Although New Zealand exists as a small (pop. 4.3 million), peripheral nation in the global economy, it offers a unique site through which to examine the complex, but uneven, interplay between global forces and long-standing national traditions and cultural identities. This book examines the profound impact of globalization on the national sport of rugby and New Zealand's iconic team, the All Blacks. Since 1995, the national sport of rugby has undergone significant change, most notably due to the New Zealand Rugby Union's lucrative and ongoing corporate partnerships with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and global sportswear giant Adidas. The authors explore these significant developments and pressures alongside the resulting tensions and contradictions that have emerged as the All Blacks, and other aspects of national heritage and indigenous identity, have been steadily incorporated into a global promotional culture. Following recent research in cultural studies, they highlight the intensive, but contested, commodification of the All Blacks to illuminate the ongoing transformation of rugby in New Zealand by corporate imperatives and the imaginations of marketers, most notably through the production of a complex discourse of corporate nationalism within Adidas's evolving local and global advertising campaigns.
About the Author: Jay Scherer (Ph.D., University of Otago) is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta. His research interests include globalization, sport and public policy, and cultural studies of sport and leisure. His work has been published in a wide range of journals including the Sociology of Sport Journal, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport and the Journal of Sport and Social Issues.
Steve Jackson (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is a Professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where he teaches Sociology of Sport and Sport, Culture & Media. Currently the President of the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA), his research focuses on globalization, media and national identity. He is co-editor of Social and Cultural Diversity in a Sporting World (2008) and Sport, Beer & Gender: Promotional Culture & Everyday Social Life (2009).