Serving the Collective: Understanding Pacific Athletes’ Cultural and Financial Responsibilities
Date
Authors
Keung, Sierra
Leilua, Moana
Enari, Dion
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract
This article examines the financial responsibilities of athletes through the lens of the service lifecycle model and the cultural practice of fa’alavelave. While professional sport provides many athletes with opportunities to uplift their families, communities, and churches, these opportunities often come with significant pressures to fulfill collective obligations. The dual expectations of service and elite sport performance create unique challenges in navigating financial decision-making within professional sport systems. Drawing on culturally grounded insights, this article explores how Pacific athletes balance these responsibilities and offers practical guidance for practitioners, sporting organizations, and financial advisors. This paper also offers broader implications for supporting minority athletes from collectivist cultures operating within individualized, market-driven sport environments.Description
Keywords
1106 Human Movement and Sports Sciences, 1504 Commercial Services, 1608 Sociology, Sport, Leisure & Tourism, 4207 Sports science and exercise, 4702 Cultural studies, Athlete wealth, Pacific athlete, minority athlete, financial literacy, fa’alavelave, Pacific worldview
Source
Sport in Society, ISSN: 1743-0437 (Print); 1743-0445 (Online), Informa UK Limited, 1-9. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2026.2678574
Publisher's version
Rights statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.