ABSTRACT
High-profile sport events, with their intensified media profile, provide some of the most observed, screen-watched, live-spectated and commented-upon events in history. In the contest in the stadium, the raw power of the athletic competition or the sporting rivalry conveys not only its own internal dynamic, but also meanings, values and ideologies from the wider culture and society. The sports event also prompts the mobilisation of spectator passions and, as such, is a forum for the expression of various levels of identity and affiliation. Sport and the sites at which high-profile events take place can therefore be seen as prominent contemporary forms of spectacle.
