Image: Wikimedia Commons
South Africa’s successful hosting of the 2010 World Cup and BP’s announcement that it has stopped oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico would appear to have little in common but they are both excellent examples of the concept of externalities. The Triple A Interactive Economics text defines externalities as:
I’m collecting articles with somewhat different takes on the detention of 36 women for wearing orange dresses at the Netherlands-Denmark World Cup match to use with my English A2 classes in relation to ‘Media and Culture’ next term.
It will be a topically popular way of introducing some of the complexities of culture, gender, representation, advertising, corporate power, sport and the way writers position themselves. If you’d like to do the same, here are some links:
So I have succumbed to the current world-wide frenzy. As a teacher of international students, I have to admit, football/soccer has proven to be a surprisingly strong force in uniting the world (check out the photo link above for more data on this).
For those in the southern hemisphere, the World Cup may be a perfect opportunity to take a side-step from whatever you are doing and delve into the anthropology of sport for a class or two. For those in the northern hemisphere, you may wish to soak up a little academia with your game watching.
The World Cup started today and I was saddened to hear that it has marked the end of the buckyball!
Yup, that classic 60 cornered object that inspired a Nobel Prize is no more. The balls main sponsors have replacewd it with a eight paneled version that is moulded in 3D.
This famous misquote from Bill Shankly the Liverpool manager nonetheless summarises the role that football has in the mentality of supporters around the world. With the World Cup in South Africa less than a month away, it is not just the players, managers and supporters who may win and lose, but the official sponsors and partners who are lining up to exploit the global opportunities it presents in terms of the revenues generated from sales of football equipment, complementary products, souvenirs and memorabilia. The World Cup in South Africa is set to generate the highest commercial revenue ever for the event, at $3.5 billion, some $900 million up on the Germany World Cup in 2006, and not far from the $3.9 billion revenues generated from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
So what economic benefits will the competition bring to the hosts, South Africa? Certainly the government hopes these may be considerable. Examine the latest available Human Development Index (HDI) figures – a measure of education, life expectancy and standard of living – and you will see that the 2010 World Cup hosts are ranked 129 out of 182 UN member states. Indeed, the discrepancy between South Africa’s GDP and HDI makes it, as its Gini coefficient score also reveals, the most unequal country on the planet.
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