From the Colosseum of Rome to Wrigley Field and Madison Square Garden, iconic sports venues are larger than life. They often exist in a seemingly "sacred" space, outside the hustle and bustle of the everyday. At their most basic level, iconic sports venues are revered and idolized. They emanate a sense of persuasion that contributes to how they become meaningful for those who come into contact with them.


This book examines how and why iconic sports venues acquire meaning. Looking at different venues, chapters address how the material features of a site participate in the construction of messages and meanings, and how they influence those messages and meanings. Each chapter includes a description of the venue in question; an interpretation of its mystique; and a discussion of the implications of the interpretation.


A unique and timely contribution to the fields of composition, persuasion, sport management, sport rhetoric, and communication, the goal of this book is to inspire more scholarly research, essays, and projects focused on the persuasive qualities of sports venues. More broadly, scholars, students, and professionals can use the chapters in this book as models for investigating "iconic" structures both locally and globally.