Sport Nationalism in South Korea

Why Sport Nationalism?

Sport nationalism refers to complex social phenomena created by ties between a nation–state and its sports. It reflects and creates collective solidarity in the nation and, at the same time, presupposes and constructs transnational ties. The media usually cover national victories in any international game with great enthusiasm; no other social institution makes nationalism visible in such a dramatic way. Media coverage of major sporting events causes the visualization of invisible ties with the nation while enthusiastically inscribing the existence of “us” into a cultural collective memory; no other occasion unites the masses as the “same nation” so strikingly. In addition, as cultural identities based on tastes and faiths are becoming ever more diverse and decentralized, sport may be the only institution that can unite a nation.

Although journalism is fond of this topic, its academic investigation is still in a nebulous stage, particularly in Asia ¹ (Bairner, 2001; Smith & Porter, 2004; Tomlinson & Young, 2006). On one hand, there have been vast amounts of studies on nationalism; their major approaches can be categorized into two types: One is directed toward the “quiet” face of nationalism, and the other is directed toward the “hot” face of nationalism (Tosa, 2004). The former type of nationalism is based on the macro socio-cultural processes that took place along with modernity and industrialization. Media and educational systems that create a common language and homogenized culture validate such processes. Benedict Anderson (1983), for instance, stressed the importance of the birth of print media, and the invisible mass ceremony of the simultaneous consumption of the newspaper “performed in silent privacy, in the lair of the skull” (p. 35). People learn how to envisage a nation, or an “imagined community” through such esoteric mechanisms.

The hot face of nationalism can be illustrated by the view of Isaiah Berlin, who claims that nationalism originates from “wounds” of foreign rule, occupation, or some form of collective humiliation. It tends to be steered by inflamed emotions, which can cause it to develop into its irrational extremes. Nationalism in this sense exaggerates a self-sacrificing, identification with a nation, and a sense of collective belonging, which may result in “collective self-worship” (Berlin, 1979, 1992).

Both faces of nationalism complement each other and are essential to understand sport nationalism. However, broadly speaking, studies of nationalism have primarily been focused on discourse or the ideological dimension of life: Physical activities including sports and the emotive dimensions of life, or the importance of more obvious mass ceremonies, such as mega sport events, tend to be neglected. In response to this lack of research, we may expect an interdisciplinary new field to develop that investigates the relationships between sports, society, consciousness, and the body.

Sociological studies of sports, on the other hand, have focused on another dimension of this problematique. The symbolic features of modern sports presented by Allen Guttmann provide a clue; he outlined seven characteristics of modern sports that make them distinctive from their traditional counterparts—namely, secularism, equality of opportunity, specialization, rationalization, bureaucratic organization, quantification, and the quest for records. The record obsession is a main force that has created modern sports with other parameters. This combination has given a special status to modern sports while also depriving them of their transcendental meanings:

When qualitative distinctions fade and lose their force, we turn to quantitative ones. When we can no longer distinguish the sacred from the profane or even the good from the bad, we content ourselves with minute discriminations between the batting average of the .308 hitter and the .307 hitter . . . It is a uniquely modern form of immortality. (Guttmann, 2004, p. 55)

He does not particularly address the political use of sports, but he suggests that since nationalism is more strongly associated with sports in communist countries, modern sports will be free from political use as long as they develop in liberal capitalist countries (Guttmann, 2004, pp. 71-72). Although I admit his argument is mostly persuasive, his evolutionary scheme, suggested by his book title From Ritual to Record, does not fit the reality of East Asia very well. We can easily witness the coexistence of the non-utilitarian secular aspect of sports with their political and ritual use, rather than the linear development from the latter to the former.

As Guttmann (2004) summarized, sport can be understood as part of play. He defined both categories as “nonutilitarian physical or intellectual activit[ies] pursued for [their] own sake” (p. 3). He claimed that games, as a typical example of modern sports, can be situated as organized play. If we look at the common communicative features of play and sport, we can develop this analogy one step further. According to Gregory Bateson, play needs to include the meta-communicative message “this is play,” to distinguish itself from other categories of activities. This type of message necessarily generates a logical paradox because it can be decoded as follows: “These actions, in which we now engage, do not denote what would be de-noted by those actions which these actions denote.” Fight, in the context of play, is not fight, but simulated and framed fight proclaiming “this is not fight.” Therefore, the message, “this is play,” establishes a paradoxical frame that is comparable with Epimenides’ paradox (Bateson, 1977). Such a perspective—reminiscent of the famous phrase by George Orwell, “sport is war minus the shooting”—will promote a deeper understanding of sport nationalism.

Sport, or more precisely, modern competitive sport, can be understood as simulated war proclaiming “this is not war.” This type of paradoxical communication is congruent with nationalism, which, despite its recent invention, proclaims the eternal nature of national identity (Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1983). Martin Polley (2004) phrased the special kinship between sports and national identity as follows:

Briefly, the physical, competitive, supra-linguistic, and populist nature of most sports have made them perfect media for the expression of group identities. Sports are places in which groups can find peaceful physical fora for the beliefs they hold about themselves as entities, a feat that much sports historiography has linked to Benedict Anderson’s model of the “imagined community.” (p. 13)

If I paraphrase, sport as a modern invention includes paradoxical communications, which is good for representing the Janus faces of nationalism. This view needs more theoretical elaboration and empirical verification, so I need to limit my scope. In this exploratory article, I would like to focus on how the framework of sport nationalism delineates the major features of the social significance of sports in South Korea. This case study not only is an occasion for reflection that may lead toward a deeper understanding of the history of sports but also constitutes a more general context for thinking about the sport nationalism of the future.

The East Asian region, including Japan, China, and South Korea, is an appropriate locus for this quest. China gained top status in the world with its gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, but South Korea ranked higher per population. In the past decades, China and South Korea have been conspicuous in the Olympic Games and other international sports competitions because of long-term policies that have exploited sports to propagate national prestige. Japan tends to restrain the presence of the government in the development of sports, but it has shared similar experiences in the past (Sakaue, 1998). Japan’s imperial regime was successful enough to host the Olympic Games in 1940, but the initiative was aborted during the confusion of the Sino-Japanese War. Although the prewar regime was defeated, Japan’s predominance in Asian sports competitions continued up to the 1970s (see Figure 1). It should be noted that recently Japan, stimulated by the success of these other nations, has resumed its appreciation of the significance of sport policies as a part of national strategy and has decided to install a government Sports Agency in October 2015. The successful bid for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games will very likely accelerate this process. The connection between sports and nationalism has usually been regarded as an “uncivilized” or childish phenomenon, but the reality in East Asia requires a more sophisticated explanation (Mangan, Kim, Cruz, & Kang, 2013). The endeavor to understand such movements in a comparative way will provide clues toward realistic measures for peace keeping in a region where nationalistic enthusiasm escalates easily.

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Figure 1.

Count of gold medals in the Olympic Games.

As Victor D. Cha stresses, sport has been politicized in East Asia to a great extent: “Not only is sport political, but it is arguably more political in Asia than elsewhere in the world” (Cha, 2009, p. 23). The primary reason for this politicization of sport comes from the rarity of global sport events in Asia. The Olympic Games, for example, have only been hosted in Asia 3 times: Tokyo in 1964, Seoul in 1988, and Beijing in 2008. The lack of international sports events held in East Asia is not the only important factor that has promoted sport politicization:

The combination of unresolved and still raw historical enmities, rapid social change, and the importance of reputation and face causes sport to be more politically explosive in [East] Asia than elsewhere. Add to this the fact that sporting mega-events like the Olympics and World Cup come to Asia only about once every two decades, and there is a strong mixture of history, sport, and politics. (Cha, 2009, p. 27)

I will examine this “mixture” in the Korean context and epitomize the history and characteristics of sport nationalism in South Korea as a step toward a comparative study of sport nationalism in East Asian countries. Although sports can act as a political tool for both nationalistic missions and international communications, as Cha maintains, I would like to stress the domestic mechanism. I approach this subject from a miscellaneous ethnographic perspective and focus my attention on the media, the postcolonial history of the policies, and the ritual dimension of sport. ²

Media and Sport Nationalism

The media provoke enthusiasm to an extraordinary level whenever the athletes and teams of one’s own country are expected to beat their “enemies.” This tendency can be observed worldwide, but real comparative studies are scarce. ³ I present here a specific case study of South Korea that may be used for future comparative research. I will describe and analyze how four Korean major sports newspapers reported the games of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) held in March 2009. I have chosen this case because baseball, along with soccer, is one of the most popular sports in South Korea; because it is a sport in which South Korea is likely to rank at or near the top of the world’s countries; because this was the most recent dramatic occasion to exemplify the Korea–Japan rivalry in the global competitions; and because I happened to obtain and read the major Korean sports newspapers on that occasion.

The great performance of South Korea’s team in winning second place in the championship, along with playing five games against Japan on the international stage, incited extraordinary national enthusiasm. All kinds of expressions were manifest in the coverage of the final game, but broadly speaking, five kinds of rhetoric were particularly conspicuous.

History of Decolonization and Sport Policies

This section is a rough sketch of the Korean sport policies to envisage the web of historical totality. My description is based on the related materials (Cha, 2009; Chung, 2009; Ha & Mangan, 2002; Hong, 2011, 2012; Oh, 2009; Ok, 2007; Ōshima, 2008; Won & Hong, 2015), but the emphasis of the interpretation owes much to the specialists I interviewed (see Note 2).

It is well known that major competitive sports, such as football, baseball, tennis, volleyball, rugby, golf, swimming, and so forth, have been “invented” in modern times in terms of international competitions, and that they have spread globally through such imperial frameworks as that of Great Britain (Guttmann, 1996). In South Korea also, the history of sport is a history of colonization. The colonial government suppressed the development of sports for Korean people; however, sports have provided the country with a rare chance to challenge their aggressors on an equal footing. In particular, football and baseball games against Japan enabled Koreans to express their national pride and glory. Korea–Japan competitions often provided a chance even for “real brawls” during the colonial period (1910-1945). Thus, the perception of Japan as “arch-enemy” was created in the colonial memory, and re-created through sport nationalism in postcolonial South Korea (Oh, 2009).

For a long time, even after decolonization, sports remained an extraordinary alien institution, considered an exotic practice by the Confucian tradition, which respected intellectualism and disdained physical labor. School sports were introduced during the colonial period to implant modern physical discipline along with a strong triumphalism endorsed by militarism. Sport as physical education was a political tool to organize society. However, sport had the symbolic function of defeating one’s aggressors by mimicking them; this image of sport as war was internalized by the colonized people. As sports were established in society, they promoted ideas of fair competition and egalitarian relationships, and encouraged the social participation of women. The more dominant tendency, though, was the overheating of a heteronomous competitive spirit created by external power, rather than spontaneous modernization or civilization.

The postcolonial authoritarian government of South Korea solidified this triumphalist image and the political role of sports. During the Syngman Rhee presidency (1948-1960), the government was very negative about promoting sports because of the prevailing intellectualism. However, a militaristic and triumphalist sports culture survived persistently as part of the colonial legacy. In particular, victory against Japan in international competitions became a source of national pride. When President Rhee dispatched the national soccer team to Japan in 1953 for the first time after decolonization, he “encouraged” them by saying, “If you lose, throw yourselves into the border sea” (Chung, 2009, p. 67; Ōshima, 2008, p. 35). This famous anecdote speaks eloquently to the idea that sport was just a political tool at that time. A handful of elite athletes strove for the destiny of a nation, but the great majority had no experience in sports and were thus merely in a position to fret over the ups and downs of the national teams.

During the presidency of Park Chung-hee (1961-1979), the same pattern was repeated. But he made a decisive contribution to the development of sport, particularly elite sport, as “the ‘father of modern sport’ in ‘modern’ Korea” (Ha & Mangan, 2002, p. 220). As a military officer who disdained the scholastic tradition, President Park positively recognized the fighting spirit and the function of the social integration of sports. Major laws promoting physical education and sport were promulgated in the 1960s. The government tried to use sports to enhance its national prestige with the slogan “Physical Fitness Is National Power.” Inspired by the success of the Tokyo Olympic Games (1964), it built the National Training Center, installed a pension system for retired athletes, and arranged related institutions to initiate the policy of elite athlete training. The intimate collaboration between the state and the Chaebol (Korean business conglomerates) led to the rapid development of elite sports (Hong, 2011, 2012). The brutality of boxing matches attracted the masses as the epitome of society (Chung, 2009, p. 137). The idea that sport is war spread to the whole society, along with the harsh confrontation against North Korea. The government support of sports and sports education developed in this period along with the economic growth. Nonetheless, the gap was not bridged between the elite who played sports and the masses who watched them.

The presidency of Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1988) raised the status of sport as a tool to enhance national prestige with the slogan “the Establishment of a Sports Nation.” The 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, hosted during the presidency of Roh Tae-woo (1988-1993), were the climax of the sport policies under the military regime. The successful operation of the Games and the scenes in which Korean athletes played a splendid part conveyed an impression of absolute supremacy over North Korea. The number of medals won, which surpassed Japan’s, also gave a strong impression of the success of sport nationalism to the whole nation. However, professional sports were absent in Korea except for boxing (1962) and golf (1968). In this period, baseball (1982), soccer (1983), and ssirŭm (traditional wrestling, 1986) were professionalized. As they had been politically created, domestic games continued to be unpopular for a long time compared with international competitions, particularly those between Korea and Japan. The trend of popularizing sports, however, accelerated in this period.

The developmental dictatorship, or an amalgam of despotism and Chaebol, greatly contributed to the establishment of elite sports, then professional sports, and finally non-elite “popular sports.” “In modern Korea elite sport did not develop out of popular sport; popular sport developed out of elite sport” (Ha & Mangan, 2002, p. 238). Since then, sports have been popularized along with the economic growth and process of democratization that started in the late 1980s.

However, the success of the Seoul Olympic Games continued to decide the trajectory of national policies, and the level of people’s expectancy remained the same. A yearning for the euphoria of militaristic triumphalism and national unity did not seem to calm down even after democratization. For example, when South Korea advanced to the semifinals in the 2002 World Cup, President Kim Dae-jung, an icon of democratization, could not suppress his excitement when he said, “[This] was Korea’s happiest day since Dangun—the god-king who, according to legend, founded the Korean nation” (Asia Times Online. June 25, 2002). The vast majority of people also felt strong national self-esteem at this moment. Intellectuals emphasized that this experience had swept away the “defeatism” felt toward Japan and other developed countries.

The development of elite sport was compensated with the underdevelopment of popular sport, which was almost equated with physical education up to the 1980s as a legacy of military training (Chung, 2009, p. 218; Ha & Mangan, 2002, p. 215). Hiking and soccer were some of the rare leisure-time sport activities during that period. But the 1990s witnessed diversification of popular sports including golf and skiing. Along with this new trend, the relationship between the government and Chaebol has also changed. “From the 1990s, Chaebol’s involvement in sport was less the result of deference to government and more a pragmatic business decision concerned to raise their company profile” (Hong, 2012, p. 27). But this does not mean the dissolution of the amalgam. The success of Korean athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, for instance, still owed a great deal to the contribution of the Chaebol. “Approximately 80% of the total medals won by Korean athletes came in those sports sponsored by the top 10 Chaebol” (Won & Hong, 2015, p. 145).

Throughout the historical process mentioned above, the features of Korean sport policies can be summarized as elitist, perpetuated through a “selection and concentration” strategy. According to the specialists from the Korea Institute of Sport Science, an advisory organization to the government sport policies, the top-down integrated state policies have established an institution and organization that specialize in training elite athletes. I will describe the key features of the strategy, focusing on three dimensions: (a) state organization, (b) local organization, and (c) the National Training Center. The following description depends mainly on my interviews conducted in August 2011 (see Note 2).

The National Training Center

The Center was established in 1966 under the strong leadership of the government in a suburb of Seoul, T’aenŭng. Within the vast premises, there is a full set of equipment, including gyms specialized for events, swimming pools, skating rinks, tracks, dormitories, medical equipment, cafeterias, and convention rooms. About 1,400 athletes are registered for 44 events, though the Center has a capacity for only 480 people at one time. It is a place where one can concentrate on scientific training without worrying about livelihood. One can find not only sports-related equipment but also a karaoke room and religious facilities. Besides this Center, there is the T’aebaek Training Center for highlands training established in 1997, and one more training center has been under construction since 2008.

According to a booklet for the Center (Sŏnsuch’on annaesŏ), its major function is to be “the realization of national expectations and a contribution to state development along with the enhancement of national prestige through sport.” Athletes acquire training for 220 to 240 days per year, except for weekends and holidays. The major target is to build up physical strength and perform basic training. Student athletes go to school in the morning and train in the afternoon. Those living in Seoul go to their own schools; those coming from the provinces go to nearby schools, based on an agreement. Because this method of training athletes does not provide a sufficient education, it has invited criticism from society. Thus, in actuality, few teenage athletes now live in the Center, except for the duration of limited events like gymnastics and swimming. In addition, a department for dealing with post-retirement careers has recently been formed.

Once athletes enter the Center, all necessaries are supplied, including a balanced diet, training equipment, coaching, medical services, and even an allowance. Athletes of all events gather to concentrate on their training here where competitiveness and a sense of unity are naturally created. Some top athletes do not enter the Center because of personal reasons, but the great majority hopes to join. Those events that have professional leagues, however, like baseball and soccer, let players train independently. The coalition of three spheres, school sports, vocational sports, and professional sports, forms the pyramid of elite athletes (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Pyramid of elite athletes.

The Center’s cooperation with the Korea Institute of Sport Science, which is situated nearby, also plays an important role. Because coaches and managers require first-class qualification as athletic trainers, they have to participate in a training program at the Institute. As a result, researchers and coaches acquire a master–pupil relationship. When the two organizations worked horizontally, the suggestions of the Institute met with resistance. This relationship was changed 10 years ago, and since then, their relationship has become closer, and the backing from the Institute’s analyses of athletic strength, as well as the reinforcement based on psychological judgments, is said to have developed hand in hand. These merits of the Korean system are also absent in Japan.

The Ritual Dimension and Sport Nationalism

Sport nationalism in South Korea has developed along with the politicized triumphalism embodied by anti-communism and anti-Japanism. On one hand, it has been implemented by top-down institutions and organizations with a focused strategy of close collaboration at the state and local levels. The great performance of top athletes in international games, which is rewarded by exemption from military service for medalists; the pension system; and the quota system for university entrance, has contributed a great deal to national integration. On the other hand, a bottom-up manifestation of national sentiment, represented by the “street cheering” phenomenon, also characterizes the Korean sport nationalism. Thus, the custom has been rooted in South Korea that people exaggerate the socio-political meanings of the outcomes of international sport competitions. In particular, well-known Korea–Japan competitions show a remarkable surge of excitement unthinkable in domestic league matches even today. On each occasion, the media repeat the fuss: Hyperbolic expressions that move rapidly between praise and despair dance dizzily on TV or in print. However, more reflective remarks on such phenomena are no longer exceptional. In particular, intellectuals, including sport sociologists, tend to regard negatively the enthusiasm of their own country. For example, Heejoon Chung (2010) of Dong-a University denounces Korean sports for being degraded by a conspiratorial system with the development of dictatorship during the process of decolonization:

The historical factors that ignite Korean nationalism through sport can be illustrated with a preoccupation with power, obsession with collectivism, an internalized complex about the West, and additionally, anxiety and fear that have been inherited in Korean society . . . In the reality of Korean society where a community to belong to is difficult to find for atomized people, it is only sports that they can enjoy, go mad over, and praise “together.” (p. 14)

The tone of remarks has been recently trending toward the critical in the media, too. For example, Weekly Korea (March 30, 2009) covered the frenzy of the aforementioned WBC, publishing critical and analytical articles, one of which was titled “Sport, which ignites patriotism.” According to this article, in South Korea, “the reason sport has become so serious, like a thermometer of national sentiment, might be owing to the media that relay the game, not to the game itself.” Expressions of casters and commentators become a “stimulant” for letting the audience participate emotionally in the game, amplifying the nationalist reaction. Perhaps it is this media event, created in combination with both sides, that is the substance of sport nationalism. The source of such collective sentiments is the memory of humiliation in the colonial period and the ideology implanted by the developmental dictatorship. Thus, sport is not simply “a sport,” inasmuch as the historical circumstances are respected.

When Korean athletes perform well and gain good results like gold medals in international sport competitions, Korean people tend to regard them as compensation for the historical sorrow, and as an omen of the country’s fortune . . . Sport is not a simple amusement for Korean people. It is a solemn ritual that affects the destiny of the state and the future of the nation.

However, although each athlete accumulates the maximum training for a moment of glory, once the nationalistic drama is over, he or she is promptly buried in oblivion. One criticism has been raised that a top athlete, trained in a specific way for a specific competitive talent, is nothing but an “athletic machine.” Thus, it is doubtful how much longer such a system with little respect for human rights can be sustained. Korean sport nationalism is in transition along with its social maturation.

In sum, the confrontation lies between two different views of sport: viewing it as sport per se or viewing it as part of the “big story” of the nation or state. Such a “leap” in human communication, however, may not only combine sport with nationalism but also prepare for a new trajectory beyond. It is possible that the landscape of the huge crowd that interrupts the traffic and dominates the center of the capital city is much closer to a festival and thus beyond political connotations. The same article contains the following passage:

Sport is sikkim kut that can dispel the resentment of the national oppression, and pyŏlsin kut that can remind us of the economic prosperity of the state.

Kut means a traditional shamanistic ritual. Sikkim kut is performed to appease the resentment of the dead, pyŏlsin kut to pray for prosperity. This remark deserves close examination as a statement of truth, rather than as a mere trope.

Korean shamanism has been marginalized by the government and intellectual elites for hundreds of years. It was banned during the Chosŏn period, despised as superstition by the colonial power and the postcolonial regime. However, shamanism has been regarded as a symbol of Korean identity. The developmental autocrat regime tried to preserve the shamanistic performances as the Intangible Cultural Properties and use this tradition to integrate people. The anti-governmental intellectuals, though they protested such political use of traditional culture by the government, shared a similar view. They applauded shamanism as a symbol of Korean people that supposedly represented pure indigenous tradition. Jinseok Seo (2013) epitomized the connections between shamanism and Korean nationalism as follows:

Korean shamanism has become an essential part in the social construction of the Korean nation. The interaction of esoteric and exoteric images created by Korean shamanism generated a sense of belonging, which developed into nationalism and ultimately serves as a means to safeguard the national culture. (p. 76)

Shamanism in Korea is actually a marginal and syncretic cult that has developed with absorbing various foreign elements from Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. It is quite doubtful if it represents pure Korean identity. But beyond such politicization, it is true that Korean shamanism has attracted the faith of many people despite stigmatization, and here, we find a good clue to understand people’s mind that bridges shamanism and Sport Nationalism in Korea. Three semantic features are shared in both spheres: (a) positive fatalism to overcome suffering, (b) union of man and the divine, (c) performative framework to seek psychosomatic ecstasy.

If the features of Korean culture are reduced to shamanism, it would be nothing but an orientalist cliché. Apprehending the “tone” of this statement in a balanced way, however, leads to an essential part of cultural understanding.

Laurel Kendall, an American anthropologist who has worked on Korean shamanism for many years, gives a thick description based on field research in her recent book, Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF, noting that shamanism still plays a vital role despite the globalization represented by the financial crisis. For example, according to the story of a shaman that appears in the prologue of the book, the number of shamans has been increasing. Why? Many mountains were burned during the Korea War and leveled by the building of roads and apartments, so the mountain gods have no place to stay. Thus, the mountains have lost spiritual power, and the mountain gods descend more easily to man to find a place to stay. The destruction of mountains, then, leads not to the perishing of gods, but to an even easier access to man; therefore, many gods are descending to whoever will provide an easy medium (Kendall, 2009, pp. xvii-xix). This is indeed a unique story for interpreting the social change. In actuality, it used to be difficult to find a shaman, whereas now they are ubiquitous. Shamanism in Korean society has become rampant along with the process of popularization.

Likewise, economic globalization has increased the demand for shamanism, rather than decreasing it. At the time of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis in 1997, many people, including restructured businessmen and the bankrupt self-employed, visited shamans to receive oracles. Kendall (2009) claimed that the Korean case contradicts the Weberian thesis that the development of capitalism works toward a rational outlook and the decline of magic. It is arguable to what degree such an interpretation can be validated, but it is undeniable that this trend characterizes at least an aspect of Korean society. It is not merely in Korea that people are willing to create a state of spiritual ecstasy through collective festivity to control the fortunes of society and the cosmos. Man does not live by economic rationality alone; sometimes people hope to be liberated from ordinary limitations through irrational consumption and ecstasy. Their degree and tone, however, show individual and collective variations. In Japan, for example, no form of enthusiasm reaches the level of Korean street cheering today. Such differences should be considered, but at the same time, the phenomenon itself should not be overlooked.

In other words, crowds that fret over the performance of their side in sports are losing themselves in ecstasy in an extraordinary framework; they are not necessarily sending specific political messages, nor are they obsessed with nationalistic lunacy. Thus, the relationship between celebrated enthusiasm and sport nationalism is not an exclusive choice, but an inter-reinforcing complementary one. In that sense, the following passages by Roberto DaMatta (2009), which seek to explicate the relationship between football and festivity in Brazilian society, are very suggestive:

In these moments of “civic Carnaval,” engendered by futebol the sacred national symbols (which are surrounded by complex rules for their use in Brazil) cease to be the property of the dominant classes, above all the “government” and the “authorities,” and spread among the anonymous masses, who celebrate them in frank and uninhibited intimacy. (p. 113)

In highly hierarchical environments, such as Brazilian society, the space created by football (and other recreational activities such as Carnaval and popular religion) open a possibility for free and individualised experience where the individual may reveal how he or she is, with strengths and weaknesses, but without any risk to his or her network of social relations. (p. 116)

We have not solved the riddle concerning how the characteristics of Korean society relate to the collective enthusiasm created by a sporting event. One is allowed to ask questions, at least. What is shown on the big screen that essentially turns it into an altar of sports events? Is it a god whose name is a nation? Or is it rather an extraordinary excitement, pleasure, and amity? In Korean society, where globalization has created an air of hostility, is it nothing but an illusion? Or, is it the very glory, however small it may be, that can be achieved at the end of ordinary hardships?

Concluding Remarks

Business is an important factor when one considers the significance of sports in modern society. The process by which sport becomes an international business dominated by huge capital goes hand in hand with how it becomes a global celebration and ignites nationalism. According to Weekly Toyo Keizai (May 15, 2010), the world sport business now boasts a market scale of US$100 billion. Top athletes move around the world with a huge amount of contract money. The major sporting events are broadcast all over the world, including the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League, the Super Bowl, the Wimbledon Championships, the Masters Tournament, and so on, and are competed in by all races and nations, though some bias remains. Such global events are performed frequently, in addition to special events, such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup, that are held every 4 years.

Thus, even if the tendency toward having a special interest in the athletes of one’s own side remains, the consciousness of fans will transcend national boundaries. Global business has been transforming the dynamic of sport nationalism. Michael Silk, Andrews, and Cole (2005) termed such intermingled processes “corporate nationalisms,” and claim that “the locus of control in influencing the manner in which the nation and national identity are represented becomes exteriorized through, and internalized within, the promotional strategies of transnational corporations” (p. 7). In such a contemporary environment, how will the Korean sport nationalism “grow?” I am not yet able to give any definite answer, but I believe a basic framework exists for further investigation of sport nationalism from a comparative perspective, as follows.

On one hand, there is the instrumental viewpoint that estimates the significance of sport by social utility and use. The Korean sport nationalism that has used sports as a political tool can be understood from this viewpoint, as well as the recent trend that regards sport as a tool of business or moneymaking. According to this perspective, sport remains a means or a tool for different objectives, but it begins to require a different viewpoint as its significance and social attractiveness grow.

On the other hand, there is the essentialist viewpoint that estimates the significance of sport by its attraction per se. A sport critique free from triumphalism is developing in the Korean media. This trend requires further investigation of the significance and attractiveness of sport per se, in collaboration with related fields. For this viewpoint, I pointed out the connection sport has with play and ritual, but I wish to conclude my article with mentioning its affinity with art.

A German philosopher, Wolfgang Welsch, once claimed that sport could be viewed as a sort of art. To appreciate his proposition, one needs to understand, on one hand, that the concept of art has spread to the whole of life, and on the other hand, that people have begun to enjoy sport as an improvizational performance beyond triumphalism. Welsch claims that viewing sport from such a perspective meets with resistance because extremely persistent stereotypes remain in society and among scholars.

The pleasure in sport is considered to be lowbrow or mass pleasure—one not worthy of positive consideration by aesthetics. But by neglecting the artlike character of sport, we also fail to understand why it is so fascinating to a large public. (Welsch, 2005, p. 147)

Space does not permit me to develop his proposition anymore, but I think it provides an important viewpoint for thinking about the future of sport. In South Korea and elsewhere, sport has been incorporated into politics and business, but its significance as festivity or art can no longer be ignored. Thus, whether sport nationalism is in decline or not needs further consideration and argument. Sandvoss (2003) examined the reality of today’s football fandom and concluded as follows:

Through its global distribution and redistribution patterns, professional football has become increasingly independent of nation states. At the same time, the nation state appears to be a decreasingly significant focal point in the identity construction of fans, bypassed in the accelerating dynamic between local and global. (p. 175)

Such an interpretation is applicable to not only football but also to sports in general—even in South Korea. A similar development from ritual to pure sport, as suggested by Guttmann, can be observed in South Korea; however, its future is still traveling along an unpredictable trajectory. We should note that the relationship between nationalism and other dimensions of sport is not exclusive; it is, at least in East Asia, complementary. In this context, it is essential to keep in mind that the historical collaboration between the Korean government and the Chaebol (Korean business conglomerates) is vital to breed sport nationalism. The government has supported them strategically to accelerate the economic growth, and at the same time, exploited them for national missions such as financially sustaining the elite sport system (Hong, 2011). But their relationships are becoming more and more complex.

Kim Yuna serves as a good example to demonstrate this point: She is not only a figure-skating star but also a multifaceted symbol for Korean people where she is perceived, in various circumstances, as a national heroine, sporting celebrity, commercial queen, and global citizen. Eunha Koh (2013) analyzed this case and claimed the following:

We should pay attention to the fact that the nationalistic ideology surrounding Kim Yuna, apart from pure nationalism embodied by past Korean sports heroes or from total commercialism embodied by today’s many Western sporting celebrities, has been influenced by corporate nationalism that operates by the complex collaboration between corporate interests and long-standing ethnic nationalism.

Seeing the historical totality of Korean sport nationalism, we can conclude that the significance of sport oscillates between various axes or domains including ritual, art, play, business, politics, and even war. Sport per se is a sort of zero sign, or a timeless vacuum, that punctuates the movement between those categories. Sport cannot remain a pure zero sign without such outside dynamics, and besides, it includes contradictions in itself: it is an embodiment of both rationalization and irrational impulses. It is therefore fit to represent the Janus faces of nationalism. East Asia, including South Korea, has been obsessed with this dynamic of sport—it functions as a war simulation to overcome their enemies, namely, Japan and the West. That said, it is also a passage to more contradictory results: The more they fight to win and experience xenophobic enthusiasm, the more they get involved with their “enemies” to approach some universal venue based on common rules and the spirit of fairness. This is part of the supposed process of civilization that occurred with the birth of modern sports in England during the 18th and 19th centuries (Elias & Dunning, 1986). We may witness a similar global process on a massive scale, particularly in East Asia. Sports competitions provide not only an occasion of simulated war but also serve as a method for war prevention. If the fighting (during sport) leads to peaceful competition and mutual respect while symbolically fulfilling aggressive impulses, sport will continue to develop with multiple meanings in this region.