Steps to an ecology of transnational sports

Abstract

It is sometimes said that if you are on the team that wins the Irish championship in Gaelic football, you will never have to pay for a pint in your village pub again. However, if you are an outstanding soccer player, you may end up very rich and world famous. Sports are global, transnational or international to varying degrees: Scandinavians are deeply involved in Winter Olympics, which are unknown in most of the world, while many of the New Commonwealth countries participate in international cricket events which must seem global to them, but which are never heard about elsewhere. This essay discusses the factors that lead to the uneven globalization of different sports and the impact of transnational processes on local football, and briefly considers a few sports which have not succeeded (or tried) to become global. The biological concepts of natural selection and ecological niches are used metaphorically to account for the uneven spread, and alternative strategies, of transnational sports.