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Sports tourism has become an important element of reconstruction, and also considered as a strong tourist activity for tourism development and recovery. Therefore, the main aim of current research is to study the economic impact of sporting events on host communities based on stakeholder theory in Aras Free Zone of Iran and how it may contribute to rejuvenating tourism destination. Qualitative method has been used for the aim of this chapter. A semi-structured interview is applied for data collection. The sampling method was purposive sampling with maximum diversity or heterogeneity. 21 stakeholders have been interviewed who involved in the Iran-Azerbaijan International Cycling Tour or the International Traditional Archery Competition – Aras Geopark Cup. Potential cycling tour stakeholders are selected to conduct in-depth interviews in terms of the economic impact of sport tourism events specifically cycling tours which can be operated by social distancing rules in Aras Free Zone, Iran. The interviews were analysed by thematic analysis. Extracted codes were categorised into four themes: infrastructure development and services, increased awareness of the host community, managerial and policy development, business development, and investment. This study suggests that small scale sports tourism could be considered as motivation drivers in emerging tourist destinations; Specifically, those sports that can be practiced in the pandemic situation following physical distancing such as cycling. The findings of this study help to policymakers and destination marketers to use appropriate sports tourism events as a tool for economic development and tourism recovery of destinations. Managerial implications and limitations are discussed.

Australian cricket has traditionally been an exemplar of hyper-masculine sporting conservatism. However, cricket, as with a number of Australian sports, has recently introduced an elite women's league. Despite growth in participation and funding of women's cricket, it remains poorly understood at the elite level and particularly its fans. Drawing on the concept of gender-bland sexism (Musto et al., 2017), we investigate differences in fan engagement and perceptions of men's and women's cricket matches. Through a case study of Australian Women's Big Bash cricket team the ‘Sydney Sixers’, this chapter explores how women's cricket was experienced on match-day by fans, as well as perceptions of the value and quality of attending women's professional cricket. We first undertook participant observation at matches to understand how women's cricket was delivered, experienced and engaged with by fans. These observations informed a survey which was distributed to club members. Our findings suggest that there continue to be noticeable differences in the presentation of women's matches when compared to their male equivalents, providing evidence for the presence of gender-bland sexism in areas other than sports media.

To outline the multiple ways in which animals are inserted into sporting practices, outline historical and contemporary approaches to studying human–animal sporting practices, and advocate for the centering of sociological problems in human–animal research in sporting contexts and cultures and for considering such problems in relation to environmental issues.

In the first part of the chapter, conceptual differentiation of animals in the animal–sport complex is presented. Subsequently, studies of interspecies sport are reviewed with reference to the “animal turn” in the literature. In the second part, a critique is presented relating to: (1) the privileging of companion animals, especially dogs and horses, which overlooks the multiple ways animals are integrated into (multispecies) sport; (2) micro-sociological and insider ethnographies of companionship displacing of sociological problems in favor of relationship perspectives; and (3) the environment as absent from analysis. The conclusion offers implications for understanding multispecies sport and the environment.

I chart a general shift in emphasis and focus from animals as an “absent presence” in pursuit of sociological knowledge toward a clearly defined focus on interspecies sport as a field of research characterized by investigations of relationships with companion animals through the “animal turn.”

The focus on companion species means other animals (i.e., noncompanions) are understudied, big picture sociological questions are often sidelined, environmental concerns marginalized, and sociological understanding of the environment more generally is either ignored or reduced to a conduit of human–animal interactions.

This chapter outlines the extent to which the traditional characteristics of masculinity in sport – initially played out in sports stadia and the traditional media in the late nineteenth and throughout most of the twentieth century – are now also a feature of social media and digital technology platforms in the twenty-first century. At the outset, this chapter discusses the historical association between masculinity and sporting competition and how this has played an important role in presenting a normative heterosexual identity among players, fans, and the traditional media. The chapter then discusses the introduction of social media and digital technology platforms and the impact this history is having in these rapidly consumed spaces, with a particular focus on language, such as hate speech.

This chapter examines and discusses a myriad of literature from inside and outside of academia that explores masculinity, sport, and the internet. These discussions are backgrounded within a historical context and connected to contemporary examples.

Social media and digital technology platforms have provided opportunities for athletes, the media, and fans, to engage in more of an active debate on masculinity in sport than existed in the twentieth century. However, the chapter also addresses the traditional characteristics of masculinity that remain in the culture of sport and in online environments, especially surrounding hate speech.

This chapter, while engaging in an emerging topic of discussion, offers important recommendations for future research and the ways in which this can be methodologically carried out on the internet on a variety of topic areas surrounding masculinity in sport from a sociological perspective.