Does holding a sporting mega-event like the Tokyo Olympic Games amidst a pandemic and the continuing environmental crisis of global warming exemplify the “death drive” of 21st century capitalism? By “death drive,” I am referring to recent work by the Swiss-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han, who argues that the capitalist system’s “compulsion of accumulation and growth” is driving global society towards environmental and human catastrophe. Han extends from the work of Sigmund Freud, who believed that the “cruel aggressiveness” of humans could be attributed to our propensity for self-destruction and our “drive to return to the inanimate condition” of death. Han uses Freud’s notion of the death drive to explain the destructive tendencies of capitalism. It is the human’s “unconscious fear of death,” he writes, that feeds the capitalist order: people pursue and accumulate capital as a way of escaping the grips of death, believing that more growth, more power, and more capital “means less death.” The result is a “frenzy of production and growth” as capitalism prioritizes unrestrained entrepreneurialism and the accumulation of capital over the global ecosystem and the well-being of life on Earth.

Han argues that the death drive of capitalism is also pushing society to mental collapse, as the capitalist logic of accumulation and growth is increasingly imposed on human life itself and leading to widespread neuronal illnesses and pathologies (depression, hyperactivity, anxiety disorders). Human society has become a “burnout society,” with the capitalist emphasis on growth, efficiency, and productivity driving people to compulsively find ways to optimize their performance and maximize their productivity in all areas of their lives. It is a society of “fitness studios, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetics laboratories,” transforming people into human “projects” who look to constantly refashion and optimize themselves through the consumption of self-help books, motivational seminars, exercise and yoga classes, fitness tracking devices, and mindfulness apps. Even one’s non-work time is increasingly seen through this capitalist logic of optimization: people seek to “get the most” out of their leisure pursuits through things like world travel, all-inclusive cruises and resorts, and extreme, adrenaline-based activities like skydiving and bungee jumping. Han is critical of this drive to optimize human performance because it advances hyperactivity, exhaustion, and burnout, while devaluing contemplation, rest, and pleasurable idleness.

Han’s notion of the death drive highlights the unsustainability of mega events like the Olympic Games in this age of pandemics and environmental degradation. First, the idea of holding the Games inherently privileges capital over human well-being. Over 70% of the population of Japan does not support holding the Games, as many remain unvaccinated and unhappy with the Japanese government’s handling of the pandemic.  Despite the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) efforts to manage the pandemic by banning fans and creating a self-contained “bubble” to protect athletes and workers, clusters of infections emerged at the Olympic site, including the hotels where athletes are staying. Even as COVID cases sharply rose in Japan, IOC President Thomas Bach remained resolute in holding the Games, promising that they will be “safe and secure” and claiming there is “zero” risk that Olympic participants will infect Tokyo residents. This illustrates the death drive’s prioritizing of capital over life, as the IOC is trying to offset the billions of dollars spent preparing for the event and benefit from the billions of dollars in potential revenue.

Then there is the environmental destructiveness of the Olympic mega event. We knew before 2020 that Olympic events are not environmentally sustainable. The IOC’s claims of environmental responsibility are largely a marketing tactic called “greenwashing”: gestures of environmental responsibility designed to protect the Olympic brand that do not translate into real policy or change. Though the IOC claimed that the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro would be a “Green Games for a Blue Planet,” in fact the Games “spurred investment in new, largely wealthy neighborhoods around the Olympic site, rather than focusing on creating a more compact, sustainable city” and failed to meet its promise of mitigating Rio’s water and air pollution problems. Not surprisingly, the IOC is now promoting the Tokyo Games as an eco-friendly event, showcasing superficial changes like podiums made of recycled plastic and medals made of used electronics. Like previous Olympic events, however, the Tokyo Games will have an immense carbon footprint when factoring in things like travel and transportation, waste, the construction of billions of dollars of new facilities and stadiums, and the consumption of energy resources. Exemplifying the death drive of capitalism, the IOC plans for their Games to be “climate positive” by the year 2030 not by rethinking or reducing the size of the Games, but by accelerating purportedly eco-friendly initiatives like the creation of an “Olympic Forest.”

Han’s notion of capitalism’s death drive also forces us to consider the possibility that the unsustainability of the Olympic Games lies in its approach to human activity as much as its environmental impact. The arrival of COVID-19, fueled by the destruction of wildlife habitats as a result of global agribusiness and human development, underscores that there are negative ramifications to unrestrained human pursuits. This suggests that perhaps the pathway to a more ecological and sustainable future requires difficult things like slowing development, restricting human activity in particular ways, and placing a greater emphasis on the pleasurable and valuable aspects of contemplation and inactivity. The problems of the “burnout society” and the Anthropocene are intertwined, leading to increasing calls by scholars and thinkers for people to “do nothing”, treatises on how an ecological society requires “prosperity without growth” and “post-growth living”, and recognition that notions of “rest” is an “integral but often neglected aspect” of movements for social justice. More and more people are recognizing that any adequate resolution to the environmental crisis and the burnout society will require a mode of living based on the virtues of pleasurable inactivity, contemplation, and what Han terms the “idle life.”

If we view the Olympics through the lens of the death drive, we can see a commercial sporting mega-event based on the unsustainable capitalist logic of efficient, maximum performance. The Olympics glorify competition and elite performance, and Olympic athletes are regularly presented as the “universally recognized standard of excellence” to fans and consumers. More than this, the Olympic spectacle is a fully commodified spectacle designed to generate massive amounts of capital from the glorification of athletic performance. This is destructive to both the human performers and the environment. Elite athletes are supposed to be obsessed with winning at the highest level and are supposed to be constantly seeking ways to improve their performance. A human being, however, is not a machine with unlimited performance potential, and recent research shows that high-performance sports place athletes at a much higher risk of injury and “long-term health consequences.” Elite athletes also acutely suffer from neuronal pathologies: rates of anxiety and depression among Olympic and elite athletes are reportedly as high, if not higher, than 45%, along with high rates of eating disorders and other mental health issues. When Olympic athletes are successful or popular, they often become entrepreneurs of themselves, appearing on corporate advertising campaigns and social media platforms as exemplars of maximum achievement. Han’s notion of the capitalist death drive suggests that not only is the Olympic spectacle environmentally destructive, but also destructive for the human participants.

Activists and protestors have pushed for the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics, and there are renewed calls to “abolish the Olympics” since it is a “financial boondoggle that ruins lives and enriches the corporate class.” Byung-Chul Han’s notion of the capitalist death drive, however, suggests that we may need to question more than the Olympic spectacle if we are to build a more ecological and humane sporting culture. In this era of environmental degradation and human burnout, we may need to question the sustainability of the very idea of the sporting mega-event.

Samuel M. Clevenger teaches sport management at Towson University. His current research focuses on the role of physical culture in the history of modern town planning and the importance of idleness in the history of sport and physical activity. He recently published research in The International Journal of the History of Sport. He can be found on Twitter.

In 1970, American economist Milton Friedman wrote that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” If Friedman were alive today, he would scarcely recognize the contemporary corporate social responsibility (CSR) landscape. Indeed, in the 21st century, CSR initiatives—that is, the integration of social and environmental concerns within business operations—have become so commonplace that their absence from a corporate portfolio would seem strange. An often-cited example of contemporary CSR practices is that of TOMS shoes: For every pair of shoes purchased, TOMS would donate a pair to a humanitarian organization in the global South. The calculus here is not difficult to figure: At a small investment cost, CSR allows a corporation to showcase a desire to be a “good neighbour,” affords it a social license to operate, and enables it to reap the benefits of favourable media coverage.

While CSR is now near-ubiquitous in mainstream business practices, the need for a positive public persona is arguably more pronounced within “controversial industries,” such as the tobacco, gambling, weapons, and extractives (oil, gas, and mining) sectors. For the latter, such initiatives are especially needed as extractives companies have come under fire in recent years for the social and environmental harms wrought by extractive practices, particularly on and near the Indigenous communities and traditional territories in which the companies operate.

Companies hoping to “offset” the harms of extractivism have increasingly looked to sport as part of their CSR portfolio. Indeed, sport has long been seen as a tool to promote a myriad of positive social outcomes, from promoting health and wellness, to gender equity, to economic development. In recent decades, such efforts have become more formalized and institutionalized through what has come to be known as Sport for Development (SFD). A range of stakeholders including non-governmental organizations like Right to Play, corporations like Nike, and the Government of Canada support SFD programming in both domestic and international development contexts. Further, SFD has found support in development policy. The United Nations (UN), for example, has directly connected sport to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that mark their primary development mandate through 2030. For the UN, sport is seen as “an important enabler of sustainable development” for its ability to “promote awareness towards climate protection” and to teach “children and youth about environmental sustainability and climate change.”

For examples of extractives-funded SFD programming, one need look no further than the largest mining and metals company in Canada, Rio Tinto, and its support of programs such as the Northwest Territories (NWT) Track and Field Championship, “Diavik Super Soccer,” Sport North’s KidSport program in the NWT, and “Shorty Brown Arena” in Yellowknife. Like many other extractive companies, Rio Tinto has touted its commitment to social, economic, and environmental development, thus mobilizing a “triple bottom line” approach to sustainability. In Rio Tinto’s published sustainability reports, the company describes how community outreach is a key component of its sustainable development platform. Sport and recreation are central to these outreach efforts, as Rio Tinto promotes its “track record of supporting healthy lifestyles,” by “encourag[ing] our youth to get active” and seek “healthy, active living through sport.” Furthermore, Rio Tinto has also publicized how its support of sport and recreation programs can act as a “platform for social change,” by “promot[ing] health and inclusion, boost[ing] leadership and teamwork, and engag[ing] young people in education and employment” in Indigenous communities.

Outside of these more “conventional” uses of sport for social development outcomes, Rio Tinto’s sustainable development initiatives also recognize the importance of land and land-based activities for Indigenous peoples, asserting its “understanding of people’s connection to land, and how land can be used for both economic and social benefits.” Here, too, Rio Tinto’s approach to land use and land rehabilitation shares a connection to sport and recreation. For example, between 2012 and 2014, Rio Tinto “rehabilitated” 3.3 square kilometers of land into recreational spaces with the aim of “restoring a functioning ecosystem and striving to return the natural biodiversity of the area” for the “benefit of the local community and the natural environment.”

That an extractives company like Rio Tinto would seek to position itself as a contributor to sustainable development is perhaps unsurprising, and it bespeaks the trends noted above. Yet, it is also worth questioning the net impact of such CSR programming, and what role sport plays in obfuscating the social and environmental harms of extractivism. Indeed, while extractives-sponsored sport and CSR programming may hold a range of intra-personal benefits, they may also contribute to greater forms of un-sustainability. The harmful impacts of extractivism are borne out not only in the environmental realm, but also for many Indigenous communities as extractive practices often encroach upon Indigenous land rights and can disrupt traditional land-based activities. In this respect, it is important to question the extent to which sport allows extractives companies to “greenwash” their sustainable development credentials and their relationship to Indigenous communities as they advance approaches to sustainability, which ultimately fail to address the root causes of underdevelopment and environmental degradation. As Indigenous writer and activist Clayton Thomas-Mueller reminds us, it is well time to call-out CSR practices—including those that use sport—that mask the colonial logics of resource extraction and the privatization of social programming which allow for patterns of exploitation to reproduce, and push us further away from more sustainable futures.

Dr. Rob Millington is an Assistant Professor in sport and social change with the Department of Kinesiology at Brock University. His SSHRC funded-research projects are concerned with how sport is positioned as an agent of international development via the sport for development and peace (SDP) sector, and the role of sport in contributing to environmental sustainability in both domestic and international contexts. He is an affiliate with Centre for Sport Capacity and the Social Justice Research Institute at Brock University.

Dr. Audrey Giles is an applied cultural anthropologist who conducts research that focuses on injury prevention, health promotion, and sport for development with Indigenous peoples living in the NWT, Nunavut, and northern Alberta. Her SSHRC- and CIHR-funded research examines the intersections between ethnicity, gender, and injury prevention and health promotion.

Dr. Lyndsay Hayhurst is an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include sport for development and peace, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health in/through SDP, cultural studies of girlhood, postcolonial feminist theory, global governance, international relations and corporate social responsibility.

Professional Black athletes navigate a fine line between being autonomous, independent, wealthy elites and undervalued, replaceable workers in a larger sports industry governed by logics of racial capitalism. The late Cedrick Robinson’s Racial Capitalism theory sees the systems of capitalism and racism as interconnected and inextricably linked. Robinson, a political scientist, argued that economic and social values are ascribed to individuals differently according to race. With this in mind, Black celebrity athletes occupy a seemingly powerful, yet precarious status. Journalist William Rhoden used the term “40 Million Dollar Slaves” to highlight the ways in which Black athletes’ accumulation of wealth does not fully alleviate their oppressed status in an anti-Black American society.

Within the institution of sport, Black athletes navigate the ever-present white gaze. That is, their subjective realities, informed by their raced, classed, and gendered selves, are welcome in the professional sporting arena only as long as they entertain the primarily white audience. However, when their actions draw attention to hierarchies of power and inequality, they are deemed inappropriate because the white gaze constrains Black athletes to white imaginations as only competitors. For some viewers and sports officials, anything outside of this role is unwelcomed, such as Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of racial injustice. More recently, Naomi Osaka’s objection to post-match media obligations at the 2021 Roland Garros (a.k.a. French Open) tennis tournament demonstrates a similar dynamic.

On May 26, 2021, in the midst of tournament qualifiers, Osaka tweeted a message explaining that she did not plan to engage with tournament media throughout the competition. She claimed the interviews negatively impacted her, and many other players’, mental health. When officials fined her $15,000 for disregarding the interview after winning her first-round match, she withdrew from the tournament altogether. In this protest, we see resistance.

Sociologically, a protest involves acknowledging a grievance then behaving in such a way to draw attention to that issue in hopes of changing the conditions that produced it. In this case, Osaka’s protest called out the expectation that athletes should perform for others before prioritizing their own well-being. In her withdrawal statement she wrote, “If the [sport] organizations think that they can just keep saying, “do press or you’re gonna be fined”, and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh.” Here, Osaka not only articulates her awareness of Grand Slam officials’ attempts to alienate her from her work, but also links her protest to the genealogy of Black athletes who have had contentious relationships with sports media, such as NBA star LeBron James and retired NFL champ Marshawn Lynch. Alienation is a concept associated with Marxian theory that contends, in a capitalist economy, workers are separated or “alienated” from their work in distinct ways. Expecting Osaka to participate in post-match interviews, despite their detriment to her mental health, illustrates efforts to alienate her from the product of her work as well as her identity and sense of self.

Sports media, as an agent of the white gaze, has reified a culture of alienation, which Black athletes have routinely resisted. Within the sport, tennis great Serena Williams has often provided short and pithy responses to redundant and disingenuous interview questions. While she did not outright reject engagement with post-match interviews during the 2021 French Open as Osaka did, her quipped responses still demonstrate resistance to a process that devalues her full humanity—that is, a process that does not want her to bring all of her emotions, thoughts, and feelings to the microphone but instead only wants her to share the parts that make viewers feel comfortable and entertained. That said, it is undeniable that Black sports women have long been agents of resistance against a system built upon legacies of white supremacy, sexism, patriarchy as well as homophobia. In recent decades, one strategy used to keep Black women athletes on the margins of the sporting world has been to position them against one another in an effort to stave off collective action that can lead toward the facilitation of social change. When it comes to Serena and Naomi, for example, an ongoing narrative has been that Williams is the quintessential loud, crass, and angry Black woman, while Osaka is characterized as demurer and more delicate. This was made visible by a controversial cartoon from Australia that depicted an exaggerated Williams next to a literally white-washed Osaka.

However, now that Osaka is reclaiming her power and embracing her autonomy and right to protect herself and her peace, a new (though not so new) discourse is emerging. A discourse in which the Japanese-Haitian Osaka is currently being cast as the villain via the lens of anti-Blackness and misogynoir–a prejudice against women targeted specifically at Black women, buried deeply in the roots of sports and societies across the globe. Now those who oppose Osaka’s decision not to pander to the media, including former tennis great Billie Jean King, see her as shirking her responsibilities rather than actively pushing back against a system that harms her and other athletes of color, especially when they speak up about social issues. The intersection of race, sport, and society is complex, and the recent treatment of Osaka is only one of many instances that highlights this point.

What should also not be lost in this discussion is Osaka’s specific call for more focus on the mental health of professional athletes, and Black women athletes in particular. In more ways than one, news of Sha’Carri Richardson’s 30-day suspension from the U.S. Olympic Track & Field team for testing positive for THC, a chemical found in marijuana, reiterates the significance of Osaka’s activism. Although she did not owe the world an explanation, during a follow-up interview about the incident Richardson shared that she relied on the substance to cope with learning of her biological mother’s death from a sports media reporter. This only further exemplifies how sports media members can harm athletes’ mental health. In sharing these personal details about how she handled bereaving while simultaneously preparing for the opportunity of a lifetime, Richardson demonstrated the importance of the issues raised by Osaka.

To conclude, contemporary Black professional athletes’ resistance is premised on the audacity to center themselves and bring their full selves into their work as players. In many ways, this resistance parallels the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement’s call to humanize Blackness in an anti-Black society. This audacity builds on previous revolts of Black athletes who resisted institutional logics that allow anti-Blackness, racial capitalism, and misogynoir to persist. So long as these forces remain embedded in the fabric of sport and society, Black athletes will continue to resist. Notable sport sociologist, activist, and architect of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic protests,  Dr. Harry Edwards, once stated that “like a piece of equipment the Black athlete is used.” Nevertheless, they revolt, they persist, they thrive.

Shaonta’ Allen is an incoming Mellon Faculty Fellow in the Department of Sociology and affiliate of the African and African American Studies Program at Dartmouth College. Her research draws on race, social movements, and intersectionality literature to examine how Black Americans perceive and respond to racial inequality and how this resistance varies across institutional contexts. She specifically explores Black resistive practices within Religion, Higher Education, and Pop-Culture & Sport to theorize contemporary strategies for navigating racial and gendered hierarchies. Shaonta’ has research published in Sociology Compass, Sociological Perspectives, and Humanity & Society.

Dr. Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and an affiliate of the Africana Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs at Virginia Tech. Her research utilizes a Black feminist lens to examine critical sport studies, food studies, and Black girlhoods. Her work can be found in publications including the South African Review of Sociology, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education, and First and Pen. 

Tennis star Naomi Osaka declared she would not participate in press conferences prior to the 2021 French Open. Reactions to her refusal were filled with anger and criticism. In a deleted tweet, Roland Garros posted images of athletes doing press work with the text, “They understood the assignment.” Early reporting provided lip-service to Osaka’s concern for her own mental health while emphasizing other players, such Rafael Nadal, disagreed with her. Similarly, tennis icon Billie Jean King criticized Osaka for avoiding media since the press helps build the sport. Others characterized her as a self-centered, childish millennial unwilling to sacrifice like other athletes. And after assessing a $15,000 fine for not meeting contractual media obligations, she was further threatened with suspension from other major tournaments.

Such strong reactions suggest her actions are of sociological importance. Moreover, Osaka is not the first athlete to trigger a punitive response for prioritizing themselves over obligatory media duties. Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks refused to say more than “I’m here so I won’t get fined” during a press conference before the 2015 NFL Super Bowl to avoid a $500,000 fine; he was fined $75,000 for not speaking to the media following the NFC Championship game. When athletes like Osaka and Lynch protest against an unfair or unhealthy condition of their employment, it is an industrial action—a protest over labor or broader social conditions. Industrial actions, like these, are struggles between workers and employers over institutional power.

Some observers responded that women athletes are treated differently in press conferences than men and Black athletes receive intensified press scrutiny. Sexism and racism are realities, but the punitive reaction from professional tennis and the media suggests that there are additional dimensions in the reaction to Osaka and other Black athletes that choose to avoid press conferences. Specifically, this illustrates employers’ lack of concern for workers’ health and the cost workers must bear to advocate for their own interests in the workplace, which is magnified by the dynamics of gender and race.

This is not the first time Osaka has engaged in an industrial action. In 2020, she refused to play in a semifinal match of the Western & Southern Open tournament in protest of state violence against Black people in the United States. Although the corporate media tended to call her refusal a “boycott,” as they did of NBA players during the 2020 playoffs, it was actually a wildcat strike, or a work stoppage without union approval. Like the NBA players, Osaka was not agitating to improve her own conditions on the “shop floor,” instead she was taking a stand for racial justice. As she stated:

[A]s a black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis. I don’t expect anything drastic to happen with me not playing, but if I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport I consider that a step in the right direction.

Osaka’s industrial actions threaten the profitability of these events. When industrial actions cause the cancellation of events, then the organizers need to refund ticket buyers and cannot collect from sponsors. Similarly, if an athlete does not show up to a press conference, then reporters do not have the content they expected to write articles or serve the publicity function of sports media. Each of Osaka’s actions present a different threat to capital:

• The wildcat strike was limited in duration and demand. It lasted for one game in order to draw attention to police violence and “get a conversation started.” It also occurred at a heightened moment of support for racial justice.
• Although specific to the French Open, her refusal to participate in press conferences presents a greater institutional challenge:
  • The obligation of athletes and coaches to speak at press conferences is part and parcel of the sport-media complex so Osaka’s refusal at Roland Garros has implications not just for tennis but for all professional sports.
  • By prioritizing her own interests and refusing to submit to management’s prerogatives, Osaka challenges a presumption of all capitalist labor relations: bosses call the shots and workers should be grateful for the privilege of earning their daily bread. Osaka standing up to management to determine how her body is used undermines that basic assumption of capitalist labor relations.
  • Across all industries, management tends to view workers as childlike and in need of, well, “management,” although it is workers’ labor that generates wealth. This view is magnified by the fact that Osaka is a young (23) woman of color with a surname that places her beyond the boundaries of Europe. Osaka’s demand to determine the use of her body and labor power challenges the belief that she should acquiesce to the older white men that run her industry.
  • Moreover, as a highly paid athlete, many fans and the media view her as an entertainer who is paid to provide them with an escape from their own struggles.

When viewing Osaka’s actions as labor activism by a young woman of color, the reactions of the media and professional tennis are unsurprising. What makes Osaka so threatening is not the fact she is a young woman, Black and Japanese, or an outspoken athlete on social justice issues, but the fact that she is all of that AND she has the financial strength and autonomy to withstand economic retaliation. Over the past year, Osaka has earned $5.2 million from her day job playing tennis and an estimated $50 million from sponsorship. Since Osaka demonstrated a willingness to pay the fines, the next credible threat was blackballing her as the NFL did to Colin Kaepernick. Osaka even turned that in her favor since she can afford to forgo the French Open and (apparently) Wimbledon too.

Since most workers lack Osaka’s economic autonomy, hence the term “wage slavery,” she does not present a model of labor activism that non-unionized workers can emulate. However, as an extraordinarily powerful individual, she presents challenges to institutional power most of us can only imagine. If she worked in coordination with other top athletes across different sports, as envisioned by the 1967 Cleveland Summit, then she would bring even more power to agitate for mental health, athletes’ autonomy, and workers’ rights.

Jeffrey Montez de Oca is a Professor of Sociology and founding director of the Center for the Critical Study of Sport at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He is the Past-president of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and author of Discipline and Indulgence: College Football, Media, and the American Way of Life during the Cold War (Rutgers University Press, 2013). You can find out more about him at https://sociology.uccs.edu/jeffrey-montez-de-oca  

While basketball fans rejoice at the start of the 2020-21 playoffs, I am eerily reminded that it will mark the culmination of the first full NBA season since the untimely death of one of the league’s greatest stars—Kobe Bryant. On the foggy morning of January 26, 2020 in Calabasas, California, a tragic helicopter crash claimed the lives of Bryant, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna “Gigi” Bryant, and seven others. The stunning news consumed the sporting world and left many people reeling for solace, mourning in disbelief. Many fans like me, who grew up watching Kobe, still experience trouble accepting his sudden ascension.

When Kobe Bryant passed away, the flood of grief from around the globe became eerie as I realized that most of it came from people like me who did not personally know any of those who tragically died on that foggy Sunday morning. The grieving process led me to an analysis of the ways in which people make sense of themselves through celebrity figures. For an autoethnographic manuscript recently published in Sociology of Sport Journal, I describe the unexpected grieving process in dealing with Bryant’s death. In particular, I focused on the mourning process of tragic celebrity deaths and the relationship between celebrity, mortality, and the ways in which people make sense of themselves through celebrity figures. To do so, I pulled from personal experiences as a Black man in order to understand public mourning, race, and the Black masculinity of Kobe Bryant.

To help make sense of the reaction to Kobe’s untimely passing, I began with the concept of Terror Management Theory, which helps explain our tendency as humans to fear death or transcend it in some way. Death is the only inescapable conclusion that all humans share, and the untimely passing of Kobe Bryant brought home the reality that no amount of money, talent, or fame can shield us from the inevitable. Kobe was a larger-than-life figure who seemed superhuman at times, like many cultural icons and celebrities who exist as emblematic individuals that reveal larger meanings about the social world (for example, consider Kobe’s “Mamba Mentality”). Cultural icons are like modern-day “superheroes” that help people make sense of themselves by consuming their lives through the media. Sadly, even the jaw-dropping talents that many fans had come to love about Bryant could not shield him from the inescapable conclusion of human existence. He was a human, just like the rest of us. He had a heartbeat, just like the rest of us. He died, just as we will.

In the midst of his tragic passing, we must not forget that Bryant was a Black man. Although Black athletes are prominent in the world of sport, the racial politics surrounding the Black body are riddled with the centrality of stereotypical depictions of Black masculinity, such as baggy shorts, dreadlocks, or tattoos, and “rags-to-riches” stories. In particular, Black athletes have historically been viewed as dangerous criminals and hypersexualized beings in need of paternalistic oversight (and control) by White leaders. Kobe Bryant exposed the limitations of that stereotypical outlook, as he was a clean-cut Black athlete from an upper-middle-class family. That is, until the events that transpired during the summer of 2003, which included a complaint against Bryant on allegations of rape. Although the charges were dismissed when the accuser declined to testify, the media firestorm that ensued was a deeply-racial contest which exposed tensions related to Black Masculinity, White femininity, victim blaming, and the politics of reporting sexual violence. Bryant issued a public apology after the case was dismissed, which marks at least two major points that must not be overlooked: (1) Bryant acknowledged that although he did not believe he was guilty of wrongdoing, the woman’s feelings on the matter were also valid and should be respected; and 2) his apology recognizes the harmful consequences of condemning women for reporting sexual assault. From that point forward, Bryant became yet another in a long line of racial signifiers that represented Black male sexuality and uncontrolled savagery in need of control. No matter what was said in apology or done from that day forward, the allegations would follow Bryant for the rest of his career…and beyond.

As I matured, I made sense of myself as a Black man through watching guys like Kobe Bryant, which was complicated when my auntie explained the congruencies between Kobe’s life and the trajectory of my own. In a discussion that followed the news break in 2003, I vividly remember the words that exited my aunties mouth that night. It went a little something like this…

“lil man, listen to me very carefully”

Okay…

“This ain’t me being mad at you so excuse my cursing. This is serious”

(I sat up, scared of what was to come).

She continued:

“You are a star. You gon make a lot of bread one day. You are also Black, and these white folks are going to try to take it from you…you hear me? They will take everything.

they love their white women and they will be damned if a n**** has sex with their white women.

“You remember the story of Emmett Till?

All that happened because of a damn whistle

…at a white woman

by a lil boy not much older than you

They was so mad, they tortured the poor boy

…they killed him

And they threw his ass in the river like he was trash

…for a damn whistle at a white woman.

Very soon, these lil white girls gon catch wind that you goin places

And they gon start throwing ass at you for that very reason

Trust me, honey. I den seen it a thousand times

…and Kobe Bryant ain’t no different.

If they caught that n**** up, don’t think you any different

He Kobe Bryant, but both y’all just n**** to them

…you hear me? They will take everything!”

Auntie’s words, coupled with education from Kobe Bryant’s lived experiences, prepared me for a fearless life to be lived. As I thought about his life and death, I realized that Kobe Bryant and I are not so different. Metaphorically speaking, he was me and I am him. We are two Black males who have defied racial stereotypes and faced tribulations with kindness at heart. Through the viewership of his life and untimely death, I was able to find peace, power, and freedom with my Black existence. I am no Black Mamba, but I am a Black man.

A. Lamont Williams completed his Ph.D. in Sport Management at Florida State University. His research areas are interdisciplinary in nature, covering Critical Race Theory, sport litigation, social justice, and intercollegiate sport. Beginning Fall 2021, he will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at San José State University. The complete version of the study discussed in this article can be found in the Sociology of Sport Journal.

The issue of amateurism has long been a subject of debate and controversy in U.S. college sport. In 1916, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) adopted an official definition of an amateur athlete as “one who participates in competitive physical sports only for the pleasure, and the physical, mental, moral, and social benefits directly derived therefrom.” This initial definition, which prohibited any form of remuneration including scholarships, has been frequently contested and revised over the years.

A primary front in the current struggle over amateurism is the right of college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL)—a right that has been highly restricted by the NCAA up to this point. While many advocates have long pushed for change, the urgency of the issue increased when California SB 206 was signed into law on Sept. 31, 2019. The law, scheduled to go into effect in 2023, would effectively allow college athletes in California to earn compensation for use of their likeness, sign endorsement deals, and hire agents to represent them. Since the passage of SB 206, numerous other states have passed similar laws, at least six of which are scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2021. Such legislation has forced a timeline on the NCAA to take action.

As a former college basketball player studying sport management (author 1) and a faculty member in socio-cultural studies of sport (author 2), we have followed developments related to the current NIL situation closely. Using data from author 1’s master’s thesis, we examined the ways in which the issue of NIL rights in college sport have been framed in media coverage. When journalists write about an issue, they “frame” the issue in a certain way by selecting the types of information, words, sources, and quotes that are included (and excluded) in their coverage. The ways in which an issue is framed in the media can influence how members of the public perceive and interpret the issue. One important component of framing is the inclusion (and exclusion) of certain voices when journalists quote “expert” sources in their coverage of an issue. For this study, we used a systematic search of online databases to identify news articles published about amateurism and NIL rights in college sport between January 2019 and January 2021. Through this process, we identified 113 articles with substantive coverage of the NIL debate.

In news articles covering the NIL debate during this time period, 67 articles (59.3%) quoted an official NCAA source, such as NCAA President Mark Emmert, who was quoted 39 times. Politicians, including governors, state representatives, and federal legislators, were quoted a total of 112 times in 54 articles (47.4% of the sample). Behind these two prominent groups, college athletic directors were quoted in 26 articles (23.0%), members of athlete advocacy groups (such as National College Players Association Executive Director Ramogi Huma) were quoted in 26 articles (23.0%), representatives of conferences (such as the Southeastern Conference) were quoted in 23 articles (20.4%), and university administrators (such as college presidents) were quoted in 20 articles (17.7%). Notably, current college athletes were quoted in just 6 of the 113 articles (5.3%) analyzed in the study. You can find complete data in the table at the end of the article.

Many of the articles we examined framed the issue of NIL rights as being contested or debated—for example, by quoting a politician speaking about the importance of athletes being able to control their NIL rights, juxtaposed with a quote from an NCAA official talking about the importance of maintaining the integrity of their “collegiate model.” Journalists frequently selected quotations from politicians that criticized the NCAA and called for change, such as Senator Cory Booker, a former football player at Stanford University, stating:

The NCAA continues to fight tooth and nail, excuse after excuse, to ensure that college athletes, specifically Black athletes, who generate an outsized amount of college sport revenue and aren’t able to share in the $15 billion industry that college sports has become.

In contrast, NCAA officials were frequently quoted at length responding to developments such as California SB 206:

“The California law and other proposed measures ultimately would lead to pay for play and turn college athletes into employees,” the NCAA said Tuesday after a meeting of its leadership at Emory University in Atlanta. “This directly contradicts the mission of college sports within higher education — that student-athletes are students first and choose to play a sport they love against other students while earning a degree.”

In this way, journalists often presented “both sides” of the issue by framing it as a debate with two, potentially equally valid, viewpoints.

Despite the presence of varying perspectives in this coverage, including many sources that advocated for change, the voices of those most directly impacted—the college athletes who stand to potentially profit from controlling their NIL rights—were largely missing in this mediated debate. Of course, many factors may contribute to the paucity of quotes from current athletes, such as barriers to contacting athletes or media members’ fears about a loss of access if they publish content that upsets athletic department administrators. However, college athletes are frequently quoted in media coverage of their competitive events (for example, coverage of a basketball game). With respect to the debate about NIL rights, therefore, current college athletes may be facing pressure to “stick to sports”—a case of their perspective being valued when it comes to performance on the court, but marginalized regarding issues that affect their lives outside of sporting competition.

Given the role of mass media in informing the public and potentially influencing people’s perceptions, the omission of athletes’ voices in this coverage is troubling. Ideally, media members should make more intentional efforts to include college athletes’ perspectives when writing about policy issues that affect their lives. With numerous state laws concerning NIL poised to go into effect and the NCAA likely to take action soon, media consumers should think critically about the ways in which this issue is framed, specifically considering whose voices are included (and excluded) from the discussion.

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Table: Most frequently quoted types of sources in media coverage of NIL rights and amateurism in college sport, January 2019-January 2021 (out of 113 articles examined)

Peyton Woods is a former Division I basketball player and recent graduate of the Recreation and Sport Management master’s degree program at the University of Tennessee. His research explores avenues to improve the care and well-being of student-athlete as well as the relationship between sport and religion across the globe.

Adam Love is an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies at the University of Tennessee. His research examines ways in which sport programs and organizations can operate in a more ethical, just, open, democratic, and accessible way. You can find him on Twitter @AdamWLove

Our lives are socially structured in many ways. This means that we are frequently directed to behave in a certain manner, embrace particular values, and think about ourselves in socially patterned ways. Gender and sexuality are especially influential aspects of social structure that affect our aspirations, interactions, and identities.

As sociologists who study such influences, we recently investigated the relationship between gender, sexuality, and sports fandom among U.S. adults in a study published in Sociology of Sport Journal. Prior research indicates that most Americans are sports fans. Yet, historically, sports cultures have often been organized by and for heterosexual men as spaces for them to have fun and connect with one another as they watch and talk about sports. Sports have also been used as sites where men could successfully “prove” themselves to be heterosexual and masculine. In contrast, sports cultures have often been unwelcoming spaces for women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) adults. This has been less true within women’s sports fan communities, although women’s sports are also characterized by a long legacy of homophobia. Still, many people across all gender and sexual identities love to watch and follow sports.

Yet there is evidence that women and LGBTQ people have often withdrawn from sport or organized their own sports as a response to hostility in many sports cultures. For example, initial signs of withdrawal can be seen in sport participation patterns from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System that indicated more male high school students (60%) had played on at least one sports team over the previous year than female students (49%). Heterosexual (57.9%) students were also much more likely to have played, compared to LGB (38.5%) students and those unsure of their sexual orientation (43.7%). In forthcoming research to be published in Leisure Sciences, we also trace similar disparities in sports involvement among adults.

Exclusivity in sports fan cultures seems to reflect and partially extend from these trends. For instance, there is ample evidence that women are neglected and marginalized as sports fans. Also, an enormous cross-national survey about homophobia in sports found that many LGB adults specifically said that mistreatment in their sports interactions while in school turned them off from sports. The vast majority of respondents (across different gender and sexual identities) believed that it was not very safe to attend spectator sporting events while clearly identifying as LGB. As a matter of fact, spectator areas were seen as the most common place for homophobia in sports interactions to occur.

Yet progressive changes are also occurring. Women now comprise nearly half of the fanbases of men’s professional sports leagues like the NFL and are the majority of those who follow elite women’s sports. There is also increasing acceptance of LGBTQ players, staff, and fans, evident in the growing number of publicly “out” elite athletes, though this appears to be more the case in women’s sport than in men’s. Some teams are known for their large number of highly devoted LGBTQ fans, and many have organized or joined efforts to counter homophobia in sport and society.

Consequently, we wanted to know more about sports fan identities in the U.S. We also wanted to know the extent to which there are differences in fandom by gender and sexuality—and better understand why these differences may exist, if they do.

What Did We Do?

Using information from a unique new survey of nearly 4,000 U.S. adults that Knoester designed and administered in 2018-19, we examined the links between gender, sexuality, and sports fandom while also considering how childhood experiences of mistreatment may have shaped these connections. Hundreds of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults, as well as those whose gender identities are non-binary, responded to the survey—it is rare to have such gender and sexual diversity represented in survey research on sport.

Responses to the question “Are you a sports fan?” were indicators of adults’ sports fan identities. Responses ranged from “not at all” to “a little” to “somewhat” to “quite a bit” and to “very much so.”

What Did We Find?

While 10% of respondents reported that they were “not at all” sports fans, 90% identified as sports fans to some extent, and nearly half reported being “quite a bit” or “very much so” fans. Yet there were differences in sports fan identification by gender, with men (53%) more likely than women (38%) and non-binary (13%) adults to report high (“quite a bit” or “very much so”) levels of sports fandom. Heterosexual (46%) adults were also more likely than those who are lesbian/gay (35%), or bisexual (32%) to report high levels of fandom. Gender and sexuality differences remained statistically significant after using regression techniques to better account for the social contexts of respondents.

However, when we considered the intersections between gender and sexual identities, we found an interaction whereby heterosexual and lesbian women reported similar levels of sports fandom but gay men reported lower levels than did heterosexual men. In other words, differences in sports fandom by sexuality existed only among men. Nonetheless, after adjusting for the impact of adults’ social contexts beyond gender and sexuality, we found rather modest differences, on average. Still, heterosexual men more commonly reported strong sports fandom (61% as “quite a bit” or “very much so” sports fans); heterosexual women and both men and women who identify as gay/lesbian more typically reported being “somewhat” of a sports fan.

Finally, we found that both childhood sports identities and previous experiences of mistreatment in sport are related to adults’ sports fan identities. People who reported thinking about sports less while growing up, not thinking of themselves as much of an athlete, and being mistreated in sports reported lower levels of fandom. Yet childhood experiences did not explain the gender and sexuality differences in adults’ fandom. These gaps were likely not a result of sports experiences and identities in childhood, then, but related to processes and experiences that occur in adulthood.

What Does It Mean?

One the one hand, these findings are unsurprising given the role that sports fandom and participation have played in cultivating and protecting heterosexual and masculine identities among men. As other research has found, sport is often still perceived as a “masculine” (and heterosexual) sphere despite high levels of girls’ and women’s involvement, and the cultural meanings attached to sport shape whether and how people decide to get involved. That is, gender and sexuality continue to socially structure sports fandom.

On the other hand, there is reason to believe that gender and sexuality differences in sports fandom have been diminishing. More diverse and inclusive cultures are developing in sport, and one consequence is the greater visibility and acceptance of women and LGBTQ fans.

In the end, though, we found that despite apparent and recent gains, sport still has strides to make toward full inclusivity. Still, substantial numbers of people across different gender and sexual identities identify as sports fans, and this is important to emphasize. Yet there is more work that needs to be done in improving sports experiences for all. In part, this work entails recognizing the power of gender and sexuality as social structures and making institutional changes to address inequities—both in sport and society at large.

Rachel Allison is an Associate Professor of Sociology and affiliate of Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. Her research examines the gender, racial, and class politics of U.S. professional sports. She is the author of Kicking Center: Gender and the Selling of Women’s Professional Soccer, published in 2018 with Rutgers University Press.

Chris Knoester is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University. He studies the sociology of family and the sociology of sport. He is the principal investigator of the National Sports and Society Survey, which was supported by the Sports and Society Initiative, the College of Arts and Sciences, and CHRR at The Ohio State University. Additionally, it relied on the willingness of thousands of respondents and hundreds of volunteers to help further social science research on sports and society issues.

Numerous European attendance records have been set at soccer matches in Glasgow, Scotland; 147,365 spectators attended the 1937 Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park, 149,415 were at the 1937 Scotland vs England match, and 136,505 attended Celtic vs Leeds United in 1970. In all these instances, supporters—the vast majority working class men—stood on steep, mostly uncovered, terraces. Such a design characterised virtually all British soccer stadiums at the time. Getting as many people as possible into the stadium meant little regard for sanitation, comfort, provision of food, and safety.

Such large crowds and spectator experiences form part of the context for understanding the terrible events and resultant changes that occurred 50 years ago when 80,000 fans attended Glasgow’s world-famous derby between Rangers and Celtic on January 2, 1971. Tragically, as spectators were exiting one part of Ibrox Stadium, 66 Rangers fans were killed and almost 200 injured at Stairway 13. As was customary, and like numerous soccer grounds in Britain with little or no crowd control measures in place, fans were left to their own devices when exiting. On this particular day, this meant thousands of Rangers fans departing via a waterfall-like 92-step staircase within a short space of time.

A number of eye-witness accounts noted a developing crush on the stairs. As this intensified, fans rapidly caved in on each other. Several steel barriers on the stairway collapsed as the monstrous collision of bodies led to massive cramming and subsequent asphyxiation for many. A number of years later, The Belfast Telegraph newspaper concluded: “what made Ibrox a recipe for disaster were the vertiginous staircases from which it emptied thousands from the terracing. It was like the 90m ski jump tower, with no chance of turning back”.

British society went into a state of shock and was united in sorrow when the magnitude of the disaster became evident. Alerted to what had occurred, messages of sympathy came from all over the world along with promises of financial assistance for victims’ families. US president Richard Nixon sent his condolences, as did political leaders from around the world. Pope Paul VI also expressed his sympathies for the victims, one of many religious leaders to lend a voice to the tributes.

The disaster spoke to history and context. Two fans had been killed and 44 injured in an accident on the same staircase in 1961. Further incidents of crushing took place in 1967 when 11 were injured and in 1969 when 30 fans were hurt.  A few adjustments to the stairway were made by Rangers FC, but some observers, including the academic Graham Walker, have argued that too little thought was given to design. A recommendation post 1969 to remove a wooden retaining fence on the staircase was not carried out, and this being left in place may have exacerbated the danger to fans and increased the number of fatalities in 1971.

Strikingly, in the wake of these previous accidents, no significant public enquiries took place, no monitoring nor safety legislation enacted. There was no consensus regarding sports crowd safety in Britain, and little evidence of relevant public discourse amongst politicians, police, club officials, or indeed, supporters themselves. The mainly working-class fans that followed soccer in Britain, powerless in terms of the conditions they had been conditioned to expect, largely complied with the cultural practices of the times. Indeed, until the late 1970s the terracing and exit steps of Scotland’s Hampden Park remained unconcreted and thus dangerous to many amongst the record-breaking crowds attending big games there.

Yet, the tragic day at Ibrox in 1971 was critical in beginning a process of major changes in British sports stadium regulations, spawning enquiries into the circumstances of the disaster as well as safety at sports grounds generally.  One of the most influential was headed by British Government appointed Lord Wheatley. His review of fan well-being at British football grounds resulted in the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act. Simply put, if a club did not meet standards, it would not be granted a safety certificate. As far as sports stadiums were concerned, the Ibrox disaster demonstrated in the most tragic way imaginable that soccer had a responsibility for the well-being and safety of its supporters.

In response, Rangers FC significantly renovated its home stadium. In the 1980s, the new all-seater Ibrox could boast being the most modern stadium in Scotland and one of the best in Britain, its conversion resulting in it being awarded Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) five-star status.

However, despite this transformation and lessons to be learned from Ibrox, it took England’s Bradford Football Club’s stadium fire of 1985 when 56 fans were killed and hundreds injured, and the Hillsborough Stadium disaster of 1989, when 96 fans were killed and many more injured in a crush, to finally convince the rest of society that the mass standing terraces, inadequate entrance and exit points, general poor crowd regulations, and overall Victorian conditions endured by supporters, were no longer acceptable.  Arising from these disasters, the Lord Justice Taylor reports and Judge Oliver Popplewell’s report regarding Crowd Control and Safety at Sports Grounds in Britain became the major turning points for soccer stadium re-developments and crowd safety in sports arenas.

Although Ibrox in 1971 was the beginning of the end for self-regulation regarding soccer crowd safety, it took another two decades for local authorities, soccer administrators, and politicians to start paying appropriate and adequate attention. In the wake of new regulations arising from the Popplewell and Taylor reports, combined with a significant increase in financial investment on the part of satellite television and a number of club owners emerging who desired to cultivate a new kind of consumption-shaped fandom, every elite soccer stadium in Britain was refurbished, sometimes completely rebuilt. The mass standing terraces disappeared to be replaced by mainly all-seater stadiums. The new era also meant a major focus on the corporate nature of the sport, resulting in a significant rise in matchday ticket prices and the expense of soccer merchandise generally.

What became known as the Ibrox Disaster is one of the worst crowd calamities in British sports and the ninth most deadly in the history of world soccer.  It is also a political, social, and cultural marker in changes in the construction of, and regulations regarding safety at, British soccer stadiums.

Dr. Joseph M. Bradley is an Associate Tutor at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He has authored, joint authored and edited several books, and written numerous journal and newspaper articles on sport and ethnic, national and religious identities, and prejudice.

In recent years, the sport of women’s mixed martial arts (WMMA) has gained substantial popularity in North America. Many have viewed this increase in popularity as indicative of progress toward gender equality, as women have traditionally been discouraged from participating in sports that place a heavy emphasis on so-called “masculine” traits, such as physical strength, aggression, and dominance. Scholars, as well, have viewed the increased participation of women in combat sports optimistically, with some even discussing WMMA as a new “feminist frontier.”

The potentially transgressive nature of WMMA led me to wonder how women’s participation in combat sports impacted their daily lives outside of the gym. If women’s combat sports are indeed a feminist project, one would expect to see feminist ideals manifest in other aspects of women combat sports athletes’ lives, such as in their political views, parenting choices, and gender ideologies. For a study recently published in Sociology of Sport Journal, I interviewed 40 professional WMMA athletes to better understand the impact of the sport on their intimate relationships—an aspect of social life that has preserved many traditional features of patriarchy that privilege men over women. Would these athletes similarly “undo” gender norms in their intimate relationships as they do in their sport, or would such norms go unchallenged?

To help interpret interview participants’ responses, I used the “doing gender” framework of sociologists Candace West and Don Zimmerman, which argues that gender is not an inherent part of our personalities but rather something we “accomplish” through our actions and behaviors in social interaction with others. Specifically, I was interested in understanding how WMMA athletes accomplished femininity in their intimate relationships (or if they aspired to do so at all). My findings revealed that because these women possess traits that are traditionally interpreted as masculine, many of the heterosexual women in my sample actually oversubscribe to gender norms in their intimate relationships to combat feelings of feminine insecurity. I arranged these findings into three distinct themes: doing gender through the body, doing gender through relationship roles, and doing gender through patriarchy.

The first theme—doing gender through the body—revealed the ways in which the participants in my sample specifically sought out taller, heavier men as intimate partners in order to make themselves look and feel smaller and, thus, more feminine. As succinctly summarized by one participant, “When I’m with a guy who’s smaller, it makes me feel bigger.” In fact, 93.5% of the participants in my sample who identified as heterosexual stated that they preferred to be shorter than their partners, and 83.9% of them stated that they preferred to be lighter than their partners. This finding was a clear example of “doing gender,” with West and Zimmerman even explaining in their original article that “even though size, strength, and age tend to be normally distributed among females and males (with considerable overlap between them), selective pairing ensures couples in which boys and men are visibly bigger, stronger, and older…so, should situations emerge in which greater size, strength, or experience is called for, boys and men will be ever ready to display it and girls and women, to appreciate its display.” Importantly, this was not the case for most of the women in my sample who did not identify as heterosexual, with only 22% of these women stating a relative height and weight preference.

The second theme—doing gender through relationship roles—revealed the ways in which participants adhered to fairly strict gender roles in their relationships, such as the woman partner acting as nurturer and care giver, and the man partner as protector and provider. I was particularly struck by the fact that the heterosexual participants in my sample placed such a heavy emphasis on the protector role for their men partners, as it seemed strange to me that such formidable women would feel they needed protection. My participants revealed, however, that protecting themselves instead of having their partner do so would be a violation of gender roles, with one participant explaining, “I don’t wanna’ be the one that’s protecting ‘cause then I’d be the one who was the masculine one.” Again, however, this feeling was not shared by the women in my sample who did not identify as heterosexual.

The third theme—doing gender through patriarchy—revealed the ways in which participants accomplished femininity through deference to men. This was revealed through the finding that 82.5% of my participants were currently, or formerly had been, in relationships with other combat sports athletes or coaches, as it became difficult for these women to see non-combat sports men as sufficiently masculine. As one participant explained, “I like to be able to give my partner a good run for their money, physically, but I don’t really like to win. Because…biologically…I think I’m just attracted to masculine men. They have to be more masculine than me because I am a woman and there is supposed to be a difference.” While, in their MMA careers, all of the women worked tirelessly to ensure that they were bigger, stronger, and more physically capable than their opponents, in their intimate relationships, most of the heterosexual women sought to be smaller, weaker, and less physically capable than their partners to accomplish femininity and combat feelings of feminine insecurity. This stood out as, perhaps, the most explicit example of how these women not only “did” but overdid gender in their intimate relationships.

The findings from this study suggest that WMMA may not in fact be the feminist frontier that some have imagined it to be. Rather, it serves as a cautionary tale that, while the symbolism of women fighters may be encouraging to observers who strive for a more inclusive society, such symbolism does little to alter the lives of women when structural inequalities remain unchallenged.

Justen Hamilton is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. His research areas include gender, sport, and violence. The complete version of the study discussed in this article can be found in the Sociology of Sport Journal.

Issues related to athlete welfare are impossible to ignore as the National Basketball Association (NBA) leaves the “bubble” behind and begins the 2020-21 regular season on December 22. As play resumes, sleep and athlete recovery will be a major area of media attention and discussion within the league.

It is no secret that NBA players are routinely exposed to poor sleep, jetlag, and overtraining. Teams play 82 games in a 6-month period and travel an average of 40,000 miles a season. Commissioner Adam Silver called rest a “significant issue,” and Michelle Roberts, Executive Director of the NBA Players Association, predicts that sleep will be an issue in future collective bargaining. Just last week, the NBA updated its rest policy, specifying that teams may face fines of $100,000 if they decide to sit out healthy players in nationally-televised games.

Given this context, promoting sleep may seem like an easy way to safeguard players’ wellbeing. But the rise of a “sleep-friendly” NBA shows that fostering athlete welfare is more complex than it may first appear.

Few observers would deny that better and more sleep could benefit NBA athletes, at least in the short run. A 2011 study about the impact of “extra” sleep in college basketball players, for instance, found that when athletes slept 10 or more hours a night, they performed better in physical tasks and reported increased ratings of mood, health, and overall sense of wellbeing.

But in the long run, the strategic use of sleep does not change grueling game or travel schedules. In fact, it makes NBA players and their recovery habits subject to greater moral regulation and invasive digital surveillance. These trends matter for the rest of us because cultural sites like the NBA increasingly shape our collective understandings of sleep problems and the best ways to solve them.

A Sleep-Friendly NBA?

The global sleep industry is worth an estimated $76 billion, as new specialized services, products, drugs, and technologies promise to insulate people from the intrusions of a society that is organized by speed, a 24/7 economy, and endless communication and entertainment.

In our sleep-obsessed times, the NBA is a key site where ideas about daily recovery are being revised. NBA teams consult with sleep experts, such as Dr. Charles Czeisler, and pursue new sleep-related sponsorship agreements. Bedgear, for example, is the “official pillow and mattress partner” of the Dallas Mavericks, and the company regularly hosts game day promotions and community events designed to educate the public on the importance of good sleep for daily performance.

The NBA is also a highly racialized setting. Its athletic workforce is mostly Black, while coaching staffs, medical teams, and team owners are mostly white. Racist and paternalistic attitudes have often meant that NBA players are treated as if they are a “problem” and require constant oversight and management.

A pro-sleep agenda can intensify what was already a place of hyper-visibility and hyper-surveillance for Black athletes. Consider how Rise Science’s signature sleep tracking mattress technology and coaching services create new ways of monitoring athletes off court.

Rise Science has worked with the Chicago Bulls and collaborates with Twilio (another tech start up that specializes in text messaging) to deliver personalized sleep coaching. Ninety minutes before bedtime, athletes receive text messages to remind them to put on glasses that block blue light. Another notification lets athletes know it is time for bed, at which point players are supposed to get into bed alone, don a sleep mask, and set the room temperature between 62-67 degrees. Every morning coaches receive a report that states the team’s “readiness” and notes any potential “high-risk” athletes who did not fully recover. Athletes also receive their personal sleep data on their phones via a Rise Science app.

Sleep coaching services and technologies may certainly be enticing for some athletes. But digital tracking methods are not experienced by everyone in the same way. Many people overlook the impact of scientific racism and medical discrimination, and research shows that prejudicial patterns shape how some Black NBA players encounter biometric sleep technologies. It can be difficult for some players to fully trust team owners or to feel complete confidence about whose interests sleep technologies most serve.

When sleep is a performance-enhancing strategy, the work of being an athlete never stops. Far from easing the burden of endless productivity, sleep opens new avenues to extract more performance and profits from athletes’ bodies. Recovery becomes a new sphere of performance where athletes try to excel.

Sleep creates new moral grounds to assess athletes and their work ethic. Those like LeBron James, who spends $1.5 million annually to prepare his body for competition and refers to sleep “as the best recovery you could possibly get,” are seen as having the “right” priorities.

Those who do not take sleep as seriously may be labeled irresponsible, selfish, anti-social, or even dangerous. Consider recent headlines raising concerns about NBA players who might be “addicted” to multi-player games like Fortnite and League of Legends. Anxieties about late-night gaming might appear silly or even a little dull. Yet this fits into a familiar racist pattern, which reinforces the idea that “irresponsible” Black male athletes need constant supervision.

Sleep like a pro

It is important to challenge toxic sporting cultures that leave athletes exhausted. But it is equally important to recognize the limits of “healthy” sport. Strategies to make competitive sport “healthier”–in this instance through the promotion of sleep—may ultimately diminish the wellbeing of athletes in ways that are not immediately obvious.

Instead of transforming the excessive demands of the NBA workplace, scientific and technical problem-solving aim to change athletes. This leads to new rest-related obligations and intrusive forms of digital monitoring. The cultural prominence of the NBA and other professional sport settings entrenches individualized solutions that make it more difficult to see how social and structural forces, such as racism, shape sleep and sleep disparities today.

For example, sleep researchers highlight the “racial sleep gap,” which shows African Americans sleep less well than their white counterparts. Evidence suggests experiences of racism negatively impact self-reported scores of daytime sleepiness and sleep disturbances. The chronic psychosocial stress related to the anticipation of daily discrimination can create a type of “vigilance” that interferes with sleep.

Relying on technical fixes and asking athletes to “go to bed” dismisses the social and political transformations necessary to create more restful and restorative workplaces and sport settings. But the work of reimagining recovery is already underway and being led by Black women like Tricia Hersey, who founded the Nap Ministry to explore the radical potential of napping and community rest in struggles for racial justice. Ultimately, an emerging “sleep friendly NBA” highlights the need to better account for social difference and inequality in rest-related problem solving that aims to make sport healthier through off-court recovery.

Sarah Barnes is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sport, Society, and Technology Program in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests focus on sport and wellbeing in a rapidly changing society. The full version of Barnes’ recent study on sleep in the NBA was published online ahead of print in Sociology of Sport Journal.