Game Misconduct: Injury, Fandom, and the Business of Sport

by Nathan Kalman-Lamb

Overview

“‘You’re not a human being, you’re a number, a product, an asset as long as you can perform. If you can’t perform, then you’re a liability and they’ll drop you.’”
Professional athletes suffer tremendous damage to their bodies over the course of their careers. Some literally lose years from their lives because of their injuries. Why do athletes sacrifice themselves? Is it the price of being a professional? Is it all for the fans, or the money? What’s clear is that the physical and emotional tolls of being a professional athlete may not be worthwhile. In Game Misconduct, Nathan Kalman-Lamb takes us into the world of professional hockey players to illustrate how money, consumerism and fandom contribute to the life-altering injuries of professional athletes.
Unlike many critical takes on professional sports, Kalman-Lamb illustrates how the harm suffered by the athlete is a necessary part of what makes professional sport a desirable commodity for the consuming fan. In an economic system — capitalism — that deprives people of meaning because of its inherent drive to turn everyone into individuals and everything into commodities, sports fandom produces a feeling of community. But there is a cost to producing this meaning and community, and it is paid through the sacrifice of the athlete’s body.
Drawing on extensive interviews with fans and former professional hockey players, Kalman-Lamb reveals the troubling dynamics and dangerous costs associated with the world of professional and semi-professional sport.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773630069
Publisher:	Fernwood Publishing
Publication date:	04/02/2018
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	721,372
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Nathan Kalman-Lamb is a lecturing fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University, where he teaches on social inequality and sports. His research and teaching focus on labour, race, multiculturalism, gender, spectatorship and sport.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

1 Sport, Spectacle, and Sacrifice 1

Sport as Social Reproduction 7

Fandom as an Imagined Community 8

The Sacrificial Arena 9

Injury Epidemic 12

Athletic Labour and Fandom 13

2 Hockey Players Talk About Their Work 17

Interviewing Hockey Players 18

Professional Sport as Work 21

Fans' Expectations 36

3 Manufacturing Fans 57

Interviewing Fans 57

The Meaning in Sport 60

Consolidating the Imagined Community 80

Necessary Sacrifice 85

4 Imagined Communities of Fandom 103

Connection 103

Spectacle and Rejuvenation 114

Us Against Them 117

Ice Girls 119

5 Sacrificing the Self 123

Role-Playing Games 124

Vessels of Meaning 129

Do or Die 135

6 Re-Imaqining Sport and Spectatqrship 162

An Opiate for the Masses? 165

Face-to-Face Encounters 168

Notes 175

Index 178

Editorial Reviews

Nathan Kalman-Lamb’s eloquent and well-researched book Game Misconduct has has moved the discussion of sport and social inequality to a new terrain.

Gamal Abdel-Shehid

At the heart of professional sports, insists Nathan Kalman-Lamb, is the sacrifice of the athletic body. Wading through a battlefield of injured players, obsessed fans, and profit-hungry owners, Game Misconduct reveals ugly secrets of the sports business. After reading this incisive analysis, none of us will ever watch a sports event in quite the same way—nor should we.

David McNally

Kalman-Lamb’s book lends a very important perspective into the microcosm that is sports and what it may be saying about humanity.

Royce White

Bringing high theory to the hockey rink, Nathan Kalman-Lamb has done what few other critical sports scholars have: write a book that is both scholarly rigorous and accessible to the everyday sports fan. Game Misconduct shines the flood lights on the dark corners of the sports industry. Is another world of sports possible, one free of exploitation, alienation, and the sacrifice of athletic bodies? Read this book and find out for yourself.

Simon Black

A path-breaking book that invites readers into radical analysis by way of the absorbing stories of professional athletes and their fans.

Alan Sears

Kalman-Lamb’s brilliant, quite moving study of hockey, injury, and identity gives us a model for critical sports studies at their very best.

Orin Starn

Kalman-Lamb’s book lends a very important perspective into the microcosm that is sports and what it may be saying about humanity.

Bringing high theory to the hockey rink, Nathan Kalman-Lamb has done what few other critical sports scholars have: write a book that is both scholarly rigorous and accessible to the everyday sports fan. Game Misconduct shines the flood lights on the dark corners of the sports industry. Is another world of sports possible, one free of exploitation, alienation, and the sacrifice of athletic bodies? Read this book and find out for yourself.

At the heart of professional sports, insists Nathan Kalman-Lamb, is the sacrifice of the athletic body. Wading through a battlefield of injured players, obsessed fans, and profit-hungry owners, Game Misconduct reveals ugly secrets of the sports business. After reading this incisive analysis, none of us will ever watch a sports event in quite the same way—nor should we.

Kalman-Lamb’s brilliant, quite moving study of hockey, injury, and identity gives us a model for critical sports studies at their very best.

A path-breaking book that invites readers into radical analysis by way of the absorbing stories of professional athletes and their fans.

Nathan Kalman-Lamb’s eloquent and well-researched book Game Misconduct has has moved the discussion of sport and social inequality to a new terrain.

From the Publisher