ECSS Paris 2023: CP-SH07
With the rapid development of the global sports industry, the athlete's identity gradually changes from a mere participant to a bearer of commercial value, professional athletes face the dual challenges of capital discipline and self-empowerment. Since its establishment, the World Table Tennis Professional League (WTT) has made significant contributions to the commercialization of table tennis through a series of reforms and innovations. However, the developmental dilemma of professional athletes in the commercialization of sports has once again become a hotly debated issue as three table tennis world champions withdrew from the world rankings after the Paris Olympics and openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the WTT tournaments, which triggered strong concerns. Self-empowerment is not simply “individualism”, but the process of athletes fighting for the control of their career through strategic actions under the double pressure of commercial interests and athletic goals, which is essentially the process of fighting against the alienation of capital.Capital regulation is the process by which the power of capital regulates and restrains individuals through economic, institutional and cultural means. Based on this, this study takes the WTT event as an example to explore the situation of professional athletes in the game between self-empowerment and capital regulation and discipline, so as to help professional athletes safeguard their rights and interests and sustainable development in the commercialized environment. The study found that professional athletes face many dilemmas in WTT events. Firstly, there is the structural suppression of capital, the tournament organizers use “qualification” as a bargaining chip to require athletes to cooperate with commercial promotional activities. Secondly, there is a lack of discourse power among athletes. The capital and management of the tournament usually have a greater say, and athletes lack the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process, and are unable to grasp the right to participate on their own. Finally, there is the limitation of athletes' personal ability. Some professional athletes devote themselves to the training process resulting in the lack of commercial awareness and legal knowledge.In order to promote the sustainable development of professional athletes' subjectivity reconstruction, this paper proposes the following paths: firstly, athletes should strengthen their own capacity building and promote the compounding of their abilities. Second, promote multi-dimensional personal branding. Event organizers and sponsors should respect the autonomy of athletes and establish a fairer cooperation mechanism and transparent commercial benefit distribution mechanism. Finally, improve the system of protecting athletes' rights and interests. Athletes' associations should be established to fight for the rights and interests of professional athletes so as to form bargaining power.
Read CV ZHANG WenzheECSS Paris 2023: CP-SH07
One of the marketing communications strategies for promoting a brand is sport celebrities' endorsement. Although athlete's endorsement can realized collective aims of commercial corporations, using them is not away from risk. Among many, unethical actions of athlete endorsers (Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Michael Vick, Kobe Bryant, Lance Armstrong, and Ray Rice) have made serious problems by involving in vast range of unmoral acts and transgressions. Sponsors are always concerned of experiencing doping related consequences for their brands and products due to the consumers' believes and beliefs on the endorsed product which may be changed by those consequences. Anyway, the main purpose of the present dissertation was to explore and modeling the effect of doping phenomenon on sport marketing in Iran. The present research was implemented by the mixed methodology approach in the community of Iranian undergraduate student of physical education and sport sciences program. Qualitative data were analyzed by inductive reasoning approach to conceptualizing and theorizing, and quantitative data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the casual model of the detected variables. 297 open codes were achieved by analyzing data of 18 in-depth interviews. Grouping axial codes in each case and comparing them, all gained codes were divided in five groups of brand image, moral reasoning, consumer behavioral consequences, attitude change, and moral emotions. The results of SEM showed acceptable model fit indexes and meaningful relationships between variables. Results also revealed that reasoning strategy of moral rationalization has a moderating effect on the relationship between moral emotions and attitude change toward doped athlete.
Read CV Jasem ManouchehriECSS Paris 2023: CP-SH07
Introduction:Major sporting events are increasingly recognized as catalysts for social change, yet their potential to foster regional integration within multi-jurisdictional contexts remains under-explored. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA)—a unique amalgamation of two Special Administrative Regions and nine mainland Chinese cities—presents a distinctive laboratory for examining how mega-events can bridge socio-political divides. The 15th National Games, jointly hosted across these three jurisdictions in November 2025, provide an unprecedented opportunity. This study investigates whether and how this collaborative sporting platform contributes to social integration among GBA residents. Methods:This study employed a questionnaire survey method. The instrument comprised five demographic items and five core variables: perception of social attitudes, residents' social interaction, evaluation of the social environment, self-identity, and participation in public affairs. A total of 536 valid questionnaires were collected from GBA residents (336 males, 200 females). Youth (19–45 years) constituted the largest proportion (73.1%), and highly educated respondents (postgraduate degree or above) accounted for 38.1% of the sample. Income distribution was balanced. Results:Scores across all five social integration dimensions were relatively high. Residents of Guangzhou and Dongguan recorded the highest mean scores. However, Hong Kong and Macao residents reported lower scores than their Guangdong counterparts; within Guangdong, Shenzhen residents scored lower. Males held more positive attitudes than females across all dimensions, with the largest disparity in social interaction (Δ=0.31). While all age groups scored above 4.00, younger residents demonstrated more positive attitudes than older residents. Farmers and undergraduate students showed highly positive attitudes, whereas retirees and postgraduate-degree holders were more negative. Discussion:The 2025 National Games have emerged as a significant catalyst for GBA social integration, particularly strengthening self-identity as a foundation for regional collective identity. However, integrative effects vary markedly across groups, associated with geographical, demographic, and socio-economic attributes.
Read CV Liangjun ZhouECSS Paris 2023: CP-SH07