International Governance of Action Sports: An Organisational Legitimacy Perspective

Over the last two decades, “action” sports have become very popular and joined the Olympic movement. Principles of their international governance have not been clear though, so the purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how action sports have organisationally evolved and how the Olympic movement affected their governance. Organisational legitimacy, one of the key notions of the new institutional theory, was utilised as theoretical framework for three case studies: snowboarding, skateboarding and sport climbing. Key informants in these action sports were interviewed, and a wide range of relevant documents, articles and online sources were studied. It emerged that cultural legitimacy in action sports often does not correspond to regulatory legitimacy within the Olympic governance frameworks. Some serious concerns were raised about the legitimization of action sports based only on their technical characteristics and the applicability of an “umbrella” governance to action sports.