CFP: CSRI

Boy, that's a lot of confusing letters! Here's the official explanation--

2009 Scholarly Conference on College Sport
April 15-18, 2009
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Call for Papers:

The College Sports Research Institute welcomes the submission of abstracts for its 2nd annual Scholarly Conference on College Sport to be held on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The conference's mission is to "provide students, scholars and college- sport practitioners with a public forum to discuss relevant and timely intercollegiate-athletics issues."

Submission guidelines:

Abstracts must reflect college-sport research on the history of intercollegiate athletics, social-cultural college-sport issues, legal theory or the application of law to college-sport issues, business-related issues in college sport, or special topics related to current college-sport issues. The research should have reached a fairly complete stage of development and the abstract should provide enough detail about the research so that reviewers have sufficient information to judge its quality. Abstracts proposing teaching-related sessions on college-sport issues will also be considered, as long as the abstract provides sufficient detail to judge the quality of the proposed session. Abstracts will undergo a multi-person, blind-review process to determine acceptance. Abstracts submitted to CSRI should not be concurrently submitted for consideration to another conference.

Deadline:

Abstracts should NOT be submitted prior to Friday, October 3, 2008 and MUST be received no later than Friday, January 16, 2009 (11:59 p.m. EST). Submissions received after this date and time will not be considered for acceptance.

ABSTRACT FORMAT AND SUBMISSION PROCEDURES:

All abstracts MUST be submitted electronically as a Microsoft Word attachment and must contain

the following information and conform to the following format requirements:

• Single-spaced

• One-inch margins,

• Times New Roman 12-point font, and

• 400-word maximum for 25-minute presentations and posters, and 800-word maximum for 75-minute presentations.

ABSTRACT FORMAT:

Line 1: Type of session desired (choose from the options below):

• 30-minute oral presentation (including questions)

• 65-minute teaching symposium, roundtable, or workshop

• 65-minute forum (2-3 papers with a discussant, including questions)

• Poster presentation

Line 2: three to four keywords that will help the program coordinator schedule similar topics in succession

Line 3: author(s) and institution(s) names (centered on page)

Line 4: presentation title (centered on page)

Line 5: blank

Line 6 to end: text of abstract (including demonstration of research conducted)

In the email message accompanying the attached abstract, include the principal author’s name, postal mailing address, email address, and fax and telephone numbers.

Submission of abstract(s) indicates the intent of the presenter(s) to register for the conference at the appropriate registration fee.

Email all abstracts to:

Blake Griffin (Graduate Research Coordinator – College Sport Research Institute) at csri@unc.edu

NOTE: All abstracts MUST be submitted electronically as a Microsoft Word attachment.

Sport fandom

A publishing opportunity for those of you interested in sport fandom. Adam Earnhardt at Youngstown State and Paul Haridakis at Kent State are editing an anthology on sports fans. Deadlines and more details are below--

SEEKING MANUSCRIPTS: SPORT FANS

We are seeking chapter proposals for a research anthology on sports fans. The editors for the volume are Adam C. Earnheardt, Youngstown State University and Paul M. Haridakis, Kent State University.

The editors are particularly interested in qualitative and/or quantitative proposals that focus on these overarching areas: degrees of fandom, depictions of fandom (self-depictions, media-depictions), relationships among fans (e.g., how fans are connecting with each other in face-to-face and/or mediated settings); relationships among fans and teams (identification and/or parasocial relationships with high school, college, professional teams); relationships among fans and athletes (identification and/or parasocial relationships with high school, college, professional athletes), and effects of those relationships (imitation and socialization, positive and negative reactions to athletes, etc.); fans’ media use (television, radio, print, Internet), fans and sporting events (Olympics, Super Bowl, World Cup, etc.); and fans and specific sports (skiing, football, baseball, soccer, NASCAR, extreme action sports, etc.).

Each submission should have a clear, concise title. Please adhere to the latest American Psychological Association style guide in your proposal. To submit a complete proposal, you must submit all of the following electronically to Adam C. Earnheardt at acearnheardt@ysu.edu:

- a 300 to 500-word abstract of your proposed chapter
- a 75-word author identification paragraph
- a one to two page rationale for including your chapter in the anthology
- complete contact information (mail, email, phone)

Only complete submissions will be considered. Deadline for submitting initial proposals is Friday, January 16, 2009. A complete proposal includes all the items above.

If the editors deem appropriate, additional proposals may be sought or chapters solicited after the deadline to complete the anthology. If your proposal is accepted you will be invited to submit a completed chapter by a specified deadline. If the editors accept your final chapter, and the anthology is approved for publication, deadlines will be announced for submitting revised chapters.

Editorial decisions on the initial proposals and invited chapters are final.

Adam C. Earnheardt, Ph.D.
Youngstown State University
Department of Communication
1 University Plaza
Youngstown, OH 44555
P: 330-941-1845

CFP: Cultural Foundations of Sport

JSM editorial board memberAndy Billings at Clemson sent this out. As I remember, Lawrence Chalip is the former editor of the Journal of Sport Management and one of the leading scholars in this field. His contact information is listed below:

Call for Papers
Journal of Sport & Tourism

Special issue: Cultural Foundations of Sport & Tourism
Deadline for submission: 1 April 2009
Purpose of the special issue:

The activities and interactions of tourists and sportspeople implicate matters of culture. Anthropologists have consequently paid considerable attention to tourism, while others have considered the cultural foundations of sport. Their work has been complemented by anthropological work on events, and by efforts to bring the culture concept to bear on sport subcultures. Yet, sport tourism researchers have barely capitalized on the potentials enabled by these significant intellectual foundations.

This special issue seeks high quality papers that address any issue raised by the intersection of culture with sport and tourism. Papers can be conceptual or empirical, but should contribute to advancing theoretical and/or practical considerations having to do with the cultural foundations of sport tourism.

Requests for further information and expressions of interest should be directed to the Guest Editor for this special issue, Professor Laurence Chalip (LChalip@mail.utexas.edu)

Manuscripts should be sent electronically as an e-mail attachment directly to LChalip@mail.utexas.edu. All submissions will be subject to JS&T’s standard double-blind peer review process. Authors should prepare manuscripts according to JS&T’s instructions for authors available on the journal webpages.

Special Issue Contact Details:

Laurence Chalip
Sport Management Program
University of Texas
LChalip@mail.utexas.edu

Hey, Cooley ... check me out!

In the very last post on this blog we talked about Chris Cooley and how athletes can manage (or mismanage) their image through new media technologies. Cooley got in some hot water for some of the pictures he showed on his blog site. Now, cell phone cameras may do in Dallas Mavericks star Josh Howard.

Howard was taking part in a celebrity flag football game and had some derogatory (and profane) comments about the national anthem and the U.S. in general (feel free to check out the rant, but be warned the language is very objectionable).

We still have a First Amendment and Howard can say anything he wants, so this isn't a free speech issue. Rather, it's about athletes not understanding the new media environment--pervasive, lightning fast and global. Chances are, no matter what you say or do in public (or sometimes even in private) will find its way to worldwide video. Either Howard doesn't understand that or he's too stupid to care. (He doesn't exactly have a choir boy image). What's interesting is that at least publicly, Howard hasn't even bothered to offer an apology or even an explanation, even on his own blog site. The result has been a pretty good grilling from sports media around the country.

Pro sports leagues understand that they have a lot of young, immature athletes on their hands, and they have tried to help in the transition by offering rookie symposia and workshops. But there's news out today that even the best of intentions sometimes can't make a difference.

Every young kid thinks he's bulletproof, especially those with Maseratis and multi-million dollar contracts. They certainly have a lot to live for; it would be a shame to see it all flushed away with a cell-phone camera.

Yes, you read that right

From the "words you never, ever thought you would read in your lifetime" department comes this from Redskins tight end Chris Cooley:

We are very sorry that we showed a penis on our website all day yesterday. That was by no means our intention and we did not want to offend anyone. The picture wouldn't have been up for so long, but we were in the middle of winning a big game. Once again, this was a complete accident and we regret not reviewing the post more closely. Thanks.

I'm not sure which is more interesting: the fact that Cooley put a risque picture of his own anatomy on his own blog site or that he couldn't get around to taking it down because "we were in the middle of a big game." ("Hey, Cooley ... get off the blog and back in the game; it's third and goal!). Predictably, the Redskins didn't care about Cooley's privates floating through cyberspace, but they were upset that his blog also contained sensitive team information.

Blogs have become something of a fad for athletes, who can use them to carefully craft their images and maintain good public relations with the fans. Perhaps most importantly, it allows them to bypass the mainstream media. Players can avoid dealing with reporters and go directly to the general public if they so desire. As a result, reporters now often scour the blog sites for breaking information they used to get directly from players (like pitcher Curt Schilling).

I don't know if this is good or bad for reporting; it certainly puts the players in a more advantageous position, but I don't see it as a major threat to the traditional media. I would think that if this trend continues players will have to learn more about blogging and take it a little more seriously. Going to the extreme, the Redskins say they will now monitor their players' blogs more closely. According to coach Jim Zorn, "It's not just Chris, anybody can do that, and we've just got to make sure that these guys are using common sense." The NFL might argue otherwise, but team information is not a matter of national security, which would suggest that teams would have a hard time censoring material or engaging in prior restraint.

It will be interesting to see that situation develop, but for now Cooley can blog to his heart's content. Let's hope he learned that no matter how well you're performing on the field, getting caught with your pants down in the blogosphere is nothing but bad news.

Hail Mary answered

Kudos to NFL Network for starting to re-air entire classic games in their entirety. This past weekend the network showed several airings of the 1975 playoff game between Dallas and Minnesota that became known as the Hail Mary Game because of its dramatic ending; the Cowboys won on a last-minute long touchdown pass from Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson.

These re-airs not only give us a chance to relive some great moments, but also to compare and assess interesting aspects of the media coverage. The technology and camera work were obviously limited, and replays were available mainly from one angle. There wasn't much in the way of chyrons and graphics, (it took awhile to get used to not seeing the score/time bug on the screen), but that may have been a good thing; CBS, which carried the game, didn't spend every possible moment cramming in ads or promos for upcoming shows.

Probably the biggest difference between 2008 and 1975 was the game analysis. John Unitas provided the color commentary for Gary Bender's play-by-play. Johnny U may have been a Hall of Fame quarterback, but his commentary skills were severely lacking and his descriptions of the action could be described as pedestrian at best ("That's a hard hit there," "He really had to dive to get that ball," etc.). Unitas missed several key moments in the action, including the famous winning score, in which neither he nor Bender mentioned that there was a penalty flag, that an orange came flying out on the field, or that a fan threw a bottle that hit the referee in the head. (It is possible that these moments were edited out of the NFL Network version, but why would NFLN cut up the most interesting part of the game; the part most people would want to see?). But again, in some ways this might have been a good thing. Every single play wasn't critiqued and analyzed from multiple angles; the announcers simply kept the game moving and let the action speak for itself.

Keep those classic games coming, NFL Network. Sure, the technology is a little rough, but they do remind us of simpler times when the game was the focal point of the broadcast and money didn't dictate every production decision.

Enough, already!

The Collision in the Coliseum. The Clash of the Titans. Armageddon. The sports media, and specifically ESPN, have been working overtime this week to come up with some catchy names for Saturday's college football game between #1 USC and #5 Ohio State. I would suggest Overkill--The Sequel!

Seriously, has any college game in recent memory received this much attention, even a national championship game? Almost as soon as the games ended last Saturday, ESPN went into full overhype mode, filling the airwaves, Internet pages and blogs with nothing but USC-OSU. ESPN News added a "USC-OSU" segment to its on-screen ticker, and we even got a week's worth of old USC-OSU games on ESPN Classic. (Don't believe me? Then check out this, this, this, this, this and ... well, you get the idea). Is there any possible way this game can live up to the hype? (Quick answer: no, and for the record I would expect an easy USC win, especially with Ohio State's best player hurt).

We're getting the full treatment, of course, because ABC (part of the Disney family of networks, along with ESPN) has the game in prime time. So for the past week we've seen what amounts to a major network begging people to watch the game. I suppose some of this is justified when there are roughly 927 football games on TV during the weekend. But isn't there anything else going on in sports? Is the only way to get someone to watch to figuratively scream at the top of your lungs for an entire week?

In the sports TV business they call it "synergy" and "cross-promotion." I have another word for it--annoying. Can the game hurry up and get here so all this can please go away?

Trey Strecker at Ball State asked me to pass along this call for papers related to a conference next spring. His contact information is included:
-------------------
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture announces the 16th annual spring training conference on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball.

March 12-15
Airport Clarion Hotel/Tucson, AZ

Original, unpublished papers that study all aspects of baseball are invited. A particular emphasis is placed on papers that emphasize history and/or social policy implications. Abstracts only, not to exceed 300 words, should be submitted by December 1, 2008 to:

Nine Spring Training Conference
c/o Trey Strecker
Dept. of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
E-mail: tstrecker@bsu.edu

Authors will be notified as quickly as possible whether their papers have been accepted. Authors are required to register for the conference and present their work in person. The conference will include morning sessions, a Saturday evening banquet, and opportunities for afternoon "field research."

Keynote speaker: Peter Morris
Featured guest: Arnold Hano

Registration: Conference registration forms are available online. The $175 conference fee includes the Saturday evening banquet and tickets for two spring training games, if paid prior to December 1, 2008. After December 1 the conference fee will be $195 and game tickets are not guaranteed.

Attendees can register in one of two ways. Those wishing to pay online can use PayPal through the link provided on the NINE website. Those wishing to pay by check can print their registration information and send it along with their conference fee to:

Dan and Jean Ardell (dardell @roadrunner.com or jeanardell @yahoo.com)
P.O. Box 482
Corona del Mar, CA 92665

For hotel registration contact the Clarion Tucson Airport, 800-526-0550. Rates are $89 single and $99 double. To ensure the conference rate, rooms must be booked prior to March 5, 2009. When booking be sure to mention the conference name.

Sideline these interviews--please!

Watching football this weekend finally convinced me that football sideline interviews have got to go. At best, these short snippets are pointless and irritating; at worst, they are full-blown embarrassments (right, Suzy Kolber?)

It didn't matter what game you watched this weekend, chances are it had a sideline interview that went something like this--

Reporter: So coach, how do you think your team did in the first half?
Coach: As you could probably tell, not so good.
Reporter: What are your plans for the second half?
Coach: Score more points. And keep them from scoring.
Reporter: Thanks, coach. Back to you, guys ...

Pretty enlightening stuff, huh? A coach certainly isn't going to say anything important to a reporter, and especially during a game. Yet, every single network engages in these meaningless moments as a way of showing us how well it covers the game. It seems that most of the reporters are women, but that's not the point (right, Andy Rooney?) Any reporter can look like an idiot on the sidelines; all it takes is 30 seconds, a microphone and a coach trying to run off the field.

So cut it out already! Show more highlights or the marching bands or whatever. Just no more sideline interviews. Unless, of course, you happen to interview this coach.

Two CFPs

Got a couple of Calls for Papers to get your weekend started ...

1. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

Special Issue on “International Sports Marketing”

Guest Editors: Vanessa Ratten and Hamish Ratten

http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=660

Papers from academics and practitioners in the sports field are sought. The special issue will examine how a company or organization in the sports industry or involved with sports markets its goods/services/ideas to another company or organization. Papers that take an interdisciplinary perspective in understanding business-to-business and industrial marketing in the sports industry are encouraged. Contributions to this special issue should present new theories or research about business and industrial marketing in the sports context. All types of research paradigms including case studies, qualitative and quantitative analysis, conceptual and empirical research are welcome. Examples of possible topics that will be examined in the special industry include:

Process for the submission of papers:
Papers submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or presently be under consideration for publication. Submissions should be approximately 6,000 words in length. Submissions to the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing must be made using the ScholarOne Manuscript Central system: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jbim . A separate title page must be uploaded containing the title, author/s, and contact information for the author(s). For additional guidelines please see the “Notes for Contributors” from a recent issue of the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, or see the home page at www.emeraldinsight.com/jbim.htm . Suitable articles will be subjected to a double-blind review; hence authors should not identify themselves in the body of the paper.

Call for papers deadline: May 30th 2009

Please address questions to the special issue editors:

Dr. Vanessa Ratten
Assistant Professor
A.J. Palumbo School of Business Administration
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh PA 15282 USA
Email: rattenv@duq.edu

Hamish Ratten
Corporate Mergers Attorney
Clayton Utz
Brisbane
Queensland 4001 Australia
Email: hratten@claytonutz.com
------------------------
2. Second Call for papers: Special Issue of Sport and Society, ‘The Consumption and the Representation of Lifestyle sport’.

The deadline for this special issues has now been extended to 30th October 2008.

Guest editor Belinda Wheaton, University of Brighton

This special issue seeks to explore the changing representation and consumption of lifestyle sport in the twenty-first century.

Since their emergence in the 1960s, lifestyle sports (also termed action sport, extreme sports, adventure sports, and so on) have experienced unprecedented growth both in participation, and in their increased visibility across public and private space. In Britain, for example, the BBC draws on imagery of street-running, surfing and kite flying between programmes to ‘identify’ the station, and in the USA extreme sport has featured on a postal stamp (Rinehart & Sydor, 2003, p. 1). The allure and excitement of lifestyle sport has been appropriated to sell every kind of product imaginable, and they have been the focus of numerous ‘mainstream’ television shows and films such as Blue Crush, Stone Monkey, Kids, Jackass and Dogtown and Z-Boys that present the danger but also the vertigo inspired by the sports. Specialist magazines such as On the Edge, Boards, Carve and Wavelength fill newsagent’s shelves, and are sustained by a multi-million dollar industry selling commodities and lifestyles to ‘hard-core’ aficionados and grazers alike. Furthermore, these representations of lifestyle sports provide images of ‘adventure’ and risk, demonstrating what Beck describes as the importance of experiencing danger and ‘living life to the full’ in a ‘risk society’. Possible topics for papers in the context of representation might include:

• Representations of lifestyle sports through place and space: in film, subcultural media, television, advertising.
• The relationship between global and local representations
• Ethics and values expressed in subcultural and mainstream representations of adventure sports
• Lifestyle sports and new media technologies.
• Media Parody - extreme ironing, extreme housework.
• The meaning and representation of risk in late modernity.
• How lifestyle sports imagery reproduces neo-liberal ideologies of the body, heath and consumer-citizenship.
• What part does the media and internet play in representing these activities and their cultures?

Lifestyle Sports cultures are also enjoying a period of unprecedented growth and transformation. As outlined in Wheaton (2004) participation in many lifestyle sports continues to grow, outpacing the growth of a number of ‘big league’ traditional sports, both among the ‘traditional’ consumer markets of (white western) teenage boys, and increasingly among older men, women and girls. A vibrant and highly profitable global and local consumer industry is driving these activities, and has seen rapid expansion and diversification, with consumer products ranging from board and decks to the ever expanding ‘sport style.’ Local, national, trans-national and global networks of lifestyle sports ‘subcultures’ have traditionally been linked by travel and the specialist sub cultural media, predominantly magazines and videos/DVDs. Yet increasingly these media forms have been supported and superseded by the internet with enthusiasts, clubs and commercial organisations setting up websites and chartrooms providing information about venues, news and local activities. However, these shifts have lead to changes in the meanings, experiences and identities of lifestyle sport cultures, particularly as participants attempt to retain their subcultural identities in the face of increasing popularity and widespread commercialisation. Central questions include:

• How have process of globalisation impacted the cultures, identities, and industries of lifestyle sport? Are there differences locally, nationally and trans-locally? Do lifestyle sports participants display a post-national cosmopolitan disposition? What is the relationship of lifestyle sport to (the politics of) environmentalism?
• Are these activities subcultures or are formulations such as neo-tribes more useful ways of conceptualising these sporting cultures?
• What is the relationship between the mass and micro medias, and between these different medias and the sports lived cultures?
• How are the experiences of identity and difference changing in this period of rampant commercialisation? Have they been wholly appropriated or are there new and different sites and expressions of subcultural ‘resistance’?
• How is inclusion, exclusion and the discourse of subcultural authenticity related to difference, particularly the intersections of gender, ‘race’, (hetro)sexuality, disability and age?
• Emerging lifestyle sports such as parkour, and kitesurfing and their interaction with popular culture.
• What are the experiences of those on the periphery of the subcultures, be they weekend warriors, grazers, ‘surf widow’s, spectators, or those who experience (many) lifestyle sport/s through tourism and others forms of commercial provision.

Papers on any aspect of lifestyle sport representation or consumption are welcome but we are particularly interested in papers that examine lifestyle sport outside of the global ‘core’.
Rinehart, R., & Sydor, S. (Eds.). (2003). To the Extreme: Alternative sports, inside and out. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London: Routledge.

Information for contributors

Texts should reach the guest editor by email before September 30, 2008, and should include:

1) Typescripts in .rtf or .doc format;
2) A title page with the title of the paper and the name(s) of contributor(s) and institutional affiliation for each one; acknowledgements (expression of thanks, sources of financing); mailing addresses. The first page of the typescript must not include the name(s) or coordinates of the contributor(s);
3) An abstract: one paragraph of no more than 150 words.
Tables, figures and notes must be correctly inserted within the text. Pictures and photos require original resolution of no less than 130 ppi.

Manuscripts should be between 6000-8000 words. For detail on the journal house style see http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1743-0437&linktype=44