Sport and Globalization 2018

This Saturday we were privileged to both play and watch a match at the Twickenham Stoop.  Although we didn’t get to play on the actually pitch, we had a lovely clinic from two great coaches on a practice pitch nearby.  The two hour clinic could be divided into five main parts.  First, we warmed up by running about two different squares in two separate groups.  Intermittently, the coaches would call out a direction, and we would drop to the ground, squat, jump in the air, or even switch squares.  In addition, we passed several small balls around within our group.  After that, we scrimmaged against each other playing two touch rugby.  We slowly began to grasp the rules, macro-strategy, and dynamic of the game, and the coaches sought to accelerate that process by breaking us back off into groups. In those groups, we would play a three on one offensive scenario.

 This drill emphasized the importance of spacing, managing possession, and defensive commitment.  We then scrimmaged again, and the quality was much improved from before both in terms of flow and speed of play.  Finally, we got to teach the coaches a thing or two.  They asked to play American football with us, and we obliged.  Spirits remained high throughout the entire clinic despite the pitch being muddy, the weather being overcast, and the wind being swift and cold.  These coaches were perhaps the best we have had so far.  They allowed us to improve on our own, yet guided us towards that better state of play.  Not only that, but they were personable throughout, as demonstrated especially by their willingness to play American football with us.

The rugby game itself was fun and whimsical, and continued our theme of home, favored teams winning.  The Quins blew out the Scarlets 35-7 in a one-sided affair, bring their record to 3-0 in Premiership Rugby.  The Quins dominated defensively, barely allowing the Scarlets out of their third of the field, but also won out in terms of toughness and physicality by bruising their way for a try on more than one occasion.  Overall, this trip to Twickenham was both educational and fun, as we got the full rugby experience by both playing and watching at as high a level as we could manage.

Today we traveled to Nike’s UK Headquarters to learn about Nike’s role in UK sports. We met with Ralph Newbrook who plays a part in Nike’s relationship with the Premier League. We specifically works with the Tottenham Hotspurs and Manchester City.

He aims to get the most out of the rights Nike has earned through contracts with these football teams in order to promote the brand and eventually, generate more business.

He does this by regulating things such as player appearances, photo shoots, and kit reveals using celebrities. He showed us a video in which AJ Tracey,  a famous Grime artist (somewhat like rap music), performed at a concert and revealed the new Tottenham Hotspurs jersey halfway through to promote the team to all his fans. Another example was Paul Rodriguez, a skateboarder, who did a photoshoot in the new stadium to drum up interest. Ralph is in charge of deciding when, where, and how Nike uses these rights to create the most amount of business.

Ralph also described to us how Nike targets athletes and partners with them in order to help raise the athlete to the world stage and bring the Nike brand along with them.

He used Marcus Rashford, a professional footballer playing for Manchester United and the English National Team, as an example of an athlete who they signed at a young age and brought the Nike brand to the international stage. Ralph also showed us how successful Nike has been at locking down star athletes, specifically in the English Premier League. He presented us statistics on the number of overall goals scored weekly in the league by all footballers, and over 60% of them were Nike sponsored athletes.

At the end of the very polished and engaging session, he asked for questions. We discussed how scandals have affected the brand, how rights transfer after managers have been sacked, and the possibility of football growing in the United States among other things. At the end of the discussion, Ralph gave our students the task of giving him one idea of how Nike can help tap into the largely untapped US market for football (or what we call soccer).

On Monday, the 22nd, we took a trip to Southampton to get a rare insider’s look into Southampton Academy, one of the finest soccer academies in Europe.  Producing players, such as Gareth Bale, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, James Ward Prowse, etc. we were treated to a day learning about the Southampton Way thanks to our generous host Toby Redwood, Southampton Football Club Education Manager.

We boarded a coach bus as a team at 6:30am and departed very sleepily to first visit St. Mary’s stadium. Upon arrival at the stadium we were all excited to stretch out our legs and begin the tour. The stadium was similar to Arsenal’s in that it took pride of their team achievements but the Emirates stadium is newer and therefore more technologically advanced in terms of design. The seating was very typical of any other stadium except it only held 30,000 which is about half the seating of a typical stadium constructed in recent years.

Southampton’s stadium is much more intimate. The risers go right up to the edge of the pitch. The field’s grass is pristine but a bit torn up given the match Southampton just had against the Tottenham Spurs the day before (the match ended in a draw 1-1). We got to experience the views from the box seats. Oliver stated, “The box seating was cool because they didn’t just use their box seating for the football matches, but also rented them out for other business events too.” That showed how Southampton is doing their best to maximize the utility of their stadium. After, we made our way to the locker rooms for both the away and home team. It was eye opening to see the difference between the away team locker room and the home team’s. They put mirrors on the backside of the away team’s bathroom stall doors in attempt to intimidate their opponent by making it appear as though they are wearing Southampton’s kit. It was a funny prank to help get inside the heads of the opposing team. It all ended though when an angry arsenal player decided to tear it off. They haven’t replaced it since.

The tour took us through Southampton Academy’s headquarters where the recruiting takes place. We also saw the lounging area where the players relax, the training fields, classrooms where they keep up with their schoolwork, and even a room where they can stretch out their boots and steam them before practicing. The visit to Southampton Academy left this group of athletes dreaming up potential improvements to Carleton College athletic facilities.

On Friday, after class, the group took the tube to the Tower Bridge and Borough Market. The Tower Bridge is a beautiful bridge in downtown London. It is very close to the London Bridge. However, the London Bridge is much older and has more history. The Tower Bridge is a popular tourist spot to take photos and check out the view of London on the water. We took a couple group photos and enjoyed the view before hunger took over and headed out to get some food.

Then we walked down to the Borough Market and had lunch. Borough Market is a very popular spot for locals and tourists to grab a quick bite to eat. Once at the market, everyone sort of split off to check out the different stands and foods available. The different food stands seemed to cover cuisine from every corner of the Earth. There was everything from Indian cuisine, to vegan burgers, to fudge to fruit stands. Arguably the best part about Borough Market were the samples. Nearly every stand offers free samples for their products. After eating a sample from nearly every food and drink stand, Carleton purchased a variety of food nearly as diverse as our campus itself.

The atmosphere and food was great and everyone in the group agreed that a return trip to the market is completely necessary in the very near future.

On Thursday afternoon, we had the opportunity to visit Lord’s Cricket Grounds which is widely considered the home of Cricket. We began our visit with an hour long clinic, where we had two instructors teach us how to play Cricket. As none of us had any experience with Cricket, we certainly were not the best players to ever walk through their training grounds, but we all tried our best to learn Cricket with an immense amount of enthusiasm. We began the training session by learning how to bowl. The hardest part for everyone was keeping their elbow straight as they spun their arm in a windmill fashion in order to get the desired bowl. Since all of us had grown up either playing baseball or softball it was extremely difficult to convince our bodies that it was ok the keep your elbow straight and bounce the ball into your target. We finished the clinic by playing a live scrimmage. Our group was broken up into two teams, one in the field and one as the batsman. It took us a while to figure out how to hit the ball as it came in on a bounce, but soon both teams were scoring runs, and we even had a few members of our group achieve the six run hit, where they hit it past a line on the fly.

After our training session, we were able to have a tour throughout Lord’s Cricket Grounds. Having been built in 1814, the stadium revealed to us Cricket’s longevity as a sport. Baseball, often considered the classic American game, and even football are both nearly a century younger than Cricket.   We began our tour in the long room, which is where the 18,000 members of Lord’s are able to dine and watch the Cricket matches. Probably the most impressive aspect of long room was the sheer multitude of Cricket-centric paintings varying from the famous image of GC Grace to Charles Cundall’s view of Lord’s in 1938.  We then went up stairs and visited the two dressing rooms for the home and away teams. What was surprising to us was how modest they were. There wasn’t any fancy equipment or anything that you would see in a locker room for a Football club, Baseball clubhouse, or American Football locker room. In addition, both the home and away locker rooms were exactly the same, which our tour guide accredited to the fact that Cricket is the gentleman’s sport. They were simple and clean; white walls with past statistics of the finest performers in Lord’s two hundred year history adorned the walls. We concluded our tour at Lord’s in the large media center overlooking the Cricket grounds as the last bit of light disappeared from the sky. As a result of our visit to Lord’s, the group gained a level of respect and admiration for Cricket that certainly none of us had before the afternoon.

On Saturday we went to a Premiere League soccer match between the Tottenham Hotspurs and Everton. It was a high scoring match which finished in a 4-0 win for Tottenham. The match was played at Wembley stadium which is Tottenham’s home field this season, as they build a new £750 million stadium.

We got to the match by taking the tube which dropped us off just a few minutes’ walk from the entrance to the stadium. The street was packed as we walked into the stadium full of boisterous fans. Some of the group decided to go to a local pub to immerse themselves in the complete fan experience. At the pub, they witnessed loyal lifelong fans take part in pre-match traditions such as watching highlights from earlier games, and singing Tottenham songs. They saw people ranging from small children, maybe five or six years old, all the way to grandparents in their mid-80’s. It was clear that no matter the age, Tottenham soccer was a way of life for these fans.

Once in the stadium most of the crowd appeared to be cheering for the home team and the home team supporter section was extremely rowdy and they filled the stadium with loud chants. However, we were sitting in an upper corner of the stadium and the crowd was much calmer than we had expected. The group found it extremely interesting that even 20 minutes before the game the stadium was empty, which is unlike most sporting events in the US. However, in the five minutes before the game started the stadium immediately became packed.

Samantha Kile said “my favorite part was how excited everyone was, and I really liked the chants. I couldn’t always tell what they were saying but most of the crowd seemed to know the chants well. It made them seem very united.” Not only did we enjoy the atmosphere itself, but the soccer was even more impressive to see live than it is when watching on television.  Annika Martensson said that her favorite part of going was that she “really enjoyed getting to see so many goals!” What surprised so many of the people in our group was how little pageantry there was before the start of the game and the second half. Unlike US sporting events, once it was time to start, the referees blew the whistle and the game started. There were no huge announcements before the game except for the reading of the lineups, or half time activities like there are in the NBA or NFL, which caused a few of the people in the group who were getting snacks to miss an early goal in the second half.

The game started off with a goal by Everton that was called back because of an offsides penalty. As somewhat neutral supporters we could clearly feel the dramatic shift in emotion as the Everton fans had an early go-ahead goal taken away from them, and Tottenham quickly responded by scoring their own goal. From then on Tottenham was clearly the dominant team on the field. Each time Tottenham scored a goal, all of Wembley Stadium erupted in cheer and song as if it had been a game winning goal. After four goals, and an impressive victory the Tottenham fans continued their excitement as they left the stadium and filled the streets with Tottenham songs. The consensus throughout the entire group was that there could not have been any better way that we could have started off our trip. This was an amazing first Premier League game for many of us in the group.

Going in the London Lions game against the Cheshire Phoenix, we were skeptical about what the game was going to be like.  Being from the States, we were used to the NBA or college basketball, with the best athletes in the world competing in the top leagues in some of the craziest atmospheres.  However, we were not prepared for what the Copper Box had to offer.

Prior to the game we had the opportunity to meet a few players and participate in a basketball clinic on the court at the Copper Box. We were able to split up into two groups with each being coached by a different player of the London Lions. Each group began with some stretches and basic basketball warm ups such as layup lines, shooting drills, and dribbling courses. After, we did a few competitive shooting drills which led us up to the final event. Lastly, we had the opportunity to scrimmage. We played fullcourt 5 on 5 basketball like a real game, subs and all. It was an impressive showing of basketball skills by the Carleton College students.

Being able to play basketball at a former Olympic venue and on a current professional court was an experience of a lifetime. The Copper Box was a former olympic handball arena used in the 2012 Olympics that seats around 7000 fans. It was transformed shortly after the Olympics into the new home for the London Lions. Knowing all of this while playing a friendly basketball game made the experience unforgettable. We were able to play 5 on 5 with teams of 15 for about 20 minutes with subs every 2 to 5 minutes. This was a great segway into watching our coaches play against the Cheshire Phoenix on the same court that we were able to play on.

The whole production of this BBL game was completely different than a NBA game.  The NBA is focused on its ratings and sponsors over the basketball product because it is driven by money.  There are a lot of media time-outs for the team’s 30+ sponsors to get in all their advertisements in the course of 4, 12 minute quarters, making most games last around 2 hours and 45 minutes.  This means that there’s about 2 hours of nothing for 48 minutes of game action.

The BBL at the Copper Box was a completely different atmosphere that was focused on basketball.  They played music throughout the whole game along with an entertaining play-by-play commentator to keep the crowd very engaged with the action.  There were no media time-outs, which allowed the game, which consisted of four 10 minute quarters, to conclude in only 90 minutes.

As for the basketball itself, the game was just as competitive as any close game in the States.  The London Lions and Cheshire Phoenix were both teams in the top half of the table, and both teams were playing like they needed to win.  The London Lions had a lead for most of the game and it looked like they were going to close out the fourth quarter handily.  The Phoenix showed no quit and their offense exploded, allowing them to storm back to take a lead with a few minutes left.  Then both teams were trading big shots until the end of the game, with the London Lions hitting 2 huge shots in the final minute to edge out the Cheshire Phoenix by a final score of 86-81. As for the people at the game, we will let you decide how passionate the supporters were.

Today we visited the Physiology, Biomechanics, and Performance lab at Kingston University. Dr. Hannah Moir, Senior Lecturer in Health and Exercise Prescription, provided us with an overview of sport science and the education system in the United Kingdom. I interviewed Ruby Kazemi about the events of the day.

What did you do today?
Ruby: We were split into three groups and participated in three interactive lab activities: biomechanical, environmental physiology, and physiology.

What was your favorite activity?
Ruby: I liked learning about biomechanics and the evolution of technology in this field. It is amazing how much data and statistics are now used in sports. Jona and Samantha were suited up to measure their movement on a computer when kicking a soccer ball. Then we tried out the EMG machines. The EMG machines detect the electrical potential generated by our biceps when we lifted a weight.

What was surprising to you about your day?
Ruby: I was surprised how much of the equipment they let us try out. The equipment varied in price from 100 pounds to 50,000 pounds. In the environmental physiology section, we entered a hypoxic room that simulates high altitude. Then, we visited a room that exemplifies the impact of heat on exercise. Spencer was able to run on the treadmill for five minutes and his temperature was taken before and after running. We were told about athletes who use the room to prepare to run a 220km race in the Sahara desert.

Did you notice any differences between sport science in the UK and the US?
Ruby: The culture of collegiate athletics in the UK and the US is very different. While college athletics is an important element of college culture in the US, university athletics in the UK is more like a club. Sports science in the UK is fully focused on professional athletes.

Did you learn anything that will impact how you exercise?
Ruby: I learned that ice baths are not recommended to be used after every training session. Dr. Moir explained that ice baths should be used after games or high intensity training that will last for multiple days, for example preseason training. This is information that I will use and that will hopefully improve my athletic performance.