Manufacturing Dreams and Investing in Future Generations: Women Athletes’ Inspirational Labor in the Marketing and Promotion of Their Sport

Abstract

Women athletes are often asked to participate in unpaid or underpaid community appearances and youth camps to generate fan interest, promote their sport, and inspire the next generation of athletes. The expectation to invest in the future of one’s sport for the benefit of others is a gendered process—requiring athletes to employ different forms of labor in addition to their athletic labor. Drawing from the literature on future-oriented labor and immaterial labor, we show how the sport industry is structured to extract value from what we refer to as women’s “inspirational labor.” Interviews with 29 women athletes and 15 managers in professional softball and soccer in the United States are used to illustrate the ideological and economic structures of inspirational labor.