ABSTRACT
This is a significant moment in Japanese history: a time at which Japan's place in the increasingly interconnected web of nations, products, ideas and practices is mediated in large part by its popular culture; and, in particular, sporting culture. One aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how this came to be and the extent to which it is so. In large part, this process is supported – if not driven – by media which focus on what I call sportsports. This moniker is not a simple reference to Japan's athletic imports and exports; rather, it is the array of techniques by which domestic media package and audiences consume information about athletes and athletics. With media as a conscious agent, communications about ‘sportsports’ have become seminal social texts in everyday Japanese life, with concrete, significant effects.
