The Professionalization of Action Sports. The Changing Roles of Athletes, Industry and Media. 

London & New York: Routledge. 

This book published with Holly Thorpe stretches some of the main transformation at stake in the field, providing novel insights into the changing structures in the action sports industry and the effects on athletes, coaches, agents and the cultures. Such trends came to the fore in the inclusion of surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and BMX freestyle into the Tokyo Olympic Games. We explores the working lives of action sports athletes, more specifically when it comes to their social media practices and the commercial pressure emerging from sponsors, and it also provides key insights into the institutionalization and professionalization of action sports amid ongoing processes of globalization, commodification and incorporation. Overall, the book reveals how different action sports (i.e., snowboarding, surfing, kiteboarding, parkour, climbing, skateboarding), and across countries, are at various stages in the professionalization process, with local, national and international responses and reactions to such trends differing considerably.

Availabe here.