Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games

The Olympic Games have become the world’s greatest media and marketing event—a global celebration of exceptional athletics gildedwith corporate cash. Huge corporations vie for association with the "Olympic Image" in the hope of gaining a worldwide marketing audience of billions. In this provocative critical study of the contemporary Olympics, Jules Boykoff argues that the Games have become a massive planned economy designed to shield the rich from risk while providing them with a spectacle to treasure. Placing political economy at the centre of the analysis, and drawing on interdisciplinary research in sociology, politics, geography, history and economics, Boykoff develops an innovative theory of ‘celebration capitalism’, the manipulation of state actors as partners that drive us towards public-private partnerships in which the public pays and the private profits. He argues that the Athens Games in 2004 marked the full emergence of ‘celebration capitalism’, with London 2012 representing its quintessential expression, characterised by a state of exception, unfettered commercialism, repression of dissent, and the complicity of the mainstream media. Controversial, challenging and forthright, this book opens up a fascinating new avenue for understanding the contemporary Olympics in the context of global capitalist society. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the Olympic Games, the relationship between sport and society, or global politics and culture.

Chapter 1. Celebration Capitalism Chapter 2. A Brief History of Celebration Capitalism Chapter 3. Celebration Capitalism Clicks into Gear: The 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Games Chapter 4. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the London 2012 Summer Games Chapter 5. Challenging Celebration Capitalism

Jules Boykoff is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Pacific University, USA His writing on the Olympics has appeared in academic outlets like Contemporary Social Science and Human Geography, as well as publications like the Guardian, New Left Review, and the New York Times. He has written across academic disciplines for more than a decade, publishing peer-review articles in fields such as political science, sociology, geography, environmental studies, and history.