Monday, May 20

SPORTS

From Football Game To Entertainment Extravaganza – The Super Bowl’s Evolution
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SPORTS, VIDEO REELS

From Football Game To Entertainment Extravaganza – The Super Bowl’s Evolution

In just 50 years, the Super Bowl has become one of the biggest “shared experiences” in American culture, up there with attending religious services, voting in presidential elections and playing Pokémon Go. But curiously, many of the tens of millions who tune in don’t actually want to watch football. Perhaps it’s because the game itself has never been all that exciting, with the outcome rarely a close call. As a response, it seems the NFL has created a thriving, celebratory atmosphere around the game. So how did a battle of gridiron gladiators become second fiddle to a flashy spectacle of singers, fireworks and advertisements? The Super (boring) Bowl The Super Bowl is generally super boring – at least, in terms of the typically lopsided score. The game is so boring that a rehash of all 5...
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Despite Tide In Public Support For Paying Athletes Having Turned – NCAA Amateurism Appears Immune To COVID-19
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COVID-19, SPORTS

Despite Tide In Public Support For Paying Athletes Having Turned – NCAA Amateurism Appears Immune To COVID-19

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, college sports have mostly chugged along – albeit with cancellations, postponements and pauses in play. While many college athletes are grateful for the opportunity to compete, the pandemic has laid bare just how few basic rights they possess. College athletes are navigating this strange sports season with increased health risks, but with little leverage or say about the conditions under which they’ll play. In contrast, their professional counterparts in leagues such as the NBA, WNBA, MLB and NFL, thanks to their respective unions, actively negotiated special accommodations, health measures, truncated seasons and the ability to opt out of playing. They also continually negotiate their economic rights, such as how their sport’s revenue is split up and the...
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Sports Teams Sustainability Efforts, Does It Matter To Fans?
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BUSINESS, IN OTHER NEWS, SPORTS, VIDEO REELS

Sports Teams Sustainability Efforts, Does It Matter To Fans?

While the sport sector’s environmental impact is not fully understood, it has a social platform and reach to influence a significant number of people worldwide to choose more sustainable behaviors. Brian McCullough, associate professor of sport management at Texas A&M University, says that sport organizations should be proactive in becoming more sustainable to increase business performance, deepen connections with fans and attract new ones. Do fans care about sports teams’ sustainability efforts? How are sports being affected by climate change? And how might they be affected in the future? To use a sports analogy, there will be winners and losers as a result of climate change. Certain sports, like outdoor winter sports and even surfing, are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. ...
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Let’s call athletes ‘workers,’ and let’s call these NBA protests what they were – strikes
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SPORTS

Let’s call athletes ‘workers,’ and let’s call these NBA protests what they were – strikes

The Milwaukee Bucks’ startling refusal to take to the court for their NBA playoff game on Aug. 26 was the most consequential political development in sports over the last 50 years. In recent years, the prevailing media narrative is that athletes have routinely used their platforms to “raise awareness” or “bring attention” to a social issue. Awareness, though, has its limits. Rarely does it lead to the kind of structural changes the shooting by police of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin seems to demand. In this case, the players met the moment, marking a fundamental shift in the direction of activism generated by Black athletes. The mass player walkouts that followed the Bucks’ initial protest were no exercise in awareness, though some commentators framed it as that way. Instead, these...
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As professional sports come back, members of the US women’s soccer team are still paid less than the men’s
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SPORTS

As professional sports come back, members of the US women’s soccer team are still paid less than the men’s

The U.S. women’s soccer team reported being “shocked and disappointed” by a federal judge’s dismissal in May of the team’s lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The lawsuit alleged discriminatory pay practices by the federation between its men’s and women’s team, which seemed especially unfair because the women’s team was so successful compared to the men’s team. The U.S. women’s soccer team dominated the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament last summer, taking a record fourth World Cup title. The U.S. men’s soccer team, on the other hand, failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2018. On June 24, the federal judge denied the women’s team request to immediately appeal their equal pay claim. Members of the U.S. women’s soccer team are the first professional athletes in the United S...
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Why safely reopening high school sports is going to be a lot harder than opening college and pro ball
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IN OTHER NEWS, SPORTS

Why safely reopening high school sports is going to be a lot harder than opening college and pro ball

Along with the revival of professional sports comes the yearning for a return to amateur sports – high school, college and club. Governing officials are now offering guidance as to when and how to resume play. However, lost in the current conversation is how schools and club sports with limited resources can safely reopen. As an exercise scientist who studies athlete health and an emergency medicine physician who leads Michigan’s COVID-19 mobile testing unit, we wish to empower athletes, coaches and parents by sharing information related to the risks of returning to play without COVID-19 testing. This includes blood tests to see if athletes have already had COVID-19 plus nasal swabs to test for the active SARS-CoV-2 virus. Regular COVID-19 testing on all athletes may seem like overkill, ...
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Robo-umps are coming to Major League Baseball, and the game will never be the same
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SPORTS, TECHNOLOGY

Robo-umps are coming to Major League Baseball, and the game will never be the same

The Houston Astros’ use of cameras to steal signs and conceivably cheat to win the World Series has driven many recent conversations about the place and meaning of technology in sports. The Major League Baseball season is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, but this has only delayed the league addressing the controversy of using technology within the game. New MLB-sponsored technologies, specifically those used to call balls and strikes, will spawn an entirely new set of questions about tech in baseball. These will only heighten the sport’s identity crisis. Baseball is a game heavily rooted in its history, and beloved traditions can make it very hard to change any aspect of the game. The historical continuity of game play enables fans to compare player and team performances over tim...
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Top football recruits bring in big money for colleges – COVID-19 could threaten revenue
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COVID-19, SPORTS

Top football recruits bring in big money for colleges – COVID-19 could threaten revenue

Colleges and universities are spending more than ever to land the nation’s top football recruits, with some schools having boosted their recruiting budgets by more than 300% in the last five years. These budgets can surpass US$2 million for schools like the University of Tennessee. Is it worth it? I study economics. Research I recently did shows just how big the payoff for spending money to recruit the best players can be. Half a million dollars The schools that secure five-star recruits – the 30 or so players judged to be in the top one-hundredth of the top 1% of high school football players – can increase total revenue by over $500,000 for a university’s athletic department. Most football teams never secure a five-star recruit. Others, such as the University of Alabama and Louisiana St...
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Can an intelligence test forecast which quarterback draft prospects will have NFL success?
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SPORTS

Can an intelligence test forecast which quarterback draft prospects will have NFL success?

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is slated to be selected with one of the first 10 picks in the NFL Draft. Like all top prospects, Tagovailoa has been subjected to months of evaluation, with teams’ scouting departments measuring his athletic abilities, interviewing his college coaches and researching his personal life. He’s also taken the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which, for about 50 years, teams have administered to prospects. This 12-minute intelligence test consists of 50 multiple choice questions measuring cognitive ability, with the score reflecting the number of correct answers. While all prospects take the test, the scores of quarterbacks – due to the belief that the position requires more brainpower – tend to generate the most media interest. The scores are nominally private, but every...
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Trump wants sports back – but fans aren’t so sure
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COVID-19, IN OTHER NEWS, SPORTS

Trump wants sports back – but fans aren’t so sure

Some politicians, media figures and business leaders are clamoring for sectors of the economy to re-open in the near future, and President Trump, on April 14, specifically mentioned America’s professional sports leagues. CC BY-ND “We have to get our sports back,” Trump said. “I’m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old.” But a recent poll of 762 Americans across the country conducted by my colleagues and me at Seton Hall’s Sharkey Institute shows that Americans may be less enthusiastic than the president about the prospect of “Play Ball!” – at least, until there are some effective COVID-19 treatments in place. Asked if they would feel safe attending a game before the development of a vaccine, 72% of Americans said they would not, while 12% said they would only go to games...
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