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Objective: Professional sport occupies a prominent cultural position in societies across the globe and commercial organisations make use of this to promote their products. The present scoping review explores existing academic literature on the relationship between professional sports clubs and food and drink marketing and considers how this relationship may impact upon the public's health.Design: The scoping review searched six databases. Experts were also consulted. Records written in languages other than English were excluded. We also excluded records relating to mega events (e.g. Olympics, Football World Cup) and alcohol marketing, because of the attention already given to these.Setting: Professional sports clubs.Results: We identified 18 166 titles, reviewed 163 abstracts and read twenty-six full texts. We included six papers in the review. Four were from Australia and New Zealand. The Australasian literature focused largely on the marketing of foods and beverages to children and the potential impact on consumption. Single papers from researchers in Turkey and the USA were identified. The Turkish paper analysed shirt sponsorship in football leagues internationally and showed food and beverage (including alcohol) companies were the most common sponsors. The US paper examined a mixed reaction to a football team named after an energy drink.Conclusions: Commercial relationships between professional sports clubs and Big Food corporations have largely eluded scrutiny in much of the world. The current review highlights the lack of public health research on these relationships. Research exploring the interdependent commercial practices of food and drink companies and professional sports clubs is urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Competitive balance is critical for the survival of athletic leagues. A relationship between "uncertainty of outcome" and fan interest has been found in many sports all over the world. This paper examines competitive balance in professional netball in Australia and New Zealand by contrasting two competitions: the ANZ Championship, an elite Australasian competition that began in 2008 but was disbanded in 2016 as there was a perception of dominance by the Australian teams over their New Zealand rivals; and its Australian domestic replacement, Suncorp Super Netball, which started in 2017. Design/methodology/approach: Competitive balance is gauged in three broad ways: match result concentration, which looks at the evenness of each season; team dominance, where comparisons are made across several seasons; and within game equality, which examines the results of individual games. Findings: Several methods are used under each heading, with the results surprisingly showing that measured competitive balance was similar in the two competitions. Originality/value: In sports management, quantitative analysis or sports economics, there are few published papers on netball. This is the first research to examine competitive balance in netball, and the findings have important ramifications for this women-only game, as it competes against other purveyors of professional sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights ways that changes in the emerging digitised media and communication landscape that envelopes professional sport in Australia influence the ethics of journalism practice. The approach was adopted in the context of mediatisation research as a study of the 'transformation of everyday life, culture and society in the context of the transformation of the media' (Krotz 2017: 108-109). It uses the notion of mediatisation to help conceptualise media change and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance's Journalist Code of Ethics as a benchmark for ethical practices in Australia. Findings indicate that routine violations of core ethical standards of Australian journalism - such as 'striving for accuracy', doing the 'utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply' and achieving 'fair correction of errors' - are occurring as a result of the pervasive digitised 24/7 news cycle (MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally policymakers have paid little attention to the consumption of steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) in Australia. Yet, in recent times PIEDs have come to occupy an increasing amount of discursive space and, indeed, regulatory action. This newfound interest may be attributed to several broader developments, not least the perception of the involvement of organized crime in distributing PIEDs to the professional sports world and other sectors of this illicit market. This paper seeks to explore the empirical reality of the claim that the production and supply of PIEDs in Australia is the prerogative of organized crime groups. A retrospective content analysis of Australian PIED provider cases was conducted between 2010 and 2016. To widen our search, both media articles describing court cases, obtained from the Factiva database, and public online court records, using the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) database, were searched. Search terms included "steroid*", "doping" and "testosterone" in combination with the terms "traffic*", "production", "supply*" and "import*". In total, 477 PIED provider cases were identified yet most cases were duplicates, irrelevant or lacked sufficient detail, resulting in a final dataset of 144 cases. A coding schedule was developed based on existing PIED supply literature. Our data shows that most PIED provider cases took place in Queensland (41.7%), followed by New South Wales (25%) and Victoria (13.2%). Regarding the type of providers, the largest group consisted of people active in the gym industry (22%), followed by the healthcare sector (17%), the 'other' category (12%) and the security sphere (8%). Of the 144 steroid-provider cases, only 12% of the cases indicated the potential involvement of organized crime groups, with half of those being linked to outlaw motorcycle gangs. In contrast to the claims of authorities, our data suggests that organized crime groups currently play a proportionally small role in the illicit production and supply of steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs in Australia. Indeed, various actors are involved of which only a small fraction are part of or involved with organized crime groups. Many suppliers are particularly active in the gym industry and healthcare sector. The relative presence of such suppliers has important policy implications, not least with regard to the role of criminal law in addressing the provision of PIEDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The newly emergent Pasifika diasporas as elements of a new sports labour migrant are an important force of immense significance in global rugby football. This paper illustrates the place of rugby in Pasifika communities and how and why it has become a zone of potential success, aspiration and social advancement for Pasifika people. An impression is given of the enormity of their range and influence in the sport using illustrations drawn from the ranks of current Pacific professional rugby players. The complex relationship among Pacific Islanders, globalisation and rugby football will also be discussed demonstrating not merely the issue of Pasifika communities as recipients of the cultural effects of globalisation via imperial rule and cultural diffusion, but also of their impact as creolising agents on the sport of rugby throughout the mid twentieth century to the current professional era. Throughout this discussion it is noted that rugby is seen as a means not just of individual advancement but as a potential source of financial security for players' families and their wider communities in the Pacific Islands and in their adopted countries. The vexatious issue of remittances, responsibility and rugby as a major career pathway is also raised. It must be acknowledged at the outset that the term ‘Pasifika’ is somewhat problematic. ‘Pasifika’, as a Polynesian way of saying ‘Pacific’, should technically be used as an adjective. However, ‘Pasifika’ is primarily used to refer to Pacific people in the diaspora, and the usage varies from New Zealand to Australia. In this paper, the inclusion of Mãori under the umbrella term ‘Pasifika’ has been avoided. Every effort has also been made to correctly use relevant anthropological/scientific terms such as Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose: To examine practitioners', coaches', and athletes' perceptions of evidence-based practice (EBP) in professional sport in Australia. Methods: One hundred thirty-eight participants (practitioners n = 67, coaches n = 39, and athletes n = 32) in various professional sports in Australia each completed a group-specific online questionnaire. Questions focused on perceptions of research, the contribution of participants' own experience in implementing knowledge to practice, sources, and barriers for accessing and implementing EBP, preferred methods of feedback, and the required qualities of practitioners. Results: All practitioners reported using EBP, while most coaches and athletes believed that EBP contributes to individual performance and preparation (>85%). Practitioners' preferred EBP information sources were "peer-reviewed journals" and "other practitioners within their sport," while athlete sources were "practitioners within their sport" and "other athletes within their sport." As primary barriers to accessing and implementing research, practitioners highlighted "time constraints," "poor research translation," and "nonapplicable research." Practitioners ranked "informal conversation" as their most valued method of providing feedback; however, coaches prefer feedback from "scheduled meetings," "online reports," or "shared database." Both athletes and coaches value "excellent knowledge of the sport," "experience," and "communication skills" in practitioners disseminating EBP. Conclusion: Practitioners, coaches, and athletes believe in the importance of EBP to their profession, although practitioners reported several barriers to accessing and implementing research as part of EBP. Athletes place a high value on experienced practitioners who have excellent knowledge of the sport and communication skills. Collectively, these findings can be used to further stakeholder understanding regarding EBP and the role of research to positively influence athlete health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the assumption that students are being prepared as 'professionals', little debate has been undertaken concerning the composition of 'professional' sport management education in Australia. This paper comments upon this absence of serious debate and seeks first of all, to review accepted perspectives of professions and professionals, and secondly, to consider the changes that may need to be applied in the contemporary setting, and finally, to reflect upon the implications of this definition for sport management education in Australia. The paper concludes that a definition which encompasses occupation, competency and behaviour also reveals several weaknesses in the conventional Australian curriculum, including limited common standards and an almost complete absence of ethical codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the social and (increasingly) commercial significance of sport and sporting bodies worldwide, they remain under-represented in the mainstream management literature. One of the more recent and dramatic examples of the global sports-media nexus is the 'Super League saga' in Australia. This paper recounts the tale of the Super League saga, providing a holistic analysis of the events and competitive issues arising by drawing on literatures concerning the economic nature and value of sports leagues, the resource-based view of the firm and the nature of psychological contracts in changing environments. The analysis confirms the general monopolistic tendencies of professional sports leagues in an increasingly global industry driven by the sports-media nexus, in accord with a number of comparable cases internationally. The particular conditions of the Australian marketplace that exacerbate this tendency beyond, for example, that found in the USA, and differences in the outcomes of battles between rival leagues are also considered. The Super League saga portrays the importance of effective management of resources key to the production of the 'rugby league product' including, among others, the often over-looked importance of careful management of local resources for the success or global strategies, and, where human resources are key, the importance of psychological contracting. The holistic analysis of the Super League saga in Australia affords lessons that extend well beyond the realm of sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Rugby league is an international full-contact sport, with frequent concussive injuries. Participation in other full-contact sports such as American football has been considered to be a risk factor for neuropsychiatric sequelae later-in-life, but little research has addressed the mental and cognitive health of retired professional rugby league players. We examined predictors and correlates of perceived (self-reported) cognitive decline in retired National Rugby League (NRL) players. Methods: Participants were 133 retired male elite level rugby league players in Australia. Participants completed clinical interviews, neuropsychological testing, and self-report measures. The Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly, self-report (IQCODE-Self), measured perceived cognitive decline. Results: The median age of the sample was 55.0 (M = 53.1, SD = 13.9, range = 30–89) and the median years of education completed was 12.0 (M = 11.9, SD = 2.6, range = 7–18). The retired players reported a median of 15.0 total lifetime concussions (M = 28.0, SD = 36.6, range = 0–200). The mean IQCODE-Self score was 3.2 (SD = 0.5; Range = 1.3–5.0); 10/133 (7.5%) and 38/133 (28.6%) scored above conservative and liberal cutoffs for cognitive decline on the IQCODE-Self, respectively. Perceived cognitive decline was positively correlated with current depressive symptoms, negatively correlated with years of professional sport exposure and resilience, and unrelated to objective cognition and number of self-reported concussions. A multiple regression model with perceived cognitive decline regressed on age, concussion history, professional rugby league exposure, depression, resilience, objective cognitive functioning, daytime sleepiness, and pain severity showed depression as the only significant predictor. Conclusion: This is the first large study examining subjectively experienced cognitive decline in retired professional rugby league players. Similar to studies from the general population and specialty clinics, no relationship was found between objective cognitive test performance and perceived cognitive decline. Depressive symptoms emerged as the strongest predictor of perceived cognitive decline, suggesting that subjective reports of worsening cognition in retired elite rugby league players might reflect psychological distress rather than current cognitive impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to estimate production functions for professional sports have been based primarily on North American hockey, football, basketball and baseball (Scully, 1974; Zak et al., 1979; Zech, 1981; Scott et al., 1985; Jones and Walsh, 1987). The relationship between team success (or output) and the relevant performance inputs into the production process has been extended by Schofield (1988) to cover professional cricket in the United Kingdom. The present study follows Schofield and presents estimated production functions for cricket in Australia and New Zealand. For the first time, this will allow international comparisons to be made inside the same sport in terms of the importance of performance inputs and, perhaps, differences in the strategy-mix relative to successful output.
The study also introduces and tests a new production function. In the literature to date, production functions are specified with a priori assumptions about the functional form. This study, instead, uses the Box-Cox general transformation function and explicitly tests the functional form. This approach will reduce specification biases caused by a priori restrictions imposed on the production functions tested in the literature. It is hoped, therefore, that the results obtained using this generalized production function will give more reliable and better estimates than those reported in previous research in general and Schofield's study of county cricket in particular.
The outline of the paper is as follows. In Sections II and III, the data and the new production function used for estimation purposes are discussed. Section IV presents the estimated equations and examines their implications for Australian and New Zealand cricket. Finally, in Section V, the main conclusions are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has primarily focused on sport teams as brands, overlooking the branding of professional sport leagues. Professional sport leagues are required to build and leverage their brand associations to be sustainable and to help affiliated teams. This study integrated existing team brand association research with brand architecture literature to examine league brand associations from a consumer perspective. A free-thought listing pilot test (N = 22) was followed by semistructured interviews (N = 26) to uncover 17 brand associations linked with professional sport leagues. Online questionnaires among consumers of four sport leagues in Australia (N = 1182) were used to support 17 distinct identified league brand associations. One sample t tests and correlation analyses empirically revealed that 17 league brand associations were linked with attitudinal and behavioral outcomes related to sport leagues. Finally, ANOVAs identified that some league brand associations differed between four leagues as perceived by consumers, reflecting league specific characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports participation and elite sporting success are fundamental to Australian culture and a prominent source of national pride. As sport is a major part of day-to-day living in Australia, it is not surprising that many young people aspire to careers as sportspersons. While such aspirations are often dismissed as fanciful and unattainable, the reality is that a higher proportion of Australians participate in the workforce as sportspeople than in careers as mining engineers, surgeons, optometrists or barristers. Indeed, little is known about aspirations for sports careers. Drawing on data from a 4-year longitudinal study involving 6492 Australian school students in Years 3–12, we sought to understand the extent to which young Australians aspire to a career as a sportsperson and the extent to which these aspirations are evenly distributed across demographic categories. Our findings suggest that not only was sportsperson the most popular occupational category, but this interest was heavily shaped by social and cultural markers of difference. Logistic regression analysis revealed that significant predictors of interest in a career as a sportsperson were being male, Indigenous, from high socioeconomic background, and attending advantaged schools. Far from sport's reputation as the great equalizer, accessible to all, these results demonstrate that aspirations for a career as a sportsperson largely reflect the status quo of sports participation in Australian society and wider inequalities. Given the growing number of careers in professional sports and the value sport holds in the lives of Australians, we argue that aspirations for careers in sport should be treated seriously, and that disrupting current patterns in who aspires to careers as sportspeople is vital. It will require access for a more diverse range of students to the kinds of social resources and networks that nurture their capacity to aspire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental challenge for practitioners in high-level sporting environments concerns how to support athletes in adapting behaviours to solve emergent problems during competitive performance. Guided by an ecological dynamics framework, the design and integration of competitive performance preparation models that place athlete-environment interactions at the heart of the learning process may address this challenge. This ecological conceptualisation of performance preparation signifies a shift in a coach's role; evolving from a consistent solution provider to a learning environment designer who fosters local athlete-environment interactions. However, despite the past decades of research within the ecological dynamics framework developing an evidence-based, theoretical conceptualisation of skill acquisition, expertise and talent development, an ongoing challenge resides within its practical integration into sporting environments. This article provides two case examples in which high-level sports organisations have utilised an ecological dynamics framework for performance preparation in Australian football and Association Football. A unique perspective is offered on experiences of professional sport organisations attempting to challenge traditional ideologies for athlete performance preparation by progressing the theoretical application of ecological dynamics. These case examples intend to promote the sharing of methodological ideas to improve athlete development, affording opportunities for practitioners and applied scientists to accept, reject or adapt the approaches presented here to suit their specific ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's professional team sport leagues have experienced a dramatic increase, yet research exploring the employment conditions and the perspectives the players involved is relatively sparse. The commencement of an inaugural rugby league competition for women in Australia and New Zealand provided a unique research opportunity to explore physical, sociocultural and organizational conditions and requirements of women athletes, and to identify inclusive management strategies and policies. Forty-nine perspective players for the professional competition were interviewed about their views on the transition of the women's game from amateur to professional status and the associated management considerations. Two aggregate themes emerged from the interview data analysis: Gender identity and Institutional practice. The interview findings, together with an analysis of other women's professional team sport enterprise agreements, informed decision making about the league's size, duration and individual contract inclusions. Further implications for practice and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In undertaking their complicated and multi-faceted work, high performance coaches have previously been shown to be influential in the performance of athletes. It has also been noted that high performance coaches are learners by necessity. However, what remains unclear is how coaches’ learning influences their engagement in sustainable practice. This study draws on three cohorts of full-time high performance coaches employed in Olympic and professional sports throughout Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face and were inductively analysed. The results revealed that the coaches were presented with a variety of opportunities to learn, with the most valued sources being ‘learning on the job’, ‘discussions with others’ and ‘experience as athletes’. These unmediated learning opportunities are critiqued along with other mediated opportunities in relation to notions of sustainability. The dominance of unmediated sources of learning meant that sustainable practice was present but was not assured. Sustainable practice is also discussed in relation to the dominant models of high performance athlete development and the demands of coaching work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The place of rugby union football in Australian society presents a rich context to play and display critical social issues, particularly, identity formations and contestations. This essay examines the development of elite rugby union in Australia from its inception to professionalization. In its amateur development, the processes of colonization and cultural impositions created its culture and legacy. With the overlapping of sporting and economic networks, rugby union entered the professional era. This essay argues that the development from amateurism to 'shamateurism' to professionalism was uneven and contested on various levels. Whilst the development of rugby union in Australia was both a reflection and manifestation of globalization it did not totally parallel the globalization of sport in general, indeed rugby union football remains a particularly 'glocal' game. The points of resistance and departure, this essay concludes, distinguish the identity of rugby union from other sporting institutions and their wider social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, Janus is used as a metaphor for examining the nature of cultural diversity in Australian sport. It does so by firstly presenting a historical context for sport in Australia and the relative lack of cultural diversity found in sport. Within a country dominated by the running codes of football and cricket, the position of soccer in Australia was somewhat unique as it became a bastion for many non-Anglo migrant groups. However, in the 1980s and 1990s soccer's lack of organizational success at the state and national level was negatively ascribed to the tensions between the ethnically affiliated clubs, the same clubs that were ironically the stalwarts driving the growing popularity of the sport. We examine the initiatives used to restructure the game in Australia to make football more appealing to mainstream (i.e. non-ethnically aligned) spectators. The contemporary situation is explored through secondary documentation and the results of a survey of 3,056 spectators undertaken during the first season of the new A-League are presented. The essay concludes with a discussion about the relative success of the restructure in terms of changing the face of Australian soccer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport has always been a serious business in Australian life at local, national and international levels. The future of Australian sport depends on whether she decides to become a major sporting nation in terms of international achievement and international power, by allowing Australian sport to become fully professional. In all likelihood Australian sport will become professional to enable it to remain internationally competitive and to reflect the major section it makes up of the entertainment industry. However, there are opponents who believe that professionalism and money would inevitably destroy the fundamental goodness of sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]