Following a season of protest and activism, Colin Kaepernick has been frequently passed over by teams in need of a quarterback.
Following a season of protest and activism, Colin Kaepernick has been frequently passed over by teams looking to sign a quarterback. (Photo by Gerry Melendez/ESPN)

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.

On July 16, 2017, Roger Federer became the oldest man to win a Wimbledon singles title in the “open era,” which dates from 1968 onwards. Notably, Wimbledon played a key role in ushering in “open tennis,” essentially allowing amateurs and professionals to compete in the same tournaments. (Photo from NBC News)

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.

The Maccabiah Games have adopted several Olympic traditions, such as a torch relay. Here, Israeli Olympic bronze medalist Ori Sasson carries the Maccabiah Torch. (Photo by Itamar Grinberg)

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.

Maccabi House in the Maccabiah Village in Ramat Gan, Israel. (Photo by Yoav Dubinsky)

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

Kevin Durant faced criticism for his lack of “loyalty” when he decided to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder and join the Golden State Warriors prior to the 2016-17 NBA season. (Photo from NBA.com)

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.

Two basketball teams go head-to-head in an esports competition, with spectators cheering them on. (Photo: Dan Steinberg/Invision for NBA 2K/AP Images)

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.

Game 1 of the Grand Finals for the 2016 League of Legends World Championships.

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.”

The final match of the 2016 FIFA Interactive World Cup.

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.

Muhammad Ali’s stand against the Vietnam War transcended not only the ring, which he dominated as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, but also the realms of faith and politics. —Krishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic. (AFP | Getty Images)

April 28, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the day that boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942-2016), citing religious reasons, was stripped of his heavyweight title for refusing to be inducted into the United States Army. That memorable event is somehow all the more amazing when considered as part of an evolution whereby “The Greatest” went from being reviled as a “draft-dodger” to being respected as a spokesperson against Islamophobia and a political activist for persons living with Parkinson’s disease.

Born as Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. into a Baptist family in Louisville, Kentucky, he abandoned his “slave name” and became known as Muhammad Ali when he joined the Nation of Islam in 1964. It was a deep commitment, one that continued throughout the rest of his life—most recently in the context of Donald Trump’s comments about banning Muslim immigration to the U.S., when Ali released a statement that read, in part: “True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion. We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda. They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody.”

In the case of refusing conscription in the military during the Vietnam War, he famously declared having “no quarrel with those Vietcong,” confronting white protestors and stating , “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father… Shoot them for what?…How can I shoot them poor people, Just take me to jail.” Within two months, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to a five-year stint in prison, fined $10,000, and banned for three years from boxing. Awaiting his appeal, he somehow arranged the “Fight of the Century” against Joe Frazier—losing after 15 rounds (the first loss of his professional boxing career), but winning an overturn of his conviction for draft evasion from the U.S. Supreme Court in Clay v. United States (403 U.S. 698) in 1971. His local draft board rejected Ali’s application for “conscientious objector” classification, but the country’s highest court reversed the conviction, deciding that the government had failed to properly specify why Ali’s original application had been denied.

At this time, it might be instructive to review Muhammad Ali’s history relative to the military. In 1964, he failed the qualifying test for the U.S. Armed Forces, his writing/spelling skills considered sub-standard; later, as those test standards were revised, he was reclassified 1-A—making him eligible for the draft. It was at this point that Ali publicly declared his refusal to serve, citing how , “War is against the teaching of the Holy Qur’an. I’m not trying to dodge the draft. We are not supposed to take part in no wars unless declared by Allah or The Messenger. We don’t take part in Christian wars or wars of any unbelievers.” Ali then changed his legal residence to Houston, TX and, even though the federal judicial district denied his appeal for reclassification as a Muslim minister in a 4-0 vote, he refused three times to step forward when called to serve. As noted in the 2013 film Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, it took the Supreme Court ruling that moral and ethical objections to war were valid if for religious reasons. While highly controversial, his decision also was a financial setback; yet, it is important to point out that today, the Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice, headquartered at the University of Louisville, works to advance Ali’s emphasis on peace-building, social justice, and the prevention of violence through educational programs, training, service and research. Drawing on his vision and work, it “develops initiatives that support human dignity, foster responsible citizenship, further peace and justice and address the impact of violence in local, state, national and international arenas.”

When, in 1984, it was revealed Ali had Parkinson’s disease, he allowed his iconic image to become the face of “Fight Night,” a fund-raiser for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Center (MAPC) at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, AZ. His philanthropy extended to serving as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in his hometown Louisville, KY, he frequented soup kitchens and hospitals and supported numerous national organizations. Relative to war, jail, judicial decisions, and even his own health, Muhammad Ali was a fighter beyond the boxing ring. In the award-winning documentary When We Were Kings (1996), which dealt with his October 30, 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight championship match against George Foreman in Zaire, Ali reclaimed the title taken from him for his refusal to be drafted. Today, we would do well to recall his prescient declaration relative to that event: “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion; not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”

Linda K. Fuller (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts), Professor of Communications at Worcester State University, has produced 250+ professional reports and authored/(co-)edited more than 20 books—including National days/National ways (2004), Sport, rhetoric, and gender (2006), African women’s unique vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS (2008), Sexual sports rhetoric (2009), Tsunami communication (2010), Women, war, and violence (2010), CS Monitor: An evolving experiment in journalism (2011), The power of global community media (2012), and Female Olympians: A mediated socio-cultural/political-economic timeline (2016). She has also been awarded Fulbrights to Singapore and Senegal.

Portland Thorns FC led the NWSL in attendance during the 2016 season with an average of 16,945 fans per match. (Photo by Ray Terril)

The National Women’s Soccer League begins its fifth season this week with markers of success that eluded the two failed U.S. women’s professional soccer leagues that predated it. Perhaps first and foremost is the league’s longevity. Both the Women’s United Soccer Association (2001-2003) and Women’s Professional Soccer (2009-2012) folded after three seasons. With no sign of impending failure, the beginning of a fifth season for the NWSL bodes well for this league’s ability to break into the national sporting imagination. Currently, when I ask the undergraduates I teach to name a women’s pro sports league, they are only able to recall the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). This could change in the future, but only with a league that lasts long enough to build a national profile.

In fact, the NWSL has expanded since its 2013 kickoff, adding teams such as the Houston Dash and Orlando Pride, and will feature 10 teams during the 2017 season. Though uneven and still lower than WNBA and Major League Soccer (MLS) figures, average attendance has risen. The Portland Thorns, perhaps the league’s best-known team, routinely draw crowds into the tens of thousands and turned a profit almost immediately upon joining the league.

In February, the NWSL announced a three-year partnership with the television network Lifetime. As a new sponsor, Lifetime will air an NWSL game each weekend during the season. This partnership is an enormous boon for a league that, like women’s sports more broadly, struggles to garner mainstream mass media attention outside of major international tournaments. In addition, NWSL Media is a newly formed, joint creation of Lifetime and the NWSL. The first commercial advertisements produced by this partnership are notable for their quality production values and focus on the athletic talent of the players.

Beyond these commercial and corporate successes, the U.S. Women’s National Team recently scored a goal for gender equity when it signed a new collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer. This five-year deal closes some (but not all) of the gap between men and women national team players in compensation and benefits. It also guarantees that U.S. Soccer will continue to provide financial support for the NWSL, further solidifying the status of this still-fledgling league. The NWSL recently announced an increase of minimum NWSL salaries to $15,000, up from $7,200 in 2016.

From the outside looking in, then, the NWSL looks to be on solid ground, both commercial and social victories characteristic of its first few seasons. Yet this “success” depends entirely on the league’s increased mirroring of men’s professional sports leagues in their practices, goals, and outcomes. Men and men’s sports remain the benchmarks against which the league is inevitably compared. As much sociological research has shown, however, the values that organize men’s professional sports, such as competitiveness, aggression, and rampant commercialization, have very real social and physical downsides. What does it mean for women’s professional soccer to adopt these values as their primary understanding of success?

For one, an all-consuming focus on competition and winning have increasingly permeated all levels of girls’ and women’s soccer down to the lowest levels of youth participation. As sociologist Rick Eckstein argues in his compelling new book on girls sports, a “winning-at-all-costs” mentality pressures girls to specialize early and totally, denying the benefits of sports participation to girls who prefer to play for fun or who want to pursue multiple sports. The development of a competitive, private pipeline in girls’ soccer leading into the college game also funnels out those who cannot pay to stay in it, particularly girls of color and girls from poor or working class families. While the racial and ethnic diversity of women’s soccer has improved in recent years, greater diversity in the future will require attention to the accessibility of youth soccer. The prioritization of competitive play has also generated high and growing rates of injury. For example, one recent study found that sports-playing girls were more likely to experience a concussion than boys, owing in large part to high rates of concussion in girls’ soccer.

In addition, unmitigated commercialization and corporatization drive a “star” system that sees the rewards of “success” distributed unevenly. Only a few players on the Women’s National Team have reaped the benefits of greater corporate investment, particularly after the team’s win in the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Their celebrity status, and the endorsements that accompany it, are not shared by rank-and-file NWSL players who often need to work second jobs while in season. It is also not accidental that the players who have these opportunities are disproportionately white, heterosexual, and feminine, indicative of a long lingering homophobia in women’s sport. And when these best-known players in the country go abroad to play, as forwards Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn have done recently, these moves are feared to hurt attendance by depriving NWSL teams of the only players with widespread name recognition.

Finally, as in women’s college sports, the NWSL is owned and operated almost entirely by men. Research has shown that as women’s college sports gained in size, prestige, and resources post-Title IX, men increasingly wanted and obtained jobs in women’s sports. Persistent beliefs in men’s greater competence in sports than women contributed to shifting employment patterns. As a result, the percent of college women’s teams coached by women has dropped from 90 to 40 percent since 1972. Although it is too early to know definitively, similar dynamics may be operating in women’s soccer; for 2017, only 1 of 10 head coaches in the NWSL is a woman.

The NWSL is one of the few fully professional women’s team sports leagues in the United States. As such, it is a rare and important case study for understanding gender relations and gender (in)equality in elite sport. As the league gains visibility and accrues additional resources, it would do well to simultaneously ask itself what, exactly, success looks like, and what the consequences may be of reaching it.

Rachel Allison is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate of Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. Her research examines the gender, racial, and class politics of U.S. women’s professional soccer. A book on women’s soccer is forthcoming with Rutgers University Press.

Mack Beggs, a 17-year-old transgender boy, made national headlines when he won the Texas state wrestling title in the girls’ division. AP Photo

Several cases working their way through the legal system have placed a national spotlight on the issue of transgender access to bathrooms. While some states have taken steps to allow access based on gender identity, many are considering legislation that restricts bathroom use by the sex assigned at birth.

Most of these court cases also apply to student athlete access to locker rooms and question schools’ obligations to provide appropriate facilities as well as the rights transgender athletes have to access these facilities.

The result has been considerable debate over how to accommodate the needs of transgender athletes. As researchers who focus on diversity and inclusion in sport, we see significant changes in the ways trans athletes are treated and believe there are pragmatic solutions available that will serve all athletes.

The changing landscape of sport for trans athletes

While legislative battles over transgender rights have been focused on school bathrooms, the issue of transgender rights in the entire sporting world is not a new one. Changes at higher levels indicate a shifting, more trans-inclusive sport landscape.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which for a long time was recognized as having one of the most exclusionary policies in sport, recently made some influential and groundbreaking changes. The old policy allowed transgender Olympians to participate only if they had transitioned via sex reassignment surgery, had completed at least two years of hormone therapy and could provide legal documentation of their transition.

In November 2015 (just two months before the Rio Olympics) the IOC changed course. Finding the previous trans policy to be unsupported by scientific evidence and recognized as excluding – rather than including – trans athletes, the committee revised it: Trans men (athletes assigned female sex at birth and who identify as a man) can compete without restriction. Trans women (athletes assigned male sex at birth and who identify as a woman) can compete as long as they have testosterone levels below a certain threshold.

Organizations like the You Can Play Project help strive for LGBTQ-inclusive athletic programs across the country. You Can Play Project

The IOC is not alone in shifting to a more trans-inclusive approach. The NCAA – the governing body of college athletics in the U.S. – implemented a new policy in 2011. At colleges and universities across the United States, trans women can now compete against other women as long as they have had at least one year of hormone treatment.

Interestingly, it’s in the context of high school athletics where trans athlete policies vary the most. The majority of state high school athletic associations permit athletes to compete according to their gender identities.

A handful, however, have more restrictive policies than the IOC or NCAA. In these cases, transgender students are often prevented from competing in the category that matches their gender identity. One such state is Texas, where a transgender boy recently won the high school state championship in girls’ wrestling, as he was required to compete based on the sex listed on his birth certificate.

Locker rooms and facilities

As with policies governing their participation in high school sports, policies influencing trans athletes’ use of locker rooms vary considerably by state – and even by school. In some cases, trans athletes may be restricted to use facilities congruent with their sex assigned at birth. In other cases, they’re restricted to separate facilities specifically for them.

To illustrate, consider the case of a high school in Palatine, Illinois. There, a transgender female athlete was permitted to play on girls’ teams, but she was excluded from the girls’ locker room. The locker room contained private changing areas that the student intended to use. Nevertheless, she was forced to use a private changing area located in another part of the building. The Department of Education found this exclusion to violate the student’s civil rights and eventually reached an agreement with the school district that now permits the student to access the girls’ locker room.

Why does it matter?

Specialized, private facilities can magnify the potential for isolation. In the now-infamous case of Gavin Grimm, he was asked to use a retrofitted broom closet and nurse’s restroom because he was a transgender student.

In such cases, the transgender students may internalize the message of their unequal worth. Such isolation also physically separates trans athletes from much of the bonding and planning that goes on among teammates in a locker room.

It is not just transgender students who are affected. All others are privy to these cues. When this happens, observers are likely to adopt views that transgender persons are lesser than their peers.

Inclusive locker rooms: The best option for all athletes

A more inclusive option is to allow all athletes to access facilities – including locker rooms – that are consistent with their gender identities.

Two objections, however, are sometimes raised to gender-inclusive locker rooms: safety and privacy.

Arguments around safety are sometimes expressed as a concern that transgender individuals themselves are a threat to cisgender female users of the locker room. Other times, it’s fear of the alleged risk posed by non-transgender men – the belief that men may take advantage of the inclusive policy to enter the girls’ locker room without restriction.

Neither of these concerns, however, has any empirical basis. The latter, in fact, reflects an illogical presumption that a sign on the door keeps criminals out of locker rooms.

Privacy, on the other hand, is a relevant consideration, but not a reason to exclude transgender athletes from gender-appropriate locker rooms. Rather, privacy is a concern for many students faced with the prospect of communal showers and large undifferentiated changing areas. It would seem that most individuals – irrespective of their gender identity and expression – don’t want to change in the open or bathe in gang showers.

Open, communal showers like these are still present in schools across the country. They are generally disliked by most students, transgender or not. I.Sáček / Wikimedia Commons

To alleviate the discomfort that all students – transgender and cisgender alike – might experience in such settings, as new schools are built, new locker rooms across the country are being designed with privacy in mind, with individual showers and changing areas available for any student. Meanwhile, existing locker rooms can be effectively and inexpensively retrofitted with privacy screens, as was done at several schools in New York.

Many institutions and sport governing bodies recognize this as best practice that promotes not only the inclusion of transgender athletes, but any athlete with a preference for modesty.

The national governing body for collegiate intramural and recreation offers guidance that addresses both transgender athlete needs and the needs of all students:

“Transgender student-athletes should be able to use the locker room, shower, and toilet facilities in accordance with the student’s gender identity. Every locker room should have some private, enclosed changing areas, showers, and toilets for use by any athlete who desires them.”

Given the problems associated with open locker room concepts, the answer for better services, privacy, and trans inclusion all revolve around better locker room spaces.

The answer: Inclusive principles for all athletes

It’s possible that the courts will soon clarify the obligation of education institutions to accommodate transgender students’ use of segregated facilities. Regardless of the outcome, sport associations in the educational context and beyond can, and in our view should, continue to lead the way toward more inclusive practices and spaces for all athletes.

George B. Cunningham, Professor of Sport Management and Director, Laboratory for Diversity in Sport, Texas A&M University and Erin E. Buzuvis, Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Studies, Professor of Law, Western New England University

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

On Sept. 5, 2016, the New York Mets signed former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow to a minor league contract. Photo from Sports Illustrated.

Five years since Tim Tebow and “Tebow Mania” flooded mainstream media, electoral politics, and religious discourse, the genuflecting born-again Christian is relevant in American sport culture once again. Though Tebow no longer throws fluttering passes in the NFL, the barrel-chested southpaw now crowds the plate at First Data Field in Port St. Lucie, Florida for the New York Mets in spring training. On September 5, 2016, the Mets signed Tebow to a minor league contract that included a $100,000 signing bonus.

The Denver Broncos drafted Tebow 25th overall in the 2010 NFL draft and signed him to an $11.25 million contract despite signs that Tebow was not an NFL caliber quarterback. The scouting report leading up to the NFL draft provided clear suggestions that Tebow may struggle. Even when he performed relatively well, pundits maintained, “he just can’t play,” with some suggesting he was worse than notoriously bad NFL quarterbacks Ryan Leaf and Jamarcus Russell. Tebow is now a 29 year-old “prospect” who signed with the Mets despite not having played organized baseball since high school. Wandering in left field and stiff at the plate, in his 2016 fall league debut Tebow hit under .200 and struck out in 20 of 62 at-bats. Longtime baseball analyst Keith Law described him as a “farce” and “imposter pretending to have talent.”

Many have suggested that the Mets are “shamefully” employing Tebow’s athletic talent, or lack thereof, in so far as he continues to bring reliable merchandise sales and valuable branding to the club. After proving incapable at quarterback, Tebow bounced around the NFL as a backup with three different teams from 2012 to 2015, received very little playing time, yet still managed to lead the league in jersey sales. Tebow’s Mets jersey, selling for up to $119.00, is already a league leader.

Tebow’s particular branding is part of a broader history of Christian fundamentalist media and marketing that Steinberg and Kincheloe (2008) call Christotainment. Christotainment refers to the commercialization of Christianity, particularly in television and radio entertainment, that spreads conservative Christian ideas and American recovery narratives (e.g., “Making America Great Again”), and serves white supremacy. Since the 1960s, Christotainment has been dedicated to remaking the image of Jesus into a hero for white men and boys. This new symbol of Jesus represents conservative ideals, American nationalism, and the masculine strength to “recover” what, it is perceived, has been “lost” in America such as patriarchy, “nuclear” family values, and white dominance in the economy and electoral politics. Tebow’s public image is not intolerant or explicitly in service of white identities in these ways. Rather, Tebow is a “softer” face, and sporting spectacle, of this recovery heroism.

“Tebowing” (Photo from The Denver Post)

Branding is meant to bolster private entities’ appeal to consumers and generate income. Tebow’s brand appears as a non-brand, if you will, because it is of God’s image, good will, and giving back to communities. This brand and public image is about “giving” rather than “receiving” from consumers. The meanings of Tebow’s brand are exemplified in his non-profit Tim Tebow Foundation, a globalized community outreach charity with a mission “to bring Faith, Hope and Love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need.” Making money off this kind of brand might seem antithetical, if not unethical, but it is crucial for Tebow to 1) become a professional football and baseball “prospect” who gets offered lucrative contracts and multi-million dollar endorsements; 2) sell Tebow-commodities, such as two autobiographies and Tim Tebow Foundation jewelry; 3) use sport and the media to evangelize; and, 4) as my research with Josh Newman demonstrates, fit the “pro-life” Super Bowl commercial message in which he was featured, and promote conservative Christian recovery, persecution, and white-male victimhood narratives.

Tebow’s brand has been built upon a lifetime of opportunity and privilege in social life and in sport. If anyone was meant to succeed in sport, it was Tebow. This is not a rags-to-riches story by any means. According to his autobiography, Tebow was homeschooled by his mother, which afforded him the leisure time to develop his large physical frame. He routinely worked out and consumed protein shakes plus other supplements that contributed to his physical strength and athleticism. His born-again parents are also land-owners whose finances and Christian networks afforded Tebow the opportunity to experience foreign cultures where he became privy to public relations practices. Ultimately, in order to play quarterback as a homeschooled athlete, Tebow lived in a spare apartment owned by his family in another county, allowing him to play football at a Florida public school. Tebow eventually parlayed this upbringing into a full-ride scholarship to the football powerhouse University of Florida. He now compounds this privilege, rife with opportunity, into an over-extended, deeply commercialized career that combines a supposedly not-financially-motivated innocence with dogmatic, conservative Christian commentary about society.

Yet when he was released by the New England Patriots in 2015, Tebow’s commercial and ideological opportunism became apparent. He turned this new chapter into more media exposure, another lucrative autobiography, a six-figure contract, and a well-worn American Dream trope. Consider his message in a recent interview with ESPN about people who doubt his latest baseball pursuits: “It is unfortunate in society,” Tebow explained, that people just “live with the status quo….live by all these rules, and….just accept [the] average nine-to-five rather than striving for something” more.

In this statement on American society, Tim Tebow, a millionaire, is ironically recasting himself as a symbol of hardship and perseverance, as a surrogate for new conservative responses to structural inequality, diversity, and lack of opportunity. Which is to say, “if Tebow can do it, anyone can.” Tebow’s version of the American Dream works for privileged people like himself in Trump’s America, and against many underprivileged populations including people of color, members of the working class, and, in this case, non-Christians, as well as the actual baseball prospects who have been stripped of opportunity because of how Tebow’s brand provides value for team owners.

In short, Tebow’s privileged background gives him ample access to professional sport where he builds a conservative Christian brand. This brand possesses economic value for professional sport franchises, presents Tebow with more (undeserved) opportunity, and has cultural value in, and for, contemporary conservatism in American society.

Matt Hawzen is a doctoral candidate at Florida State University in the Sport Management department. He is interested in media representations of sport celebrities, conservative politics in sport and physical culture, and labor relations in the sports industry.

University of Arizona freshman Lauri Markkanen, a native of Finland, was named to the top-20 list for the Wooden Award, which recognizes the best player in men’s college basketball. (Photo from Sports Illustrated)

The NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s National Basketball Tournaments tip off this week, bringing together players and spectators from around the world. Commonly known as “March Madness”, these annual tournaments have come to be seen as one of the biggest performance platforms for young basketball players from both the United States and, increasingly, across the planet. Generating more than $1 billion in advertising revenue alone, the NCAA basketball tournament has drawn more attention globally thanks to international broadcasting, digital technology, and the rise of international (non-U.S.) “student-athletes” at U.S. colleges and universities. In this article, I’ll discuss some noteworthy international players in this year’s tournament in light of the debate set off on college campuses nationwide by President Donald Trump’s policies surrounding immigration.

University of Louisville players Deng Adel and Mangok Mathiang were both born in Sudan and hold Australian citizenship. (Photo from Bleacher Report)

In sporting leagues across the world, there has been an increasing movement of athletic labor between countries, navigating issues of ethnicity, politics, economics and culture. This international movement has become increasingly prevalent in U.S. collegiate athletics. According to NCAA records, close to 7% of all active, Division I basketball players are international (non-U.S. national), representing an overall increase of nearly 133% since the association began keeping track of the measure in 2000. Exemplifying this growing internationalization, the University of South Florida women’s team has players from eight different countries on its roster, with head coach Jose Fernandez stating: “There really is so much talent all over the world that it’s great to have a broader recruiting pool to choose from.” At Florida State University, the women’s team boasts a trio of players from Spain (Maria Conde, Iho Lopez, and Leticia Romero), plus Ama Degbeon from Germany, while the men’s team has two Canadians and one player each from Chad, Nigeria, and Colombia. More notable international players include Przemek Karnowski (Poland) of the highly-ranked Gonzaga men’s team and freshman Lauri Markkanen (Finland) of Arizona, who was recently named to the Late Season Top-20 list for the John R. Wooden Award. The Louisville men’s team is another example of a multicultural locker room, with Anas Mahmoud (Egypt), Deng Adel and Mangok Mathiang (Sudan), and Matz Stockman (Norway). Adel and Mathiang were both born in Sudan and hold full citizenship in Australia. Sudan, one of the seven countries included in President Trump’s executive order, has been a continual supplier of talent in college and professional sports in the U.S. that stretches back to Manute Bol in the 1980s. Such an example highlights the impact of geo-politics and cross-border (transnational) movements and processes athlete migrants must navigate under their respective sporting leagues or organizations.

The Florida State University women’s roster features three players from Spain and one from Germany. (Image from FSU Center for Global Engagement)

Historically, U.S. colleges and universities have long been hubs for hosting and educating international scholars and students while benefitting from their presence in return. Only more recently has the steady growth of international student-athletes in college athletics also expanded. In NCAA Division I, college basketball coaches have fueled this migration through the steady recruitment of players from an assortment of countries. With international recruitment in college basketball becoming so standard in today’s game, the summer recruiting period for college coaches has transformed into the “overseas travel” period in order to attend FIBA world championships and other international basketball events. Under extreme pressure to recruit top talent and win championships, some coaches are even given expanded budgets to seek international stars beyond the U.S. border. Potential international players are recruited through a network of coaches, scouts and other basketball personnel.

As foreign affairs debates have escalated in the United States in recent months, immigrant hostility and xenophobic rhetoric have left college administrators feeling anxious about the future of international student communities. Reflecting concerns by both sport practitioners and sport sociology researchers (see Christorpher Faulker’s recent posting on Engaging Sports), understanding migrant athletes’ day-to-day experiences abroad are fundamental to preserving and fostering internationally diverse sporting leagues and organizations while also protecting the rights of the players themselves. For my dissertation, I am examining push-pull migration factors and cross-cultural experiences of basketball migrants in the NCAA. In exemplifying a unique case, Cal-Berkeley’s Chen Yue is China’s first female NCAA Division I basketball player and has proven to be an important figure on campus for both the international community and Cal student-athletes. Chen Yue’s relationship with her teammates was described in The Daily Cal as:

“The more time they spent with her, the more they learned about her upbringing in China and the cultural differences between her old and new homes. Talking about topics — from China’s one-child policy to differing gender norms — opened up a whole new perspective on life for everyone around Chen.”

Such athletes have the ability to enliven both classroom and locker room discussions. To date, sport and migration research has originated from scholars in different countries and sporting contexts. Comparative studies such as Norwegian players who chose to attend university in the U.S. and those who did not or an analysis of migratory motivations of American professional basketball players highlight the importance of understanding athlete migrant motivations and experiences. Future studies of this kind can better inform policies of sport organizations, educational institutions, and countries alike. International student-athletes will again enhance March Madness as elite performers and, more importantly, as students on their respective college campuses by bringing global perspectives to their American peers and serving as liaisons between the college athletics and international community populations. As underdog upsets and last second buzzer beating shots dominate the headlines in the coming weeks, we should also take note of the cultural exchanges happening between players of all nationalities and recognize the important place that international communities have on college campuses across the United States.

Ryan Turcott is a Ph.D. Candidate and instructor at the University of Georgia. His research centers on sport labor migration, qualitative research methods in sport, and sport for development. His dissertation focuses on the migration influences and lived experiences of international (Non-U.S.) players in NCAA Division I basketball.