How the Play Element Has Changed in Australian Football and the Consequences of This Change on the Community
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How the play element has changed in Australian football and the consequences of this change on the community Samuel Keith Duncan PhD 2015 Abstract This thesis is a theoretical analysis of the importance of the play element in developing communities and culture, using the Australian Football League (AFL) as my case study. Using the historical observations of Johan Huizinga and combining them with Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of fields and capital, a theoretical framework has been created to illuminate the importance of play in creating communities. By developing this theory and applying it to the AFL, this analysis highlights how the media and economic fields have transformed ‘play’ into ‘display’, which has changed the way AFL supporters relate to the game and subsequently weakened the AFL community. In exploring the importance of play in developing communities, the theory extends to discuss the importance of the community in enabling individual citizens to make an active and meaningful contribution to society and therefore reach their full potential, which is linked to the principles and ideals that Australian democracy was committed to at its founding in 1901. Thus it can be argued that the consequences of play’s transformation can indeed impact the community, but also a citizen’s ability to freely and actively engage in society and community life. The theory developed by combining Huizinga’s historical observations with Bourdieu’s concepts of fields and capital is used in this thesis as a means of understanding how the play element has changed and what this means for the community. I have chosen Australia’s indigenous game, Australian Football, and in particular, the Australian Football League (AFL) as my case-study and interviewed a number of AFL football club members to illuminate their relationship with the club they support and their club’s community. While Huizinga has been widely read and written about, until now he has not been defended through Bourdieu’s concepts of fields and capital. I have provided Huizinga’s observations with a theoretical framework and structure that ensures his observations can be applied to today’s society to understand how and why the play element has changed and the consequences of such change for the community. Furthermore, while the commercialisation of sport (and even the AFL) is not a new study, understanding it through the combined theories of Huizinga and Bourdieu is. In concluding this research the changing characteristics of the play element became strongly evident, as did the increased role of the economic and media fields in the AFL. The AFL is now, more than ever, dominated by neoliberal and economic rational criteria and as such the interests of the game’s communities appear to be subordinate to commercial interests. As this thesis will illuminate, the community has been undermined by economic capital and made substantially weaker. ii Declaration I, Samuel Keith Duncan, declare the examinable outcome that I am submitting, to the best of my knowledge does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome, Or: - Contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome; and - Where the work is based on joint research or publications I have disclosed the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors Signed: Samuel Keith Duncan iii Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 Setting the scene: The importance of play in sport in Australian culture .......................................... 4 Chapter 2 An introduction to the theoretical model: The AFL in the age of Neoliberalism ...............................21 Chapter 3 Huizinga’s Theory of Play: Huizinga as Cultural Historian ...............................................................59 Chapter 4 Play, Money and the Media: A history of the play element in the Australian Football League ..........90 Chapter 5 Understanding the influence of the economic field and the media field in the sport field: The ‘play, money, media cycle’ .................................................................................................................. 102 Chapter 6 The consequences of the play, money, media cycle for the AFL ................................................... 117 Chapter 7 Striving to be number one on the field and off it: The manipulation and corruption of play ........... 133 Chapter 8 The business of football: How football communities were replaced by markets............................ 149 Chapter 9 The transitional phase of play in the AFL: From play to display in the AFL on a world scale............. 166 Chapter 10 Illuminating the perspective of the AFL community ..................................................................... 184 Chapter 11 The evolution of the play element in AFL .................................................................................... 208 Chapter 12 The fans perspective of the AFL community today ...................................................................... 226 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 259 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 265 Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 293 iv Introduction: The last 30 years has seen an unprecedented, rapid, almost universal, transformation of elite level sport. For many, today’s professional sporting organisations in Australia and, indeed, around the world, may seem almost unrecognisable to what they knew sport to be in the burgeoning semi- professional era of the 1970’s and 1980’s. No longer are professional athletes simply the best players in their sport, nor are professional sporting clubs simply the home of hopes, dreams and community aspiration. Today, many professional sports athletes are multi-millionaires (or even billionaires), employees of their club, ambassadors or sponsors of corporate organisations and their products and celebrities for society to see, hear and read about through an unquenchably thirsty media. Likewise, professional sports clubs are no longer the hub of the community or a true representation of their supporters and members. They are now businesses which not only strive to win, but also profit. In fact, winning is considered by most sporting organisations as an essential ingredient to making a profit. Furthermore, professional sporting competitions and leagues are no longer simply where the best players go to play; they are now also an important part of the entertainment industry and a tool for athletes, coaches, administrators, sponsors and the media to make money. Today, sports athletes, coaches and administrators are some of society’s most recognisable, powerful and wealthy citizens. Certainly it appears the dominance of neo-liberalism across many parts of the world over the past three decades has stretched well beyond the fields of economics, politics and business to now dominate many cultural fields, including sport. This study seeks to explore what this means for society. In particular, this study is concerned with the play element, which, while undeniably at the core of sport, can also be seen as foundational to community, culture, individual development, freedom and, ultimately, democracy. Throughout this thesis, the important role of play in developing communities will be outlined to provide an understanding of how communities and democracy are weakened if play is corrupted. Using the insightful observations of Dutch historian, Johan Huizinga, and interpreting them through Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of fields and capital, a theoretical framework has been created to illuminate the importance of play in creating genuine communities. This theoretical framework will then be expounded to discuss the importance of communities in enabling individual citizens to develop, make an active and meaningful contribution to society and reach their full potential. Furthermore, Huizinga’s observations will be utilised to argue that play is foundational to community 1 and any subsequent change, transformation or corruption of play also impacts a citizen’s ability to freely and actively engage in society and community life. From Play to Democracy Huizinga’s observations about the importance of play in stimulating community and upholding democracy are illustrated in the following diagram. CULTURE PLAY COMMUNITY FREEDOM DEMOCRACY INDIVIDUAL- FREEDOM The analysis in this thesis is predominantly concerned with the link between play and community, and in particular, seeks to outline how the professionalization of sport has transformed the play element into an item of entertainment, which has subsequently weakened the game’s communities. However, as the above diagram illustrates, if play and community are understood to be foundational to the notions of culture, freedom, individual development and democracy then it is clear that any transformation of the play element, and any subsequent weakening of the community, has ongoing consequences for both the individual and democracy.