Book Review 2024.04: Boundary Lab -Inside the Global Experiment Called Sport, 376 pages, Hardbound, 2024
This is a much-needed book for anyone interested in understanding sports as a fan beyond its mere entertainment value. Using the lens of court cases to focus on specific issues to provide the context for the discussion, this book explores the issue involved threadbare providing a holistic, global and conceptual view, that is grounded in Indian sporting history.
Covering wide ranging issues from who is a sportsperson to need for referees, gender segregation in sports competition, intellectual property in sports, governance in sports management, betting and match fixing, the books is not only comprehensive, but also introduces many interesting concepts like the Integrity rule in Ultimate game, where a team can overrule the referee only if it is against its own interest, taking the concept of fair play to a higher level.
This book took me almost a month to complete and I must quickly add that it was time well spent, as the intent of the book went beyond elite competitive sport and looked at sports for all in creating a healthy and fair society. The nature of the book, being rich in concepts, ideas and framework used, made me reread some portions and often go back to a related section in the earlier chapters to understand the issues on hand much better.
I believe reading this book is an education in sports, sport management and sports governance. This book is a must read for all sports administrators, law students and practioners engaged in sports management and the interested sports fan who wants to go beyond the play field to see what factors influence the quality of fair play, participation and competition.
Happy reading.
