Title: Corporate multiculturalism bounces across the Atlantic. The introduction of semi-professional basketball in Norway

Authors: Mette Andersson

Addresses: Department of Sociology, University of Bergen, Rosenbergsgaten 39, 5015 Bergen, Norway

Abstract: The paper analyses the introduction of a semi-professional basketball league in Norway in 2000. The league, Basketball League of Norway (BLNO), and the profile values and marketing ideas associated with it, was informed by North American NBA and its associated multicultural and anti-racist profile. I argue that the BLNO utilised an American-type corporate multiculturalism in designing its new profile in Norway. Yet, this corporate multiculturalism simultaneously opens up for interethnic solidarity and negotiation of exclusion among players on the ground. And, it may be an indicator of a broader transnational tendency, where sports marginal in national sports hierarchies utilise corporate multiculturalism to gain attraction, and to recruit athletes from ethnic and racial minority groups.

Keywords: basketball leagues; corporate multiculturalism; ethnicity; race; Norway; inter-ethnic solidarity; sport marketing; ethnic minorities; racial minorities; anti-racism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMM.2007.011386

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2007 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.2 - 15

Published online: 30 Nov 2006 *

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