Beth Mowins became only the second woman to serve as a play-by-play announcer for a regular season National Football League (NFL) game when she called the Monday Night Football (MNF) broadcast of the Chargers-Broncos game on Sept. 11, 2017. Mowins has called games for ESPN since 1994, and her repertoire spans college football, college basketball, and, for 23 years, the softball world series. As Chris Finn noted on boston.com, “[Mowins] confirmed again to little surprise that she’s a steady and often superb broadcasting pro, no pronoun qualifier necessary.” However, that Finn even needed the pronoun reference indicates why Mowins is significant for the proverbial hill she climbed to reach the MNF booth despite having the credentials to merit the opportunity years before.

From an “arduous struggle” to the NFL broadcast booth, the long trek for female sportscasters has centered on access, credibility, sustained opportunity, and pay. Gender and racial stereotypes for sportscasters have persisted for decades with women relegated to sideline reporter roles and people of color as analysts and sideline reporters, while (mostly white) males maintain the coveted play-by-play positions. The minimized place for female announcers represents workplace segregation and exemplifies an imbalance between women’s sports participation and fandom, which is incongruent with the small portion of females covering sports. Historically and socially, sport and media are averse to gender and racial equity in the broadcast booth.

Before Mowins, 30 years passed since Gayle Sierens broke the NFL broadcasting gender barrier when she called the Seahawks-Chiefs game in the 1987 regular season finale on NBC. I have known Sierens for more than a decade since we worked at competing stations in the Tampa television market and had the opportunity to interview her the day after Mowins’ MNF debut. Sierens said it is a “blur” about what she remembers from her pioneering moment for female sportscasters but did not think it would be three decades before another woman repeated the feat. Sierens exchanged text messages before the Monday night game with Mowins and sent flowers to the broadcast booth.

“I was so proud of her and just thrilled to see her because she is a true professional,” Sierens said. “She is so good at her craft.”

Mowins was paired with former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills head coach turned rookie broadcaster Rex Ryan. Ryan’s debut as a game analyst, which the New York Post described as a “surprising ESPN disaster,” provides another gendered stereotype in broadcasting that assumes a former coach or player can seamlessly transition into the booth, especially in men’s sports, without years of practice like Mowins. Sierens felt Mowins handled the challenge of calling an NFL game better than she did and echoed a San Diego Union-Tribune recap that Mowins “provided needed polish” to make up for Ryan’s mistakes.

“I truly would have loved to have seen her with someone that was a little bit better than Rex Ryan in the broadcast because I think she just so far outshined him,” Sierens said. “I thought she blew it out of the water.”

Sierens is surprised it took 30 years for another woman to call an NFL game but does wonder how many female sportscasters are interested in doing play-by-play. Sierens had opportunities to call future games for NBC but ultimately decided, along with a strong nudge from her bosses, to remain at WFLA as the station’s news anchor. After 38 years at the Tampa station, Sierens retired in 2015 with her NFL connection among her most momentous professional achievements. Then pregnant with her first child in 1987, Sierens faced a gendered workplace debate of motherhood versus profession. She chose the “secure, stable thing” that resulted in an Emmy award-winning broadcast career. However, the trailblazing moment remains relevant, especially in the wake of Mowins’ achievement, and raises some questions.

“I don’t have any regrets,” Sierens said. “You just have the what ifs. What if I had done it? What might that have been like [to call more games]? And would it have opened these doors for women a long time ago? That’s the only thing I ever kind of feel guilty about.”

Women breaking through to broadcast booths in perceived masculine sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey) are not nonexistent but also not abundant. Gayle Gardner paved the way in MLB play-by-play in 1989, but few women have followed. Before Mowins started calling college football in 2005, Pam Ward broke that barrier in 2000 and provided play-by-play for ESPN for 11 years, but not without gendered criticism before she was let go in 2012. Doris Burke began covering the NBA in 2003 as a sideline reporter before switching to the analyst role. Burke made waves early in 2017 when she stepped away from her 20-year run covering the WNBA to focus solely on the NBA. The move did not conform to the gendered ideology that women should only cover women’s sports and aspire to “meet male standards” when afforded to sparingly enter the male domain. That is part of the larger societal issue at play.

Then there is the gender-role socialization factor of motherhood where travel for work can place strain on home and family. Cassie Campbell discussed the role of motherhood six years after becoming the first female analyst in 2006 for Hockey Night in Canada, which rarely, if ever, engages in discourse about fatherhood surrounding male broadcasters. Jessica Mendoza told The Atlantic that she faced a similar family decision as Sierens before becoming the first full-time female analyst in Major League Baseball in 2016 when she debuted with ESPN. Mendoza then received scrutiny on social media despite her All-American and Olympic softball playing career that should clearly legitimize her ability to break down the game. Mendoza and Sierens each mentioned a desire to not “screw it up” for fear of doors closing for other aspiring female announcers.

Mowins is a glowing sign of progress and has been tapped to call at least three more NFL games in 2017 for CBS, but female announcers still face challenges from network executives in a male dominated landscape. A full-time play-by-play gig is the next major step for female sportscasters. On this front, Sierens sees an opportunity for a long-term shift if those male suits are willing to break traditional stereotypical ranks.

“The only advice I would have is don’t put any blinders on to who should be allowed to do these kinds of events,” Sierens said, “because of Beth’s performance (on MNF) and for years frankly… that is a conversation that people will be having a lot more than they used to.”

Travis R. Bell is a multimedia journalism instructor at the University of South Florida. He has published in the International Journal of Sport Communication and Communication & Sport and has forthcoming book chapters about hyper-sexualization of female tennis players and racialized identity in football recruiting. Bell was a sports broadcast journalist from 2000-2012. You can read more on his website www.travisrbell.com.

I am golfer, and people often ask, “since when?,” or “for how long?” I can’t answer that accurately, and my response is generally, “since my aunt took me out on early summer mornings when I was a youngster.” Seven years old? Maybe nine or ten—I’m not sure. But I do recall my Red Ball Jets being thoroughly saturated by the morning dew. My aunt loved to play, and I loved it too. The etiquette, she reminded me often, was what really mattered. Little did I realize back then just how much that etiquette, especially as it relates to being a “lady,” would speak to my place in the larger world.

On the cover of Sara Ahmed’s new book, Living a Feminist Life (2017), bell hooks is quoted as stating, “[e]veryone should read this….” And while this piece is not a book review, nor an epistle on the merits of feminism, Ahmed’s work offers us additional insight to what lies at the core of gender and the game of golf.

I’ll get back to Ahmed’s work shortly, but in the interim you—the reader—will have to engage a passion of a game I hope to play for a lifetime. Golf, a symbol of elitism and arguably one of the culture’s most racist, sexist and classist of sports still garners wide-spread social appeal. A major sport in terms of socioeconomic impact, the classical sociological thinker Thorstein Veblen would likely find it a fitting example of his notion of “conspicuous consumption”—the idea that (golf as a form of) leisure marks one’s social status. As a critic of capitalism, Veblen would likely ally this leisurely practice with the notion of waste.

Still, in golf’s wasteland lie a trove of stories as the history of the game supports a rich body of literature. Yet when reading deeply through that history, the stories yield little on women in comparison to men. As a woman who has played since childhood when my sexed body mattered less, I have ensconced myself into its field of play, and it is from that vantage point that I want to describe, rather re-describe its everydayness—from the greeting at the pro shop, to the labeling on the card, to playing the “forward” tees. Golf, in all of its pretense and associated vogue, could use some diversity training, and a retreat through a feminist lens might help.

Here, I would like to draw attention to the gendered assumptions, the judgments embedded in the games’ social constitution. Out of this vocabulary is the game’s need for the “ladies.” The more culturally sensitive or perhaps astute (read: classed) venues, may offer the equivalent “gentlemen” and perhaps “seniors” or “juniors”, but more often than not, the golfing literature and venues writ large prefer the designation of women as “ladies.” So embedded in the rhetoric of golf is the term that it constitutes nothing less than institutionalized sexism. “Ladies” who golf are simply not—nor arguably are they intended to be—the social equivalent of the men who play.

Almost immediately upon entering a golfing venue—we, Simone de Beauvoir’s “second sex”—are identified accordingly with the greeting, “Good morning, ladies!” The scorecard—a necessary accouterment to play, bills a woman’s standing in similar ways. Generally, men are assumed to play the white tees and “ladies” the red tees. To rationalize the seeming respect shown to women who play golf by affirming their “lady-ness,” is to cater to the point. An interpreted overly sensitive (a.k.a., feminist) response to this disruption expresses the problem of labels. Pointing to such labels is to call consciousness to the game’s unreflexive expectations and outcomes. Even when peers upon approaching the green suggest in golf’s most affirming hopes, just a “chip and a putt, ladies,” my gut moves to unrest.

The media’s commentary on golf is no less absent the vernacular. Consider a recent NBC commentary at Kingsbarns Golf Links of Scotland, host to the 2017 Ricoh Women’s (thank you) British Open. On discussing the old links style of course, the female commentator described it as a “modern links” while the male commentator added that, “the guy who designed the course the ladies played … the men played … last week ….” [sic.] Emphasis mine.

It is here that Ahmad’s work aptly applies to golf’s everydayness. “Through feminism,” she writes, “you make sense of wrongs; you realize that you are not in the wrong. But when you speak of something as being wrong, you end up being in the wrong all over again. The sensation of being wronged can thus end up magnified: you feel wronged by being perceived as in the wrong just for pointing out something is wrong. It’s frustrating” (p. 38).

Golf can be frustrating enough without the every-hole-reminder of my lady-ness—the unreflective point that I am not quite enough for this game, that I don’t fully belong to the club. To this end, I am happy to accept Ahmad’s notion that I am—by virtue of this simple narrative—a feminist killjoy. I have leapt into the socially unconscious golfer’s mind and stepped on their buzz. I am fully aware that it is preferred of those speaking on oppressions (as seemingly minor as this) that we ignore such matters (and they will go away). While those more privileged and uninterested in hearing the label—benefit by taking no notice. But in an effort to understand such underlying meanings, paying attention matters.

In spite of my vantage point, I find the game pleasurable, pleasing, enjoyable, delightful really. My pleasure. The term pleasure itself appeals to the “ladies” as by definition such women are cast to please, to give pleasure, to be approved (of). But it is the natural elements of the humanly constituted landscape offering pastoral images that I prefer—the shadows, sunsets, dew, wildlife, water. The sounds. And nowhere as a woman can I find acres of space—often to myself—as I might on a golf course. In the game and its settings, I find a turn toward beauty.

Still, when its sexist, racist and pretentious inklings enter its environs, my pleasure retreats. My joy has been killed. Call me overly sensitive, call me wrong—but please don’t call me a “lady.” It’s endless really. Just look and listen carefully, that’s all it takes, and then maybe another other can help make it go away. Or just maybe, we could wo-“man up” and take it even one step further.

Jane Stangl, Ph.D. is a sociologist of sport and currently serves as the dean of the first year class at Smith College in Northampton, MA. She is an avid golfer and a professional instructor of the game working with JBC Golf, Inc.

The racist and historically problematic myth of the “savage” lives on within contemporary North American discourse. A prominent example of this is found in the rising popularity of adventure races, such as Savage Race, Tough Mudder and Warrior Dash, in which sporting companies reproduce traditional notions of masculinity and comradery through environmental and obstacle conquest. In at least one of the events, a historically racist term like “savage” is frequently employed to sell customers an opportunity to push themselves to their physical, mental, and emotional limits by running a purposefully rural, physically-taxing course filled with predesigned obstacles and stressful natural environments (running through mud and near dangerous elements like fire and barbed wire, for example). It is symptomatic of the enduring ubiquity of racial ideals within American society that, through a company like Savage Race, customers pay for a chance to be physically active, have fun and “get savage.”

Scholars, such as cultural anthropologist Lee Baker, have examined the history of “savage” as a racial classification created by Western, imperial powers to characterize indigenous and non-Western peoples. By labelling them as savages, Euroamerican powers defined indigenous groups through ethnocentric, exaggerated, idealized “traits” in order to naturalize their intellectual and cultural inferiority within the dominant Western racial hierarchy. In some cases, more benevolent Western observers called indigenous peoples “noble savages,” expanding the racial stereotype to imply the spiritual and ecological superiority of the primitive. This racist myth has existed in the United States since the country’s founding and has long been used to justify American programs to Christianize, civilize, conquer and murder indigenous societies.

In other words, “savage” has deep roots as an invented term employed to serve the interests of those in positions of power. As scholars who study the historical effects of Western colonialism tell us, European imperialism and conquest resulted in the forced classification of peoples according to the constructed social categories of race and gender. People may use the term to mean different, contextually specific things in their everyday vernacular, but the use of “savage” by an American commercial sporting business within mainstream public discourse inevitably recalls and supports this historical narrative of imperial conquest, racial classification, and human oppression.

Judging by the language and imagery of the Savage Race website, the company has a clear idea of what they think “savage” means: a masculine individual who encounters and overcomes treacherous “wilderness” and natural elements. As a modern sporting practice designed to rationalize and structure the supposed “savage” elements of “pre-modern” life into a commercial, regulated form, Savage Race by its very nature reinforces the myth of the savage as someone primitive, primordial, and instinctual. The planned course obstacles are described in terms of their physical intensity, danger and conquest, and are designed to “push your limits farther than you ever have before.” Just as savage peoples seemingly did physically challenging, “wild” and “primitive” things in their everyday lives, the logic follows, now people can enjoy a similar, physically taxing experience, but in a safe, regulated environment provided by a modern American business. The company’s logo is an overtly masculine figure running with a primitive hatchet, reinforcing a vision of a savage’s physical struggles with natural wilderness. By completing a Savage Race event, participants get to do something they don’t normally do for a day: be a “savage,” get muddy, encounter fire and other natural elements, overcome difficult obstacles and scenarios, and push themselves to their physical and mental limits.

It is unclear from their website whether the company founders understand the term’s deep historical and racial roots. Viewing their video promotions, they seem to think “being savage” is a culturally benign, evocative phrase: a catch-all for conjuring imagery of “adventure” and physical toughness against “natural” and primal elements. However, people do not express their words and concepts in a historical and cultural vacuum, and we cannot easily sever a concept like “savage” from its racially-charged, imperialist history. Like the demeaning caricatures of American Indians reinforced by some professional sports mascots, the name Savage Race reproduces a racist myth deeply rooted in the history of American racial imperialism and the colonial classification of indigenous peoples.

Savage Race is just one of the latest in a legacy of institutions co-opting indigenous cultural practices for the purposes of “playing Indian”—what historian Philip Deloria calls the appropriation of Indian ideas, culture and practices in the shaping of American national identity. The Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, the mascots of professional sports teams, and now Savage Race provide a few poignant examples of white Americans “playing Indian,” by idealizing, caricaturing and dehumanizing Indian peoples and their customs for the fashioning of white American identity. Now, with Savage Race, Americans can pay a race registration fee and “pretend” for a day that they too are back in a treacherous wilderness where they must overcome trying obstacles and harsh natural elements.

Clearly, within the complicated cultural politics of national identity, people and organizations continue to construct versions of Americanness in opposition to an invented “Other,” a racially classified, primitive, conquered counterpart to American civilization. As such, the issue cannot be remedied simply by changing a company’s name or a sports team’s mascot, for they are only symptomatic of the deeper, embedded issues within the structures of American thought. Such issues are reminders that we have yet to learn from the history of indigenous colonization, and that we still have a long way to go in deconstructing the accompanying racial stereotypes within American society and sporting culture.

Samuel M Clevenger is a PhD candidate in Kinesiology, focusing on Physical Cultural Studies, at the University of Maryland, College Park. His doctoral research focuses on the cultural and environmental biopolitics of international garden city movement planning. He recently explored the significance of decolonial thinking for deconstructing modern and Western constructs in sport history, published in the journal Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice.

As we welcome another college football season, players, coaches, and fans are busy breaking down rosters, reviewing schedules and predicting which four teams will remain in the hunt for a national championship on New Year’s Day.

The arrival of a new season is an especially welcomed sight for the Big 12 Conference, with the 2016 season being such a forgettable one. Not only was the conference left out of the College Football Playoff, but two of their featured programs dealt with major issues and violations relating to the criminal behavior of their student-athletes. Baylor University fired head coach Art Briles and several high level university administrators in the wake of a sexual assault scandal involving numerous football players, and the University of Oklahoma had two players in Joe Mixon and Dede Westbrook that garnered national attention for their off-field issues. A video of Mixon striking a woman in 2014 was released, and it was reported that Westbrook had twice been arrested on domestic violence charges.

The Big 12 is not alone in its struggles. An ESPN Outside the Lines study found it is not uncommon for high level athletic programs to deal with off-field criminal behavior issues. According to the study’s lead author, Paula Lavigne, “student-athletes benefit from their access to high-profile attorneys, the intimidation that is felt by witnesses who accuse athletes, and the higher bar some criminal justice officials feel needs to be met in high-profile cases.” Those benefits often help them avoid being charged or eventually having charges dropped.

In 2014, ArrestNation.com reported that college football players accounted for more than 65.71% of all college athletic-related arrests. That number is alarming when considering that during the 2014 season college football players represented 26.3% of the male student-athlete and 14.9% of the overall student-athlete populations. It is a commonly held belief that young people engaged in organized sport are less likely to participate in criminal activities, as sport is thought to build character, provide structure and teach young athletes how to be good citizens.

Unfortunately, this commonly held belief is inaccurate. The late sociologist of sport Stanley Eitzen observed that sport serves as a space where athletes form intense bonds with other athletes, which can breed a “jock culture”, whereby entitlement, hero worship, and machismo all emerge. Additionally, previous research suggests that athletes engage in more immoral behavior than their nonathlete counterparts. In youth sports, Shields and colleagues discovered that nearly 10 percent of participants acknowledged cheating in sport, and almost 15 percent had intentionally attempted to injure an opponent.

Despite the prevalence of criminal behavior by student-athletes covered in the media, there is a gap in the research literature aimed at examining the recruitment of student-athletes with criminal backgrounds or troubled histories. As Brad Wolverton opined, while coaches hold the most power in terms of recruiting, individuals outside of the sport program may hold considerable sway; so much so that their approval or condemnation of a student-athlete’s actions off the field can impact their position on the team, playing time and even recruitment.

In a study recently published in the journal Deviant Behavior, we sought to put this conjecture to the test by asking whether previous criminal actions (e.g., assault, using illegal drugs) committed by a recruit would deter fans from accepting that athlete to their team. Utilizing hypothetical vignettes, informed by real-life occurrences, the authors measured fan support for recruiting football student-athletes who had engaged in illegal activity.

We found that criminal behavior did indeed impact a prospective student-athlete’s recruitment support from fans. Interestingly, violence exhibited toward another man was scored similarly to the non-violent use of illegal drugs. However, violence toward a woman was received with much more criticism than either of the aforementioned acts. The fact that assaulting a man and using illegal drugs were scored similarly, deserves future consideration and investigation.

A racial element was also present, as black student-athletes that engaged in illegal drug use were judged less harshly than their white counterparts. These findings suggest that white prospective student-athletes may be held to a higher standard than black prospective student-athletes regarding drug use. This speaks to the potential existence of stereotypes and assumptions that black student-athletes already partake in the criminal, but non-violent, behavior of drug use. Thus, when the white student-athlete was portrayed as a drug user, perhaps fans were more upset because they expected better of him.

Provided the results of the current study and prevailing sport headlines regarding criminal behavior, it is no surprise that change is already occurring throughout the nation. The NCAA now requires its member institutions to provide sexual assault prevention training for coaches and players. Some programs, for example Indiana University, have adopted new policies that would ban incoming student-athletes with a history of sexual assault or domestic violence. The Big 12 and SEC have adopted proposals that prevent conference schools from accepting transfer students with histories of domestic violence or sexual assault.

Robert Turick is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management at the University of Florida. His research focuses on studying social issues in sport, with a specific focus on racial and ethnic discrimination in sport and student-athlete well-being.

Trevor Bopp is an assistant professor in the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management at the University of Florida and Co-Director of the Laboratory for Athlete and Athletics Development and Research (LAADR). His research focuses on racial and ethnic discrimination in sport, sport-based youth development, and student-athlete well-being.

Lindsey Darvin is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management at the University of Florida. Her research interests include social issues and diversity in sport, with a specific focus on gender equity and women in leadership.

Prior to the 2017-18 season, Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata announced that he would be donating one percent of his salary to a collective fund managed by Streetfootballworld (SFW) as part of their recently launched #Commongoal movement. The initial plan for #Commongoal is to recruit a roster of 11 footballers willing to match Mata’s generosity by donating a portion of their salary to the collective fund that will then go toward supporting the more than 100 organizations that are part of SFW’s global network. Mats Hummels from Bayern Munich later announced that he would be the second player to join #Commongoal. The response to these announcements has been mostly positive with some cynical responses about a millionaire only donating one percent of his salary. However, the announcement of #Commongoal also provides an opportunity to examine what organizations like SFW hope to accomplish.

The organizations that are part of SFW use football for the purpose of addressing development and social issues, primarily relating to health and education, within their respective communities. If Mata and SFW manage to recruit a roster of players to contribute to the #Commongoal fund, and assuming these other players earn salaries similar to that of Mata, the total amount raised would be around $1 million USD. This would amount to less than $10,000 per year for each of the more than 100 organizations that SFW supports, but Juergen Griesbeck, the CEO of SFW, stated:

This is the first step of a giant global endeavour. Imagine the entire industry uniting in the name of social change. Together we can usher in a new era for football and forge a deeper sense of purpose at the heart of the game.

Essentially then, SFW is advocating for a percentage of all revenue in the football industry be redistributed to organizations that are “changing the world through football”. The timing of this announcement coincided with the Brazilian player Neymar completing the most expensive transfer to date from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for $263 million. In an article that Griesbeck wrote for the World Economic Forum, he asks us to “imagine, for a moment, a world in which a portion of the money from Neymar Jr’s record-breaking deal is injected into something of deeper value to football fans and their communities.” To a degree, this already happens, as Barcelona FC presumably pays taxes within Spain, and Neymar, or more likely PSG, will have to pay tax on his income in France. These taxes, both personal and corporate, come out to substantially more than one percent. However, there are a number of cases of clubs, players, and managers engaging in tax fraud, evasion, and exploiting loopholes to pay less tax. Mata’s own club, Manchester United, has gone from a club formed by local railway workers to a global organization registered in the Cayman Islands that pays out millions of dollars in dividends to its American owners and other shareholders.

Additionally, Mata’s own manager at Manchester United, Jose Mourinho, is being sued by Spanish authorities for defrauding the government of taxes during his time at Real Madrid, while Mata’s former teammate, Wayne Rooney, has been highlighted as one of many Premier League stars that have taken advantage of tax loopholes. One could argue, then, that Mata and SFW should perhaps develop a campaign to try and convince football players and clubs to pay the taxes they are obliged to pay. While taxes are not the major concern we should have about the #Commongoal campaign, it does highlight a more important issue. Mata and SFW are part of an industry with serious systemic problems, and the #Commongoal campaign does nothing to engage with these issues.

Yes, Mata and SFW are raising money for organizations working around the world, and these efforts should be applauded. It is rare for athletes to use their platform to recognize and critique the obscene money that floats around professional sport – Mata does this and seems genuinely interested in trying to do something that addresses this issue. However, the uncritical way in which the announcement of #Commongoal is being applauded by the sporting (social)media requires interrogation. Seeing people congratulate Mata for his one percent contribution to charity is reminiscent of what French philosopher Roland Barthes wrote about the iconography of charity in Mythologies: We should be “worried about a society which consumes with such avidity the display of charity that it forgets to ask itself questions about its consequences, its uses and its limits.” He further argues that this provides an “alibi which a sizeable part of the nation uses in order, once more, to substitute with impunity the signs of charity for the reality of justice.”

Perhaps most troubling in this case is the fact that the #Commongoal initiative was framed by language relating to changing the football industry and changing the world. However, announcements about #Commongoal have made little if any mention of FIFA, the world’s football governing body—also an organization famous for tax avoidance—or SFW’s connections to FIFA. Based on FIFA’s dubious reputation, it is understandable that an organization like SFW would not want to appear to associate with them for the purposes of changing the football industry and the world. But FIFA is indeed a partner of SFW.

What is more surprising is that FIFA previously promised to donate 0.7% of its revenues to “football-for-development” activities, which is bizarrely based on the target that a number of countries set for themselves with regard to foreign aid/assistance. Based on its financial reports, FIFA has in fact gone slightly above this commitment by spending $40 million on its Football for Hope (FFH) Movement from 2011–2014 and $27 million from 2015–2017. In this way, it seems odd that SFW would not mention FIFA as already essentially contributing to a different version of the #Commongoal fund. If they are talking about redirecting one percent of football revenue, then FIFA seems to be doing this already.

Importantly, almost all of the organizations that are part of FIFA’s FFH Movement are also part of SFW’s network. So, the organizations that are benefiting from FIFA’s roughly $10 million per year will also benefit from the newly established #Commongoal fund. I have had the fortune of meeting and speaking with a number of people and organizations that are connected to the FFH Movement, and while I respect the work they do, I continue to come back to Barthes’ warnings about a society that so avidly consumes the iconography of charity that it is not willing to question its uses and consequences. In this regard, the consequences of SFW partnering with FIFA have been ignored.

SFW has been in partnership with FIFA since 2005, a timeframe during which the men’s World Cup has been held in Germany, South Africa and Brazil and was awarded to Russia and Qatar. In each of these locations there has been myriad examples of displacements, labor and human rights abuses, financial corruption, as well as increased surveillance and policing of citizens. In many ways FIFA is responsible for, or contributes to, many of the issues that SFW organizations attempt to address through their programming, yet SFW has rarely if ever come out publically against FIFA’s practices that contribute to these issues. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to this kind of philanthropy as fixing with the left hand what you do with the right hand.

Of course, arguments can be made in favor of seeking change from the inside, yet we should think critically about the degree to which SFW can change the football industry and the world while partnering with an organization like FIFA. In this case, the #Commongoal initiative may be a largely superficial attempt at putting a beautiful face on an increasingly ugly game.

Shawn Forde is a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on how various groups mobilize sport for the purposes of social change. He has published articles in the Sociology of Sport Journal, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Qualitative Research in Sport Exercise and Health, Sport in Society, and Sport Management Review. You can find him on Twitter @shawnforde.

With NFL training camps well underway, teams looking to sign a quarterback have passed over Colin Kaepernick time and time again. It appears he may be serving his ultimate punishment following a year of protest and activism. Amid those who defend NFL decision-makers as simply making choices for “football reasons,” there has also been a chorus of critics who see (black) players as responsible for his remaining on the sidelines.

“If the black players would unite, and say, ‘We will not play Game 1 this year,’” Skip Bayless noted as part of a discussion about Kaepernick on Fox Sport’s Undisputed, “I promise you, it would have an impact and would get something done.”

Bayless isn’t alone in putting the responsibility and risks in the laps of the league’s black players.

“As a result, the only way that NFL owners would be threatened by a protest was if it came from the players,” argues A.R. Shaw. “If all of the Black NFL players threatened to sit out a game, the NFL owners would immediately find a way to sign Kaepernick. About 70 percent of all players in the NFL are Black. The NFL product would suffer tremendously without its Black players.”

In response to such commentaries, we should question why it is the responsibility of black players to refuse to play. Why do Bayless and others see the burden of protest as one held by black players rather than those who cash in on racially codified privilege on and off the field? Imagine if Tom Brady spoke out. What about Drew Brees, J.J. Watt, or countless other white NFL players? Imagine if they refused to play in protest of the treatment of Colin Kaepernick. What if they, like Malcolm Jenkins and Marshawn Lynch, continued Kaepernick’s protest against persistent anti-black racism? Yet, white players are neither expected nor chastised for failing to protest racial injustice, for failing to account for the decisions of their employers.

#PlayingWhileWhite means having the ability to remain silent amid zero expectations of doing what is morally/politically righteous. As noted by Howard Bryant, “The White players in the NFL should be ashamed of themselves. If you’re a union…You have to send some type of message that this isn’t acceptable.” Yet, Bryant has been one of the few voices demanding action from ALL players.

Seemingly ignoring the countless black players who have spoken truth to power over the discrimination and persecution of Kaepernick, much of the discourse focusing on “player silence” continues to center the failures of black players to speak up. Some have even gone as far as to call out specific players for not kneeling with Kaepernick last season or standing up against the owners. Most of those named are African American, ostensibly giving white superstars a pass.

As I argue in Playing While White, one of the privileges of whiteness, on and off the field, is being seen as a leader. Yet, when it comes to leading the fight against racial injustice, against the discrimination of one’s football peers, these white leaders are nowhere to be found. And while their black peers are chastised for selfishly not standing up for Kaepernick, for not speaking, whites inside and outside of football are not held accountable.

#PlayingWhileWhite is also having the privilege to speak out without fear of punishment; in fact, #PlayingWhileWhite is having the ability to speak out about racial injustice without widespread accusations of “playing the race card,” “selfishness,” “ignorance,” “childishness” or “ungratefulness.” To be white and woke is to be insulated from the demonization and criminalization that is commonly applied to black athletic protest. While black athletes, whether in the WNBA, among the collegiate ranks, or in countless other spaces, are routinely told to shut up and play, white athletes are told over and over again, ‘we love when you use your voice, your intelligence, and your place to be role models and facilitators of social good #ThankYou #TruthToPower.’ To be white and woke is to garner celebration for one’s courage, leadership, and selflessness.

When New England Patriots defensive lineman Chris Long voiced his support for Kaepernick, he was rightly praised as an accomplice doing necessary political work. Long went beyond the clichéd “I support his right to kneel,” never mind the issues of racial injustice and anti-black violence, reflecting on his own whiteness. “I play in a league that’s 70 percent black, and my peers—guys I come to work with, guys I respect, who are very socially aware, intellectual guys,” Long noted. “If they identify something that they think is worth putting their reputations on the line, creating controversy, I’m going to listen to those guys.” Such comments didn’t prompt outrage or endless debates within the sports media; rather they prompted praise, shock and awe, and celebrations. He’s not alone.

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who has expressed support for Kaepernick and disdain for the “45th President of the United States,” and who has discussed white privilege and systemic racism, has not been called a distraction. His opinions have not been dismissed as baseless; he has not been routinely told to shut up because he is alienating fans and sponsors. Instead, he has been widely celebrated as “woke,” as intelligent and knowledgeable, and for using his power and privilege to advance change. Like Steve Kerr and Stan Van Gundy, Pop is held up as an example of how sports figures can use their platforms to foster critical conversations about racism. While their platforms emanate from their place in the coaching ranks, from their power as fixtures within the sporting landscape, their whiteness is central. To coach while white empowers them to speak out in ways that their black peers rarely dream; the wages of whiteness amplify their voices, promoting praise and celebration of their courage, wokeness, and sacrifice.

The widespread celebration of Josh Rosen (and Johnny Manziel), compared to Cardale Jones or Nigel Hayes, all of whom have in different ways shone a light on the hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy, and complicity of the NCAA, its partner schools and collegiate coaches in the exploitation of college athletes, elucidates the ways whiteness matters.

#PlayingWhileWhite is also engaging in political projects without fanfare, media scrutiny, or accusations of distraction and disrespect. Look no further than America’s golden boy, the ultimate modern day great white hope, whose leadership is praised as much as his intelligence and work ethic, Tom Brady. Over and over again, he exhibits the power and privileges of whiteness not simply in the narratives that render his screaming on the sideline as evidence of his passion, that refashioned accusations of cheating as proof of his competitiveness and victimization, that imagine him as the ultimate leader because of his determination, intellect, and commitment to team, but in his ability to be vocal and silent on political issues at his choosing.

#PlayingWhileWhite is standing for the national anthem, while black peers kneel or raise a fist, and never having to answer why he stands in silence. It is never having to explain how his whiteness shapes his understanding of the national anthem, the Kaepernick protest or the broader issues of racism in America. It is the ability to put a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker in the midst of the election and then rebuff inquires and criticisms. Like countless college coaches, who embraced then candidate Donald Trump, questions about appropriateness, about feelings of fans, sponsors, and teammates, and about these political choices were few and far between for Brady. As I write in Playing While White, “Race helps us to understand how Colin Kaepernick and countless black athletes are demonized and threatened for bringing their disrespectful politics into sports at the same time that countless white athletes and coaches are empowered to support Donald Trump with few questions about respect, the values of his campaign, or the message they sent in their support. Whiteness is privilege on and off the field. Whiteness matters.” It matters for those who remain silent; it matters for those speak out; and it matters for those whose rhetoric and actions serve to normalize white supremacy. If the recent events in Charlottesville, VA taught us anything, it should be that white America, from the football fields to stands, from the halls of government to the classrooms of higher education, need to speak out, kneel and stand up, collectively in opposition to the politics of white nationalism and endemic realities of racial violence.

David J. Leonard is a professor at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field (University of Washington Press) and After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press, 2012). He is also co-editor of Visual Economies of/in Motion: Sport and Film (Peter Lang, 2006), and Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011). His work has appeared in Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, Game and Culture, as well as several anthologies. Leonard is a past contributor to The Undefeated, NewBlackMan, the Feminist Wire, Huffington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Urban Cusp.

Last Sunday, after winning his record eighth title just three weeks shy of his 36th birthday, Roger Federer became the oldest male Wimbledon singles champion of the “open era”. The designation “open era”, dating from 1968 onwards, denotes the most profound and marked structural shift in the history of tennis. Given that this year also marks the 50th anniversary of the last amateur Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships and the first professional tournament held at the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), it is worth looking back on Wimbledon’s role in the development of “open tennis”.

The movement to bring about “open tennis” – essentially, allowing amateurs and professionals to compete in the same tournaments – was long and drawn out, commencing before the Second World War, and ushered in a period of profound change that witnessed unprecedented commercial growth and a shift in the balance of power between players and officials toward the former.

In 1924, the British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) arranged several exhibition matches between leading amateurs and professionals for the purpose of improving general playing standards. Such was their success that they proposed in 1929 to hold an “open championship”. That same year, the United States Lawn Tennis Association also proposed open competitions, but their chief aim was to capitalize on commercial opportunities afforded by the entertaining spectacle. Public support for such competitions remained strong, and throughout the 1930s, both Britain and the US continued to champion the idea of open competition, if only to remove the hypocrisy of “shamateurism”—amateur players and tournament officials engaging in unscrupulous practices involving fudged expense accounts and under-the-table payments. However, proposals for such changes needed two-thirds support across all representative nations within the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), and despite numerous attempts by both nations, comprehensive support was not forthcoming.

In the post-war period, professional tours began to seriously undermine amateur competition, as promoters like Jack Kramer continuously lured top amateurs away with lucrative contract offers, such that Wimbledon and the US Open became, in effect, qualifying competitions for the professional circuit. In 1960, the French Tennis Federation officially proposed allowing players to receive payment for play but remain eligible for amateur competitions like the grand slams and the Davis Cup – essentially creating a third category of “authorized player” existing between “amateur” and “professional” – alongside another proposal to sanction eight open tournaments in 1961. While the first proposal was comprehensively defeated, the second received an overall vote of 134-75 in support, but still five votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority. Apparently, some of the smaller nations feared that open competition would lead to the top players avoiding their best tournaments, which could not compete with those of the larger nations in terms of prize money, while Soviet bloc nations opposed professionalization and its potential effects on state-sponsored sport. Buoyed by the close result, nevertheless, the major tennis-playing superpowers – Great Britain, the United States, France and, to a lesser extent, Australia – led the charge for open tennis throughout the 1960s, proposing almost every year, in slightly different formats and varieties, for the removal of the amateur-professional distinction and/or open competition. Each time they were defeated.

As the world’s most renowned tournament, it was the Wimbledon Championships that held the keys to the arrival of open tennis. The AELTC considered it their moral duty to promote institutional integrity and lead in the promotion of fair compensation for players within an increasingly commodified commercial sport marketplace. They approached the LTA in 1965 for support in forcing an open Wimbledon the following year – to “go it alone” despite facing expulsion from the ILTF – but the LTA rejected the proposal with only 31% of its Council in favour. There were concerns over whether an open Wimbledon would receive the necessary support from other nations, elite players, and the British public.

A hugely successful Football World Cup in 1966, in which all of the victorious England team were professionals, helped persuade some of the LTA’s amateur stalwarts to reconsider their position. After a succession of fairly drab Championship meetings that saw declining television figures, the AELTC agreed to pilot an end-of-season professional tournament on their hallowed courts, featuring stars Rod Laver, Pancho Gonzales, Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall. Supported by £35,000 BBC sponsorship and their agreement to broadcast in colour – the first AELTC-staged event to do so – the tournament drew huge crowds and impressive television figures. Consequently, the popularity and commercial success of professional tennis was demonstrated, which helped push the LTA, with a 295-5 majority vote at their next AGM, to delete all official references to amateurs and professionals from their statutes. The AELTC then made the bold move to make its 1968 Championships “open”.

Unsurprisingly, the ILTF announced plans to suspend the LTA from April 22, 1968, but tireless campaigning from AELTC and LTA executive committee members, alongside overwhelming support from amateur stars like Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King, forced the ILTF to reconsider their position or risk a mutiny. An emergency meeting was held in March, and the 47 participating member nations decided unanimously to withdraw their opposition. It was a victory for the progressives.

While the ILTF allowed open competition, however, their agreed ruling supported the maintenance of distinctions between amateurs and professionals, and kept the latter at arms length rather than brought them under their jurisdiction. This had far-reaching consequences, not only sustaining the “professional” stigma – suggesting professionals were a breed apart – but also opening the door for promoters to capitalize by forcing negotiations with association and tournament officials to ensure the attendance of their contracted professionals. This created a period of turbulence in the early 1970s that led to the formation of men’s and women’s player unions, and brought numerous boycotts and lawsuits, as players exercised their markedly enhanced leverage within the new and increasingly commercialized structure of professional tennis.

For female players, open tennis invited huge disparities in the prize-money allocation between men and women, which forced them to challenge the ILTF, create their own “rebel” tour sponsored by Virginia Slims cigarettes, and negotiate a more equitable share of the wealth they helped generate. While far from a flawless transition, open tennis did ultimately help remove the hypocrisy of shamateurism, invite a more lucrative compensation structure for male and female players, and ignite a process of modernization for many of the major tournaments throughout the 1970s and 80s. Wimbledon’s contemporary image as old-fashioned and conservative does well to hide its more progressive spirit and rebellious past.

Dr. Robert J. Lake is in the Department of Sport Science at Douglas College, Canada. His research interests revolve around the sport of tennis, its history and culture, particularly in relation to issues of social class and exclusion, gender, race/ethnicity, national identity, coaching, talent development and policy. He is the author of A Social History of Tennis in Britain (Routledge, 2015), which recently won the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize awarded by the British Society of Sport History. More information, including a detailed list of publications, can be found at: http://www.douglascollege.ca/programs-courses/faculties/science-technology/sport-science/faculty/rob-lake His publications can be found, free to read/access, at: https://douglas.academia.edu/RobertJLake

“We are on the map and we’re staying on the map, not just in sports, but in everything”. This quote from American-Jewish basketball player Tal Brody is not only one of the most well-known quotes in Israel’s sports history, but also one of the most famous in Israeli culture overall.

Brody was an All-American while playing at the University of Illinois and was selected with the 12th pick in the first round of the 1965 NBA Draft by the Baltimore Bullets. Yet during that summer, Brody made a decision that changed both his life and the history of Israeli sports. After leading Team USA to a gold medal in the 1965 Maccabiah Games, Brody was persuaded to join the relatively unknown Israeli basketball team Maccabi Tel-Aviv in 1966.

Bringing modern American basketball to Israel, Brody helped turn Maccabi Tel-Aviv into a European powerhouse. After beating Soviet Union giants CSKA Moscow in the European Championships semifinals group stage in 1977, Brody provided the iconic quote that every child growing up in Israel knows. With Brody as the captain, Maccabi Tel-Aviv went on to win its first European Cup, and a dynasty was born.

Today, Maccabi Tel-Aviv Basketball Club is one of the most decorated sports clubs in the world, winning over 100 domestic and international titles, including six European Cups, and is one of the biggest powerhouses in European basketball history.

The club’s most recent European Cup came under head coach David Blatt, who also immigrated to Israel after participating in the 1981 Maccabiah Games. Building on his international success, Blatt became the first Israeli-American coach in the NBA, joining the Cleveland Cavaliers and winning the Eastern Conference title in 2015.

The unprecedented Maccabi Tel-Aviv dynasty that helped put Israeli sports on the map would likely not have happened if Brody had joined the NBA instead of falling in love with Israel after participating in the Maccabiah Games.

The Maccabiah Games

The Maccabiah Games, also known as “The Jewish Olympics”, are a multi-sport event for Jewish people from across the globe. The Maccabiah Games are the third largest multi-sport event in the world when considering the number of participating countries, the number of sports events and the number of participating athletes, trailing only the Olympic Games and the Universiade (a.k.a. World University Games). Unlike other sport mega-events that rotate between different host cities, the quadrennial Maccabiah Games always take place in Israel.

The Maccabiah Games have embraced several Olympic traditions, such as a torch relay, opening and closing ceremonies and having different formats of athletes’ villages. However, most of the participating athletes are amateurs, and most of the events take place at smaller local or regional facilities that cannot be compared to stadiums used in mega-events like the Olympics.

While the level of competition may not be as high as in professional international sports events, several athletes have used the Maccabiah Games as a platform to showcase their talent and later moved to Israel, received Israeli citizenship, and represented Israel in international competitions, including the Olympic Games. American weightlifter David Berger participated in the 1969 Maccabiah Games, then immigrated to Israel (known as “making Aliyah”) in 1970. Berger competed for Israel in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and was one of the 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and referees kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the attack known as “The Munich Massacre”. A recent example is American born swimmer Andrea Murez who represented the United States in the 2013 Universiade Games and competed in the 2009 and 2013 Maccabiah Games where she set Maccabiah records; Murez immigrated to Israel in 2014 and represented Israel in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Moreover, a number of legendary Jewish athletes from other nations have participated in the Maccabiah Games, most famously Hungarian gymnast Agnes Kelti, a 10-time Olympic medalist, and one of the most accomplished swimmers in history, American Mark Spitz.

From Muscular Judaism to Nation Building

The Maccabiah Games are rooted in the Zionist Movement–the national movement for Jews, seeking a homeland for Jewish people. In the second Zionist Congress of 1898, Max Nordau coined the term “Muscular Judaism”, trying to transform the image of the separatist bible learning Jew and create an image of a new proactive Jew that would work the land, fight and build the future homeland. For further readings about sports and Zionist ideology, see the following article by Kaufman and Galily.

With the growing number of sports clubs in Europe, Jewish sports clubs were also formed, adopting Hebrew names such as Maccabi. In the 1928 Maccabi World Union, an umbrella organization for Maccabi clubs was formed, and in 1932 the first Maccabiada (later renamed the Maccabiah Games) were held in what was then British governed Palestine with 390 participants from 18 countries. The second Maccabiah Games were held in 1935, but due to World War II and violence in Palestine, the third Maccabiah did not take place until 1950, two years after Israel’s independence.

Since the fourth Maccabiah Games in 1953, the games have been held every four years. In the earlier decades of the State of Israel, the Games served an important nation building role. Israel is an ethnic democracy, and by definition a Jewish State. Two of the most significant laws are the Law of Return (Shvut Law) and the Citizenship Law that grant Israeli citizenship to every Jewish person immigrating to Israel. Along these lines, the Maccabiah Games served as a recruiting tool for the Zionist movement, a way to connect Jewish people from the diaspora to the State of Israel, and a channel for immigration. (This article by Galily provides further information about the contribution of the Maccabiah Games to the development of sport in the state of Israel.)

The 20th Maccabiah Games

As of 2017, the Maccabi World Union operates in over 60 countries across five continents. There are regional, national, and even continental Maccabiah Games, but the flagship event of the movement is the quadrennial Maccabiah Games in Israel. In July 2017, the 20th edition of the Maccabiah Games will begin on July 4, with the opening ceremony and most of the events taking place in Jerusalem.

The decision to have Jerusalem as the main host city of the Games for the second straight time is a political one by the Israeli government, emphasizing the city as the capital of Israel in the year when the city is celebrating 50 years of unification following the 1967 Six Days War. While Israel refers to the control over the Western Wall and Eastern Jerusalem as “liberation” of the city, the Palestinians and their supporters refer to it as “occupation.”

According to the website of the 2017 Maccabiah Games, the 20th Maccabiah Games are expected to be the biggest event yet, having approximately 10,000 participants from 80 countries, competing in over 40 sports events. Along with the traditional competitions, there are also youth competitions, master’s competitions, competitions for people with disabilities, competitions in winter sports, such as ice hockey, and open events such as a half-marathon where the general public can participate. Several current and former Olympic medalists are scheduled to participate in the games, such as current Olympic swimming champions Anthony Ervin (2 gold medals at Rio 2016, gold and silver in Sydney 2000) and former swimming champions Jason Lezak (8 Olympic medals, 4 gold) and Lenny Krayzelburg (4 Olympic gold medals).

Engaging youth, strengthening the connection between Jewish communities and the State of Israel and educating about the history and culture through touring the country are essential parts of the Maccabiah. While Jerusalem will be the city that hosts the bulk of the events, competitions are spread throughout the country. So, although the significance of the Games has changed over the years, they still serve political, economical, touristic and educational roles for Israel and the Zionist Movement (the following link provides further information on the history of the Maccabiah Games).

Originally from Tel Aviv, Israel, Yoav Dubinsky is a Ph.D. student in sport studies and a Graduate Teaching Associate at the University of Tennessee, Department of Kinesiology, Recreation and Sport Studies. His research focuses on country image, nation branding and public diplomacy in sport. He can be contacted at: ydubinsk@vols.utk.edu

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
– Karl Marx, The Manifesto of the Communist Party

Last year, Reggie Miller criticized Kevin Durant’s decision to join the Golden State Warriors in order to win a championship. While many others made similar critiques, I find that Miller reveals a broader issue in professional sports. Miller expresses this point through the article’s title, “Kevin Durant Traded a Sacred Legacy for Cheap Jewelry.” Framing his critique through the sacred (legacy) and the profane (cheap jewelry) reveals what I see as two inter-twined, mutually-dependent yet contradictory elements that structure professional sports.

I call the first element “romantic.” Here, I am thinking of 19th century romanticism, which was a movement in art and literature that focused on generating intense feelings, emotions, sensations, and individualism. Romanticism presented a protest against the malaise and alienation experienced with the emergence of industrial capitalism with its attack upon customs, individuality, and traditional solidarity. An exciting sporting event intensifies participants’ emotions and extends emotional connections amongst participants, whether fans or performers. Indeed, the romantic element draws fans to sports because it is at the heart of the pleasures we experience when watching sports—intensified emotional states, social solidarity, and the sense of being part of something larger than yourself.

Miller argues that Durant’s choice to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder betrayed the romantic element. In making his case, Miller invokes the religious a second time, “Durant would have been a god if he stayed in Oklahoma City.” Why? Because in small-market towns, fans love and worship celebrity athletes who remain loyal to them, who play David to big city Goliaths. “Had he stayed in Oklahoma City, people would have said, ‘He spurned all the other offers and continued to fight the giant.’”

As a result, Miller suggests that star athletes in small markets have a greater obligation to their communities than do other players. Fans’ love and loyalty creates bonds of reciprocity, a social contract between them and the star player. A player breaking his (or her) covenant with the fans is a selfish act that does not just hurt the fans and community, it selfishly places the individual above the league, and it hurts their “sacred legacy.” “Legacy” suggests more than what a player leaves behind (records, statistics, earnings, etc.), it suggests transcending our (profane) reality and building a relationship with eternity.

Throughout the article, Miller draws on religious language and imagery. His use of the word “kingdom” takes on a double-meaning between the temporal and ecclesiastical. The temporal meaning refers to a realm hierarchically organized under a regent. In this sense, Durant was the king of his realm in Oklahoma as Miller was in Indiana, Michael Jordan in Chicago, and Stephen Curry in Oakland. Miller argues that even if Durant is top-dog on the Warriors, he will always be in Curry’s kingdom. The ecclesiastical meaning invokes the Kingdom of Heaven, which refers to Jesus’ preaching in Mathew as “a process… by which God manifests his being-God in the world of men.” Whether or not Miller’s focus on immanence stems from religious convictions or not is secondary to the fact that the romantic element creates a subjective reality that we experience through feelings and emotions. The fact that it is subjective makes it no less of a social force in the lives of fans and players alike.

Although Miller favors the romantic, he recognizes that there is also an economic element in professional sport that forms an objective reality. Repeatedly, he says that he does not blame or begrudge Durant’s decision. As Miller states, “But the media, of which I am a part, always says, ‘Well, he [Durant] never won a championship.’” Professional sports are capitalist enterprises dedicated to capital accumulation. The romantic element generates pleasures that cultural capitalists exchange for profit, which makes the economic element dependent upon the romantic. Capitalists try to maximize fans’ emotional investments through the staging of events and sport media that construct heroic narratives around athletes and sports competitions so that fans can see the drama and emotionally connect to the event. The emphasis on “rings” over other measures of performances is logical. Counting “rings” is a simple, shorthand measure of quality. Championships are generally the highest grossing, most anticipated sports events. Similarly, they mark the apex of a season and magnify fans’ emotional investments.

Since professional sports events are staged for capital accumulation, the romantic is mutually dependent upon the economic. We are drawn to the emotional pleasures of the romantic element and normally look past the economic. When the covenant is broken, then the economic and its contradictions with the romantic cannot be ignored. Fans cry foul, “But, I thought you loved us like we love you, I thought you were loyal to us like we are loyal to you!” But loving a professional sports franchise is like loving Microsoft or McDonalds. Corporations cannot love you back or return your loyalty since they are institutions motivated by capital accumulation and economic growth. Leading corporate actors can choose to ignore that imperative (as Miller claims) or they can choose to follow the economic logic of capital accumulation (such as Durant and LeBron James). As Miller writes, “Owners turn their backs on players all the time. So as a player, you have to do what’s right in your heart. I get that 100 percent.” Even if Durant does not maximize his NBA salary to accumulate more “rings,” that prestige can always be exchanged for capital and does not disrupt the logic of capital.

Miller’s article reveals a structuring reality and fundamental paradox of modern sport. The romantic and the economic elements are bound to each other and contradictory. Miller is a romantic but recognizes the economic reality. As fans, we are drawn to the romantic element that transcends the profane reality of everyday life, but it is constantly undermined by the economic. The utopian space we escape to is in fact an extension of the capitalist reality we want to escape, and that constantly disappoints fans.

Jeffrey Montez de Oca is an Associate Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Center for Critical Sport Studies at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. His areas of research include sport, media, marketing, and popular culture. He can be reached at jmontezd@uccs.edu.

In late 2016, a sports championship event was held in Chicago, drawing 43 million viewers during the series finals. That was 12 million more people than watched the 2016 NBA Finals.

It wasn’t soccer, or football, or even the World Series of Poker. Instead, it was the “League of Legends” World Finals, an esports competition.

Video games have been popular for more than 30 years, but competitive gaming, or esports, has recently emerged as a spectator activity that can draw thousands of attendees and viewers. Major sports networks such as ESPN, Fox Sports, MLB Advanced Media and the Big Ten Network have started broadcasting esports competitions, often partnering with major gaming companies like EA Sports, Riot and Blizzard. What is driving this phenomenon, and where is it taking us next?

Wide popularity

At first glance, the idea seems crazy, particularly to older consumers. Why would anyone want to watch other people playing video games? As a researcher focused on user experiences with social media, I have been watching the esports phenomenon develop over the last few years. My current work, with Matthew Zimmerman from Mississippi State University, looks at why users watch esports. Our preliminary findings suggest that esports spectators often play the games themselves, using the viewing process as a way to learn more about the games in question and improve their own skills as players.

In addition, many spectators take genuine pleasure in watching others play, finding the competitive culture immersive and experiencing watching esports very similarly to how they watch traditional sports.

Esports viewing has increased markedly over the past few years: The global market grew to US$696 million in 2016, and may exceed $1 billion by 2019. Media payments for rights to cover the events total nearly $100 million of that; consumers are paying $64 million for event tickets and merchandise. Most of the rest comes from advertising and sponsorship spending. The combined markets of China and North America account for more than half of global esports revenues.

A key attraction of esports is that regular people can play the very same games as the esports stars, often in real-time multiplayer tournaments. Millions of people play “Overwatch,” “League of Legends” and “Dota 2” in their own homes, and many of them participate in collaborative games and battles on communal video game servers or networks such as Steam. Familiar with the games, eager to learn new techniques and excited to celebrate expertise, these at-home players are very interested in watching top-level players in action.

Sean Morrison, a digital media associate for ESPN who specializes in esports coverage, told me he isn’t surprised by the surge in esports attention.

“I think the growth of esports is a generational shift more so than people suddenly becoming interested in video games,” says Morrison. “This generation of teens grew up on YouTube, watching streams, communing on internet forums – you name it. And esports is big business, too; it’s natural that people would wonder what the big deal is. All the hype kind of fuels itself, and that, combined with how many people have now grown up with this as a form of normal entertainment, has made it so big.”

Michael Sherman, college esports lead for Riot Games, the makers of “League of Legends” and other games, agrees.

“Watching video games is a very social behavior. Now you as a spectator have an opportunity to see the best people play. Aspirationally, you watch and say ‘I want to do that,‘” Sherman said to me. “It’s different from traditional sports like the NFL. I don’t watch football and go outside and throw the ball around. In esports, a lot of people watch and then they go play.”

An easy daily fix

While large sports media properties such as ESPN and the Big Ten Network have staked out territory in the esports world, many spectators get their daily fix from Twitch.Tv, a personal streaming service that specializes in video game streams. Twitch allows users to broadcast their own gameplay, while also hosting esports competitions and other video game shows. The service, which was purchased by Amazon for almost $1 billion in 2014, has helped esports to grow, by allowing gamers and viewers to directly connect with each other.

Twitch capitalizes on the very familiar practice of communal game watching. Over time, many video gamers have gotten used to watching others playing games while waiting for their turn with the controller. Twitch globalizes that experience, and – just as friends together in front of a TV can comment on each other’s play – lets viewers and the player interact directly online.

This is a boost beyond what many games allow. It’s quite common for games to have online components where players can take on opponents from anywhere in the world. But only on Twitch and similar esports platforms can nonplayers watch the action. Twitch’s elite gamers generated $60 million in subscriptions and advertising revenue in 2015 alone, per a CNBC report.

League and game growth

The interest and money have been encouraging the adaptation of games into leagues and sanctioned sports for years. Worldwide leagues exist for “Call of Duty,” “FIFA,” “Overwatch” and “Halo.”

Lately, college teams have been getting in on the action. “The biggest development has been universities adopting ‘League of Legends’ as a sport,” says Riot’s Sherman. “In 2014, Robert Morris University was the first school to launch a varsity program. Now we’re up to about 25 schools.”

University-based teams allow several important elements of sport organization to coalesce in the esports marketplace. These teams feature young, enthusiastic gamers who are good enough to be competitive internationally, and institutions of higher learning who are keen to utilize the marketing potential of a rapidly developing sport to spread their brand. Esports have existed for many years outside of the official university environment, but official sanctioning by universities could help to boost the visibility of esports, as well as the games played in competitions.

“We announced in August that we had 100 million active monthly players globally for ‘League of Legends,’” Sherman says. “That was up from 64 million two years prior.”

While “League of Legends” continues to expand on the collegiate level, “Overwatch” has an eye on further changing the esports marketplace.

The Overwatch League, likely to launch in 2018, looks to have existing sports franchises in major cities across the globe own esports teams as well. The game designer, Blizzard, wants to create fan interest based on geographical and cultural relevance. The Overwatch League would also include regular broadcasts of matches on both TV and internet-based channels, as well as player contracts.

ESPN’s Morrison expects the Overwatch League model to help spur on esports spectator base growth. “‘Overwatch’ is going to blow up in the next couple of years,” he said. “Between the Overwatch League, which is going to be more like traditional sports than any league before it, and the number of competitive series popping up within it, ‘Overwatch’ will likely become the number one esports title before long. Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like ‘League of Legends’ have long been the center of the esports universe, but games like ‘Overwatch’ that combine MOBA elements in hero choice with faster-paced gameplay are becoming a mainstay.”

The sports media landscape continues to change, and esports seem to be a natural evolution of that process. Competitive video gaming was hard to conceive of 20 years ago, and even harder to conceive of as a spectator sport. But broadband internet, online video, social media and shared gaming experiences have taken esports to the brink of worldwide acceptance as a legitimate form of consumer entertainment. The next five years promise to be fascinating to watch – or to play.

Galen Clavio is Associate Professor of Sports Media and Director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University. His research focuses on the influence of electronic and new media on the interactions between sports media, sport organizations, and sport consumers.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.