This thesis evaluates Australian rugby league participant violence between 1970 and 1995 through the use of figurational sociology, a body of thought pioneered by Norbert Elias. While figurational theory is the dominant paradigm used, an interdisciplinary focus is adopted in order to negotiate the recognised weaknesses of 'Eliasian' theory, and to complement its strengths. Communication studies, cultural studies and gender theory are interweaved with figurational sociology to analyse rugby league violence. Furthermore, through these theoretical paradigms, important wider social and cultural issues are taken into account including the commodification of Australian rugby league, the media framing of State of Origin rugby league as a 'sports mediated product', and the role violence plays both within the construction of masculine identities in rugby league and in the wider 'gender order' . These social and cultural issues are evaluated to gain an adequate understanding of the structural and interpersonal interrelationships constituting the social phenomenon of rugby league violence. The central finding of this thesis is that there is a processual shift from more to less illegitimate violence in Australian rugby league between 1970 and 1995.