That Was The Week That Was,
March 24–30, 2025

March 31, 2025

Dear all,

Last week was rather busy, with six original texts published on idrottsforum.org (see below; language and publication dates, YYMMDD, in brackets). Click on the red headings to go to content. Utilize the Google Translate service to turn Scandinavian language pages into (some sort of) English.

Have a great week,
Kjell Eriksson
Editor

Research Article

Mapping the determinants of stadium attendance in Norwegian women’s Toppserien soccer league

This study and peer review article by Lucas Adler & Alex Krumer is motivated by the scarcity of research on attendance demand in women’s soccer. They aimed to investigate the determinants that shape stadium attendance in Norwegian Toppserien women’s league. From relatively low numbers, attendance has increased significantly over the examined period. Toppserien fans appear to respond positively to the level of game quality and the team’s performance. The results also suggest that the fans of women’s and men’s Norwegian soccer teams have rather distinct consumer profiles, highlighting the need for tailored marketing strategies for women’s teams. (Published in English in Scandinavian Sport Studies Forum 250327.)

Feature Articles

When the Voice Reveals the Body: Embodiment and Barriers in Esports

In this article, Egil Trasti Rogstad summarizes his anthology chapter in Norwegian on women players’ experiences of embodiment in professional esports. Sundén’s concept of online embodiment is introduced to analyze how players’ bodies are assigned social significance despite the virtual nature of esports. This highlights both positive and negative aspects of how women players are portrayed in the media and emphasizes the need to understand how online embodiment affects inclusion and participation in the esports community. (Published in English 250324.)

Hunting the Cheaters – Wrong Focus!

The ski jumping scandal during the World Championships in Trondheim, which was widely covered in traditional and social media over the past weeks, focused primarily on hunting down scapegoats among athletes, coaches, support staff, and former leaders. This, however, is the wrong focus, according to Norwegian sociologist Jan Ove Tangen. He would like to see media instead scrutinizing the modern sport system, that demands performances and results that go beyond reasonable expectations of human capacity. (Published in English 250326.)

Symbolic or Substantive? A Critical Celebration of the New IOC President

Thomas Bach (R) invites Kirsty Coventry to deliver a speech after she was elected as the 10th president of the IOC.

After 131 years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has finally elected its first woman president: 41-year-old Kirsty Coventry, a five-time Olympic swimmer who represented Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2016. In what they call a “critical celebration,” Jörg Krieger, Jaime Schultz and Lindsay Parks Pieper trace earlier milestones in women’s Olympic leadership to historically contextualize Coventry’s appointment. While they show how far the movement has come, they also highlight how far there is still to go. (Published in English 250326.)

Book Reviews

Skateboarding and the Senses: Skills, Surfaces, and Spaces, by Sander Hölsgens & Brian Glenney

(Adobe Stock/Genererad with AI by Monktwins)

In Sander Hölsgens’ and Brian Glenney’s new book Skateboarding and the Senses: Skills, Surfaces, and Spaces a new perspective on skateboarding is presented, centred on the senses, skill acquisition, embodiment, and the concept of “city craft”. According to our reviewer Michael James Roberts, the book makes a crucial intervention in skateboard studies, and the definition of skateboarding as a craft is key to their intervention. This is a must read for interested in skateboard studies and the cultural politics of lifestyle sports more generally. (Review in English, published 250325.)

Sport and Crime: Towards a Critical Criminology of Sport, by Peter Millward, Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen & Jonathan Sly

In Sport and Crime: Towards a Critical Criminology of Sport, authors Peter Millward, Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen and Jonathan Sly explore the connections between sport studies and criminology with the aim of opening up critical new frontiers in the study of sport and crime. In his review, Aurélien Daudi foregrounds a mainly successful attempt to develop a criminology of sport derived from Critical Theory, however not unobjectionable; our reviewer points to terminological weaknesses in more than one instance, and he finds the critical element surprisingly opaque. (Review in English, published 250328.)

New Issues of Scholarly Journals

(We’re currently reviewing this service, since it’s a rather time-consuming undertaking. In the meanwhile we’re presenting some of the journals in line with the Forum’s core mission.)

Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, Volume 52, 2025, Issue 1 (250324)
The International Journal of the History of Sport, Volume 41, 2024, Issue 13 (250326)
International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, Vol. 8, 2025, Issue 1 | Youth Cultures, Leisure and Space: Practices and Representations Between Public and Private Places (250328)
Performance Enhancement & Health, Vol. 12, 2024, Issue 1 (250330)
The Sport Psychologist, Volume 39, 2025, Issue 1 (250330)

News items (calls for papers, vacancies, etc.)

Call for Papers | VIII Sport and Global Governance Conference | University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, May 29–30, 2025. Call ends May 10, 2025 (250325)
Call for Papers | “Horse Sense and Sensibility”, Equine History Collective Conference 2025 | Johnson & Wales University, Providence, Rhode Island, September 26–28, 2025. Call ends April 1*, 2025 (250326)
Call for Papers | “Feminist Sport Philosophy Greatest of all Time (GOATs)”, Special Issue of Sport, Ethics and Philosophy | Call ends May 11, 2025