ABSTRACT
Adopting Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the field as a methodological tool, this chapter examines the constitution of the field in which sport spectacle is produced. Outlining a genealogy of production of sport spectacle through a perspective considering the field’s autonomy as constructed through its interactions with other fields enables us to understand structures of power in the relation between sports spectacle and the production of the city. Rules that orient the functioning of the main institutions that produce sporting mega-events have been analyzed since the 1908 publication of the first Olympic Charter. This genealogy identifies three periods: namely, those of amateurism, professionalism, and spectacularization. Transformations in relations among the fields of sport spectacle and the city have occurred in a slow and gradual way, reflecting disputes that are both internal and external to the field. Certain factors have contributed to the acceleration or slowing of these processes: on the one hand, crises and innovation have facilitated the acceleration of these transformations while, on the other hand, the difficulties of articulating the interests in dispute and the long trajectory between the adoption of a strategy and its materialization in the urban space have contributed to their deceleration.
