Sporting Dialects, Macdonaldization

Relationship linking the Olympic Games and the broader forces (economic, political, cultural, and technological) shaping contemporary society.

Globally the aspect of sports shapes defines, stabilizes social and the political identities to a large extent, they direct societal conflicts and mobilize the emotions of the majority. Millions of people around the world are highly captivated by the sports issues that appear in the television programs, movies, newspaper and Magazine articles' narratives that futures championship leagues, clubs' stories and the sports'legendery literature. Sports are mainly indoors or outdoors depending on the type of sports and environment. The entertainment industry is a globally integrated part of the sports evolution features. Hence, different stakeholders such as the government and corporate organizations support sporting activities as a social responsibility and seeking publicly for marketing purposes.

The intellectual inquiry has recognized the sports as a formidable subject due to its increased legitimacy and significance in the wider cultural landscape (Andrews, 2006). Sports activities are diverse and different cultures and practices have preferences of different sports while there are those which are international acceptable and popular.

The sporting activities plays a very crucial role in creating collective identities hence a sense of cosmopolitanism, the local fans want to identify with their specific home teams but the desire to watch and compare players of other teams drives them to accept foreign players thereby transforming into global and cosmopolitan fans with multi-cultural orientation. Countries also have their national teams of different sports who represent the country in different sporting activities whenever there are contest against countries. The most popularized sporting activity which has country representative is world cup which is a foot ball sporting activity.

For instance a total of 4.7 billion viewers were in the the 2008 Beijing Olympics which was a record breaking. This was like creating a global village in which the economic, political, cultural background and the technological forces at Beijing greatly determined the initial preparations, the actual events and the aftermath.

Global politics and culture are normally reshaped by sports, globally the pressures are exerted to the localized sports' cultures but due to the superiority of these cultures they offer strong resistance to any change.

The recognition of the largely unexploited commercial potential in the ownership of the enterprises that can greatly benefit efforts in the sports led to the development of high interests in the sports with commercial motives unlike in the initial times when sports were viewed to be having only social benefits (McCracken, 1988). This realization led to the development of enterprises by the individual investors that aimed at gaining profits, this also had the effects to the social, political and the economic forces that are closely interrelated.

MacDonaldilization and Disenchantment of leisure.

MacDonalization/Rationalisation refers to refers to the continued centralization of the rational calculation and insistence on efficiency in all aspects of life whereby everything must be done with efficience and effectiveness.In the contemprorary capital societies most organizations continually make use of what they call new means of consumption in order to maximize on their profits. This is evident in the following areas: Attractions have been created to implore one to spend a lot of money in a single sitting through implosion of the stadiums such as in the baseball games, Authenticity has been used to create enchantment through recycling of old forms in the modernized ballparks and the space/time manipulation through attempts to create senses of olden times.

Contemporary leisure refers to activities such as visiting recreational sites/Game parks, eating fast foods, taking adventure and risk undertaking. All this activities results in consuming goods and services under commercial provision for choice and freedom

The aspect of leisure is has been greatly affected by this means of consumption therefore affecting ways in which people spend their money and leisure time. The modes of leisure time expenditure include such modes like online shopping websites, credit cards, restaurants for first foods and shopping malls/channels.

Goods that have some specific uses of leisure have recently been the most targeted by manufacturers because of the realization that this goods have the marketing possibilities .These mainly include goods such as the children's' toys which have leisure values, choice and lots of freedom.

In the leisure associated with areas such as sports particularly baseball whose early role was to act as spectacular places and entertainment generally, it has now been highly developed, loyal fanatics were attracted by the earlier forms. However after rationalization these stadia were enlarged and designed for multiple uses, Fun ballparks were build due to the continued and increased commercial/industrial tensions (Ritzer & Stillman, 2001). These simulations to some of the classic parks with additional of features of consumption aspects, differentiation as per the regions, local identity and partly spectacular. The main target was to increase profit by charging high rates to the audience.

Landscape attractions, displays from electronic gadgets and music are some of the modern extravaganzas offered, the modern fusion between leisure and consumption in the ballparks include shopping facilities such as centres and malls, bars, museums, dinner gardens, amusement parks and video rooms/arcades (Ritzer, 1999).

In leisure aspects of the base ball there is complete selective rationalization to ensure seasoned profit generation, for instance calculations towards quantification in terms of sitting capacities have been omitted and replaced with the need for the quality to view (Butsch, 1990). High sophistication in term of offering of catering services, ticket computerization and crowd control are well accepted by the fans. In addition there is the use of the nonhuman technology where the electronic scoreboards are used in place of the manual scoreboards. Fans are also stimulated by the rock music and other sound effects instead of fan-led pep bands that were used in the olden stadiums.

Disenchantment arises in leisure whereby the original intention of the leisure activity or facility is replaced by other postmodernism modifications which makes it difficult to differentiate some leisure activities. In the case of the baseball it is no longer possible to differentiate between the baseball park and the baseball theme. The initial pleasure has been colonized by consumer oriented motives hence the effort to impress the consumer at his expenses brings disenchantment.

The forces in the society that includes; economic aspects, sports politics, cultural influences and the technological advancements can not be completely alienated from the sporting activities ,events such as the Olympics games have to be planned in consideration to this forces.

Although it has been highly argued that new ballparks are high consumerised with a lot of consumption oriented features, De-macDonaldization features have been simulated by introducing de-rationalized elements to comfort the spectators. There a fan who attends the baseball game is exposed to a variety of interesting activities that enables mobility in different social classes.