Power slap and organisationally produced risk in contemporary sport

The rapid emergence of digitally mediated collision activities has reshaped how contemporary sport develops, circulates, and becomes institutionalised. While activities such as Run It Straight originate through decentralised participation and platform amplification, Power Slap represents a distinct organisational phase in which viral spectacle is formalised, regulated, and commercially stabilised. This paper argues that institutionalisation may do more than regulate exposure to harm by creating organisational conditions through which risk can be produced and stabilised. Through rule codification, governance approval, and commercial integration, head impact becomes embedded within the structural architecture of the sport product. Drawing on sport management and institutional theory, the paper introduces the concept of organisationally produced risk and proposes the Violent Sport Institutionalisation Pathway to explain how emergent spectacle evolves into legitimised and economically integrated sport formats. In doing so, the paper reframes institutionalisation as a mechanism that restructures accountability, normalises exposure to harm, and embeds risk within contemporary sport economies.