THE DREAM TEAM,COMMUNICATIVE DIRT,AND THE MARKETING OF SYNERGY: USA BASKETBALL AND CROSS-MERCHANDISING IN TELEVISION COMMERCIALS

Abstract

This study uses a reader-oriented approach to understand the use of sports-related communicative “dirt” in the positioning of television commercial readers into an idealized interpretive community during broadcasts of games of the USA basketball “Dream Team” during the 1992 Summer Olympics. The study identifies commercials and their workings based on three types of sports dirt: nationalistic, focusing on sport as a tool for nationalism and the metaphor of team as soldiers; youth sports dream, focusing on the idealized notion in the sports world that if one works hard enough, one's sports dreams can be realized; and sports hero, focusing on the ideal of the sports hero as a role model and the power of the “reflected glory” of identifying with the hero. The discussion focuses on how the apparent polysemic nature of open texts is an important strategy that works to contain readers to variant but nonetheless dominant readings. Particular attention is given to how apparently open constructions of multiculturalism, race, and gender work to limit roles of African Americans and women in sport as well as limit the social role of sport itself.

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