Sports post Covid-19: How to return to normal

Jan Ove Tangen
University of South-Eastern Norway

Covid-19 has affected and changed our lives and societies in many ways. Both individuals, organisations and society gained valuable experience and developed new knowledge during this global pandemic. It has stimulated researchers to look more closely at how people experienced and handled the pandemic, how organisations were restructured, policies were designed, and how society returned to more normal conditions after the pandemic. This book, edited by Jörg Krieger, April Henning and Lindsay Parks Pieper, highlights the latter, i.e., “… the ‘restart’ of sport and fitness following the initial period of lockdowns during spring 2020.” (p. 3).

The book begins with a short “Introduction” written by the editors. Then follow 19 chapters organised into five sections. Overall, the book is relatively extensive, with 324 pages.

The first section, “Sport Events and Leagues”, comprises four chapters. Chapter 1 takes a closer look at how various security protocols were drawn up in the preparations for the start of “The International 60+ Masters Small-Sided Football World Cup in Denmark 2021”. In Chapter 2, the researchers document how the Irish media conveyed the Gaelic Games start in Ireland. Chapter 3 shows how male privilege in Australian Rugby League is reinforced during the pandemic. The fourth chapter shows how friendship and love for the game motivate the referees in Major League Soccer in the USA to start again.

The second section – “The Olympic Movement” – consists of 4 chapters. These are partly about the discussion about whether the planned Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020 should be held in 2021 or later (chapter 5) and partly about what lessons can be drawn from the experiences with Covid-19 with a view to how organised sports should deal with climate change (chapter 6). The other two chapters in this main part discuss partly how the Olympic movement can achieve its goals in a post-pandemic world (chapter 7) and partly whether “The Olympic Values Education Programme” is relevant for the world after the Covid-19 pandemic (chapter 8).

Each chapter represents important knowledge with both explicit and implicit learning potential. But I would have liked the editors to have helped me as a reader with this job.

”National Perspectives” is presented in section 3. Chapter 9 discusses how the start of sports development in the Philippines occurred by gathering teams, officials and the media in one place, transporting them to joint training and match arenas, playing in front of empty stands and undergoing regular testing. In other words, everything took place in a politically constructed ‘bubble’. Chapter 10 documents how the political recommendations and restrictions were received in the Swedish sports movement. This policy was mainly based on a relatively open society which presupposed trust. This finding is in relatively strong contrast to chapter 11, which tells of a rather fierce power struggle between organised amateur sports in The Gambia and the authorities about how recommendations and restrictions should be followed. According to the authors, this battle was won by organised sport, with the contagious consequences it had. In Denmark, Covid-19 led to relatively strong restrictions and subsequent significant changes in the Danes’ physical and sporting development and how the population organised work and leisure (chapter 12). The authors believe that there are important lessons to be learned at the individual and organisational levels in the extension of the pandemic, characterised by creativity, flexibility and self-organisation.

Section 4, “Youth and Fitness Sport”, has four chapters. Chapter 13 is about how the role of parents of athletes in youth sports changed during the pandemic. It went from being a physically present spectator to becoming a more virtual spectator where the parents could follow the young people’s sporting activity via streaming services or social media. Chapter 14 explains how the pandemic opened up alternative sports organisations in a town in Nova Scotia, emphasising versatility and motor development, rooted in an idea that sport could help build local communities. In Poland, authorities placed major restrictions on distance and touching in social settings (Chapter 15). These restrictions led to major changes in participation in gyms both during and after the pandemic. Fitness is a global phenomenon that occurs indoors, often organised by large, commercialised fitness chains. Chapter 16 presents results from an extensive survey of Les Mills training chain trainers. The chapter points out that these trainers experienced having to deal with local restrictions, state government regulations, global health organisations’ recommendations and the virus itself. These conditions resulted in a separation between face-to-face training and virtual instruction of the customers.

The fifth and last section, “Media and Technology”, comprises three chapters. Chapter 17 deals with how the print media commented on the British authorities’ closure and reopening of professional sports. According to the authors, the comments were initially exclusively positive, then became ambivalent, then negative and finally strongly critical of the authorities lack of support for professional sports, especially football. In Chapter 18, the authors reveal the media’s coverage of and fans’ reactions to how European football is resuming without an audience in the stands. In the last chapter 19, eSports’ repositioning and increasing profitability due to Covid-19 and the closure of Australian professional sports are described.

Although the book is comprehensive and essential in that it touches on many restart challenges the sports and fitness field had after the pandemic weakened, I have some critical objections to how the book is put together. When I first opened the book, I slightly regretted agreeing to review it. I was immediately struck by the fact that levels, themes and angles of attack spread in many directions. Some articles describe the start of sports and fitness at a local level, others at the national level, while some are about the global level. The articles also vary concerning the age, gender and ethnicity of the performers, participants and spectators. Each chapter applies different theories, concepts and methods. The chapters are also written, laid out and structured differently. Some chapters are empirical, while others reflect on experiences gained after the many restrictions were moderated or removed. The academic quality of the chapters also varies. All the articles touch more or less extensively on the restrictions both clubs and authorities had introduced to limit the spread of the virus and what happened when these were lifted. Only a few chapters reflect on which lessons one can take go further with. It is, therefore, difficult to grasp the message, the big picture, or the lessons learned in this anthology.

As a reader and reviewer, I initially tried to find some reading guidelines from the editors. The closest I came was the following wording in the “Introduction”: “We intend for the current volume to /…/ provide insight and analysis into the sport and fitness landscape following the initial of the pandemic.” (p. 3). I would have liked the editors to have told me what the goal of the book was beyond what the quote says; given me a rationale for why the book is essential; been explicit about the deliberations and reflections the editors made when they included some themes and excluded others; which questions the articles collectively aimed to answer; and what could be valuable lessons that could be used in the future, e.g., at the next pandemic. Alternatively, the editors could have written an afterword to summarise the findings in light of the questions just mentioned. Both approaches had motivated further reading and deepened interest in the various chapters.

Each reader must therefore find their way through this anthology and extract the knowledge and lessons learned that may be found in each chapter. Each chapter represents important knowledge with both explicit and implicit learning potential. But I would have liked the editors to have helped me as a reader with this job. Put another way: Anthologies are essential ‘tools’ for quickly getting an overview of research fields. But it requires that the editors do a professional and educational job, partly by being explicit about why the book has been put together in the way it has and partly by pointing out essential knowledge gained or lessons learned from the contributions. Not least, the editors should have discussed whether the knowledge and lessons the 19 chapters have produced are relevant to humanity’s biggest challenge, namely the climate and environmental threat. That threat, designated by the UN as “Code Red for Humanity”, is far more demanding and destructive for individuals, sports and society than Covid-19. To quote environmental activist David R. Brower: “There is no business on a dead planet!” In such a perspective, all experience and knowledge from studies of the impact of crises on individuals and society is essential. The reader is recommended to read the book in light of this perspective.

Copyright © Jan Ove Tangen 2023