SPORT AS A PHENOMENON OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Abstract

This article describes position of sport, as a kind of contemporary cultural spectacle, in a current-wider social context. Starting from its basic features and functions, the focus is on those, originally non-sporting elements that are taken today as an indispensable part of every sport event. Actually, it's all about those accompanying aspects that we are all aware of, but that we mostly discuss with no taking into account a wider framework and conditions that caused them in a first place. At the same time, we are overlooking the fact that these phenomena, despite the obvious negativity that accompany them and the fact that we all are aware of it, have gradually „won in the fight” to be considered as a completely acceptable and expected primacy of sporting events, while their consequences are usually considered only after the very end of a sport competition. Namely, to this extent, they are incorporated in every such event, with removing from the observer’s horizon those elements of the sport competitions because of which it is developed and popularized in a first place. Therefore, today, the basic impression that is created and the logic that is accepted, is the one that the sport and sports competitions are actually above all organized (and sometimes exclusively) in order to achieve such ambitions and goals, which, paradoxically, deny the essence of sport existence.

Pointing out that this is actually an excellent and typical case for the analysis of the spirit of the time in which we all live today, it is clearly seen that in the today’s complex processes of modernization and globalization, sport certainly removes and deletes many social barriers, but it also sets new and different „frames” and „rules”. Therefore, that is why, in that sense, it is necessary to accept those new norms and circumstances, also recognizing, at the same time, all associated pros and cons.