ESPN Body Issue: Progress or backlash?

Yesterday, ESPN released selected images online from the 2011 edition of The Body Issue, expected to appear in a magazine form this Friday.

I awaited the day with curiosity to see what ESPN will tell us this year about “bodies we want.” I’m not sure if these are supposed to be bodies we “want” to consume (i.e.: look at) or bodies we “want” to have - we’ll put that dilemma aside for now.

For the third year in a row, ESPN is offering its consumers nude pictures of athletes with a goal to “celebrate athletes in the condition that they are in,” as editor-in-chief, Chad Millman, said for USA Today.

The arguments regarding what The Body Issue actually does for sports, especially women’s sports, have been split between those who, indeed, find the magazine to empower female athletes by giving them visibility and showcasing the diversity of their bodies and those who view the magazine as yet another outlet for sexualization and objectification of female athletes.

Dr. Nicole LaVoi from the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport eloquently outlined the two opposing points of view on this matter in her most recent blog post, which I shall not echo here, but certainly would encourage you to read.

After taking a first look at the pictures on ESPN’s website, I decided to be, at least temporarily, optimistic. At first glance, the pictures do just what they are supposed to: showcase the different shapes and forms of athletic bodies. These images could be interpreted as empowering and celebratory of the hard work put into developing these bodies.

If you read the statements by the athletes who posed for the Body Issue, you will find that they would agree with the above mentioned stance. In fact, it seems to be exactly why they chose to strip down: to show their success, to convey that they feel proud and comfortable in their bodies.

That, right there, might be liberation.

But a second glance begins to raise some concerns.

Among the selected photos on the website, women, more often than men, were in a passive position out of the context of sport, laying on the beach or a bench. Those pictures can hardly, even with an optimistic attitude, be interpreted as empowering.

Ah, I was going to be optimistic. Should have just closed the tab and called it a day after the first look.

Since the online edition is only a preview, a more detailed assessment of the new issue can only occur once the magazine is out and we see the context of these pictures. The problem sometimes isn’t that athletes appear naked in the photos; the problem is that the sexualized advertisements defeat any empowering potential of the photos.

We shall see very soon if ESPN made progress toward the noble intention of truly celebrating athletes’ bodies.

- Dunja Antunovic

NFLPA lawyer backs revenue sharing

The key to labor peace in sports resides with the owners, the NFL Players Association longtime general counsel said Tuesday evening.

A “lack of revenue sharing” likely is the reason there was a lockout in the NFL and why there’s currently one in place for NBA, Richard Berthelsen told about three dozen people at a Penn State Dickinson School of Law event in University Park, Pa., where he was the featured speaker.

He said every team should have relatively equal resources, estimating that there is a 2.5 to 1 ratio in revenue for the largest-market teams to smallest-market clubs in the NFL. By improving revenue sharing, the more cash-strapped teams can better compete and be on sounder financial footing.

This would be a better solution than cutting the salaries of the players he represents, Berthelsen said. The NFL owners likely have a different opinion.

The issue of antitrust laws was brought up by professor of law Steve Ross, who moderated the event. Berthelsen said these laws allowed for great gains to be made in terms of player rights and benefits. The discussion in this topic moved into union decertification, which the NFLPA did during its labor battle with the NFL this spring.

Doug Allen, another panelist and visiting professor in the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, said a union doesn’t go away but becomes an advocacy organization when it decertifies. Berthelsen added that the move does allow for players to take more aggressive court action against the owners, but there are some risks to players, too.

Players lose union assistance with their grievances and may not have a seat at the table when it comes to pension meetings and about disability funds, Berthelsen said.

He also used this opportunity to attack the notion that the NFLPA isn’t maybe as aggressive in getting protections for its players compared to other unions.

“When you bargain, you prioritize,” he said.

Berthelsen said in systematically chipping away at a power structure in existence long before the NFLPA, there have been notable victories for players in terms of pensions, salaries and health insurance.

Allen, a former NFLPA deputy director as well, took issue with the perception that the union doesn’t do enough to get players guaranteed contracts. He said in most collective bargaining agreements for sports don’t provide for guaranteed contracts. Instead the guarantees are between the teams and the individual players.

--Steve Bien-Aime

A look at The League of Fans' manifesto for youth sports

The League of Fans, a Ralph-Nader-funded group trying to reform sports culture, recently published part seven of a ten-part “Sports Manifesto,” a document meant to address a number of problems that the League of Fans sees with the win-at-all-costs and profit-at-all-costs trends in the sports world.

The seventh report in the series focuses on youth sports and may be the most foundational to the League of Fans’ efforts as it covers an issue that undergirds the entire sports world.

In the report, Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for the League of Fans and author of the “Sports Manifesto,” focuses on a number of issues surrounding youth sports, including the role of adult egos, the children’s level of enjoyment, the economics of youth sports, and single-sport specialization.

In all cases, the central point is that the priorities that drive youth sports are skewed, from Reed’s perspective. In light of that, he begins his six-part plan to improve youth sports with the following: “Put the Phrase ‘The needs of the kids come first’ In Every Youth Sports Organization’s Mission Statement.”

Reed has some less obvious and more problematic claims and suggestions (i.e. “Children are always seeking a sense of unconditional love from their parents and when it comes to sports participation they seldom get it,” and “Eliminate the College Athletic Scholarship”).

But Reed and the League of Fans’ general mission with this section of their “Manifesto” is an admirable and important one: looking critically at the youth sports culture. This process is especially important at the youth sports level since youth sports feed into collegiate and professional sports, which are addressed in the League of Fans’ other sections of their “Manifesto.”

Reed has yet to address the role of sports media, in the first seven parts of this ten-part series, but like youth sports, sports media is a significant entity that permeates and affects all other areas of the sports culture. It’s hard to imagine an effective reformation of the sports world that doesn’t involve – at least in part – the industry that’s created the enormous amount of attention that the sports world enjoys.

-Brett Sherrick

The dangers of social networking

Social networking sites are scary for intercollegiate athletics programs.

We all know about the well publicized incidents of student-athletes getting into trouble for inappropriate Facebook content. Athletic administrators are struggling to find a solution to protect both their student-athletes and their institutions.

For some schools, the solution was to ban student-athletes from Facebook. Some schools appointed a staff member to monitor profiles. Some schools held the team captains responsible for overseeing their teammates.

Increasingly, schools are investing in the hiring of sports media trainers to educate student-athletes how to build a positive image of themselves in the media. While traditionally training focused on making student-athletes more comfortable in front of the camera and teaching them interviewing skills, now the training has to address issues that arise from participation in social networking sites.

The simplified message of the training regarding Facebook, or any other social networking site for that matter, is the famous “if you mother wouldn’t approve it, don’t do it.”

Does this strategy hit home?

It might; and let us hope, for the sake of the student-athletes and the school, that it does.

However, if we only point fingers at social networking sites, we are ignoring a much larger problem here. A prerequisite for “harmful” content is the actual happening of the event: for the person to be involved in a situation that is negatively affecting their reputation or the reputation of their school.

By blaming social media, we are focusing on just one tree when there is a whole forest out there.

The education of student-athletes should start with lessons of accountability and responsibility. Student-athletes need to learn, first and foremost, to respect themselves so that they avoid getting into potentially troubling situations.

The education should continue with teaching them to look out for each other. Student-athletes need to have a positive influence on each others' actions and to serve as gatekeepers (in other words, not to post compromising pictures of their own teammates on Facebook just because it’s funny).

This education should also involve reiterating to them the values of their university and their department of athletics. Student-athletes need to understand the broader mission of their university in order to know how to represent it well.

Only after that kind of education does it make sense to talk about the dangers of social networking. Here is why: if they do not understand the ramifications of their actions, student-athletes will not understand why it is “wrong” to post pictures of those actions on Facebook.

I truly believe that an 18-year-old individual is capable of seeing beyond the tree and understanding how college athletics function, which entails understanding the hard work invested into developing them as athletes, as students and as people.

Once that enlightening moment of "got it" occurs, we can move to beyond treating social media sites as the enemy of intercollegiate athletics and realize the potentials they carry for promotion, community building and development.

-- Dunja Antunovic

"Mediating Baseball" and "Sports Scandals" among In Media Res' fall topics

The innovative media and textual criticism site, In Media Res (about) has listed two sports media topics among its Fall 2011 calls for curators -- "Mediating Baseball" and "Sports Scandals." The "Mediating Baseball" pieces will be published on the week of October 24-28. "Sports Scandals" will be published on November 28-December 2. The deadline for the Baseball call passed this week; however, the proposal deadline for the Scandals call is October 17.

The "Sports Scandals" call asks for brief proposals that:

. . . address the current state of sports that have been involved in a recent scandal, focusing on both the impact the scandal has made on the sport/fanbase and how that scandal has been treated within the sports media. Some recent examples include universities such as Miami and Ohio State allegedly violating NCAA rules; the recent brawl involving members of Louisiana State University’s football team; performance enhancing drugs and sports; gambling and sports; etc.

If you're not familiar with the project, In Media Res is a forum where academics, journalists, critics, media professionals, and fans critically engage with media texts in a more immediate format than is common in much of academic publishing. Every day a "curator" offers a media text--usually a video clip or slideshow--accompanied by a short, critical response to that media text. Each week, these curated works focus on a different topic. More information is available on In Media Res' about page.

The NCAA's position of power

In the college sports landscape, the NCAA typically positions itself as a judicious, morally sanctified, student-athlete protection system. But many have questioned this position for the non-profit organization that generates millions of dollars of revenue each year. Taylor Branch is the latest to do so – in an article for the October issue of The Atlantic, and he does it with a critical perspective and honesty that might change a few minds.

It’s important to recognize, first, that Branch ultimately calls for payment of college athletes, a proposal that will certainly ruffle a few feathers, some fur, and even a couple of scales. Branch argues that the popular call for amateurism is based on sentimentality rather than logic or, frankly, reality. To prove the value of eliminating the amateurism mystique, he draws a parallel between the NCAA and the Olympics. The Olympics rescinded its amateurism rules in 1978, a move that eventually improved the Olympics’ reputation, according to Branch.

While Branch’s argument that college athletes should be paid will certainly be met by a lot of deserved skepticism, his underlying stance that the NCAA is unnecessary, manipulative, and exploitative is sure to stimulate the minds of even the most stubborn college-sport-amateurism purists. And this is the main thrust of his argument.

To show the NCAA’s dark side, Branch relies on the organization’s own history of back-room deals, student-athlete-generated litigation, and seeming hypocrisy. To drive this point home, Branch uses a particularly effective source: Walter Byers who, after nearly 40 years as the NCAA’s first president, has become one of its most biting critics.

Byers, Branch, and many others argue that the student-athlete is the ironic victim of the NCAA’s position of power, which Byers created and shored up during his tenure. From there, Branch arrives at his argument that payment is necessary to balance the scales. Again, that might be too far for some readers, but Branch’s article should convince readers that the NCAA and its member universities have not and are not really protecting the student-athletes who ultimately create this multi-billion dollar industry.

-Brett Sherrick

Curley Center Chat Addresses Coverage of Initial Eligibility

While NCAA rules limit when a college coach can talk about an incoming student-athlete, media members almost invariably focus on standout high school students headed for college or pursue in-depth stories about recruiting.

Along with those somewhat opposing perspectives come ethical issues that touch on everything from privacy to the potential high-stakes pressure of intercollegiate athletics. And that backdrop poses problems for everyone involved—coaches, the media and the student-athletes themselves.

The related ethical challenges, responsibilities for all parties involved and even typical outcomes will be discussed at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28, during an online chat conducted by the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.

"Issues in Covering Initial Eligibility" is free, and people may access and participate in the session by visiting http://sportsjourn.psu.edu/chats online.

Participants include: Coquese Washington, women's basketball coach at Penn State, and Steve Wieberg, a sports writer who focuses on intercollegiate athletics for USA Today.

Malcolm Moran, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center, will serve as moderator. The hour-long session will focus on journalism coverage of recruits, recruiting and many related issues with insights and opinions from the perspective of of a coach as well as that of a journalist.

In addition, the user-friendly format of the online chats allow for abundant interaction and questions from participants all over the world. Others involved with intercollegiate athletics, fellow journalists, college students and sports fans all may ask a question, comment or follow along by simply navigating to the chat online.

The Curley Center explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research. The Center's undergraduate curricular emphasis includes courses in sports writing, sports broadcasting, sports information, sports, media and society, and sports and public policy, which is cross-listed with the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

Conference realignment: Not the only story in college sports

While shuffling in the Big 12, ACC, and other conferences has grabbed sports headlines this week, we wonder if the story with far bigger, more profound long-term implications for the future of sports in the educational setting isn't the recent NCAA decision about coverage of high school athletes by the Longhorn Network -- owned by ESPN -- and the important issues raised in ESPN's proposal to put such programming on this network.
The reason for the NCAA decision to ban the network from airing high school games is obvious: The potential conflict-of-interest related to recruiting. But as college sports networks become part of the stable of offerings of a mega-media company like ESPN, the power of the NCAA to regulate them becomes significantly weakened. At the same time, the allure of cheap programming that high school sports provides is just too attractive for outfits like ESPN to ignore.
As John Ourand pointed out in a Sports Business Daily story last week: "High school programming on television and online is exploding at such a rate that new rules seem outdated almost immediately."
Our concern is with the bigger implications of this explosion in high school coverage. How will the growing media spotlight on younger and younger athletes in scholastic programs impact the way these programs are treated in the educational setting? We already see the problems and challenges caused at the collegiate level as sports have moved away from their educational mission to an ethic around performance and revenue-generation.
And ultimately, that might be the biggest story we're seeing in college sports right now.
--Marie Hardin

Where are the women football broadcasters?

Familiar voices just delivered the first full week of the NFL regular season to massive television audiences. And they were all male voices in broadcast booths. So why are there no women doing play-by-play in the NFL and so few in college football?

It’s apropos then to take a look at a recent column by ESPN.com’s LZ Granderson. He said that only two women currently do play-by-play nationally for college football. Arguments that women don’t play pro football and so shouldn’t be lead broadcasters ring hollow. Granderson points out that most male play-by-play broadcasters never played in the NFL and goes on to name a few.

The sport isn't just consumed by men, either. Citing NFL statistics, Granderson writes that 44 percent of the league’s fans are women.

Football is the biggest sport in America, but why is there a proverbial glass ceiling of television sideline reporting for female sports journalists when it comes to this sport? Maybe it’s time to have that discussion.

-- Steve Bien-Aimé

A global sports event for the student-athlete

Every other year thousands of athletes from all over the world gather in one city to compete in various sport disciplines. These athletes have at least one more thing in common: they are all university students.

The International University Sports Federation (FISU) organizes the World University Games both for winter and summer sports once in two years with a goal to "promote sporting values and encourage sporting practice in harmony with, and complementary to, the university spirit."

Most recently, Shenzen hosted 10,603 participants from 151 countries - yet, this event passed quietly in the mainstream media. Except for the occasional news releases regarding the success of the women's basketball team (USA won the gold medal), the coverage was predominantly done by college papers and websites of the participants' institutions.

Perhaps that's a good sign. After all, we are talking about students here.

Since in most countries there is no "amateurism" requirement in regard to the student-athletes, which stems from the limited or non-existent intercollegiate athletics system, don't be surprised if you see a name that also appeared at the Olympic Games or World Championships or any other professional international event.

What's subtracted from the World University Games, however, is the highly commercialized nature of professional sports. The focus is not on "selling" sports. Rather, the focus is on the celebration of intellect and physical health.

That celebration certainly occurs -- even if the competition is not live on ESPN, the athletes do not appear half-naked in Sports Illustrated, or Yahoo! does not post a thread about it ever day.

Huang Guoqiang, vice secretary general of the Shenzhen Universiade Organizing Committee, said upon the closing of the Games at the end of August that the first emphasis of the Games is friendship. Huang added that the event "enables athletes with different backgrounds to gather together and share not only sports experience and passion in competition, but also the joy and culture of competition."

That experience is shared when student-athletes from different countries and different sports sit crammed in a coffee shop in the athletes' village watching the Wimbledon finals; the experience is shared when student-athletes from one nation start a dance and the passers-by join in as if it were their national dance as well; the experience is shared when language is not a barrier in understanding a sport that might not be popular in your country, yet you learn the rules because you want to be able to cheer for your new friend.

More importantly, the real shared experience happens when the student-athletes go back to their respective countries, or respective universities (which often means the United States) and become better students, better scholars, better workers and better human beings due to the newly acquired perspectives.

The mission of FISU is also to contribute to the "full humanistic development of the individual and, thus, of society at large."

We know this. We know that, somewhere deep down, the purpose of intercollegiate athletics is similar. Among the NCAA's core values, we find concepts such as "sense of community," "sportsmanship," "respect,"and "integrity."

We also know from the NCAA's video that there are "380,000 student-athletes and most of them will go pro in something other than sports."

Yet, when we talk about student-athletes, we so often forget about the "student," the individual.

The World University Games remind us of these values, even if they are not all over the media.

-- by Dunja Antunovic

Preserving 'amateur' nature of high school sports

High school sports could slowly be creeping toward mirroring the collegiate levels and that would be a bad sign for “amateur” teen athletes.

The University of Texas has started its own sports network and it tried – unsuccessfully -- to gain permission to broadcast high school games (see NCAA statement). Not only could that give Texas an unfair advantage in recruiting, it could start a slippery slope that could forever change American sports.

College sports is a big business worth billions annually -- and that kind of money attracts unsavory characters. Maintaining the “purity” of amateur athletics requires extraordinary efforts from colleges and tremendous discipline from players. However, as evidenced by the abundance of recent violations, scandals and scathing allegations, college sports has been tainted by money, too.

If millions -- and perhaps billions of dollars -- reach high school athletics, is there any hope that it will escape the myriad problems college sports have had?

The media have not been silent about the growing concerns regarding prep sports – for example: George Dohrmann's recent book Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit and the Youth Basketball Machine and in older books such as Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America's Youth by Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger.

The economic potential of high school sports in terms of broadcasting, merchandizing, etc., is tantalizing. But the NCAA and other amateur governing bodies must stand strong and allow high school sports to remain for the kids – amateurs who play for the love of the game and don’t have millions of dollars riding on every pass, jump shot or swing.

-- Steve Bien-Aimé

The potential demise of middle-men journalists

Clay Travis, of Outkick the Coverage, recently declared the death of ESPN. While his thesis might be a little melodramatic, Travis poses an important question for the future of sports media: will the journalistic middle men still be relevant in the future or will sports leagues decide en masse to skip the ESPNs of the world and communicate directly with their publics?

Travis cites, as evidence of this trend, the leagues that have already created their own cable networks. MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, the Big Ten, and – perhaps most alarmingly – the Texas Longhorns all have their own cable networks at this point. (Granted, the Longhorn Network is a partnership with ESPN.) Other teams that aren’t directly targeting their fans through traditional cable TV often provide online, subscription-based services to feed their games immediately to their consumers.

This direct targeting of teams’ individual nations – made much simpler through online social networking – could be really positive for the teams, really negative for traditional sports journalists, and potentially disastrous for anybody who cares about ethics in sports.

Traditionally, the middle man function of journalists has not simply been one of direct conduction; instead, journalists have historically acted as watchdogs of news, attempting to keep newsmakers honest. If teams communicate directly with their fans, then that role may no longer be fulfilled.

According to Travis, ESPN has already foregone that responsibility – out of fear of upsetting their important league partners. If he’s right and this is an increasing trend, the sports world could see the return of a brand of irresponsibility and lawlessness that has largely been restrained and chastised in sports for decades.

Even with 24/7 coverage of every Chris Johnson Tweet and Kenny Britt Facebook update, plenty of athletes still find their way into trouble. If they have no fear of exposure by the media, athletes and teams may become even more reckless.

-Brett Sherrick

Judge Danica Patrick for work on track

With Danica Patrick’s recent announcement that she intends to race full time in NASCAR in 2012, it will be intriguing to observe how she will now be portrayed by various media outlets.

Patrick, who’s the main sponsorship face for GoDaddy.com, seemingly is known as much for her looks as her driving ability. The former appears to have irked at least one of her future NASCAR peers.

According to SI.com, driver Brad Keselowski tweeted: "... Her assent up the ladder of the sport thru various branding 'techniques' (swimsuit ads etc) only serves to undermine the ... future credibility of female races who wish to make it based on skill ... Essentially, she has opened a pandoras box for all female racers. If she doesn't succeed, no female will get the chance for years to come.''

Patrick did struggle this weekend finishing 21st in the IndyCar race at Sonoma, Calif. But her legacy with the organization is already secure with only four races left on this year’s IndyCar schedule.

Patrick is the first woman to win an IndyCar race, but open-wheel driving versus operating stock cars is a whole other matter, so an adjustment period is needed — but how much should time she get from journalists before judgments are formed?

There's likely not an absolute answer, but here's one thing journalists and editors should keep in mind regardless of their feelings about Patrick: She is an accomplished driver and has a record to support that.

Plenty of drivers have unsuccessfully tried to make the switch from open-wheel to stock cars. Whether Patrick goes on to win races and championships or has a mediocre stint in NASCAR, her driving abilities — not anything else — should be the paramount focus.

— Steve Bien-Aimé

Commentators look beyond the numbers of NBA lockout

One of the most prevalent questions in the media coverage surrounding the ongoing NBA lockout is: does the NBA make money? It may seem like a simple question, but as of yet, it doesn’t have a simple answer.

For example, Larry Coon, in a mid-July article for ESPN.com, compares leaked financial information from the New Orleans Hornets and New Jersey Nets to data provided by the NBA and explains why the numbers don’t seem to add up.

Nate Silver, on his typically political NYTimes.com blog FiveThirtyEight, used some of the same leaked information as well as valuation estimates from Forbes and Financial World to cast doubt on the NBA’s claims of red ledgers.

However, in the same day, Silver published another blog post showcasing a statement from the NBA’s Tim Frank that disputed some of Silver’s earlier post, disagreed with Forbes’ valuations, and reaffirmed the NBA’s claim that it lost $340 million in 2009-2010.

The bottom line in this aspect of the debate is this: the NBA has not released enough information for journalists to provide a definitive answer for the seemingly simple question of whether or not the league is profitable.

So, in the absence of this fact, some commentators have turned to more philosophical questions to fill their pages during the lengthening NBA hiatus.

Ari Paul, in “Class Struggle on the Court” from The Nation’s recent sports-centric issue, compares the NBA’s labor situation to more general perceptions about labor relations in the US. He disputes the pessimistic claim that this and other professional league labor debates boil down to billionaires arguing with millionaires. He, instead, points out that a large percentage of NBA employees are either minimum-salary players who only play a few years or behind-the-scenes and on-the-concourse workers who make NBA games happen.

According to Paul, in ignoring the value of all of their thousands of employees – from LeBron James to ticket taker #327, NBA owners are reinforcing “an impulse in the United States to say to skilled workers that they can afford to take some cuts,” an impulse that “typically stops at CEOs and owners.”

Malcolm Gladwell – better known for his social philosophy than his sports writing – asks a different question for a recent article on ESPN.com affiliate Grantland. Instead of asking how much cash the owners should pocket in the owner/employee split, Gladwell wonders if owners of professional sport franchises should profit financially at all.

Gladwell argues that many professional owners don’t run their franchises like businesses, and as such, shouldn’t expect to receive any monetary benefits. What they can expect, however, are psychic benefits, which Gladwell defines as, “the pleasure that someone gets from owning something — over and above economic returns.”

These psychic benefits should increase the value of sports franchises above and beyond any financial losses, according to Gladwell. He concludes that any owners who do not feel satisfied by the total value – monetary and psychic – of their franchises, should sell to other owners who might.

It seems the more time the NBA and NBA players association spend debating the finer points of revenue sharing and amortization of team buying, the more likely commentators are to question the fundamental nature of the debate in question.

This critical questioning and commentary is a valuable step in contextualizing the NBA lockout debate, which may seem abstract and abstruse to fans that may not understand the finer points of amortization and will likely never see $340 million in their lifetimes. This added perspective should help the public decide how to view the NBA, as well as other sports franchises, in the future.

--Brett Sherrick

Women's Sports Sell Without Sexual Objectification

This summer, I experienced one of those typical 21st century moments in my apartment in Serbia when talking on Skype while simultaneously chatting on Facebook and watching the Women’s Soccer World Cup on TV. My computer activities stopped when I vaguely heard one of the Eurosport commentators mention “voting”. Out of mere curiosity, I turned the volume up on the TV to listen more carefully to the “contest” that the Serbian commentators were conducting.

The viewers were encouraged to vote for “Miss World Cup.” The rules were simple: send a text message with the name of the best looking player. The players were to be evaluated solely based on their appearance and not on their athletic ability. The viewers were reminded of that distinction quite frequently throughout the broadcast just to avoid confusion.

To make the decision easier, the commentators pointed out the players’ many appealing physical traits such as “beautiful eyes” or “graceful figure,” though here and there they did offer a critical analysis on soccer ability, including the assessment of a French player who had “the skill-set of Zinedine Zidane, but luckily not his looks.”

Female athletes’ objectification and sexualization in the media are not news for those who follow sports. What may come as news, however, is that objectification and sexualization are, perhaps, not the most effective ways to promote female athletes.
Mary Jo Kane, from the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports at the University of Minnesota, wrote an article in The Nation about her most recent study which examined if the “sex sells” concept indeed increased interest in women’s sports.

Dr Kane argues: No, it does not.

Contrary to the common assumption, the majority of the participants in Dr. Kane’s research found the hypersexual images offensive.
Instead of trying so hard to sell a skewed image of the female athlete with an excuse that these images are necessary because only then can we attract more viewers and appeal to (male) sports fans, Dr. Kane suggests that “those who cover women’s sports [should] simply turn on the camera and let us see the reality.”

If you watched the Women’s Soccer World Cup in the U.S., you saw just that. If you did not, you might have come across some disturbing attempts to “sell” female athletes to the viewers. We are still far from being liberated from the sexualized images. We have much work to do if we want to see the “reality.”

Finding out that sex doesn’t sell women’s sports is a step. Believing, as a society, that women’s sports do not need the sex-appeal to attract audiences would be a stride.

-- Dunja Antunovic

Paterno, Krzyzewski meet to talk about teaching, leadership

Joe Paterno and Mike Krzyzewski are two coaches that often seem larger than life. Their tenures as coaches for Penn State football and Duke men’s basketball are among the longest in collegiate sports history, and their strategies for success are often emulated by their peers.

During the filming of ESPN’s “Difference Makers: Life Lessons with Paterno and Krzyzewski” the two legendary coaches discussed their philosophies of teaching and coaching. As they reminisced about the people and events that influenced them, it was hard to believe it was the first time the two had met.

In between moments of reflection and playful banter, the two touched upon topics such as teaching and values. They highlighted the importance of providing athletes with support outside the realm of athletics. Both coaches discussed the need to attend to athletes to help them succeed scholastically while instilling values that will eventually help the “boys” become men. A running theme was that the coaches’ respective universities went a long way to encourage a culture that has allowed the programs to enjoy long-term success.

When asked about NCAA reforms, Paterno and Krzyzewski offered some basic, but insightful opinions. Paterno suggested the NCAA need to consider making freshmen ineligible, allowing them to work with special coaches to help ease them into the university environment. Krzyzewski believes one of the biggest problems the NCAA needs to address is a modernization of policies. In particular, he pointed to how changes in technology have made practices related to recruiting and contacting athletes different than in years past.

For another review of the event, visit the gopsusports.com blog. Additionally, photos of the event are available on gopsusports.com. The 90-minute show will air on June 30, beginning at 8 p.m. on ESPN and continuing at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.

- Melanie Formentin

ESPN's "NASCAR NonStop" and the game of attention keep-away

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ESPN announced yesterday that it will introduce "NASCAR NonStop" for its NASCAR "Chase for the Sprint Cup" broadcasts this year. As a video here shows, rather than cut away from the race to traditional spot commercials, viewers will still get to watch the race in a small "picture-in-picture" (PIP) screen next to the commercial advertisement. This isn't a completely novel idea; for instance, ESPN has shown the "crawl" of NFL Draft selections while commercials interrupted the draft for several years. NASCAR NonStop is different, of course, in that it is the continuous broadcast of a live commercial sports event. Moreover, NASCAR (like soccer) doesn't have the normal interruptions of time-outs and changes of field, as in football and baseball. It's presumably for these reasons that the article above characterizes the NASCAR Nonstop as, "One small step for NASCAR fans, one giant leap for mankind."

Before we go overboard with the hyperbole, though, I think it's probably better to historicize things, and question whether this really amounts to fan "empowerment." For many of us, when we turn on the television we begin a game of attention keep-away. TV networks produce shows to try to lure us into watching corporate advertisements. Our attention is their goal, especially our attention during commercials. Indeed, this is how commercial media companies make money--by selling our attention to advertisers. Many of us try to avoid advertisements though: they can be annoying (and loud); being sold to can be uncomfortable; and (outside of noteworthy exceptions like the Super Bowl), we'd presumably prefer to focus our attention on TV programs than the interruptions to them.

Over the past few decades, new technologies have altered how this game is played (kind of like the introduction of the forward pass changed the game between offenses and defenses). The remote control allowed TV viewers to easily "surf" to other programming during commercials. With the VCR we were able to "time-shift" programs and "zip" through ads by fast-forwarding, and the DVR only made this practice easier. Indeed, some of you might be reading this post right now with browsing software that allows you to "zap" advertisements entirely. We like these new tools in the attention keep-away game; they provide us with a degree of power over the viewing experience. On the other hand, commercial media companies--and especially advertisers--are not terribly excited about advances in advertising-avoidance technology.

Don't fret for commercial media companies and advertisers though; they've continually adjusted to technological changes in "how the game is played" (they've introduced the pass rush, to pound this the metaphor into the ground). For one, product placement has emerged as a ubiquitous counter-offensive of hypercommercialism. The logic is that the viewer can only avoid product placements by also missing the TV program. Sports programming, in particular, is considered an effective form of "zap-proof" programming (see here and here): sports viewers may be less likely to channel surf during ads for fear of missing something important; the value of catching a game live means that using a DVR to avoid ads may also mean being "out of the loop." Further, branded entertainment (think: Home Depot Half-Time Report) and in-game signage (think: ads on the NHL boards and NASCAR's team sponsors) are the norm not the exception, and sports viewers seem to have a particularly high tolerance for commercialism during sports broadcasts.

While it seems like a dream come true for race fans, NASCAR Nonstop may present further opportunities for inundating the already hypercommercialized world of sports broadcasting with even more commercial advertising. I don't know how much of the average NASCAR broadcast is taken up by commercial spot advertising (if you find this stat, I'd appreciate it), but for the sake of argument, lets say spot ads take up 20% of the program. Now let's say that NASCAR Nonstop is a success for ESPN: viewers are not turned off by watching a smaller version of the race as an adjoining, larger commercial makes its pitch; and commercial advertisers are willing to pay commensurable rates to reach viewers through this model. If I'm ESPN, do I consider subtly bumping the portion of the program that is spot advertising up to 25%? Maybe 30%? Whatever the market (accounting for viewership, ad revenue & commercial clutter) deems appropriate? I'd certainly consider it, and--from our analysts position--I'd begin to wonder just how big that "one small step" is for NASCAR fans.

One aspect that will be interesting to key in on is whether the advertising conventions employed for these PIP ads begin to take on formal advertising conventions more common in radio. In other words, assuming that much of the viewer's (visual) attention during PIP spot advertising will be on the race (and not the advertisement), I'd expect that these PIP ads will center around aural rather than visual appeals (if you don't think advertising folks think like this, consider the ways DVRs encourage advertisers to use big, bold words, pictures, and logos on the screen for long periods of time to get the message across to viewers as they zip through). While athletes (including, for our purposes here, NASCAR drivers) are already common pitchmen, don't be surprised to eventually hear sports commentators--even those from the race itself--hawking wares during these PIP spot ads. Indeed, this is a strategy commonly employed in radio where the personality's voice holds listeners to the advertising by creating the impression of continuity between advertising and editorial content. Listeners of the Jim Rome Show, just about every ESPN radio show, and Glenn Beck's Radio program will be well aware of these practices.

From my view, then, ESPN's NonStop appears to be just the latest move by the sports-media complex in attending to the attention keep-away game. Race fans may benefit from being able to watch the whole event, but this could come at the cost of new forms of subtle commercial intrusion.

-- T.C. Corrigan

For more research along these lines, check out...

Bellamy, Jr., R.V. “Sports media: A modern institution.” In A. A. Raney & J. Bryant (Eds.), Handbook of sports and media (pp. 63-76). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006.

McAllister, M. P. (1996). The commercialization of American culture: New advertising, control, and democracy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wilbur, K. C. “How the digital video recorder (DVR) changes traditional television advertising.” Journal of Advertising, 37(1), 143-149 (2008).

I also have an forthcoming entry on zipping and zapping in The Encyclopedia of Sports Management and Marketing

Not Just a Game

Although many would argue that politics and sports don’t mix, Dave Zirin thinks that argument couldn’t be further from the truth.

From military spectacles at sporting events to the challenges faced by homosexual athletes, Zirin argues that sport practically revolves around politics. He concisely drives this point home in his new documentary, Not Just a Game.

In Not Just a Game, renowned sportswriter Zirin brings his compelling history of sports and politics to the big screen. He cites well-known political turning points in sports history to suggest that not only are sports full of politics, but also these two seemingly competing public arenas should be mixed.

Zirin begins his documentary by challenging the most overt joining of politics and sport: The militarization of professional sports. American sports fans don’t think twice about the political displays they see at major events. We see themed event nights aimed at supporting or honoring the military, and we talk about sports in terms of war and sacrifice.

But how far can this militarization be taken? Apparently all the way to the battlefield.

Arguably, Pat Tillman represents the point where the militarization of sports goes wrong. The cover-up of the events surrounding his death were all but meant to preserve the aura of Tillman as a sporting and military hero. Even worse is that the sports broadcasting community was willing to gloss over the controversial knowledge that, by the time Tillman passed, he was firmly against the war. Here, sports lore outweighed politics.

Zirin goes on to discuss how sports have allowed issues of gender, race and sexuality to be brought to the forefront of public consciousness. Sports legends such as Billy Jean King and Muhammad Ali used sport as a platform to affect change, but it would be denial to suggest we’ve achieved equality.

King, for example, serves as an early—and sustained—example of intolerance toward homosexuals in sports. Although King was hailed for breaking gender barriers, her coming out as a homosexual practically unraveled her credibility. Players such as John Amaechi still face this challenge, and the only athletes who have confirmed their homosexuality have done so after their playing careers have ended.

Finally, Zirin wraps up his documentary questioning the lack of politics in sports today. He turns to commercialization as the culprit, pointing to Michael Jordan as one of the reasons we no longer want a side of politics with our meal of sports.

In 1992, Jordan arrived for the “Dream Team’s” gold medal ceremony with the American flag draped over his right shoulder. While many would like to believe this was an act of patriotism, Zirin points out it was an act of commercialism; Jordan was covering up the Reebok logo on his jacket. This stands in stark contrast to the political statement made by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics.

Ultimately, Zirin believes what is wrong with sports today is that it doesn’t embrace politics. Athletes rarely use their platform to create awareness and change, and they generally avoid discussing controversial issues for fear of alienating fans and sponsors. The commercialization of sport glorifies rebellion, but does not actually embrace it, and Not Just a Game presents a compelling argument to suggest we might be better off believing politics have a place in sports.

- Melanie Formentin

Twitter users compare men's basketball to the women's game

Although Butler left the floor feeling low after the men’s basketball national championship, it was women’s basketball that took a beating Monday night. In describing just how bad and boring the men’s final was, users of the site repeatedly compared it to the women’s game, implicitly discounting the sport in the process.

CBS analyst Roland S. Martin wrote “It is not a stretch to say that the women’s national championship game will be far more interesting.” Another blogger tweeted “I’d rather watch the #WNBA than this #NationalTitleGame.” ESPN.com’s “The sports guy” tweeted: April 2011: The month that women’s college basketball caught up to men’s college basketball. A

Make no mistake: The men’s national final was painful to watch. The two teams set a new record for lowest combined first half points total and Butler shot a horrid 18.8 percent from the field – the lowest mark ever in a national final game. And although UConn took home the trophy, they won by scoring just 53 points on 35 percent shooting.

The game was boring. Illustrating just how boring it was by comparing it to women’s basketball denies the women’s game the legitimacy it deserves. As Dave Zirin wrote, also on twitter. “I hope every last person hating on this game, watches the NCAA women's finals tomorrow. See two teams actually make shots.”

--Erin Whiteside

Curley Center Chat Evaluates Coverage of Youth Sports

Some basic sports rules—including three strikes and you’re out in baseball or 10 yards for a first down in football—apply whether a game is contested among professionals or pre-teens, but accepted and expected conduct of the media when covering those competitions often differs according to the age and experience of participants.

The challenges, ethics and responsibilities for journalists covering youth sports will be discussed at 1 p.m. Monday, March 21, during an online chat conducted by the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism.

"Ethical Issues in the Coverage of Youth Sports" is free, and people may access and participate in the session by visiting http://sportsjourn.psu.edu/live-chats online.

Participants include:
--Steve Barr, director of media relations for Little League Baseball and Softball;
--George Dohrmann, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who writes for Sports Illustrated and authored “Play Their Hearts Out,” which examines grassroots basketball, in 2010;
--Tracy Greer, online editor of the North County Times in Escondido, Calif.; and
--Malcolm Moran, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center.

Marie Hardin, an associate professor of communications at Penn State and associate director of the Curley Center, will serve as moderator for the hour-long session, which will focus on journalism coverage of youth sports and how the age of the participants can and should shape how media outlets cover those activities.

The Curley Center explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research. The Center's undergraduate curricular emphasis includes courses in sports writing, sports broadcasting, sports information, sports, media and society, and sports and public policy, which is cross-listed with the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

- Curley Center for Sports Journalism

Sports-talk radio hosts talk about social media challenges

It’s no surprise to hear that online social networks and the blogosphere are creating new dilemmas for sports-talk radio hosts. Rumors run rampant on the Web and athletes are less likely to grant in-person interviews, adding to the challenges faced by hosts who make a living commenting daily on what’s happening with local sports teams.

Visiting Penn State for the “Sports-Talk Radio: Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh” event, radio hosts Mike Missanelli of 97.5 (The Fanatic) in Philadelphia and Paul Alexander of 93.7 (The Fan) in Pittsburgh spoke to students about some of the challenges of being in sports radio. In addition to giving students plenty of advice about breaking into—and being successful in—sports radio, the two hosts spoke about some of the issues and benefits of the presence of social networking sites and blogs.

One of the biggest challenges Alexander and Missanelli face involves separating fact from fiction, or debunking the rumors that gain legs on the Internet. While discussing the importance and challenges of cultivating information and sources, Alexander lamented his pet peeve of dealing with “information that surfaces on blogs that remains unsubstantiated.” Missanelli echoed this sentiment, explaining that when rumors do crop up “you can’t report things as a story.”

To these hosts, cultivating sources is a matter of getting their job done correctly. By gaining the trust of reliable sources and not chasing rumors, both Alexander and Missanelli feel they can receive confirmation about stories while not making mistakes.

“We’re reporters at heart because we both grew up as reporters,” Missanelli said. “We try to combine that with the entertainment of sports-talk radio.”

“I love to dig a whole lot deeper,” Alexander added, “and provide information and opinion that is well informed and source generated.”

The importance of being well informed and getting information correct was driven home by Alexander when talking about the balance between chasing a story and being competitive. Echoing the sentiments of previous speaker Tom Verducci (http://sportsmediasociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/verducci-visits-psu-discusses-mlb.html), Alexander said, “I’m not about being first, I’m about being right. If I can be first, that’s awesome.”

“I don’t want to get something wrong first,” Alexander said, “I want to be right first.”

Additionally, the hosts felt that Twitter use has actually reduced athletes’ willingness to talk to reporters. Missanelli said that using Twitter and Facebook has given athletes “another reason not to talk to you,” and that in some cases athletes direct reporters to their Twitter for comments. Alexander used Tiger Woods as an example, pointing out that “all his information is transmitted on his website,” making it unnecessary for him to grant interviews.

Despite some of the drawbacks posed by social networks and blogs, the hosts agreed that they can also benefit from using these online tools. For example, the hosts can use Facebook to announce what they’re talking about on the air to generate interest in their program. Additionally, Missanelli pointed out that radio is “immediate” and reaction happens instantaneously. Facebook can then enhance the show by generating more of that instant feedback and improving listener numbers.

Overall, the benefits and issues related to the presence of social media and blogs in the sports-talk landscape aren’t necessarily new. Although rumors may crop up or athletes may be hard to reach, reporters like Alexander and Missanelli fall back on the same tactics they’ve always used when chasing stories: follow leads, build trust among reliable sources and don’t break a story unless you’re confident you’ve got your facts straight.

- Melanie Formentin

PSU undergrads use blogs to analyze and critique the sports-media-society relationship

This is the second semester my Sports, Media, & Society course has maintained blogs--as groups of 3-4 students--for critique and analysis of the role of sports in American culture. Each week half the class is required to post to their group's blog, with the goals of (1) critically reflecting on the relationship between course content and the contemporary sports, media, & social landscape, (2) developing new media skills that are increasingly desired by employers in both the media industry and industries across American society, and (3) getting students to think about how the choices they make as media creators and the processes they employ in putting together media shape the content they develop in important ways.

Each week this semester I've been writing up "digests" of these student blog posts (and I'll continue trying to keep this up throughout the semester). From a pedagogical perspective, I've gotten some student feedback that suggests these digests encourage students to go to their classmates' blogs, check out their posts, and reflect on how their classmates are approaching the project. Have a read through these digests from the weeks of 1/26 and 2/2, and follow the links to my students' posts. I'd love feedback and suggestions on the project.

-T.C.

Mega-events offer outlet for against-the-grain analysis & critique

Sports mega-events like the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and the Olympics offer grand stages for the participants (athletes & others), organizations, and institutions associated with each; these mega-events also provide an opportune stage for analysis and critique of the relationships between -- on the one hand -- these very participants, organizations, and institutions, and -- on the other hand -- culture, society, politics, and economics. That is, of course, if those offering the analysis and critique can manage to be heard over the cheerleading.

Several articles have caught my eye recently as intriguing analysis and criticism concerning the NFL and society. Each are, in my opinion, definitely worth a read:

NPR's Michele Martin looks at concerns about football-related long-term brain injury from the NFL down to pee wee. Further, she goes on to point out the social toll our exuberant emphasis on youth sports may have: "this might be particularly insidious in sports dominated by poor kids, especially poor black kids, because the people involved are so busy congratulating themselves on how they are saving the kids from ruin."

The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins considers whether "Jerry World" -- referring to Cowboy's owner Jerry Jones' new $1.15 billion stadium -- is the direction the league should be going in. While Jenkins acknowledges that the Super Bowl can be a valuable source for civic pride, this Super Bowl highlighted for her that "luxury can be debasing." She points out that everyday fans have been priced out of the spectacle, while the taxpayers in most of the NFL's U.S. metropolitan areas have been asked to pick up much of the tab for stadium and luxury box construction over the past 15 years.

Finally, progressive sportswriter Dave Zirin has been on a tear of late (see here, here, and here), highlighting the non-profit, public ownership of the Green Bay Packers by the citizens of Green Bay -- a unique arrangement in U.S. professional sports (NFL bylaws, interestingly, say that no other NFL franchise is allowed to employ a similar ownership structure).

Zirin has been busy of late...

** He's got a new book out, "Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love."
** His new documentary "Not Just a Game: Power, Politics, and American Sports" (produced by the good folks over at the Media Education Foundation) is getting attention within academic circles and in major sports media outlets.

-T.C.

As posted in "Mega-events offer outlet for against-the-grain analysis & critique"

Changing the Title IX narrative: A prescription for change

Women’s sports activists are gathering around the country to recognize National Girls and Women in Sports Day and encourage advocates to keep pushing for the benefits mandated by Title IX.

Such efforts for equality are needed to keep issues like Title IX on the front burner; as advocacy groups often point out, the majority of institutions that fall within the purview of the law are out of compliance.

Although such efforts are needed, solely advocating for equality may not translate into the change women’s advocates are hoping for. Although sports fans may support the idea of Title IX – after all, notions of fairness and equity are cornerstones of American value systems, there is still not widespread acceptance for its application. This may be because of the consistent way in which sports are framed; as long as sports are situated in popular discourse as a space for the celebration of masculinity, cultural acceptance of women’s inclusion may falter.

It is thus critical, then, that we continue to support equality efforts, while also advocating for the adoption of new frames in sporting discourse to trouble the association between masculinity and sports. Such frames may stem from increased media coverage of women’s sports that focuses on athleticism rather than femininity. Continued visibility of women in authority positions – from athletic directors to play-by-play announcers – will also help deconstruct the notion that sports belong to men. Most importantly, however, is a continued push toward challenging existing cultural meanings of sports so we may move toward a vision in which women’s inclusion seems not only logical, but beneficial.

--Erin Whiteside

Curley Center chat to address issues in covering recruiting

Sports fans across the country often follow the recruiting of potential college student-athletes as closely as any on-field action, and that coverage of high school students about to make major life decisions comes with many challenges for sports journalists.

The competing agendas, ethics, influences and impact of recruiting coverage will be discussed at 1 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14, during an online chat conducted by the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism.

"Issues in Covering Recruiting" is free, and people may access and participate in the session by visiting http://sportsjourn.psu.edu/live-chats online.

Participants include:

-- Sean Fitz, a recruiting expert who focuses on Penn State for 247sports.com, which operates program-specific web sites for major college athletic programs across the nation;

-- Rachel George, who covers college sports and recruiting for the Orlando Sentinel; and

-- Malcolm Moran, the Knight Chair in Spoors Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center.

Marie Hardin, an associate professor of communications at Penn State and associate director of the Curley Center, will serve as moderator for the hourlong session, which will also include a coach or recruiting coordinator from a Division I-A football program. Because coaches and recruiting coordinators are finalizing their classes of incoming student-athletes in advance of national signing day this week, the participation of a specific coach or coordinator will not been determined until later.

The Curley Center explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research. The Center's undergraduate curricular emphasis includes courses in sports writing, sports broadcasting, sports information, sports, media and society, and sports and public policy, which is cross-listed with the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

- Curley Center for Sports Journalism

Verducci visits PSU, discusses MLB, current challenges in sports journalism

Tom Verducci fell in love with newspapers while delivering them as a kid. Flipping through the pages, he always stopped at the sports section because he wanted to read about his other love: baseball. Eager to see how someone wrote about games he had watched the previous night, Verducci felt the post-game analysis added another layer of information to the game.

Now Verducci is the person adding extra layers of information to the game of baseball.

While visiting Penn State and the Curley Center, Verducci spoke last night about his experiences as a baseball writer and some of the controversial issues he has covered in his nearly three decades as a sports journalist. The Penn State graduate (1982) has emerged as one of the most respected writers in the profession in part because of work related to hard-hitting issues such as steroid use in Major League Baseball.

As a Hall of Fame voter, Verducci was asked about his take on allowing players who have used steroids into Cooperstown. To illustrate the divide between Hall voters, he asked for a show of hands from audience members who would vote for a great player that used steroids. The impromptu survey revealed a 50-50 split, similar to the split he sees among Hall voters—and much less than the necessary 75% approval to get elected to the Hall.

Verducci discussed the notion that a rule change regarding the majority vote would need to occur to change the current voting situation. Evaluating how people approach the issue, he spoke of reporters that believe a player makes a choice to use steroids and then must live with that legacy. The feeling is that players are doing things they know are wrong—and can’t even talk about—and are changing the way baseball is played. However, Verducci also maintained that his vote is an “endorsement of [a] whole career” and not just the “clean and dirty parts.”

The Cooperstown theme continued through a discussion about Pete Rose. Although Verducci maintains that Rose deserves lifetime banishment from the game and should never again be allowed to put on a uniform, he believes his accomplishments as a player stand alone. Verducci suggested that if eligibility rules changed he would not vote for Rose as a manager—the time period in which he allegedly gambled on the game—but would be in favor of voting for him as a player.

Moving to the issue of technologically-based time constraints felt by sports journalists, Verducci touched on the implications of the situation regarding Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Culter and the injury he suffered during the NFC Championship game. Verducci discussed the “character assassination” and how fans and current and former players jumped on social networking sites to question the extent of Cutler’s injury. He believes this is showing a shift in journalism in which people are setting the agenda regarding important issues. Instead of broadcasters and writers setting the news, these journalists and coaches are now responding to real-time fan reaction.

Verducci also pointed out that in such fast-paced settings he believes it’s more important to be right than to be first. He emphasized that Cutler was prevented by doctors from returning to the game, something no one would have known at the time of the injury. As such, even though speed has forced writers to make quick decisions, he still follows advice received from a former professor: When in doubt, leave it out.

The importance of accuracy was not the only advice offered to students. Verducci also discussed the need to outwork others and the need to strike a balance between personal and professional relationships with athletes. He also talked about the importance of finding good stories and being willing to put in the time and effort to get those pieces.

In all, Verducci provided intriguing commentary about ongoing issues in baseball and sports journalism. By expanding on topics such as steroid use and the changing pace of journalism, he shed valuable insight for the next generation of writers hoping to add extra layers of information to the sports journalism community.

- Melanie Formentin

Tweeting Sports Journalists: Curley Center Commentary

To tweet, retweet or maybe not retweet is a question facing all journalists in today’s media landscape. For sports journalists in particular, learning and understanding how to harness Twitter is an issue that can mean breaking a story or non-story.

Lori Shontz, member of the Curley Center board of directors, tackled this issue in the first monthly Curley Center commentary.

After hearing a journalist suggest that ignoring Twitter is like “not using the phone,” Shontz couldn’t help asking how Twitter should be used if it’s so important to journalists. Editors and writers don’t have guidelines to follow, instead relying on instinct and training to determine when a tweet should be taken seriously or when information should be shared.

Shontz cites recent stories regarding freshman quarterback Rob Bolden and defensive coordinator Tom Bradley as examples of the challenges of using Twitter. For journalists covering the Bolden story, Twitter effectively drew readers to articles and information about the player’s attempts to transfer. However, unchecked tweets about Bradley being hired by Pitt left writers scrambling for information and Rewteeting apologies for disseminating incorrect information.

Although guidelines may be harder to develop, it seems that falling back on ethical responsibilities may be the most effective way to approach Twitter.

For the whole commentary by Shontz, check out Harnessing Twitter remains a challenge for sports journalists on the Curley Center’s official website.

- Melanie Formentin

College athletics reform and where it should go

If Ronald A. Smith had his way, the NCAA would revive a decades-old rule eliminating freshman eligibility in sports. He’d enforce rules through the “death penalty” for sports programs, and he’d limit salaries for coaches.

A professor emeritus of sports history, Smith spoke at Penn State on Thursday to discuss themes from his book Pay for Play: Reflections on Big-Time College Athletic Reform. In his book, Smith discusses major issues in—and traces the history of—reform in college athletics.

Echoing the sentiments of previous speakers such as Michael Oriard, Smith suggested that if he was to institute one reform he’d eliminate freshman eligibility. Smith noted this rule existed for six decades through the 1960s and could only stand to improve current student athlete experiences. Preventing freshmen from playing would allow those student athletes to be more involved with school before facing the rigors of a life dominated by college athletics.

Smith also suggested that the NCAA has not been at the center of major reform efforts. Instead, laws and court cases have made the biggest impact on college athletics. Citing integration and women’s equality as the two greatest reforms, Smith pointed to Brown v. Board of Education, Civil Rights Acts and Title IX as the greatest vehicles for change. His belief is that significant, future reform will continue to come from outside sources, as the NCAA is not likely to enact considerable changes without outside pressure.

However, were the NCAA to enact more of its own changes, Smith believes that severe penalties would do the most for reform. Smith cited the cases of the Kentucky and Southern Methodist universities, suggesting that dissolving a program—or giving it the “death penalty”—for an extended period of time might do the most for integrity-based reforms.

In the past, most reform has been the result of efforts to level the playing field. Smith believes that in the 21st century major reform efforts will surround issues such as treating athletes as workers, licensing agreements, salary limits for coaches, and academic transparency. Although such efforts to increase academic integrity and promote fair compensation are worthy, Smith doesn’t believe they will be easy to achieve and come by because of the culture of collegiate athletics. Paying athletes, for example, would be an enormous task leading to increased commercialization.

Although reform is a hot topic in collegiate athletics, it may take a lot of pressure from outside sources to make significant changes. Scholars such as Smith continue to dedicate time and effort to discussing issues of academic integrity, fairness, and equality.

Curley Center scholars have focused on athletic reform issues. The Center has partnered with the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) on an assessment of faculty involvement in athletic issues at FBS universities. The article will be published in the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport this summer.

- Melanie Formentin

The NBA Game Time app and smart TV's trajectory

I swear this will get to a discussion of sports media shortly, so bear with me...

Earlier this month tech aficionados (and journalists) flocked to the Las Vegas Convention Center for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Though companies like Apple increasingly bypass CES to announce launches of their newest iSomething (and much of the gadgets previewed at CES will never actually materialize for consumers), the show is, nonetheless, an opportunity for major media and electronics companies to show off their newest wares and make promotional "announcements" (covered as stories in-and-of-themselves by the media).

While I won't pretend to be a tech aficionado or someone that really follows this dimension of the media industry as closely as others, C-Net's Tom Krazit noted that this year's CES saw "an increasing focus on so-called 'smart TVs,' or TVs that can access content from both the Internet and the cable jack or satellite dish." To give you an example of what that would mean for the consumer television experience, here is John C. Abell of Wired's take on Google TV--the smart TV operating system that the new media giant is rolling out:

It’s not about web surfing or e-mailing from your couch, but rather getting easy access to programs off the web as easily as you’d change channels. And, thanks to the broadcasters themselves, a lot of professional content already lives online. In Google’s perfect world you pick up your remote and search for Star Trek and get it, whether it’s on Netflix, your media library or your cable company’s on-demand list. Google gets into your living room with a new way to provide search, and all the ways it has to make money off that.

Google TV, to clarify, is not, itself, a television. It's an operating system that will run on Sony's Internet TVs, Logitech's "Revue" set-top device, and other manufacturer's devices. Much recent media attention to Google TV has focused on release delays and the choice of broadcast networks and video distributors to block their content on Google TV (Michael Learmonth of AdAge provides a fascinating explanation for this blocking); however, a content aspect intriguing from a sports media perspective was an October deal between Google and NBA Digital to bring the league's "NBA Game Time" smartphone app to Google TV for the service's launch. (Note: I'll refer to NBA Digital and the NBA Game Time app as "league" ventures in this piece; in reality, though, NBA Digital is a joint venture of the NBA and Turner Broadcasting System).

NBA Digital's landing an app on Google TV is, perhaps, unsurprising. The league already has a wide set of features for its Game Time mobile app available, employing price discrimination among several add-on options (the free app offers scoreboard and in-game box scores; add-ons of $3.99, $9.99, and $39.99 offer customization, out-of-market radio feeds, and the League Pass TV package, respectively). Further, the league was already heavily invested in Google's Android operating system for its NBA Game Time app; NBA Digital VP, Bryan Perez said that this put the league in an advantageous position to repurpose the mobile app "for the living room."

The NBA Digital/Google TV relationship raises important questions, though, for the future of sports media (and media in general). In his historical work on "Material and Cultural Factors in the Evolution of the Sports/Media Complex", Sut Jhally points out that during the 1920's, sporting events (and other cultural fare like music and theater) served as "bait" for the sale of radio sets as a consumer product. As the market for radio sets became saturated in the late 1930's, an audience--and, importantly, a sports audience--became available that could be packaged and sold to advertisers. Sports, then, as meaningful cultural fare, served not only the instrumental function of manufacturing demand for a consumer electronics product; it also played an important role in producing a saleable audience of radio listeners where none previously existed. Since commercial television adopted a "radio with pictures" approach, we can think of sports' role in the formative days of radio as a important (and by no means inevitable) contributor to the subsequent structure of 21st century commercial electronic media.

Similarly, we can look at the NBA Game Time app as "bait" for the sale of devices running the Google TV operating system and, potentially, a contributor to the construction of a new type of relationship between television consumer and the media industry. While it would be highly presumptuous to say that the implications of Google TV compare with the evolution of commercial radio (and the commercial television model that followed it), there is no shortage of claims that Google TV and other smart TV technology could "revolutionize" television consumption (as Forrester Research's James McQuivey suggests would happen with the sale of 10 million devices by Google and its partners).

The stakes appear to be particularly high for video distributors (i.e., cable, satellite, Netflix). For instance, the introduction of smart TVs could make traditional cable or satellite line-ups obsolete, allowing consumers to "cut the cord" on a distributor's services (excuse me for calling the cable line-up part of "traditional" media). On the other hand, smart TV companies like Google TV know that much of the professional network content that would attract consumers (both on TV and the Web) is the proprietary content of distributor-conglomerates. As the New York Times' Brian Seltzer put it, "All involved know that connecting the Internet to television and vice versa could solidify the distributors’ place in the food chain — or greatly erode it."

More fundamentally though, we can speculate about how a search-based consumer television experience like Google TV may impact decision-making by content creators. Again, this has implications for both sports media and content creators across the media environment. Take, for instance, the growth of a company like Demand Media. As an On the Media segment explained, Demand Media uses an algorithm to identify trending search terms (that match advertiser keywords), but which the online environment offers little content relevant to. It then offers around $15 per article/video for freelancers to quickly create content relevant to that search.

Strategies like those of Demand Media and others (including traditional media outlets) speak to the development of search-driven (and often cut-rate) processes for creating media that consumers appear to want (or, perhaps more accurately, a more efficient strategy for packaging relevant media consumers for advertisers). For all the business logic of producing content along these lines, we should all reflect on the social impact of media structures organized around giving media consumers "what they want." Indeed, Dr. Hardin recently discussed on this blog how cultural assumptions about women and sports shape public interest in women's spectator sports events, as well as media producers' valuation of those events as desirable media content. A sports media environment geared to consumer search practices may intensify the implications of these cultural assumptions, providing media producers further justification to marginalize and trivialize such content--they're just giving us "what we want."

Finally, it should be pointed out that the NBA Game Time app will be available as an app. Viewers will not have to stumble upon this content through the Google TV search function to access it. NBA Game Time is, in a sense, elevated--economically and culturally--in the Google TV editorial hierarchy, along with other "apps and optimized websites that will bring added features to the TV and take advantage of the larger screen." Indeed, apps do allow content creators to create more rich media experiences for users that enter the app's "walled garden." At the same time, the growth of apps also raises questions about how providers like mobile carriers, Apple, and Google TV hierarchize their app offerings, serving, in effect, as the "gatekeepers" for app-based media. For concerns specific to sports media, how might practices of hierarchization (and marginalization) in the app market impact the potential of women's and alternative sport to compete with commercial sport offerings for public interest?

In the sporting landscape and the broader media landscape, the ascendancy of Google TV (or other smart TV offerings) raises challenging questions about the trajectory of the media/society relationship. For the broader media environment, I'm reminded of C. Edwin Baker's stress on the importance of "structural diversity" within the media system. Every ownership and subsidy structure is susceptible to corruption in its own unique way; a diversity of media structures provides a safeguard against the widespread impact of any specific corrupting influence. Despite its convenience, we should be wary of "the tyranny of search" as an increasingly ubiquitous logic for structuring the relationships between audiences, media producers, and advertisers. Google doesn't have to violate its "Do No Evil" slogan for search to shape media and social relationships in a variety of ways, some of which are troubling.

For thinkers interested in sports media, pulling together research on this topic served, for me, as a valuable reminder of the importance of locating our sporting interests within the broader media and social landscape. Jhally's work provides one avenue for this type of thinking, but it's just one among many. Putting sports media "in motion" with other political, economic, social, and cultural developments challenges us to make our research more relevant to diverse publics.

--T.C. Corrigan