From Save The Crew to Saved The Crew

Constitutive Rhetoric, Myth, and Fan Opposition to Sports Team Relocation

Bibliographic Data

ID13049147
AuthorsStephen Andon (0000-0001-5001-7175, Montclair State University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume11
Issue1
Pages72-96
Publication date2021-01-18
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCommunication & Sport (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2167-4795 • E-ISSN: 2167-4809
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/2167479520981907
OpenAlexW3122342486
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited25

Sports franchise relocation is a hallmark of the American sports landscape. Teams relocate at their owners’ whims, leaving fans with little more to do than voice their angst. When the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer announced in 2017 that ownership was set to move the team to Austin, a group of the Crew’s most ardent supporters initially seemed resigned to the franchise’s predetermined fate. However, over the course of months, those fans embarked on a grass roots campaign that generated attention worldwide and, ultimately, convinced a new ownership group to purchase the team and keep it in Columbus. This paper analyzes the efforts of these supporters through the lens of constitutive rhetoric, an ideologically-based concept that can galvanize disparate communities, shift their collective perspective, and set them on a course for action. In using this approach, the Save The Crew movement used myth to deploy a unique rhetorical power that successfully opposed the powerful capitalist logic of team relocation

Advertising · Aeronautics · Business · Crew · Franchise · Ideology · League · Media studies · Opposition (politics · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Relocation · Rhetoric · Sociology · Engineering · Law · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Sports, Gender, and Society · Marketing

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