Association Challenge Cup and the Singapore Football League became a regular feature” (p. 210). As a result, football has acquired the usual features of mass and spectacular competitions that people have the opportunity to observe nowadays.
As an example of contemporary innovation, the concept of betting and gambling in British football was chosen (Cox et al., 2020). Modern technology allows one to track football matches and their results from anywhere. However, computer developers went even further and created special services where people, as in the casino, could make bets regarding the results of a football match (Cox et al., 2020). Developed smartphone applications, as well as sites for computers, allow one to do this not only remotely but quickly. This innovation brought an even more significant element of entertainment to Britain’s sport and made it a tool for earning money.
Britain was chosen to analyze the cultural dimension analysis of sport and football. The country in which football was invented is an example in the context of the cultural component of this sport (Cox et al., 2020). In Britain, there are generations of football fans who not only bring the element of entertainment to football sport but make it more diverse and exciting. For example, the famous English pubs where people like to spend evenings watching the football match of their favorite team. Fans collect autographs of English football stars and tickets from various memorable football events and buy a variety of attributes such as posters and scarves to emphasize their status as football fans. Special attention is paid to the architecture and design of football stadiums and the quality of their construction. All these factors shape the particular culture of football in Britain and make it unique.
Case Study Critical Analysis
Technological progress is one of the main instruments of human development. New technologies are being introduced into various spheres of life, including sports. Since football became a mass sport, huge stadiums have been built, and innovative technologies have developed to meet the needs of many fans. These developments can be divided into several categories depending on their scope and impact on spectators, fans, and the conduct of the football game.
First of all, those developments related to watching football in stadiums. Outstanding architects such as Norman Foster have developed new designs to make stadiums more spacious and improve viewer comfort and player experience (Cox et al., 2020). At the same time, stadiums such as Wembley, due to their design and architectural solutions, look like arenas of competition, the Coliseum of modernity designed to make sports and football, in particular, a real spectacle for entertainment (Thelwell & Dicks, 2018). Stadiums are equipped with such technologies as retractable fields, moving roofs, heated fan seats, and many different screens and diode lights. Special attention is paid to the stadium’s exterior to attract people to it even when the football match is not going on. All these elements create and develop the factor of entertainment in sport.
Second, another category worth highlighting are innovations in technology that allow people to watch matches online, on TV, or listen to the radio. It is known that in Britain there are many places where people come to watch football. People throughout Britain support not only English football clubs but football in general. Various innovations help them to experience the maximum level of entertainment during that. Some of these technologies, such as spider cam, involve the spectator of a football game even more intensely (Cox et al., 2020). Due to the variety of angles, high quality of the image, and different video shooting plans, the viewer can attend the match without leaving the house or pub.
While technologies and structures in constructing football stadiums are improving, accidents sometimes occur. Stadiums and football arenas are designed for a certain number of people (Thelwell & Dicks, 2018). Architects construct them based on specific data regarding the future operation of the stadium. However, sometimes these performance standards are not met during football matches. Particular attention should be paid to matches with popular teams of the English Premier League, such as Chelsea, Manchester United, and others. Although there are specific rules in Britain, the number of fans attending such matches may sometimes exceed the norm (Cox et al., 2020). In consequence, this leads to certain risks and dangers. As an example, it is worth considering the case of 1985 in Brussels, Belgium (Cox et al., 2020). The match was played by the English team Liverpool and Italian Juventus. Because of the large crowds, the wall of one tribune collapsed, killing 39 people. Therefore, modern British designers and engineers have an essential task to ensure maximum safety at football matches.
The next challenge for British football is the excessive reaction of some fans to match results. The promotion of football as entertainment takes place every day in various ways (Pedersen & Thibault, 2021). From television and game broadcasts to mobile phone apps, lotteries, and brand-name football stores. On the one hand, it generates significant profits and increases people’s interest. On the other hand, excessive popularization of football leads to the creation of radical fans who become obsessed with it. When their expectations of a football match do not match reality, they become aggressive. It can lead to danger not only for fans on the tribunes but to interfere with the football match. Fans starting to run into the football field right in the middle of the match. In other cases, they throw flares, which may result in injuries to players and other members of the football clubs. Therefore, safety during football matches is vital in the sport as entertainment.
The coronavirus pandemic is the next challenge facing British football and the English Premier League. For the first time in decades, football in Britain has undergone significant changes due to the constraints of the pandemic. Football matches were played at empty or half-empty British stadiums (Pedersen & Thibault, 2021). The coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions it imposes on soccer matches have demonstrated the importance of the element of entertainment in this sport. In empty stadiums, football games were not perceived at all as before. Without the cheers of fans, various posters and banners, applause, and many other attributes of the usual football game matches at the peak of the coronavirus epidemic looked less inspiring. The pandemic showed how deeply the element of entertainment has penetrated British football.
Another aspect of the challenges facing the English Premier League is the financial side of the sport. Sponsorship is an integral part of modern football. On the form, players have inscriptions of famous brands such as Adidas, Puma, names of airlines, and others (Cox et al., 2020). It can be stated that the whole world is interested in financial investments in the sphere of football. However, there is a negative side to this fact. Sometimes football clubs become bargaining chips in global changes. An illustrative example is the events related to the English football club Chelsea, owned for a long time by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich (Cox et al., 2020). Due to the conflict in Ukraine, Abramovich’s assets at the Chelsea football club were seized. As a result, the Russian oligarch tried to recover its lost assets through various speculations and actions in the world political arena. In this situation, the football club, Chelsea, becomes the victim, which is unacceptable for a club with such a rich and exciting history.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the critical aspects of the selected case study, Britain sports, should be again highlighted. The review of developments and innovations, as well as challenges and opportunities of the English Premier League, led to some essential conclusions. English football experiences both positive and negative aspects of its development in today’s world. It faces specific challenges and uses innovative technologies to popularize itself. The concept of sport as entertainment was a vital theme of the essay and its detailed consideration helped to understand the important role of entertainment in British football. Historical and contemporary innovations, as well as the cultural context under analysis, were considered. All the findings helped define the features and main characteristics of the entertainment in football sport in Britain and the events taking place in the English Premier League. Using academic literature and journal articles, it was possible to cite practical examples as a confirmation of the main theses of essays. Four peer-reviewed academic sources were used, which yielded essential conclusions about the case study of the essay. Sport in Britain and the English Premier League are notable examples of sport as entertainment.
References
Cox, R., Russell, D., & Vamplew, W. (2020). Encyclopedia of British football. Routledge.
Leng, & Keat, H. (2015). Emerging trends and innovation in sports marketing and management in Asia. IGI Global.
Pedersen, P. M., & Thibault, L. (2021). Contemporary sport management. Human Kinetics.
Thelwell, R., & Dicks, M. (2018). Professional advances in sports coaching: Research and practice. Routledge.