An examination of the central features of the sport-media phenomenon, focusing on Europe and the USA. The book analyses such issues as new media technology; gender, ethnicity and local dimensions of collective identity; women in American basketball advertising; and cult football radio in Scotland.

Sport and the media - the emergence of a major research field, Alina Bernstein and Neil Blain; the Olympic Games - 21st-century challenges as a global media event, Nancy K. Rivenburgh; what's in a name? Muhammad Ali and the politics of cultural identity, Amir Saeed; from pig's bladders to Ferraris - media discourses of masculinity and morality in obituaries of Stanley Matthews, Garry Whannel; new media sport, Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes; meeting the industry - an interview with Alex Gilady, Alina Bernstein; attribution of failure - a German soccer story, Hans-Joerg Stiehler and Mirko Marr; witches of our age - women ultras, Italian football and the media, Rinella Cere; we got next - images of women in television commercials during the inaugural WNBA season, Stanley T. Wearden and Pamela J. Creedon; fitba crazy? Saturday super scoreboard and the dialectics of political debate, Hugh O'Donnell; beyond media culture - sport as dispersed symbolic activity, Neil Blain.