The Operational Aesthetics of Sport’s ‘Mega Events’

• In Event: Global Sports Events as Platforms for Innovation

Abstract

There exists a systematic and aesthetic relationship between sports mega events and the introduction of new technologies. Sports mega events not only gain attention from a worldwide audience to whom the new appliances can be sold, they also present an object – the sports competition – that contributes to the multiplication of appropriate ways of watching and experiencing. Sport’s mega events thus offer particular ‘rationalities’ to transform and to improve the media we use to watch them. Focusing on examples from the Football World Cup 2006 and 2014, I show how different media technologies gain intelligibility and ‘urgency’ by their connection to sport’s spatial and temporal practices. Furthermore, I argue that on the one hand, sport’s ‘operational aesthetics’ show off the technical and visual capabilities and encourage a scrutinizing mode of viewing. On the other hand, they foster a comparison of different modes of viewing and thus equip different media with pertinence.

Author

• Markus Stauff, U of Amsterdam