World Media Economics and Management Conference 2016

Main assumption of this paper is that the sport in Russia could not be regarded as a business or part of entertainment industry but solves first of all ideological problems – support of the national glory and patriotic education. From this point of view is interesting to see how the classic peacemaking slogan of Pierre de Coubertin (sport is a peace) on which the Olympic movement is based on, becomes lesser and lesser compatible with interstate competition and glorification of particular nations inside this movement. To disclose the above thesis we analyzed industrial structures of Russian media and sport ownership in order to find similarities and correlations between the model the state uses to control and manage big media and the way it controls the field of sport. We discovered that similar models of the state financial control are used to control the sport industry via loyal oligarchs but mainly – through a couple of financial poles such as “Gazprom” (main gas company in Russia).