Global sport economy and international athlete labor migration: Case of naturalized athletes in Turkey

As a consequence of the globalization phenomenon and its interactions with all economic, social and political practices today, sport phenomenology has increasingly begun to be considered around the dynamics of economic values and the free market economy, and in this context, the development of global sport economy and international athletic labor migration movements, which reveal more economic and political qualities of sports, have gained pace. An unprecedented increase in the economic incomes of television broadcasting rights revenues, sponsorship agreements revenues, large-scale international sports organizations and sports tourism has been observed with the development of the domain of the global sports economy and in this direction, local sports clubs seeking to take part in economic competition and central governments in the management of national teams at the national level aimed to invest more in the sport. As a part of sports investments, the mobilization of labor to countries where foreign athletes have no prior ties has become increasingly pervasive. Over time, successful athletes have passed on to the citizenship of the countries where they pursue sports careers in line with specific regulations and proposals, so the intensity of the discussion of naturalized athletes have increased. In parallel with the development of global sport economy and international athletic labor migration almost all over the world, Turkey began to be represented by more foreign-based athletes who showing the successful performance by naturalizing those athletes especially in the period after2010. After Turkey winning medals with nine foreign-based athletes at 2016 World Athletics Championships, it has frequently been critized in the international media during this period of time and it has been indicated that naturalizing foreign-based athletes in order to realize an objectives related with the international prestige and visibility has gone beyond its basic purposes. Key words global sport economy, international athletic labor migration, naturalized athletes, Turkey, sport policy, international prestige