Commercialization and lifestyle sport: lessons from 20 years of freestyle BMX in ‘Pro-Town, USA’

Abstract

Recent research on lifestyle sport and commercialization reveals a problematic and complex relationship. The analysis presented here examines the development and impact of commercialization on a unique and influential local BMX scene over a 20-year period. Three forms of commercialization – paraphernalia, movement and mass market – are identified and their varying influences on the mobilization and development of this lifestyle sport are analysed. Findings reveal that lifestyle-sport insiders actively collaborate in each form of commercialization, especially movement commercialization which has the potential to build alternative lifestyle-sport institutions and resist adverse commercial influences. This research conceptualizes freestyle BMX as a social movement within the resource-mobilization perspective and relies upon a combination of direct and participant observation recorded through field notes and augmented by 25 in-depth interviews. The combination of analytical tools and methodological approach can help shed further light on the complex dynamics of commercialization in lifestyle sports.

Acknowledgements

The authors desire to thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, as well as Maria K. Dillard and Wade Nelson for their much appreciated assistance throughout different stages of the research.

Notes

¹ We use BMX throughout to refer to ‘BMX freestyle cycling’. Nelson, ‘Reading Cycles’.

² See also Beal and Wilson, ‘Chicks Dig Scars’; Thorpe, ‘Snowboarding’.

³ See Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’; Booth, ‘Paradoxes of Material Culture’; Thorpe, ‘Snowboarding’.

⁴ Rinehart and Sydnor, To the Extreme; Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports; ‘Selling Out?’.

⁵ Beal, ‘Disqualifying the Official’; Borden, Skateboarding; Heino, ‘What is So Punk’; Rinehart, ‘Inside of the Outside’; Muggleton and Weinzierl, Post-subcultures Reader.

⁶ Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’; Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports; Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’; Wheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’; Booth, ‘Paradoxes of Material Culture’; Thorpe, ‘Beyond “Decorative Sociology”’; Thorpe, ‘Snowboarding’; Nelson, ‘Reading Cycles’.

⁷ Williams, ‘Youth Subcultural Studies’.

⁸ Bennett, ‘Subculture or Neo-tribes?’.

⁹ Wheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’.

¹⁰ Muggleton and Weinzierl, ‘What is “Post-subcultural Studies”’; Williams, ‘Youth Subcultural Studies’.

¹¹ Widdicombe and Wooffitt, Language of Youth Subcultures.

¹² Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports.

¹³ Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’.

¹⁴ Hebdige, Subculture; Clarke, ‘Style’.

¹⁵ Booth, ‘Paradoxes of Material Culture’.

¹⁶ Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’.

¹⁷ Muggleton, Inside Subculture; Williams, ‘Youth Subcultural Studies’; Muggleton and Weinzierl, ‘What is “Post-subcultural Studies”’.

¹⁸ See Booth, ‘Paradoxes of Material Culture’; Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’; and Thorpe, ‘Beyond “Decorative Sociology” and ‘Snowboarding’ for the former; Beal, ‘Disqualifying the Official’; Rinehart, ‘Inside of the Outside’; ‘Exploiting a New Generation’; and Humphreys, ‘Selling Out Snowboarding’ as examples of the latter.

¹⁹ We make no claim about whether BMX is, or is not, a social movement. Rather, our purpose is to show that it can be insightfully analysed by treating it as if it was one. See Edwards and McCarthy, ‘Resources and Social Movement’.

²⁰ See Minkoff, ‘Producing Social Capital’.

²¹ Denzin, Research Act.

²² Thornton, Club Cultures.

²³ Edwards and Corte, ‘From Greenville to “Pro-Town, USA”’; Corte and Edwards, ‘From Lifestyle to Livelihood’.

²⁴ Edwards and McCarthy, ‘Resources and Social Movement’.

²⁵ Marcus Tooker, interview with Corte, 20 May 2007, in Greenville, North Carolina.

²⁶ Mike Laird, interview with Corte, 19 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

²⁷ Ryan Nyquist, interview with Corte, 20 March 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

²⁸ Marcus Tooker, interview with Corte, 20 May 2007, in Greenville, North Carolina.

²⁹ Allan Cooke, interview with Corte, 10 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

³⁰ See Ride BMX magazine (USA) 143, March 2001, for background on Pro-Town's notoriety.

³¹ The presentation here focuses on elements relevant to commercialization. For a thorough history of the Pro-Town scene see Edwards and Corte, ‘From Greenville to “Pro-Town, USA”’.

³² Nelson, ‘Reading Cycles’.

³³ Nelson, ‘Reading Cycles’

³⁴ Don Wigent, interview with Corte, 20 April 2005, Greenville, North Carolina.

³⁵ Mike Laird, interview with Corte, 19 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

³⁶ Browne, Amped.

³⁷ Mike Laird, interview with Corte, 19 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

³⁸ Mike Laird, interview with Corte, 19 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina

³⁹ ‘Pro Town USA: Greenville, North Carolina Scene Report’, Ride BMX magazine (USA), March 2001.

⁴⁰ Mike Laird, interview with Corte, 19 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

⁴¹ Marcus Tooker, interview with Corte, 20 May 2007, in Greenville, North Carolina.

⁴² Dan Sieg, interview with Corte, on 12 May 2007, Greenville, North Carolina.

⁴³ Browne, Amped; Edwards and Corte, ‘From Greenville to “Pro-Town, USA”’.

⁴⁴ Nelson, ‘Reading Cycles’.

⁴⁵ Don Wigent, interview with Corte, 20 April 2005, Greenville, North Carolina.; Edwards and Corte, ‘From Greenville to “Pro-Town, USA”’.

⁴⁶ Armstrong, Forging Gay Identities.

⁴⁷ ‘SCG’, interview with Corte, 7 March 2005, Greenville, North Carolina. Steve Caro Guzman, founder in 1999 of the first self-proclaimed ‘rider owned’ BMX shoe company.

⁴⁸ See Nelson, Reading Cycles, 88.

⁴⁹ ‘Profiler: Ramp Builder Extraordinaire’, Fat BMX magazine website, 22 January 2008, http://www.fatbmx.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid = 3928, (accessed 11 May 2009).

⁵⁰ Beal and Weidman, ‘Authenticity in the Skateboarding World’, 348. Beal and Weidman discuss how what we call ‘movement commercialization’ strives to achieve ‘authenticity’ in the eyes of skateboarders by invoking core values of the skateboard community.

⁵¹ Commodification is not unique to BMX and has been discussed elsewhere, for example, Wheaton ‘Selling Out?’; Rinehart, ‘Inside of the Outside’; Rinehart and Sydnor; To the Extreme; Palmer ‘Commercialization’.

⁵² Rinehart, ‘Inside of the Outside’; Rinehart, ‘Dropping into Sight’.

⁵³ Corte and Edwards, ‘From Lifestyle to Livelihood’.

⁵⁴ Mike Laird, interview with Corte, 19 April 2005, in Greenville, North Carolina.

⁵⁵ ‘SCG’, interview with Corte, 7 March 2005, Greenville, North Carolina.

⁵⁶ Josh Harrington, interview with Corte, 7 March 2005 in Greenville, North Carolina.

⁵⁷ Stephen Lilly, interview with Corte, 7 March in Greenville, North Carolina.

⁵⁸ Corte and Edwards, ‘From Lifestyle to Livelihood’.