‘The point, however, is to change it’

This chapter focuses on recent momentum in sport sociology and wider social-science disciplines to critically analyse the Olympic movement. A vocal swathe of academics has adopted what Alan Tomlinson and John Sugden have called ‘the investigative tradition for the sociology of sport’ and this has contributed in significant ways to the zeitgeist whereby the Olympic Movement can no longer expect to get a free pass in the mainstream media or public. In this chapter I explore work in the social sciences that embraces the idea that we do not simply describe the state of the world and sport, but that we can press to change it. The Olympic movement has been put on its back foot in recent years in part because of the work of sport sociologists – working alongside political activists, non-governmental organisations, and public-interest groups – who have raised serious questions about the Games and proliferated critiques through the mainstream media. Along the way, and drawing from my own experiences, I distinguish analytically between academic research, public-intellectual work, and scholar-activism.