Abstract
From its very beginning sports activity became – already within the framework of the modern nation-building project, establishing national ethos, and constituting effective colonization of the Other – a central element of the effort of the modern system to create, represent, and consume the modern body and soul and to create the healthy-conquering national ‘we’. And yet, when true to its essence, sport represents the impetus of Love of Life. As Love of Life it raises the human from lower levels of existence to their supreme goal within the forms of constant self-elevation. Sport as a global commodity is manufactured and consumed locally, serving and representing both ethnocentrism and false universalism in the form of globalization. It is of vital importance for sport's success as a worldwide commodity to function in the service of local passions and as a manifestation of the negation of the otherness of the Other. Without local rivalries, hate, and chauvinism, the worldwide reception and production of sport would not have been so successful.