The Debate Over Mega-Events and Changing Urban Space: Inglewood and the 2022 Super Bowl

Keywords: cities, sports mega-events, Super Bowl, knowledge, displacement, policing
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 26

Abstract

In February 2022, the city of Inglewood will host the Super Bowl in the new $5 billion “world class” SoFi Stadium. The organizing committee and local elected officials tout a litany of benefits of hosting, emphasizing opportunities for small businesses and neighborhood nonprofits as Inglewood is made into a so-called “sports capital." On the other hand, some local community organizations emphasize the risks of hosting, pointing to past Super Bowls’ record of militarized policing, intensified surveillance, and aggressive sweeps of unhoused communities. They emphasize the ongoing displacement and banishment of low-income black and Latinx residents as new stadiums drive up rent rates.

This research takes the familiar debate about the value of hosting a mega-event but examines the process of knowledge production itself. I ask: What forms of knowledge are mobilized in mega-events debates, and by what actors for what goals? What types of data do journalists turn to in their mega-event reporting, and why? How do (and how might) academics engage the contested discursive terrain that accompanies the contested material spaces of stadiums? I draw on discourse analyses of academic, journalistic, corporate, and community texts, as well as interviews with the producers of those materials. My findings suggest that gaps in existing data on displacement and policing create challenges for mega-event critics to move from anecdotal evidence to claims about broader patterns. I propose ways that researchers might work with community organizations to monitor displacement and policing patterns tied to mega-events and stadium development.