ABSTRACT
Our primary aim of this book was to build upon our knowledge and understanding of how sport can be owned. Ownership within and of the sport domain is an under-theorised and overly taken-for-granted concept that is often overlooked as having value for the study of sport and applied within sport management. Over the past decade the role, value and meaning of sport has come under pressure on a number of fronts from the importance attached to ensuring elite international success (e.g. Houlihan and Green, 2008; De Bosscher et al., 2015) to sport for development and peace projects that often seek to empower local communities and inspire individuals to take on and own specific projects (e.g. Darnell and Hayhurst, 2012; Schulenkorf, Sherry and Rowe, 2016) to ownership of professional sports clubs and leagues (e.g. Nauright and Ramjord, 2010; Plumley, Wilson and Shibli, 2017). These are just three examples that exemplify the continuum of sports salience as a many-faceted and malleable global cultural idiom. We contend that sport defies clear examination of who owns it largely because ownership itself, as this collection attests to, is such a contentious idea that when applied to the sport domain can produce more questions than answers. We hope that this book stimulates interest in the ideas and concepts relating to ownership and sport and that scholars can begin to develop research agendas that interrogate taken for granted assumptions about who owns sport.
