From shorts to dresses: the introduction of new attire in a women’s professional basketball team as an index of change and forms of compromise

Abstract

In 2010, the Lyon women’s team Lyon Basket Féminin started to appear on court in short tunic-style dresses. Was there a consensus on the desirability of this innovation? What forms of resistance were manifested, if any? Seeking to approach the question from an organisational point of view, we used the model of the economies of worth, focusing on the conduct of change, the appropriation of the new, and the communication that presents and surrounds it. After an explanatory observation, twelve semi-structured interviews were carried out. The change studied in this basketball team was not closely disputed. But lack of noticeable opposition does not mean strong support. Players actually wore the dress in spite of their more or less marked reluctance. The conventions model constitutes a means of accounting for the forms of arrangements that have allowed the acceptance and maintenance of this change in the absence of its real appropriation by the totality of the stakeholders. The situation was made acceptable thanks to a set of other congruent arguments. Switches from one polity to another have been noticed, disclosing strategies relying on pluralist arguments. Such swings, orientated towards the lifting of criticism, unveil the fluidity of organisations and their multiple setups.

Keywords:

• Basketball
• conduct of change
• innovation
• organization
• women’s sports

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Notes on contributors

Clement Perrier – MD, Centre de Recherche et d’Innovation sur le Sport (CRIS, EA 647), University Lyon 1, Campus de la Doua, Bâtiment Raphael Dubois, 69022 Villeurbanne cedex. E-Mail: [email protected]

Benedicte Vignal – Associate Professor, Centre de Recherche et d’Innovation sur le Sport (CRIS, EA 647), University Lyon 1, Campus de la Doua, Bâtiment Raphael Dubois, 69022 Villeurbanne cedex. E-Mail: [email protected]

Bastien Soule – Professor, Centre de Recherche et d’Innovation sur le Sport (CRIS, EA 647), University Lyon 1, Campus de la Doua, Bâtiment Raphael Dubois, 69022 Villeurbanne cedex. E-Mail: [email protected]

Notes

1 Edition dated 22. October 2010.

2 The second division (i.e. after LFB1) of French women’s basketball. Since the early 1990s, the Lyon first team had moved up and down between the third and fourth divisions (Nationale 1 and Nationale 2).

3 ‘A Lyon, le basket féminin joue l’offensive,’ Le Monde, 25 May 2011, available at: http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2011/05/25/a-lyon-la-revolution-du-basket-feminin-est-en-marche_1526328_3242.html (accessed 6 December 2012).

4 http://sportbuzzbusiness.fr/basket/open-lfb-2013-une-affiche-glamour-au-decollete-surprenant-27040

5 http://www.lyon-info.fr/?La-revolution-du-Lyon-Basket

6 Video available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUeuEfHwmuU, uploaded 1 September 2011.

7 It should be noted that this rule was revoked last summer: ‘The FIVB has abrogated the requirement that women players wear bikinis in games (…). They may now wear shorts and even tank tops in competitions.’ However, no team has abandoned the now traditional bikini.

8 This is readily confirmed by a Google search for images: in the top fifty there are only close-ups of the players’ buttocks in very small bikinis.

9 http://www.rccannes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id =431:decouvrez-le-calendrier-2013-&catid =1:latest-news&Itemid =1, page dated 12 September 2001, accessed 15 December 2012.

10 Respectively general manager and former coach.

11 In fact the Belorussian national team had already played in dresses in the 2004 European championships.

12 Société Anonyme Sportive Professionnelle, a ‘professional sports limited company’.