Abstract

This article focuses on the now unbreakable interplay between the soccer universe, the media and the market. It will show how, since the very beginning of professional sport - born precisely from the growing demand of «sport entertainment» and the strategies of the organized offer coming from sport entrepreneurs - this relationship has developed in such ways that it is either the media, or the societies and companies sponsoring sport, or else the federations which determine the assets of the sport universe. As a matter of fact, over the years, sport societies, federations, sponsors and the media have all repositioned their role in terms of their impact on how professional sport is defined and socially represented. The article is an introduction to a wider research programme aiming at analysing the relationships - also in terms of power - existing between the four main actors of the sport system.