Sport, media and identities in the era of globalisation: The role of football broadcasts in consolidating the Catalan language

Abstract

The globalisation of sport creates tensions with national identities and alters local cultural practices. This challenge is even stronger for stateless nations, such as Catalonia, especially in the era of the sport media complex. However, football broadcasts in Catalan have been fundamental to the recovery and more widespread use of the language since the end of Franco’s dictatorship and the recovery of democracy in the 1970s. Today, the Catalan language no longer faces a threat from political regimes, but it does face other challenges deriving from globalisation. The first professionals involved in Catalan football broadcasts were militants for the language. As this chapter shows, more than four decades later, the current football commentators still feel the same. Beyond this involvement in culture and identity, this is also a matter of professionalism. Professional excellence is a way of contributing to the strength of a language that is core to Catalan national identity.