Abstract
This article employs media framing theory to examine the debate over public funding to support elite athlete development. More specifically, it examines the discourse in Canadian newspaper coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games surrounding funding for elite athletes. The article first provides an overview of government funding support for elite athletes in Canada and then reviews relevant literature on media framing theory. Methods are discussed, followed by a summary of the frames found in the data analysis process, which examines frames across two distinct time periods—a period leading up to the Games where many stakeholders worried about the ability of Canadian athletes to perform for the host country and the period during and following the Games (where Canadian athletes achieved unprecedented success in winning medals). Several frames emerged from the media coverage regarding the issue of federal government funds for elite athletes over the periods before and during/after the 2010 Olympic Games. Through examining the frequencies of particular frames, we find that three frames—medal performance and national pride, diversified funding approaches, and sport participation and health benefits—were present in both pre-Olympics and during/post-Olympics periods examined, but the salience of the three frames varied between the time periods.
There has been a growing tendency for governments in some countries to increase spending on high performance athletes, particularly those who have hosted or plan to host major sporting events. For example, the United Kingdom has dedicated considerable public funds to support Olympic athletes: £235M leading up to the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics (U.K. Sport, n.d.), £347M for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has committed £345.3M for the 4 years leading up to the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 (U.K. Sport, 2015). Likewise, the Australian government spent AU$336M on elite sport programs for the 4-year cycle before the 2012 London Olympic Games; this number increased to AU$377M leading up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Australian Sports Commission, 2016). While these countries have experienced varying degrees of competitive success, questions arise as to the efficacy of governments supporting elite athletes and the issues involved with financing elite athletes with public money.
For this reason, government aid for elite athletes has remained a contentious issue. Proponents have often linked elite funding with enhancing medal performance in competitions, which has received some independent empirical support. Hogan and Norton (2000) examined Australia’s funding of elite sport programs and found a strong linear correlation between money spent and Olympic medal success. Arguments have also been made that elite athletes positively influence national pride and identity. For example, Van Hilvoorde, Elling, and Stokvis (2010) suggested that the Olympic Games provide a significant opportunity for the public to experience national pride where medal success develops into a unifying national narrative. Grix and Carmichael (2012) further critically examined the drivers behind why countries prioritize elite sport funding. They identified a “virtuous cycle” that captures the complex and ambiguous relationship between elite sport and mass participation. Elite sport success is assumed to promote national image, positively influence national identity, and inspire grassroots sport participation; this leads to a healthy nation and a wider sport population from which to recruit future elite athletes. In turn, this leads to increased elite sport success (p. 86). However, the degree to which elite sport success influences the ongoing well-being of the general public is questionable. As Bloom, Gagnon, and Hughes (2006, p. ii) pointed out in a report drafted for Sport Canada, “there is little evidence to support the anecdotal claims that high performance sport leads to social benefits such as building national pride, enhancing cultural awareness and encouraging healthy behaviours.”
When Canada was awarded the rights to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, it held the dubious distinction of being the only country to host an Olympic Games (1976 in Montreal and 1988 in Calgary) without winning a gold medal. Thus, there was some pressure to ensure that Canada would have competitive athletes and teams in 2010. As a result, the federal government invested CA$66M 1 throughout 5 years in the “Own the Podium” (OTP) program—a national initiative established in 2005, dedicated to placing Canada first in the total medal count at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games (Canadian Heritage, 2009). Following a successful Games, which saw Canada set a record for the most gold medals of any Winter Games host country, the federal budget in 2010 earmarked CA$44M for Canada’s elite athletes, including CA$10M over 2 years to renew funding for the identification and development of elite athletes and CA$34M over 2 years to help finance training programs for athletes planning to compete in the next Summer and Winter Olympics (Department of Finance Canada, 2010). Most recently, the federal government has further extended its financial support in elite sport by adding CA$5M annually for “NextGen” athletes who are 5–8 years away from their Olympics and Paralympics medal potential. The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) will match the funding through the private sector (“Canada announces additional $5M,” 2017). These examples illustrate the Canadian federal government’s ongoing commitment to the pursuit of Olympic success through the strengthening of funding support for elite athletes. However, at the time of the 2010 Games, there was less certainty about the efficacy of funding elite athletes in order to improve Canada’s medal chances.
Media coverage provides a critical platform to examine how the funding of elite athletes is framed, as coverage can make some issues salient in such a way as to declare the underlying causes and possible consequences of a problem, while establishing criteria for evaluating the potential treatment of the problem (Entman, 1993; Nelson, Clawson, & Oxley, 1997). As such, the media have framed debates over issues through the organization and presentation of facts and opinions, and the construction of specific discussions for social or political issues (Nelson et al., 1997). This article employs media framing theory to conduct a case study of the debate over public funding to support elite athlete development. More specifically, it examines the discourse in Canadian newspaper coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games surrounding funding for elite athletes, as many Canadians anticipated the Games and then discussed funding in terms of the success during the Games. In doing so, the debate over public funding for elite athletes and the underlying issues involved can be better understood. The article first provides an overview of government funding support for elite athletes in Canada, followed by a review of relevant literature on media framing theory. Methods are discussed, followed by a summary of the frames found in the data analysis process, which examines frames across two distinct time periods—a period leading up to the Games where many stakeholders worried about the ability of Canadian athletes to perform for the host country and the period during and following the Games (where Canadian athletes achieved unprecedented success in winning medals). In doing so, the following question is explored: How was the debate over funding elite Canadian athletes in 2010 framed and how did this change over time?
Canada, Canadians, and Nationalism
The development of elite sport and federal support for elite athletes in Canada has occurred as issues of nation and nationalism have been contested over time (Jackson & Ponic, 2001). Canada has experienced ongoing debate around Quebec separatism and the division of power between federal and provincial political institutions since Quebec’s Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. During the 1960s—when the Liberal Party and related political campaigns, led by Jean Lesage, took control of the Quebec provincial government—the French community in Quebec witnessed a growth of revived national sentiment and the rise of the sovereignty revolutionary movement, along with rapid social and economic transformation in Quebec society (Laxer & Laxer, 1977). Following the Quebec crisis in 1970, broad debate emerged about how to reflect and represent relations between French- and English-speaking communities within political institutions and between federal and provincial governments. Later, the Meech Lake Accord (initiated in 1987) established an agreement between the federal government and provincial government to amend the Constitution of Canada by strengthening provincial power and recognizing Quebec as a “distinct society.” Scholars have argued that the Accord represented a reassertion of resurgent provincialism in the 1960s and 1970s (Simeon, 1988). There was initially strong support for the agreement with hopes that the political accommodation with Quebec could soften separatist attitudes. However, the Act was ultimately defeated as critics and opposition coalesced against the agreement on the grounds that the Act would weaken federal power. Moreover, recognition of Quebec’s distinct society status threatened to erode protections granted to members in the rest of Canadian society (Stein, 1997). Following the defeat of Meech Lake, the federal and provincial governments rendered another round of constitutional reform efforts that aimed at securing Quebec’s political consent and resolving the division of federal–provincial–territorial powers—resulting in the Charlottetown Act of 1992. The 1992 Act, which involved more interest groups such as social movement groups, private citizens, and major media in the constitutional reform process, was eventually defeated.
The two failed constitutional reform attempts left a legacy of long-standing disputes around balancing power between provinces and the federal government and French and English Canada. As scholars pointed out, Canadian politics has been centered on the competing conceptions of federalism as well as ambiguities and uncertainties in constructing a unifying idea on what Canada should be (Cairns, 1988; Simeon, 1988). This salient characteristic of Canadian politics has been further extended to the policy debate regarding financial support for elite sport and what success in international sporting competition might mean for broader notions of what it meant to be “Canadian.”
Public Funding for Elite Sports
Government funding for major sports events and professional sports facilities is invariably contentious, and it is not surprising that public funding for elite athletes and Olympic Games has recently emerged with higher political salience (Green, 2006). Investment in high performance sports, in particular in Canada and the United Kingdom, has become one important proactive strategy by government in order to enhance Olympic medal success on the international stage (Green, 2006; Green & Houlihan, 2004; Green & Oakley, 2001; Haut, Prohl, & Emrich, 2016).
As mentioned above, the rationale put forward as justification for the elite funding strategy is that medal success would have direct impact on individual and community participation in sports and physical activities and therefore enables the general public to take greater responsibility for their own health and well-being (Green, 2006; Green & Houlihan, 2004). Another argument for funding support for elite athletes is that the general public tends to believe that the social benefits generated by athletic achievement are worthy of investment. For example, Humphreys, Johnson, Mason, and Whitehead (2018) examined Canadians’ willingness to pay (WTP) for Olympic medals and found that survey respondents believed that the intangible benefits such as international prestige and national pride generated by the medal success significantly exceeded the costs of operating a government funding program for Olympic athletes. Both in public discourse and policy, many national governments—including the Canadian federal government—have expressed support for funding elite athletes with an eye toward increased Olympic medal counts.
Government Funding Support Surrounding the 2010 Vancouver Games
Government assistance for Canada’s high performance athletes originated from the 1971 National Conference on Olympic ‘76 Development, calling for financial aid for elite athletes. Originally, Game Plan ‘76 was initiated by the Canadian Olympic Association (COA) in conjunction with the Olympic Trust. Following the Montreal Olympics, the federal government assumed financial responsibility for the operation of Game Plan (COA, 1977). Further in 1979, the federal government consolidated all existing athlete funding programs into the Athlete Assistance Program (AAP), a program financially supporting Canada’s carded athletes 2 (Macintosh, 1996). In 1995–1996, the federal government provided CA$6.9M to athletes competing in summer and winter Olympic Games through the AAP (Sport Canada, 2007). The federal government’s effort to promote high performance sport was also strengthened during the 1980s by a commitment to invest an additional CA$25M to support the “Best Ever” Winter program for the 1988 Calgary Olympics. The program was extended through the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul with an additional CA$38M earmarked for athletes (Macintosh, 1996).
Government contributions to elite athlete development continued to increase with the staging of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In 2005, the OTP program was launched to specifically help targeted high performance athletes achieve Canada’s full potential and gain the most medals at the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. The CA$110M initiative was funded by various parties including Sport Canada, the COC, the CPC, winter National Sport Organizations, and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Games, of which Sport Canada was the largest contributor with an investment of CA$66M. The driving force and framework of OTP has been deeply rooted in the “philosophy of excellence”—a core strategy of “Targeted Excellence” that directs funding towards the athletes who have the best chance to win gold medals (Kidd, 2013). Parallel to the creation of OTP was an increase in funding for targeted high performance development leading up to the Olympics. Since 2005, the federal government has steadily increased ongoing support for targeted summer and winter high performance sports through the Sport Support Program, starting with CA$23M in 2005–2006 and increasing to CA$64M in 2010–2011. Funding for AAP also witnessed an increase, from CA$15M in 2003–2004 to CA$25.9M in 2010–2011 (“High Performance and the Canadian Sport Policy Renewal Process,” 2011).
Media Framing
The idea of framing was first proposed by Goffman (1974) in his work Frame Analysis. Goffman noted that framing can be defined as a manner through which we “classify and organize our life experiences to make sense of them,” which enables individuals to “locate, perceive, identify, and label” various messages and inform actions (p. 21). The study of framing has been employed across various academic disciplines such as psychology, political, and communication studies (e.g., Entman, 1993; Gamson, 1992; Minsky, 1975; Nelson & Kinder, 1996; Nelson et al., 1997; Snow & Benford, 1988). In the communication area, scholars have often focused on the way in which frames construct the meanings of social and political issues and events (Simon & Xenos, 2000) and have recognized frames as “a central organizing idea for making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987, p. 57).
Entman (1993) argued that the primary function of media framing is for news organizations to detect the underlying causes and possible results of a given issue or event, make moral judgements, and provide potential treatment for the issue. Such framing effects can be augmented through selecting and highlighting specific elements of information about an item, thereby making them more salient in a communicating context (Nelson et al., 1997). Similarly, Gamson and colleagues (Gamson & Lasch, 1983; Gamson & Modigliani, 1987) have stated that media frames offer multiple discourse packages including the core frame, a range of positions, and featured devices that suggest the core frame, including symbolic devices such as metaphors or catchphrases and reasoning devices including causal analysis, consequence depiction, and moral claims. In this manner, media frames lend coherence to otherwise detached pieces of information (Nelson et al., 1997). As Neuman, Just, and Crigler (1992) explained, frames “give the story a ‘pin’…taking into account their organizational and modality constraints, professional judgments, and certain judgements about the audience” (p. 120).
There are four locations where frames manifest in the communication process: the communicator, the text, the receiver, and the culture (Entman, 1993). Communicators make judgements to decide what to say, guided by the schemata that organize their belief systems. The text contains frames, which are manifested by the absence or presence of particular images, key words, and information. The frames that guide receivers’ thinking may or may not reflect the frames in the text and the framing intention of communicators. The culture is the set of commonly referred schemas (Entman, 1993).
Frames may originate within or outside the news organization (Nelson et al., 1997). Elite sources are often used by journalists and news organizations for quotes, insights, and information, to construct an issue (Nelson et al., 1997). Moreover, some symbolic devices, including visual images, metaphors, and catchphrases, are also employed by news organizations to construct frames (Gamson & Lasch, 1983; Gamson & Modigliani, 1987). While journalists and news organizations formulate frames by selectively stressing specific elements of the issue, the readers’ or audiences’ information processing and interpretation are simultaneously influenced by the existing established knowledge structure or schemas (the culture; Scheufele, 1999). From this, public debates are created.
Method
To facilitate the study, a qualitative media content analysis was undertaken, which adopts a humanist approach to identify what the media say about society and the culture producing it (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). Qualitative content analysis is a method “for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1278). Beyond merely counting the frequency of symbols or objective content occurring in a particular text to examine topics, patterns, and themes, qualitative content analysis allows researchers to constantly analyze and compare meanings of content to discover emergent patterns, emphases, and themes in data (Altheide, 1996). In this respect, qualitative content analysis recognizes that media texts are open to interpretation by different audiences and tries to determine the likely meaning of texts to readers (Macnamara, 2006).
Data collection and analysis
We examined Canada’s experience as a host nation of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games (February 12–28, 2010), with a specific focus on newspaper narratives surrounding OTP funding project. Despite technological innovations and the rise of social media, in 2010, traditional newspapers still played a dominant role in conveying important messages and information for Canadians. According to Statista (n.d.), even 5 years later in June 2015, 81.07% of Canadians had read either a digital or print edition of a newspaper over the previous 7 days. Moreover, newspaper articles, compared to other media forms such as TV news or social media posts, provide various types and depth of messages such as opinions, editorials, columns, letters, and news facts that have been employed to conduct thorough framing analyses (Buist & Mason, 2010; Sant & Mason, 2015; Sapotichne, 2012).
News articles were collected from January 21, 2005 (the launch date of OTP program), through November 4, 2009 (a pre-Olympic period), and from February 12, 2010, through August 12, 2012 (during and post-Olympics). We selected the launch date of the 2012 London Olympic Games as the ending date of data collection because articles published after the 2012 London Olympic Games likely involved different discourses surrounding the Road to Excellence program specifically developed for summer sport and influenced by Canadian athlete performances in those Games. Articles published during and after the Games were combined as the performance of athletes were deemed a likely cause of changes to the discourse surrounding the event. However, we did not identify a natural break between the pre- and during/post-Olympics periods; there were no major events or changes that may have influenced the coverage and the manner through which the event was covered leading up to the Games. As a result, we left a 3-month gap between the two phases of collection that would provide a period for any new frames to emerge or existing frames to change. We used different combinations of several key words “Vancouver Olympics,” “high performance/elite athletes,” “funding,” “tax dollars,” and “OTP” as search terms to collect 401 news articles using the Canadian Newsstream Database. Canadian Newsstream offers access to the full text (articles, columns, editorials, and features) of nearly 400 different newspapers from Canada’s news publishers, such as The Globe and Mail, National Post, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, Regina Leader Post, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, and the Victoria Times Colonist. One hundred and seventy-two news articles were collected for the above-mentioned pre-Olympics period and 229 news articles for the during and post-Olympics period. These news articles were then sorted according to their format (news, editorial/opinion/column, and letter).
After data collection, data analysis was undertaken using the following steps. The first step focused on the position taken by the media as to whether federal government should provide funds for elite Olympic athletes (positive, negative, and neutral) for the pre-Olympics and during and post-Olympics periods. We used a complete news article as the unit of analysis during this phase. We defined “positive” articles as those that generally supported government funding for elite athletes. News articles that explicitly and favourably expressed opinions or featured quotations that investing in Olympic athletes was important and necessary and/or that government should increase or maintain funding support would be assigned to the “positive” category. “Negative” refers to articles with arguments that the government should NOT provide funds for elite athletes. The matching news articles in this category included main opinions or quotations indicating that funding Olympic athletes had little or no benefits and government should reduce or cease funding support for Olympic athletes. “Neutral” news articles discussed funding but took no clear position in the debate (e.g., providing instances matching both “positive” and “negative” categories) would be placed into this category.
We then focused on the content of the frame by identifying the central organizing ideas or story lines that were related to the events surrounding the elite funding issue for both periods. In this phase, sentences or passages constituted the units of analysis. The media content and frame categories were routinely compared to see whether they matched until the same results were obtained following the repetition of coding work several times. In the third stage, specific organizations or individuals that sponsored frames as well as different symbolic devices including metaphors, catchphrases, roots, consequences, and appeals to principle (Gamson & Lasch, 1983; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989) were identified for each frame. The results are described and discussed below.
Results
This section reviews findings of the qualitative content analysis for the elite athlete funding issue. We found that prior to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, 137 articles were straight news stories, 29 were presented under a column/opinion format, and 6 articles were letters. The columns and letters in this period accounted for very small percentages (16.9% and 3.5%) of the total content. In the period of during and after the 2010 Olympics, the proportion of collected news stories (51.1%) compared to column articles (39.3%) was more balanced, and the letters accounted for 9.6% of total types of articles (see Table 1).
Format of News Articles.
Generally speaking, the dominant affective tone toward the elite athlete funding issue in the pre-Olympics media coverage was more neutral than in the during/post-Olympics period (see Table 2), which was more positive. More specifically, in the period of pre-Olympics, the articles in neutral tone (84) were slightly greater than those with a positive tone (81). The amount of the negative articles pre-Olympics was noticeably small, accounting for seven of the total articles. Nevertheless, the number of letters presenting negative tone (4) exceeded that of the letters in positive (1) and neutral (1) tone. During and after the Games, the amount of the positive news coverage (178) was significantly larger than that of the articles presenting a neutral (40) or negative (11) tone.
Affective Tone of News Articles.
Several frames emerged from the media coverage regarding the issue of federal government funds for elite athletes over the periods before and during/after the 2010 Olympic Games. Through examining the frequencies of particular frames, we find that three frames—medal performance and national pride, diversified funding approaches, and sport participation and health benefits—were present in both pre-Olympics and during/post-Olympics periods examined, although the salience of the three frames varied between the time periods (see Figure 1). The medal performance and national pride frame was the most salient in both periods. In the pre-Olympic period, 37.2% of the newspaper articles discussed elite athletes’ performance in relation to national pride and identity and the frequency increased to 49.3% during and after the Games. The diversified funding approaches frame attributed to 32% of the news articles before the Games while its frequency decreased to 27% in the during/post-Olympics period. The least salient frame—sport participation and health benefits—represented 5.8% amongst the pre-Olympics media coverage and slightly increased to 7.9% for the during/post-Olympics media coverage. The following explores the content of each frame package in detail for both pre-Olympics and during/post-Olympics periods (see Table 3).
Frequencies of media frames in pre-Olympics and during- and post-Olympics.
Frame Packages Surrounding Elite Sports Funding.
Note. OTP = Own the Podium.
Medal Performance and National Pride
Widespread positive sentiment, expressed as “Canadian pride” (Byers, 2005; Dheensaw, 2010), “collective memories” (Leyne, 2009), and “true investment…in passion” (Perry, 2010), associated with medal success was obvious amongst news coverage in both periods and, in particular, after the Games.
Pre-Olympics
Before the Games, proponents, including sports officials and politicians, mainly focused on how superior athletic performance could help promote a sense of national pride, social cohesion, and identity, so that funding elite athletes would be considered a sound investment. A COC official at the time, Steve Keogh (2008), proclaimed the importance of athletes’ Olympic performance in creating a sense of national pride: “we believe that by helping athletes to reach the Olympic podium and sustain competitive excellence, we help create Canadian heroes and a source of national pride that inspires a lifelong pursuit of sport and physical activity among all Canadians” (para. 8). As might be expected, providing financial assistance for athletes would show the nation as a cohesive community where the general public was happy to support their heroes. As France Chretien Desmarais (2009), president of the Canadian Olympic Foundation, noted in a letter to the National Post:
…the athletes and the winning of medals is becoming a focal point for national pride…. Canadians have a competitive spirit and a desire to be a part of our athletes’ success. This passion is gaining momentum every day…. It takes more than one athlete to win a medal; it takes a nation. For our athletes to achieve their very best, they need our support. When a fraction of a second counts, when total focus is needed, they need to know that the whole nation is behind them. (para. 6, 9)
Assuming that medal performance would promote national unity, COC officials, who were targeting more medal success explicitly, set high medal count expectations before the 2010 Vancouver Games. They argued that with funding support, Canada would earn 35 medals in 2010, more than double the haul of 17 from the 2002 Salt Lake City games, whereas without the program, they would only expect 16 (Chung, 2006). Michael Chong (the former Federal Minister for Sport) pushed for more financial support for Olympic athletes from the federal government, which was repeated in various news articles (Chung, 2006; Konieczna, 2006). Chong noted that the Conservative federal government promised 1% of the Health budget would go to health promotion and amateur sport to help Olympic athletes “to be the best and to achieve number one at the podium” (Konieczna, 2006, para. 8).
Nevertheless, some opponents of government funding criticized the notion that funding could produce medal results and they argued that “cash does not guarantee medals” (Hall, 2009). One article quoted Kevin Wamsley, a professor at the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario who argued that the additional spending was already “excessive”: [Wamsley was] not so certain we can say if we adopt this posture it is going to result in an enhanced medal numbers…. There are so many factors and contingencies in sport, so these sorts of business-minded projections are not necessarily appropriate, and to suggest Canada is going to place first with 35 medals in 2010 is quite a lofty goal. (Chung, 2006, para. 39–40)
During/post-Olympics
Canadian elite athletes were successful in the 2010 Games, receiving a total of 14 gold (ranking first) and 26 total medals (3rd). Although athletes failed to reach the original goal of the OTP—winning the most medals—the medal haul was the best result in the country’s history. By way of comparison, Canadian athletes won 7 gold and 17 total medals in 2002 at Salt Lake City and 7 gold and 24 total at Turin in 2006. The medal success further reinforced feelings of national pride, which provided the rationale behind continuing to financially back Olympic athletes. Quotes were used from different groups, including athletes, politicians, sports officials, and the general public after the Games. For example, an article quoted Canada’s top ski racer through the 1960s, Nancy Greene Raine:
Ottawa’s funding for excellence in sport amounts to just a couple of dollars per Canadian per year. The pride we get when our athletes compete and win against the best in the world is worth every cent of all the money that’s been invested. (“Ignite a dream, create a winner,” 2010) Canadian tax dollars go toward funding recreational sports, but specific amounts directed toward elite athletes are designed to help them represent their country. They are not getting the dollars so they can merely develop their athletic skills for themselves. We don’t have enough money to pay for every Canadian’s athletic dreams. The bucks go to the best so they get a chance at “owning the podium,” thereby bringing national pride to all Canadians. (Duncan, 2010, para. 11–12) I do think that’s what the government is investing in, a better country, to have world-class athletes that are mentors, that are heroes. That’s certainly the song the government, the sports and the public are singing right now. (Mackinnon, 2010, para. 24–25) I think, for sure, it’s un-Canadian, maybe not to set goals, necessarily, but certainly to set goals that are pretty far-reaching and that put you on the line a little…. As Canadians, we’re kind of afraid to say we want to win. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be first. If we start saying it and if we start believing it, then we’re probably going to get there. (MacKinnon, 2010, para. 8–9) We’ve changed our view of ourselves as a polite, engaging people, with a dash of owning a monopoly on virtue. The extraordinary performance of our athletes and the spontaneous passion with which Canadians greeted them has dashed that view of ourselves—today, tomorrow and forever, I believe…. When we first told Canadians about our goal, many eyebrows were raised. How un-Canadian. We don’t beat our chests and talk about our bold ambitions—that’s what Americans do…. Yet as we progressed, many funders and supporters from both the corporate and government sectors joined us…. Our athletes embraced Own the Podium. Soon, there was a confidence and an unaccustomed swagger never before seen across the broad athletic community. Then, Canadians began to set aside their historic reticence and started to beat their chests. (para. 7–9) There’s a danger, however, the huge expectations will demoralize the country’s psyche. That would be a shame. It would be best to allow success to be achieved through hard work and dedication—and funding—not by forcing it. Lose the arrogance, not the money. After all, that’s the Canadian way. (“What is the Canadian way,” 2010, para. 13–16)
Diversified funding approaches
The second frame that emerged focused on a discussion of diversified funding sources for Olympic athletes. This frame was frequently found in articles that were neutral in tone toward federal government funding for elite athletes before the Games. The argument here was that although federal government funding was the main source for supporting athletes leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Games, there remained an opportunity for private stakeholders to become involved in sponsoring Olympic athletes.
Pre-Olympics
Before the Games, the media often quoted elite athletes and members of the general public to suggest that funding sources other than taxpayers’ dollars should be sought. For example, a statement from speed skater, Clara Hughes, noted that:
There’s so much talk of government funding and the need for more government funding, that I almost think it becomes a crutch…. I think the government gives enough and I think it’s time for the private sector to step in and to start giving the support and just taking pride in athletes. (“Speedskater Hughes says it’s time for corporate Canada to step up,” 2008, para. 12) Much of the Olympic discussion will debate how much we as taxpayers should fund our Olympic athletes…. I just would rather have the private sector pay the bulk of the costs because the Olympics is as much a commercial venture as anything else. (Gordon, 2006, para. 1, 5)
During/post-Olympics
During and just after the Games, the discussion tended to focus on the reliance on the continuation of federal government financial support. Although the federal government argued that private companies and donors should shoulder the financial responsibility (Chow, 2010), national Olympic sponsors and provincial governments backing the OTP did not commit to continuing elite funding support with the close of the 2010 Games (Chase, Matas, & Waldie, 2010). One article argued that limited private sponsorship and donations were a function of the culture of elite sport in Canada. For example, an article had quoted Michael Lambert, a Canadian snowboarder, who argued that Canadian athletes had not been able to capitalize on opportunities like their U.S. counterparts (Hall, 2010, para. 10–11). Some provided advice that the federal government should enact a tax break on donations for elite athletes if the government really wanted to level the funding playing field with substantial contributions from corporations in Canada (Hadley, 2010; Reid, 2010). Others suggested that the elite funding system could develop a national lottery, similar to the one used in Norway, to reduce financial pressure on the federal government (“Hurrah for hubris,” 2010, para. 4).
On February 24, 2010, as the end of the Games approached, OTP and the COC initiated a request for an additional CA$11M annual contribution from the federal government to sustain the OTP program and compensate for an anticipated reduction in funding from business corporations and provincial governments (Chase et al., 2010). While the Conservative federal government refused to commit to additional funding, a number of elite athletes, coaches, sport officials, and Liberal politicians were frequently quoted in favour of the extra funding to sustain the program (“Don’t give up yet, Canada has to let program kick in,” 2010; Martin, 2010). For example, long-track speedskating coach Marcel Lacroix called OTP “a long-term investment”: These last four years are like building the foundation on the house. That foundation is the most important thing in making the house safe and strong, but unless you add the insulation and the cement and the tiles on the roof, it doesn’t matter: Pretty soon it’s going to fall in on itself and you’ll be out on the street…. OTP, if everything is good, stays the way it is, if the feds are smart enough to continue this, will have a super major impact in four years. (Johnson, 2010, para. 7, 9)
Sports participation and health benefits
A frame regarding health benefits for the nation as a whole, and for youth in particular, was also employed to justify federal spending on elite athletes in both before- and post-Olympics periods. Although this frame was endorsed by newspaper editors, journalists, and athletes, mostly with a positive tone, it was significantly less frequent in the media coverage compared to the other two frames.
Pre-Olympics
Before the Games, newspaper coverage emphasized that elite sports had wider social benefits in terms of promoting “grassroots participation” (Christie, 2008, para. 18) and reducing the nation’s health-care burden. For example, as one editorial argued, “funding Olympic athletes is…about spending on the health of Canada. Money spent today on sports will return some day in the form of health-care savings” (“Going for gold,” 2008, para. 11).
During/post-Games
After the Games, the media further facilitated a discussion on health-related policy making around funding for elite sports. Coverage first proclaimed that “Canada is facing a problem with childhood obesity and an increased incidence of diabetes,” so that ongoing support for Olympic success could “inspire participation in active and healthy lifestyles in people all across Canada” (“Ignite a dream, create a winner,” 2010, para. 21). Jenn Heil, a Canadian freestyle skier, further legitimized the financial support for Olympic athletes in these terms: It’s for the kids to be active. We want to develop the grassroots and get kids active into a healthy lifestyle from the beginning, and combat obesity. There’s just so many offshoots we can have by supporting sports and having role models, so I think (the support) is more important than it was four years ago. (Korobanik, 2010, para. 16)
Other proponents, such as sports columnists, also alleged that elite sports funding is “a preventive, rather than reactive, approach to health care” that “transcends petty politics and budget-crunching” (“EDITORIAL: Considering the preventive aspect of sports,” 2010, para. 13, 16). Some reader responses toward funding of elite sport referred to an important relationship between athletic success and children’s motivations to be healthy and fit. For example, one newspaper reader suggested: The effect on our youth has yet to be measured, but I would suspect that (with the attention and pride shown around the country) our success will continue if we invest in them. Youth health is at a critical and all-time low. Perhaps success will breed desire for our children to be more fit. (“Blogging the Podium,” 2010)
Discussion
Although Canadian newspaper coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, not surprisingly, provided similar frame content regarding the rationale behind elite sport funding (national identity, funding structure, and health and social benefits) as previous scholarly work has found (see Grix & Carmichael, 2012; Van, Elling, & Stokvis, 2010), the Canadian media presented a unique way to articulate the issue.
The pursuit of excellence
First, across both pre-Olympic and during/post-Olympics periods, the frame of medal performance and national pride was the most frequently presented and discussed amongst Canadian media coverage. The Canadian media response is consistent with Humphreys et al.’s (2018) survey results on Canadians’ WTP for the 2010 Olympic success. They found that 94% of respondents were proud when a Canadian athlete wins a gold medal before the Games while the percentage increased to 95% after the Games. They also discovered that Canadians thought Olympic success was important and were proud of Canadian athletes’ medal success. For example, before the Games, 59% of the respondents agreed that it was important for Canadians to win the most gold medals. The percentage rose to 67% after the 2010 Games. Further, 52% of the respondents in their pre-Olympics survey voted for higher taxes to sustain the OTP program, with the number supporting Olympic funding rising to 57% after the Games. The congruence between the newspaper discourse in the current study and the results of Humphreys et al. (2018) provides clear evidence of the importance of national identity in Canadians’ support for the funding of elite athletes.
In addition, Canadian journalists discussed Canada’s newly found medal success across several contested and paradoxical narratives. This included the humiliation of Canadian athletes’ earlier Olympic performances, the pride derived from exceptional athletic performance during the 2010 Games, Canadians’ traditional modesty and demure attitude towards sports, a new passion and ambition to win, and concerns about the exaggeration of the importance of winning medals.
As in many other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, elite sports, in particular the Olympic Games, are often regarded as an important vehicle for constructing and promoting a sense of national pride and unity in Canada (Jackson, 1994; Jackson & Ponic, 2001). It offers rich sources for sport journalists and politicians to create anecdotal stories and metaphorical narratives in articulating different facets of national identity (Hilvoorde, Elling, & Stokvis, 2010). As much literature has pointed out, defining a national identity requires constructing a shared history, social memories, and mythologies that best fit the identity of the nation as an imagined community where “members…will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communication” (Anderson, 1983, p. 49). This constructive process is “somewhat recent and largely incomplete” for a young nation such as Canada, which has experienced the threat of national separation as well as the pervasive economic and cultural influence of the United States (Robidoux, 2002, p. 209). Elite sport, in particular the Olympic Games, mediated through newspaper coverage, has then become an important platform through which Canadians create and negotiate a shared social memory and experience to establish identification of who they are and how they define themselves (Jackson & Ponic, 2001; Vincent & Crossman, 2012).
In the current case, the state funding support was framed in the Canadian media as a means to shift notions of Canadianness—being Canadian meant adopting, promoting, and celebrating the pursuit of excellence rather than just being silent and prioritizing the process of participation instead of performance results. Discourses of excellence undergirded calls to reallocate and redistribute government resources with an eye toward building a high performance culture in Canada. As a Canadian medical professor espoused in one article:
As our Olympic athletes prepare to compete in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, we are reminded how important it is to strive to excel, not just in the final race but every day. The culture of excellence opens paths to success. It’s a lesson we tend to forget. (Hébert, 2010, p. 121)
Elite sports success and international prestige
Previous research has shown that elite sports success has marketing implications, promoting the host nation, city image, and status on the international stage (Burton, 2003; Whitson & Macintosh, 1996). For example, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games was used as a “comeback opportunity” to rebrand and reposition Russia’s image globally to be a “stronger, better, more glamorous” country (Ostapenko, 2010, p. 60). The hosting of the 2006 Torino Winter Games was conceived as a destination marketing strategy to generate both tangible and intangible legacies such as enhanced international visibility, renewal of facilities for local tourism business, and improved infrastructure (Dansero & Puttilli, 2010).
In the case of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, as the pre- and post-Olympic newspaper coverage revealed, elite sporting success was presented more as a way to promote nationalism and pride for Canadians themselves. The discourse surrounding financial support for elite athletes evoked sentiments of pride and nationalism. The exhilaration of winning (gold) at home, combined with campaigns such as the OTP program and Olympic Torch relay across provinces and cities in Canada, boosted national spirit and enhanced Canada’s image at home (Armenakyan, Heslop, Nadeau, O’Reilly, & Lu, 2012; O’Reilly, Seguin, & Nadeau, 2010). In such a context, newspaper coverage transformed the decision to invest in elite athlete development into a nation building project.
Federal Funding Versus Shared Responsibility
The second media frame—diverse elite sports funding sources—elicited discussion of different approaches to elite sports financial assistance. More specifically, media coverage during both periods of pre- and post-Olympics advocated that the elite funding sources should be multifaceted and diversified. Alternative approaches such as private donations, business sponsorship, and a national lottery, in addition to government funding, would all further benefit Olympic athletes. However, the manner through which the media framed the issue was different across the two periods examined. Newspaper coverage before the Olympics emphasized the collaborative support of private businesses and the government to provide funding. The narrative was framed as though the government had done an adequate job in providing funds but it was time for the private sector to step up to further support athletes. In contrast, after the Olympics, coverage focused more on the fact that business sponsorship and provincial government support would likely be discontinued due to the close of the 2010 Olympic Games, creating a greater need for ongoing funding from the federal government. Further, in this latter period, statements from Canadian team officials implied that it was the supportive response of the general public towards funding Olympic athletes that had pressured the federal government to change its budget to increase funds for Olympic athletes, especially the OTP program, for future Games (Ditchburn, 2010).
Sport participation: A less influential argument
Finally, the media narratives in both periods consistently pointed to, and revolved around, the ability of elite sports success to drive mass participation and develop a preventative health-care system. Interestingly, this discourse—which linked medal success to intangible benefits that involve grassroots development and youth health—was not as pervasive amongst Canadian media coverage as the other two frames. The reason might be that it remains difficult to substantiate any direct health benefits derived from elite sport (Bloom et al., 2006; Green, 2006). This might suggest that arguing for mass participation and health benefits might have less potential to influence the actions of policy makers and relevant stakeholders awarding funding support for elite athletes’ success in the Olympic Games.
Conclusions and Future Research
The analysis of the Vancouver Winter Olympics Games case suggests that the Canadian media deliberately focused on national identity as a means to frame the elite sports funding debate, while largely ignoring economic (e.g., economic benefits, federal budget deficit) and social considerations (e.g., direct government spending on youth and vulnerable social groups). Our findings explain how the media positioned the frame of national identity by highlighting the importance of building a new Canadian identity that focused on excellence and winning. This valorized an already existing challenge in Canadian society—the desire to (re)unite the English- and French-speaking communities, federal and provincial jurisdictions, multiple ethnic groups, and immigrants—by (re)constructing a value-based collective identity. In this way, discourses of striving for excellence, pursuing winning, and achieving better performance were intertwined with federal funding for elite sports as a unifying force.
Furthermore, even though technologies and political contexts have changed, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games case is still instructive. The Vancouver media frames provided a foundation for subsequent funding debates that have occurred in Canada, as the OTP program and other funding support for elite athletes have been sustained. The federal government has become OTP’s biggest endorser and committed CA$62M to winter and summer sports and team sports each year since the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games (OTP, n.d.), and it appears that the media continue to privilege “winning” as a part of Canadian identity. As a news article published in Edmonton Journal pointed out, Every win re-affirms the positive qualities that we wish to see in our selves, and every loss contradicts them. Fans cheer and groan at each success and failure. This is because sport unifies. It gives them a sense of Identity. (Taylor, 2011, para. 10)
In the future, proponents of funding elite athletes might find it useful to focus less on counting medals and more on how athletic performance impacts national identity and pride. This is because funding elite sport at the national level does not occur in a vacuum and the success of countries will also depend greatly on the amount of funding that other countries receive from their respective governments.
This media framing study focused on the newspaper coverage of Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010. Future research could compare the Canadian experience with other cases such as the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games and the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games to understand the dynamics around justification of public funding for elite sports in different political contexts, using more contemporary sources such as social media, which have emerged as more critical platforms for debate since 2010. In addition, a follow-up study of the Canadian government funding for elite sports in the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games and 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games would be worthwhile to investigate the dynamics and sustainability in elite sports funding.
Furthermore, the effect of media framing on public opinion would be a potential research area. More specifically, which frames (national identity, shared responsibility, or sport participation and health benefits) matter more to the audience in different stages of public opinion (formation of opinions, maintenance of opinions, and change in opinions)? In turn, under what condition do audiences rebuke, accept, or promote the most salient media frames (i.e., national identity in this case)? A more concerted effort needs to be made to include these considerations in future studies of media framing.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.