From "Stadyom" to Arena: Transformation of Stadiums in Turkey

Stadiums are more than buildings that host sporting events. They are places where national identities are produced and reproduced for political powers. They are places where power relations in national/international sports organizations, collective memory of the city and, in particular, that of football fans, exist. Both sports and products other than sports are offered to the capitalist market in stadiums. After the 1980s, the transformation in the stadiums is remarkable with the high security, technologically equipped, panopticon designs in which the audience is classified according to their class position. These “new generation”, “postmodern” or “gentrified” stadiums were also built in Turkey after the 2000s. In this study, the transformation of stadiums in form and content from the day they were built to the present day is evaluated with its economic, political, social, and cultural outlines and results.