Module 2
Business, Media, & Youth
A. Sport and The Economy
Sport is big business, both in the United States and around the world. In 2013,
Americans spent about $34.3 billion on spectator sport, and the total sport industry for
2014 was estimated to include $485 billion in spending (Plunkett Research 2014). Since
the business of sport involves entertainment, we pay for the right to watch it, root for our
team, forget about work or other weighty matters, and just enjoy life. Some of us also
participate directly in sport, and sporting goods manufacturers value our use of their
products, venues, and programs. Other people simply observe athletes performing, and
most of us thrill to witness compelling athletic feats, especially in the midst of
pressurized competition at events such as the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the
Olympic Games.
One primary role of both participation sport and spectator sport has always been
to entertain people during their time off from work. However, though sport entertainment
in the past was usually casual and relaxed, today’s sport is often organized, mechanized,
marketed, and administered as a business. Indeed, commercial interests influence
virtually every decision made in both collegiate and professional sport. As a result, events
are rated by television audience share, ticket sales, website hits, concession sales, sponsor
revenue, and media coverage. In this environment, wins and losses are viewed as
important in no small part because they influence these other standards of measurement.
As sport grew more businesslike, the corporate model crept into the organization
of every sport franchise and governing body. Athletes were encouraged to provide their
services for the good of the larger entity, to contribute to the bottom line, and to share in
the profits with the head or owner of their sport organization. Coaches became the
supervisors of athletes, who were sometimes asked to go against their personal choices
for the good of the team or organization. Players who demonstrated a good work ethic,
exemplary moral character, and a willingness to sacrifice for the good of the team were
admired and held up as role models. Those who deviated from that path were labeled as
malcontents and given only limited playing time or cut from the team.
For the most part, U.S. professional sport franchises are owned by extremely
wealthy people (overwhelmingly male) who benefit from ownership both personally and
financially. They may use their team to directly increase their personal wealth or to
provide a tax advantage that helps offset other business gains. Originally, owners of
professional sport teams were people who loved the game. They spent much of their
personal time and money promoting the game and strengthening their team and league as
profitable businesses. The next wave of owners were similarly dedicated to sport and did
not use their professional teams to promote other businesses. Examples include Tom
Yawkey of the Boston Red Sox (owner from 1933 to 1976), Phil Wrigley of the Chicago
Cubs (1932 to 1977), and August “Gussie” Busch Jr. of the St. Louis Cardinals (1953 to
1989). As this generation of owners died off, however, a new breed of ownership
emerged.
In some cases, individual club owners still own a professional sport franchise,
perhaps in order to find fun and excitement, boost their ego, or gain a sense of power.
Others simply enjoy being around famous athletes. Some owners are actively involved in
day-to-day operations, standing on the field with athletes and consulting with coaches
about decisions. Others leave the sport itself to professional coaches and managers and
stick to the business side of the franchise.
B. Making Money From Professional Sport
Virtually all professional sport franchises make money, despite some owners’
claims of losing money and their requests for cities to bear the brunt of the cost of
building new sport facilities. The NFL is by far the most lucrative league, taking in more
than $9 billion annually, an amount driven largely by $5 billion in television contracts. In
comparison, Major League Baseball (MLB) brings in $8 billion with only $1.5 billion
from TV, the National Basketball Association (NBA) generates $5 billion with just under
$1 billion from TV, and the National Hockey League (NHL) takes in $3.3 billion
including $600 million from TV.
Professional team franchises experience appreciation, growing in value every
year. As a result, a club that was once purchased for hundreds of thousands dollars might
now be bought for hundreds of millions. No sport owner of a major sport franchise has
ever lost money on the initial capital investment, and putting money into a professional
team has always paid off in the long run. In addition, if an owner can get a new venue
built with funding sources other than his or her own money, the value of the franchise is
increased by $30 million to $40 million.
Though some owners may see a loss in their franchise’s bottom line at the end of
a given year, they usually go into that particular year expecting such an outcome. In fact,
they may balance those losses against significant profits made in their other businesses,
thereby saving money by reducing their overall tax liability. For example, if an owner
earns a profit of $1 million in another business, such as a manufacturing company, he or
she can subtract the losses in the sport franchise from the $1 million in other profits and
pay taxes only on the remainder. The resulting savings can be considerable.
Depreciation has always been a mainstay of American business. Assets such as
equipment, tools, and (in sport) athletes have a limited life expectancy, and the annual
decrease in their business value is referred to as depreciation. Because U.S. tax law
allows businesses to reduce the book values of their capital assets each year, businesses
can show depreciation as a loss against their profits and thus reduce their tax liability
even if the actual value of their capital assets has increased.
The NFL and MLB differ sharply in both the structure and the amount of money
shared among the league’s teams. Although the total annual revenues for baseball ($8
billion) and football ($9 billion) are comparable, the sharing formula is not. In the NFL,
more than 80 percent of league revenue is divided evenly between all 32 teams. As a
result, market size has little to do with the revenue base of a football franchise.
In the NFL, the total money paid for seats (on average, about $2.5 million per
game) is split between the home and visiting teams on a 60-to-40 basis. Total ticket sales
are affected by a variety of factors, including the stadium’s seating capacity, seat prices,
and, of course, attendance numbers. Many NFL teams with winning traditions routinely
sell out their games and even have a waiting list of customers who want to purchase
season tickets.
Venue revenues include income from luxury boxes, general ticket sales,
concessions, and parking. Luxury boxes, typically the most expensive seats available, can
be found in all recently built venues; they often include food service, offer private
restrooms, and feature televisions showing the game in progress. Most luxury boxes are
bought by corporations and are deducted as a business expense since the firms use them
to entertain clients. The appeal of luxury boxes is that they are paid for in advance and
thus are guaranteed income. Another source of venue revenue is the relatively new
category of “naming rights,” which allow a sponsor to put its name on a facility for a cost
that generally ranges from $2 million to $10 million per year.
Media revenues include income from radio, television, and pay-per-view
broadcasts. They constitute the largest single source of income for the NFL, accounting
for about half of all NFL revenue. Happily for most NFL franchises, that revenue (as
discussed earlier in the chapter) is shared equally by all 32 teams. Revenue sharing
among teams in the league enhances their total bargaining power and helps balance the
differences in various markets due to size, tradition, and competition from other
recreational activities.
Professional sport franchises sell team jerseys, caps, T-shirts, and every other
imaginable souvenir. The NFL became the leader in capitalizing on such merchandise by
establishing NFL Properties to market the league and license its merchandise. The
revenue from these sales was shared equally among all NFL teams until 1995. Some team
owners balked at this arrangement, particularly if their team traditionally generated more
sales than other, less popular teams did. In spite of the success of NFL Properties, owner
Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys sued the NFL for the income generated by Nike and
Pepsi deals he negotiated for the Cowboys and won; he also won the right to keep the
revenue from his team merchandise sales, which is about $80 million annually.
On average, an MLB team can earn an additional $20 million to $30 million
dollars just by making the playoffs. For example, when the underdog Kansas City Royals
scrapped their way to the 2014 World Series, they raked in more than $1 million for each
playoff game they hosted. In addition, reaching the postseason guarantees higher earnings
for the next several seasons. Typically, playoff teams increase their in-season attendance,
which increases their local revenue, concessions revenue, and broadcast revenue. Local
sponsorship of the team should also jump, and the Royals expect an increase of $6
million to $7 million in revenue in 2015 from new team sponsors. As you might expect,
the Royals have also enjoyed a huge spike in the popularity of their team merchandise;
however, because those revenues are split evenly among all 30 major league teams, the
direct financial impact for the Royals is considerably reduced.
Another major source of income—for cities and teams—is the sale of naming
rights for their athletic venues. In the past, venues were typically named after a former
owner, a celebrity, or the local city. This is no longer the case. For example, the former
Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, which honored the one-time Miami Dolphins owner, was
replaced by Pro Player Stadium and is now Sun Life Stadium. Similarly, Connie Mack
Stadium, named for a former manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, has been replaced by
Lincoln Financial Field. As a result of this shift, we are now accustomed to names such
as Raymond James Stadium, American Airlines Arena, Pepsi Center, Tropicana Field,
Safeco Field, and Bank of America Stadium.
C. Venue Financing
The financing of stadiums and other athletic arenas has been the subject of public
debate for years, and the discussion is sure to continue. Because of the need for constant
refurbishments, upgrades, and redesigns, constructing a new facility is often a better
option than remodeling an old one. Still, building a new facility easily costs several
hundred million dollars, if not more, which makes the source of that funding a point of
contention. As a result, many creative minds have developed various financial packages
to support these new facilities. Let’s look at some of them.
The majority of venues are publicly owned, either by local governments or by
special venue or sport authorities. These groups oversee operation of the facility,
negotiate leases with the sport teams that use it, and may also supervise nearby ancillary
construction, such as shops, restaurants, and other amenities. A few venues—for
example, Bank of America Stadium and Gillette Stadium—were privately financed and
are privately owned. Bank of America Stadium, home of Carolina Panthers football, was
completed in 1996 at a cost of $248 million.
For years, Florida has assessed a bed tax on hotel guests from out of state. For
every room night, $1 goes into a special fund to help finance public sport venues around
the state. The state government decides which sport in which city is due for support and
allocates a portion of the bed tax revenue for that project. As you might suspect, these
funds are the subject of intense lobbying by leaders in football, basketball, baseball,
tennis, and other sports. The beauty of this plan is that residents are mollified regarding
the use of public money, since it comes from the pockets of out-of-state tourists and
businesspeople. Of course, some might wonder what other uses the money could be put
to, such as education, housing for poor residents, hurricane relief, and coastline
refurbishing.
Public tax funds provide funding for construction and maintenance of most
professional sport venues. In addition, the public financing may derive from tax-free
public bonds, thereby depriving the government of a source of revenue that critics of such
financing argue could be better applied toward improved living conditions for residents,
especially those who are most in need. In many cases, the city taxes ticket sales,
refreshment sales, and parking fees, although each of these possibilities depends on the
agreement negotiated with the sport franchise. If a facility was built with public money,
most cities also charge the team a rental fee that ranges from several hundred thousand
dollars a year to a nominal one dollar. Again, the size of the fee depends on the
agreement negotiated by city officials with the sport franchise.
Sport owners may also subtly or not so subtly threaten to simply move their team
to another city if the residents don’t want the team enough to finance it. Although such
threats might be said to constitute a form of blackmail, they have carried the day in many
cities around the country. Furthermore, the actions of Art Modell in Cleveland, Robert
Irsay in Baltimore, and Al Davis in Oakland prove that such threats are not just idle
chatter.
Many sporting events and even some professional sport teams, such as the Green
Bay Packers, are owned by a group or organization. The dynamics of group ownership
differ considerably from those of individual ownership, since decisions have to be made
by group members or at least by the elected board of directors. In addition, if the group is
a public corporation, its financial records are open to public scrutiny—an unpalatable
prospect for professional sport leagues that would prefer to keep their finances private.
In the late 1990s, the facilities at the USTA National Tennis Center in New York,
the home of the U.S. Open, received a total face-lift at a cost exceeding $250 million. The
USTA bore the total cost of that expense, with no expenditure of public funding.
Compared with other sport owners who have their facilities built for them, the USTA
stands alone as selfsupporting. Another major face-lift is currently in progress. With a
projected total cost of about $500 million, it will add a roof to Arthur Ashe Stadium,
build a new stadium to replace the aging Louis Armstrong Stadium, and build another
new stadium, along with a wide pedestrian walkway to accommodate the extra 100,000
fans the Open hopes to attract. Once again, the costs are being financed by the USTA.
D. Sport as Monopoly
Some people argue that professional sports in the United States are unique in that
they clearly constitute monopolies and that no other U.S. business operates under the
same favorable set of rules. Let’s examine this argument, beginning with a historical
review. In the 1890s, President Grover Cleveland grew concerned about the influence of
the Standard Oil Company on the economy and influenced the U.S. Congress to pass the
Sherman Antitrust Act, which made illegal “every contract, combination in the form of
trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several
states or with foreign nations”.
For most teams, television revenue is a huge source of income, but the potential
revenue for each major league baseball team depends on the size of its market. The NFL
restricts individual teams from negotiating local TV contracts, but MLB does not. Hence,
the New York Yankees can sell their local TV rights for $75 million a year, whereas the
former Montreal Expos were lucky to command $1 million. Among other things, this
inequity in potential income helped convince the Expos to relocate to Washington, DC, in
2005. You can see the disparity that different markets create between teams, which
throws the teams’ power and competitiveness off balance. The NFL, however, remains a
true monopoly by negotiating as one entity. The NFL model for distribution of TV
revenue is just one of several strategies the league has used to ensure the financial
sustainability of each franchise and thus minimize the differences between small,
medium, and large markets.
Team owners restrict the options available to the workforce in their sport. First,
they limit the choice of teams with whom a player can sign. Each league conducts an
annual draft, in which each player is selected by one team. As a result, a player who grew
up in California and thrives in warm weather may be drafted by the Green Bay Packers
and therefore have no choice but to go to Green Bay if he wishes to play in the NFL. This
process also eliminates each player’s potential negotiating leverage with other teams and
therefore limits the size of player salaries.
Football and basketball have at various times used an option clause, which
requires a player to play one more year after his contract expires, typically at 90 percent
of his previous year’s salary, before he becomes a free agent able to sell his services to
another team. Each new collective bargaining agreement between a sport’s owners and
the players union sets the terms of option clauses for the length of that agreement. Of
course, when a player and his agent negotiate a contract, they also have the right to agree
to an option clause in exchange for other favorable provisions, such as a sizable signing
bonus. Many teams try to trade a player once he announces that he is playing out his
option, because they figure it’s better to get something in return than to lose the player’s
services without any compensation at all. For this reason, you sometimes see established
players with solid careers traded for fringe players, future draft choices, or the famous
“player to be named later.”
Let’s look now at the yearly compensation of athletes in the United States. Keep
in mind that the following statistics include all sports and all athletes, even those in the
so-called minor leagues. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013b), in
2010 the median annual salary for athletes was $43,740, although of course many of the
highest-paid athletes earned much more. Statistics also show that all levels of U.S.
professional sport combined provide about 21,000 jobs for athletes. Therefore, though
you see headlines about the multimillion-dollar contracts signed by top athletes,
thousands more struggle to make ends meet in the minor leagues, hoping for a chance at
the big leagues. Competition is intense in the effort to reach the highest level of any
professional sport, and the average length of a professional sport career is only about
three and a half years due to debilitating injuries and age.
The average fan may feel disgusted by the exorbitant pay of top athletes,
particularly when an athlete doesn’t play up to expectations. This reaction is
understandable; at the same time, professional athletes face extreme competition simply
to make it in their sport, and that competition rarely goes away. In addition, in some
sports, such as professional tennis and golf, players must earn prize money in
tournaments; as a result, if they suffer an injury or don’t play well, their income stops
even as their expenses continue. Thus there are no guarantees in professional tennis and
golf, and athletes must prove themselves at every event, year after year.
After years of wildly escalating salaries, professional sport owners decided to take
steps to limit players salaries. One approach involves setting a total salary cap that limits
how much each team can spend on player salaries, thus letting teams save money and
facilitate competitive balance in the league. The NFL enforces the toughest version of
salary limitation, whereas baseball allows some wiggle room. When a baseball team goes
over the cap, it must pay a luxury tax on the amount by which it exceeded the cap. As
already mentioned, the New York Yankees routinely exceed the cap and pay the fine.
E. Collegiate Sport as Moneymaker
Born out of student activities, college sport has evolved into big business on many
university campuses. In the 2012–2013 academic year, the total estimated revenue from
college sport in all divisions of the NCAA was $913 million (Plunkett Research 2014).
Particularly in major or revenue-producing sports, such as football and basketball, the
amount of money that major universities earn and spend on sport makes the operation of
the athletic department a meaningful business endeavor. Although the department’s
specific purpose may not be to make money, it certainly is not allowed to lose money.
College athletic departments collect revenue from myriad sources. Big
universities sell tickets to football games in stadiums that seat more than 100,000 fans.
They add to their income through parking fees, concessions, souvenirs, and luxury boxes
available for a substantial fee to alumni or businesspeople who want to entertain clients.
Television rights can also be a bonanza, provided the team is good enough. Notre Dame
has been so well known in football for so long that it negotiates its own TV package for
football and refuses to join a league and share its profit with other football teams. Most
schools, however, benefit from league membership and receive revenue from all televised
league games. Playoffs and bowl games provide additional income for the schools that
earn those opportunities.
The only way to generate a budget of this size is to establish a topgrade football
program that makes more than half of the total revenue by itself. The top five schools in
2013 in terms of profit from their football teams were, in order, Texas, Michigan, Florida,
Louisiana State, and Alabama. However, just as the revenue from big-time football seems
to keep increasing, so do the expenses involved in operating these programs. In fact, a
majority of programs had to increase their budgets by a double-digit percentage in fiscal
years 2010 through 2012, and at least 17 of the 52 Division I FBS programs reported
increasing their budget by more than 15 percent.
F. Recreational Sport as a Business
The economic effect of recreational sport is measured in terms of the sales of
sport equipment, such as golf clubs, tennis rackets, balls, boats, and fishing rods. Sales
also include athletic footwear and clothing, which often serve the dual purposes of
activewear for sport participation and leisure wear. Of the estimated $485 billion
generated by the U.S. sport industry in 2014, $44 billion was generated from retail
sporting goods stores and $22 billion from health and fitness clubs.
Another way to measure expenditures for sport recreation is to tally the amount of
land in natural settings that is used for boating and fishing, sport fields, public parks, and
private sport facilities throughout the country. When the national economy thrives,
people have more discretionary income to spend on recreation, and facilities are
constructed and maintained to meet this demand. In fact, every community spends a
portion of its annual budget maintaining public recreational areas, often at significant
expense to its citizens.
Let’s look now at how an individual consumer might contribute to the business of
sport. I recall getting my first baseball glove, smacking it to build the pocket, oiling it to
make the leather supple, and sleeping with it just to get used to the feel of it. Next came
my very own baseball bat, a football, a basketball, a soccer ball, uniforms, sneakers, a
bicycle, roller skates, a plastic ball and bat, swim gear (flippers and a mask), soccer and
baseball shoes with spikes, a tennis racket, and finally golf clubs. Children of families
with at least modest incomes go through a similar progression of sport equipment, and
over a lifetime a family may spend thousands of dollars on toys and equipment for sport
and recreation.
To ensure the quality of their team’s facilities, franchise owners often upgrade or
replace facilities in order to create a state-of-the-art venue. Venue financing often
involves major contributions from public funds even though the public may receive little
direct benefit from the deal. Meanwhile, the value of the sport franchise increases
considerably with a new venue, thus making the franchise a solid investment. Some
organizations, such as the United States Tennis Association, own and operate
professional sport events.
G. Evolution of Sport Media
Even when we attend a game in person, we still depend on the media to help
present the game. We’re curious about what others think, how they saw the same plays,
and what they think it all meant. After a game, have you ever turned on the postgame
summary to hear about what happened? Have you watched replays of key plays or
events? Listened to coaches’ or other experts’ opinions about the game? Read about the
game the next day on a sport news website? Checked Twitter to see what your friends
thought and what they’re feeling? Read personal blogs by athletes who participated in the
event? It’s almost enough to make us wonder if maybe a sporting event doesn’t exist
unless the media report it and we share it with somebody.
The media that cover sport usually fit into two broad categories: electronic and
print. Electronic media are by far the largest media sources and deliver their content via
the Internet, television, or radio; print media include printed newspapers, magazines, and
books. In addition, these days, nearly all traditional print media sources (especially
magazines and newspapers) have a web presence as well. For example, Sports Illustrated
delivers its content both electronically and in a weekly print edition. Moreover, the World
Wide Web is just one kind of Internet use. As you are no doubt aware, access to the
Internet is not limited to traditional computers but is also now available through
smartphones and tablets. This environment has enabled rapid growth and expanding
options in electronic peer-to-peer communication.
As consumers of professional sport, we can be categorized as either direct or
indirect spectators. Direct spectators attend a live sporting event at a stadium, arena, or
other venue. Indirect spectators listen to or watch sport through radio, television, or the
Internet. Although direct spectators continue to increase in record numbers, that increase
is relatively modest as compared with the increase in indirect spectators. Indeed,
electronic coverage, particularly video, has opened up sport viewing to millions of fans
around the world. Major sporting events are now broadcast live across time zones and to
people in diverse cultures who often rearrange their sleep patterns or daily activities to
catch a live telecast of an event such as the Super Bowl or the Olympic Games.
Growing up in the 1950s, I relied on news of professional sport from two major
sources: newspapers and radio. A few times a year, I convinced my dad to purchase
tickets to a live game, where I was thrilled to see my favorite players perform in person.
Nothing compared to being at a game, but for most of the year I was entertained by
poring over the daily sport pages for game results, writers’ opinions, and team or
individual statistics. Games were broadcast regularly on radio, and families and groups of
fans gathered around to listen to the play-by-play description. I also spent many nights
alone in my room, listening to radio broadcasts of a seemingly endless season of baseball
games through the spring, summer, and fall.
The first sport pages in newspapers appeared sporadically in the second half of
the nineteenth century in big-city dailies. The first modern sport section is credited to
William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the New York Journal. As Hearst acquired
newspapers in other cities, he spread the sport section to Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Boston, and Chicago, and sport pages thrived in newspapers during the 1920s. As
professional baseball and football rose in popularity, as horse racing and boxing thrived,
and as golf and tennis gained an audience, the public thirst for sport news demanded
more and more information. Virtually every major newspaper created a sport section
staffed by a small army of researchers, beat writers, columnists, features editors,
photographers, and design editors.
The mass media disseminate information to large numbers of geographically
dispersed people. Through television, for example, people across the country and around
the world can view sport contests in real time. They learn about the sport, the specific
game, and the players through the live telecast itself; through the announcers, who
provide play-by-play descriptions; and through “color commentators,” who point out
highlights and background information. The plethora of cable channels, specialized sport
networks, and sport packages has also contributed to a diffusion of the television
audience. Those who want to watch sport all day (or night) can do so thanks to the 24-7
availability of sport programming.
New ways to watch television programs are also changing the business model for
the industry; typically, that business model has involved scheduling programs and events
at certain times and expecting a mass audience to view them. In effect, networks have
“pushed” viewers to watch events and shows at times chosen by the networks. However,
technological advances, such as digital video recorders (DVRs), now allow people to
record any program and replay it at their convenience; in addition, recording services are
available from the likes of TiVo, Netflix, and Hulu, which also offers free live streaming.
This phenomenon, referred to as “time shifting,” has complicated the process of
calculating TV ratings because many people don’t watch their saved programs until a
week or more later. As a result, viewership tracking companies, such as Nielsen, cannot
gauge viewership by using their traditional methods.
Just as television changed how families in the 1950s interacted with sport, the
Internet gives twenty-first-century fans another way to experience sport. It provides sport
fans with virtual access to sport on demand and in real time and allows them to create
personal, specific methods of interaction. For example, people can visit the website of a
favorite team, check scores, listen to games in progress, order tickets, browse for stories,
read sport blogs, and enter chat rooms to discuss event results. In fact, we can now go
online to track the progress of sport events anywhere in the world and access perspectives
from sport newsrooms around the world. The administration of U.S. president Barack
Obama has poured billions of dollars into expanding the reach of the Internet, and today
nearly 98 percent of U.S. homes have access to some form of high-speed broadband
service. Even so, roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population still does not use the Internet
—chiefly elderly people and those in low income brackets.
The Internet also enables a wide variety of programming by video streaming in
real time, which, for example, allows fans to watch their alma mater play a football game
in another time zone or follow their daughter’s college volleyball game. Even high school
sport has gotten into the business of streaming, both locally and nationally, and the
National Federation of State High School Associations streams all types of high school
sport across the country. As a result, you can use the organization’s website to watch a
state championship tennis match in Wisconsin or an ice hockey match in North Dakota.
You can also access live streaming of sport events for free at SportLemon,
Stream2Watch, WatchESPN, FirstRow Sports, and Wiziwig.
As technology improves and access to the Internet increases, websites continue
fighting to win consumers. Media corporations enter the fray and try to entice consumers
by offering exclusive data and entertainment on their sites. Eventually, Internet access
may allow us to design our own sport entertainment by giving us access to novel event
presentations with unique camera angles, favorite announcers, instant replay on demand,
and player and coach interviews. The interactive nature of such experiences will draw us
closer to the action and make us more involved than the average spectator if we choose.
H. Interplay of Sport and Media
Professional spectator sports depend on the media for survival. Ticket sales to live
events simply cannot generate enough money to make professional events profitable
without media support. The overwhelming bulk of revenue that sport generates from the
media comes from television fees. In his seminal book Sports in America (1987), James
Michener estimated that television expended more than $200 million annually on sport.
That amount seemed unbelievable then, but it is far exceeded by today’s annual rights
fees. For example, for its 2014 season, the NFL negotiated agreements with ESPN, NBC,
CBS, Fox, DirecTV, and its own NFL Network that generated a total of more than $6
billion for the league. Though the NFL is not required to release this financial
information, one of its franchises—the Green Bay Packers—is required to do so because
it is a public company. As one of 32 NFL franchises, the Packers received 1/32 of the TV
money, or about $200 million for the year.
In fact, the popularity of both collegiate and professional sport exploded as more
and more U.S. homes gained access to television. Even people who had little or no
interest in sport couldn’t help but catch bits of games as they surfed the channels. They
didn’t even have to leave their chairs to see the games. Sport announcers hyped each
contest to draw viewers in, and once they caught viewers’ attention, they enthusiastically
and concisely described the game, making it exciting to watch.
Expert commentators work hard to strike a delicate balance by educating viewers
who know little about the sport without insulting diehard fans. For people who enjoy
history, statistics, individual matchups, and record-setting performances, TV
presentations offer all that and more. You don’t need to lift a finger to find out more
about a particular event than you ever wanted to know. You can just sit back, relax, and
let the game come to you. And now, options such as DVR allow you to view games on
your own schedule, so you can even decide when you want to spend time watching sport.
Thus the media have expanded the popularity of sport by making sport spectatorship
accessible, fun, and convenient for the masses.
Individual players also depend on the media for publicity. Star players are given a
public face in their community, receiving recognition for their sport performances and
perhaps also kudos for visiting local schools or supporting local charities. Fans develop
heroes, seek their autographs or pictures, follow their careers, join their fan clubs, and
wear their jersey numbers. Kids imitate their style of play. In addition, a star player’s life
is often scrutinized, and athletes dedicated to their family are praised and held up as role
models. Of course, those who appear in the news for less attractive reasons quickly find
out that the media can also be harsh critics. Without the media’s presentation of athletes,
however, fans would have little opportunity to relate to them; indeed, uniforms tend to
make one player look like all the rest.
Sport events that are unpredictable in length wreak havoc with television
schedules. As a result, broadcasters have pressured sports to revise their format in order
to ensure that contests finish in a predictable amount of time. In response, collegiate
football instituted an overtime format in which the teams try to score from each other’s
25-yard line. The excitement generated by this approach has been a pleasant by-product
of the attempt to regulate game times. Even the more conservative NFL has introduced
some revised overtime rules to limit the number of games that end in a tie.
In tennis, a tiebreaker was instituted to decide sets in which the players are tied at
six games each; in the tiebreaker, the first player to win 7 points and be ahead by 2 points
wins the set. This change ensured that a set would end after the equivalent of 13 games
rather than go on and on, as sometimes happened under the old rules. Thus the tiebreak
contributes to the predictability of match lengths, which helps television producers plan
their programming accordingly. Of course, from the spectator’s point of view, the
excitement generated by the critical tiebreak turned out to be a positive thing for the sport
as well.
In basketball, the three-point shot was adopted to put more emphasis on long-
range shooting and thereby reduce the dependence on large bodies pounding the ball
inside to score. In addition, the size of the lane or key under the basket was expanded to
help push big players out, thus opening up the game for more scoring with athletic
moves. A shot clock was also instituted, requiring the team with the ball to shoot within a
prescribed amount of time, in order to prevent the tactic of just holding onto the ball
when leading near the end of a game. These changes have helped make basketball a more
exciting sport for audiences who love high-scoring games and watching dramatic action.
The world’s most popular sport—soccer—has also failed to catch on widely with
U.S. television viewers due to the scarcity of scoring and the absence of time-outs for
commercial breaks. The common complaint from potential viewers goes something like,
“Why would I watch a sport where the score can end up 0-0?” With this sentiment in
mind, both the NFL and the NBA have modified their rules to enhance scoring and thus
give fans what they want. Soccer aficionados, however, say that low scoring is part of
what makes the game so fascinating, because even one goal carries huge importance and
the outcome is nearly always in doubt. Perhaps more significant is the fact that U.S.
networks would rather broadcast football or basketball games, which accommodate the
frequent breaks in the action when they can show commercials and thus make their
money.
In some markets, the presentation of games on television has affected attendance
in the stadium or arena. As a result, the NFL adopted a blackout rule, according to which
a game cannot be broadcast within a range of roughly 150 miles (240 kilometers) of the
venue unless all tickets are sold. Owners contend that without this rule, many fans would
simply stay home to watch games on television rather than buy a ticket. The blackout rule
was suspended for the 2015 season to see if eliminating blackouts negatively affected
ticket sales.
Then came television, which offered an easy way to watch the top players in the
country. Attendance dropped quickly for minor league franchises, and the number of
minor league teams fell from nearly 500 in 1950 to about 150 just 25 years later. Today,
there are only 17 minor league teams that are affiliated with MLB teams, and together
they employ approximately 8,000 players. By comparison, the number of MLB players
was 1,304 in 2013. Eventually, the role of player development that had been traditionally
assigned to minor league baseball teams was filled largely by collegiate teams, who
stepped up as the training ground for aspiring players.
Gambling has always been part of the sport world. The posting of odds for each
game in various media outlets increases the interest in finding out the winners and losers,
the point spreads, and possible upsets. There is no way to tell how much local betting
occurs between neighbors and friends, at bars, or in office pools; however, at playoff
time, it’s rare for an office not to have at least one betting pool.
Media attention raises the public’s awareness of a relatively few colleges based on
their football success thanks to the broadcasting of big-time games and the endless
publicity provided by weekly rankings, bowl speculation, and awards for best
performances. This free publicity typically translates into more student applications,
which allows these institutions to be more selective in their admissions. Therefore,
although football success is unrelated to academic excellence or to the many other
important factors in choosing a college, footballrelated publicity helps universities that
have top-ranked teams.
As the competition for television dollars continues to mount in big-time college
football, we have witnessed a continual realignment of leagues in Division I FBS in an
effort to generate the maximum profit from television rights for each league school. As a
result, league alignment no longer hinges on traditional rivalries or geography; instead,
it’s a question of the size of the television market that a school can bring to a league.
I. How Sport Affects the Media
As the preceding discussion has documented, the media have served as a primary
support for the rapid expansion of big-time college and professional sport. However, this
relationship has not been a one-way street. Sport has also provided the media with
enormous, predictable audiences that are attractive to advertisers both in the United
States and around the world. Indeed, the revenue generated by sport coverage has been a
major source of income for various media, especially newspapers, television
broadcasters, and specialty magazines.
Newspapers can also attract readers by publishing stories about social concerns
related to sport, which stimulate readers’ thinking and maintain their interest in lively
debates. In contrast, sport pages that simply print event results and basic accounts of
contests may not hold readers’ interests, particularly as more people seek to find out
results by means of television or the Internet.
Magazines that cover sport have responded to growing interest in particular
sports. In fact, most general news magazines rarely cover sport unless a major human
interest story is involved. Instead, magazine publishers have found that appealing to fans
of a specific sport guarantees a more stable audience of subscribers who are likely to
support that magazine for a length of time. Indeed, a quick check of the website Mags on
the Net finds more than 200 specific-sport magazines offered for subscription; examples
include Golf Digest and Tennis.
The largest worldwide audience every four years is typically attracted by the
Summer Olympic Games, which features both men and women competing in about 30
sports. More than 4.7 billion people watched the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games—about
76 percent of the potential global audience (International Olympic Committee 2014b).
Even so, the Olympic Games hasn’t drawn the largest audience ever. Though it may
surprise U.S. residents, the largest television audience in the world has been drawn by
World Cup soccer. This fact makes sense, however, when you consider that soccer is
easily the most popular sport worldwide. In nations on every continent, fans of every
economic level flock to live soccer games and follow them on television.
As we’ve seen, the more people watch sport, the more the media cover sport. Of
course, this dynamic holds true not only for men’s sport but also for women’s sport, and
the media have slowly begun to reach out to female viewers. For decades, sport was
viewed as a man’s world, and television presentations showed a strong bias toward male
viewers. Eventually, however, the networks realized that more than half of the population
was female and that many females were embracing sport. As a result, the networks began
to devote more programming hours to sports that were popular with women, such as
figure skating, gymnastics, tennis, and women’s soccer. Currently, the most popular
sports on television for female viewers are, in order, the Summer Olympic Games, the
Winter Olympic Games, the Kentucky Derby, the Super Bowl, the Women’s World Cup
soccer tournament, and the U.S. Open women’s tennis finals.
J. Ideology of Sport Through the Media
The media emphasize certain sport-related behaviors that affect the next
generation of athletes and spectators. More specifically, the presentation of sport in the
media tends to emphasize behaviors that demonstrate certain values, attitudes, and beliefs
that reflect the history of sport and help maintain the status quo. Generally, the sport
media are owned and operated by six large conglomerates.
Here’s how it works. If you are a sport fan, you certainly want ESPN and are
willing to pay for it. But you must also pay for all the other Disney channels, along with
A+E Networks. Similarly, you probably want to have Fox Sports 1 and 2, but to get them
you must also pay for Fox News, Fox Business, FX, and National Geographic. As you
can see, these mammoth companies have a sweet deal, and efforts to dispense with
bundling and allow viewers to make à la carte choices have been slow to develop. Many
predict that such online options are the shape of the future, but as of 2014 only HBO and
CBSN had established them.
Some of the cultural values held by media executives, team owners, and league
administrators clash with those held by athletes. Moreover, issues of race, gender, and
sexual preferences are often at the root of different attitudes toward both sport and life.
However, because the media realize that their audience and benefactors generally hold
fairly mainstream values, they tend to present and reinforce those same values. Let’s look
now at some of the general themes delivered by sport media.
In another common theme, athletes who act as cooperative team players receive
reinforcement from the media and are praised as leaders and role models. In addition,
individual athletes who deliver clutch individual performances are idolized and revered
for their fortitude and success under pressure. On the other hand, the media harshly
criticize athletes who question coaching decisions, celebrate individual achievements
over team performance, or do not cooperate with the media.
Even so, World Peace went on to win the NBA championship as a member of the
Los Angeles Lakers in 2010, when he starred in the playoffs. Remarkably, in 2011 he
won the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award and changed his name to Metta
World Peace. He chose “Metta” as his first name because it is a traditional Buddhist word
that means loving kindness and friendliness toward all. Similarly, he chose “World
Peace” to inspire and bring youth together around the world. Signs of a changed man
seemed to appear, but the next season he arrived in training camp out of shape and was
relegated to a reduced role as a sub. Then, another on-court incident resulted in another
suspension at a critical time in the season.
The importance of physical activity for everyone is well documented. With the
alarming increases in obesity in the United States recently reported in the media for both
youth and adults, you might guess that the media would take a strong stance regarding
sport participation as an antidote for excess body weight. Instead, the majority of sport
broadcasts urge viewers to tune in to watch more sports rather than actually playing a
sport. Research to date does not support the idea that watching sport on television affects
a person’s own sport participation one way or the other; rather, the evidence is mixed.
On the other hand, increases in sport participation following the Olympic Games
appear to be merely short-term effects. As reported by Sport England, one year after the
conclusion of the 2012 London Games, 20 of 29 sports showed decreasing participation
rates, and the number of people exercising one to three times weekly also fell. More
generally, sport scholars report that hosting the Olympic Games has never led to a lasting
increase in participation in the host country. In fact, some viewers are put off by watching
the world’s greatest athletes perform feats that seem unimaginable to an average person.
In fact, the only group that seems to be truly inspired by watching superior athletes
perform are those who are already physically active in sport or another fitness activity.
Certain traditional values have become part of our North American culture. We
generally invest in the ideal of individualism—that one person can make a difference. As
a result, even team achievements are sometimes traced back to the success or failure of
key players. At the same time, we expect players to work cooperatively, and we extol the
virtues of team chemistry and working cohesively as a unit. Therefore, players who put
their own welfare first quickly fall out of favor with owners, coaches, and fans. In some
cases, the ideals of individual achievement and teamwork clash with each other, thus
creating conflict for players.
U.S. society looks for winners, builds them up, showers them with praise for at
least a day, and then looks to the next year. Fame is fickle, and the message is clear—if
you haven’t won the big one, you don’t count for much in sport. Historically, some of our
greatest athletes and coaches have failed to win the ultimate contest and are therefore
considered failures or lesser athletes. Other athletes who are less talented and productive
over the course of their career have been considered successful because they won a big
game. Never mind that the win may have been due to luck, teammates, or an inferior
opponent—they won. As a result, Super Bowl heroes who were never heard from before
(or perhaps after) their one shining moment go down in history as winners.
In terms of gender, the sport media have predominantly portrayed hegemonic
masculinity, revering and reinforcing the traditional masculine characteristics of power,
dominance, and violence. This focus is not surprising in light of the fact that male
athletics predated the rise of female athletics. However, as women’s sport gained a
foothold in the 1970s and continued to grow in the following years, one might have
expected a change in the traditional sport media’s worship of everything traditionally
male. Since males have continued to be in positions of power at every television network
and dominate production and commentary as well, perhaps more interest in women’s
sports was unrealistic.
Viewers’ ideas about race and ethnicity can also be influenced by what they see
and hear in sport media coverage. Most sport journalists are careful to avoid language
that could be interpreted as racist, and the few incidents that have occurred recently have
been dealt with quickly. Yet some argue that racism in the media exists in less overt ways
—for example, that stories about black athletes focus too often on their rise from poverty
to wealth.
Sport journalism careers have evolved to keep pace with the changes in sport
media. In the past, most sport reporters and editors worked in print media for newspapers
and magazines. However, as online media have developed and print media have
retrenched, sport journalism and reporting have increasingly migrated to websites, blogs,
e-magazines, and e-newspapers.
Many networks hire former athletes as announcers in order to establish the
credibility of their commentary. The public expects a former player in the sport to
understand the game, as well as the athletes’ struggles. And indeed, some athletes have
done remarkably well even with little training as sportcasters. Another fertile source of
sport announcers is found in the ranks of former coaches, who can share an expert
viewpoint and often possess better communication skills than well-known athletes simply
because of their years of practice.
K. History of Youth Sport
One hundred years ago, lower-class children competed in youth sport under adult
supervision, whereas their upper-class counterparts were more likely to be found
occupied by noncompetitive activities, such as music lessons and dancing, that were
usually conducted at home under the tutelage of a private teacher. Some children from
the higher social classes were also schooled in certain sports, such as equestrian, sailing,
golf, tennis, and skiing. Children’s athletic competitions typically took the form of
athletic tournaments staged in big cities that were populated by poor immigrant families.
After World War II, youth sport—at least for boys—became popular in middle-
class communities across the land, especially in baseball, football, and basketball. It
wasn’t until the 1970s that youth sport for both sexes was embraced by upper-middle-
class communities, where parents came to believe that competitive youth sport was a
requirement if their kids were to be successful. As a result of these developments, youth
sport programs have become a huge factor in U.S. society over the past 60 years.
Perhaps the most dramatic change in U.S. youth sport programs in the last 30
years has been the explosion of sport opportunities for girls that resulted from the passage
of the Title IX federal legislation in 1972. Before Title IX, girls were expected to be
cheerleaders, pompon girls, or majorettes or perhaps to participate in a few “ladylike”
sports, such as gymnastics, figure skating, equestrianism, swimming, and tennis. Once
Title IX was passed, however, girls showed up in record numbers at softball fields,
basketball courts, field hockey and lacrosse fields, and soccer fields.
Since the 1970s, family life in North America has undergone many changes and
that in turn has resulted in significant changes to youth sports. One significant change
involves an increase in the number of mothers who work outside the home—from 40
percent in the 1970s to 71 percent in 2012 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012a). As
mentioned earlier, this change means that kids need someplace safe to go after school,
and sport fills that void. It also helps kids get exercise; improve their self-confidence; and
learn life lessons in winning,
A second factor in the change in youth sports since the 1970s is an increase in
child abductions and sexual predators, which of course frightens parents and makes them
fear for their children’s safety (Cauchon 2005). When their children are actively engaged
under adult supervision in a sport program, however, parents can feel some comfort that
they are safe. A third factor is the belief, particularly in areas of high crime, that children
are more likely to stay out of trouble if they are participating in an organized sport
program. In such areas, many children are exposed to drugs, sex, and crime on the streets
before the age of 10. In contrast, if they have a safe haven after school, children who live
in dangerous neighborhoods can participate in sport free of worry; in many programs,
they also spend time completing homework assignments.
Finally, the emergence of specialized training for high-performance sport at very
young ages has encouraged parents to go to great lengths to give their child a chance to
become a great athlete. As a result, these kids are encouraged at an early age to commit
completely to one sport, train hard in it every day, and focus on it year round. Such
parents feel a sense of guilt if they do not support their child’s one chance to be famous
and make millions, so they sacrifice money, time, and sometimes even family happiness
in the pursuit of athletic excellence.
L. Privatization of Youth Sport
When public parks and schools have struggled with funding issues, organized
youth sport programs have often been eliminated or reduced in scope. In addition, since
the 1970s, a segment of the public has embraced the philosophy that government is more
the problem than the solution to societal issues. Rather than support strong public schools
and other programs for youth development, this ideological perspective seeks to transfer
the responsibility to individuals and families. A parallel line of thought holds that the best
source of economic growth is unregulated self-interest and that the key to personal
motivation is competition.
Summer sport camps specialize in one or two sports and draw thousands of
youngsters from families who can afford to send their children to camp for weeks or even
an entire summer. These camps mix traditional camp activities with a heavy dose of sport
instruction, drilling, and supervised play. Private lessons are also recommended by the
coaches, who love working one-on-one with young athletes to improve their sport skills,
such as their tennis stroke, their baseball swing, or their goaltending ability. The financial
rewards for the coaches allow many of them to coach youth sport not merely as a source
of supplemental income but as a full-time job.
This shift toward privatization quickly changed the culture and character of youth
sport. The new philosophy focused on excellence, skill development, and competition
and thus required year-round training, more emphasis on fitness development, and
intense competitive experience that often involves extensive travel. Once private
programs attract kids to their program, they want to keep them year round in order to
support program facilities, as well as administrative and coaching staff.
M. Current Status of Youth Sport
With participation in youth sport at an all-time high, it would appear that things
are rosy in the sporting world of kids. But participation statistics are helpful only if they
are considered in relation to the possible number of youth sport consumers. In suburban
communities, the sport participation rates of boys and girls are comparable; in rural and
urban communities, however, girls participate at much lower rates than boys do. In one
particularly telling statistic, 84 percent of urban girls and 68 percent of rural girls have no
physical education classes at all in the 11th and 12th grades. In contrast, 48 percent of
girls in suburban schools do not participate in physical education.
Indeed, the world of sport has been latched onto as a rite of passage by many
upper-middleclass parents who want their children, especially girls, to be able to function
as part of a team, become leaders in their occupation, and succeed in a competitive world.
In the past, girls from similar backgrounds often focused on learning the arts and refining
their appearance in the hope of marrying well, which for many people at that time defined
female success. In this age of working women, however, different skills and assets are
needed in order to get a job and thrive in the competitive business world. Consider the
results of one study by the Oppenheimer Foundation, which found that 82 percent of
executive businesswomen participated in organized sport in middle and high school and
80 percent of female executives identified themselves as competitive “tomboys” during
childhood.
In terms of race and ethnicity, youth sport is diverse; in fact, at many ages, boys
of color participate at higher rates than white boys do. However, the picture for girls of
color is not encouraging. They seem to be hit by both gender and racial discrimination,
and their participation levels fall significantly below those of white girls. In this light, it is
not surprising that more than two-thirds of kids have a TV in their bedroom and about
one-third have a computer with Internet access in their home. The heaviest media users
are black and Hispanic kids and “tweens” (those aged 11 to 14) of any race. As kids
move into the 16- to 18-year-old age bracket, their use of video games and TV recedes
and their use of music and audio entertainment rises. Heavier use of all media is
associated with behavioral problems; lower grades; and a higher chance of reporting
boredom, sadness, or trouble at school.
In the past few decades, childhood obesity has more than doubled among young
children and quadrupled among adolescents. For example, among kids aged 6 to 11,
obesity rose from 7 percent in 1980 to 18 percent in 2012. During the same period, the
percentage of adolescents (aged 12 to 19) who were obese rose from 5 percent to 21
percent. Overall, more than onethird of U.S. children are now overweight or obese. In
2013, 54 percent of parents reported that they had to pay an extra fee for their kids to
participate in a school sport, and 57 percent indicated that the cost had risen during the
past year. The largest subgroup (27 percent) paid more than $200 in fees, and the next
largest group (25 percent) paid between $100 and $200. Of course, these same parents
also support school sport through local taxes; as a result, some of them see sport fees as a
form of double taxation. Parents also projected significant spending increases for sports
and activities not associated with school.
Extreme sport, also called action or adventure sport, continues to grow in
popularity and provide alternative forms of competitive physical activity for youth—
primarily males between the ages of 12 and 30. Although no precise definition exists for
extreme sport, most activities in this group involve a fairly high level of inherent danger
or risk of injury. They typically include challenges replete with speed, height, and
exertion and require specialized equipment and gear.
The X Games feature wakeboarding, which evolved from waterskiing and
surfing; motocross, which came from motorcycles and cross country running; surfing;
BMX, or bicycle motocross, which includes racing and jumping; and skateboarding.
These sports often share certain features in common, such as racing, jumping, specialized
lingo, and an emphasis on creativity and athleticism. Action sports were once viewed as
pursuits for outsiders, rebels, and geeks, but all of that has changed; they’re mainstream
sports now. Participants say they pursue these sports for fun, for the associated fashion
and lifestyle, and for the chance to express themselves.
Over the past decade, several changes have occurred in youth sport preferences.
As discussed earlier, the most popular youth sports used to be baseball and football—and
they are still popular—but other sports have made more dramatic gains. More generally,
team sport has always been the most popular type of sport for youth, and that has not
changed. However, the majority of team sports have barely maintained their past levels of
participation, and most have declined. Indeed, you may be surprised to see which team
sports grew the most and which lost the most from 2008 to 2013.
Basketball has become the most popular team sport for kids (Sports and Fitness
Industry Association 2014; Kelley and Carchia 2013). It appeals to both sexes, can be
highly competitive, and is hugely popular as a recreational or pickup sport. In addition,
courts are fairly accessible, which is particularly important in urban settings where space
is at a premium, and player costs are minimal. Basketball peaks in popularity at age 13
(as compared with age 7 or 8 for baseball and soccer) but continues to be popular
throughout the teenage years; in fact, it has the highest number of high school teams of
any sport for both boys and girls. In contrast, tackle football rates only fourth in the
number of high school teams, though football ranks first in number of participants for
boys, due to the large number of players required to form a team.
Soccer has grown at an unprecedented rate in the United States over the past 30
years and now ranks second only to basketball in participation, especially among younger
children. In the past 10 years, however, U.S. soccer participation has leveled off, showing
little gain or loss. Although soccer participation peaks at the relatively young age of
eight, it still attracts the fifth-highest number of participants of all sports in high school,
and that participation is spread evenly between girls and boys.
Even as football has continued to grow in popularity—it is the top U.S. spectator
sport—it has experienced a steady decline in participation. To help us understand the full
picture of football participation, the SFIA’s 2014 sport participation report breaks
football participation into three categories: tackle, touch, and flag. A further drill-down
categorizes participants as either casual or core participants based on their frequency of
play. The bottom line regarding football participation is that since 2008 it has decreased
in every category—in some cases by a percentage exceeding 7 percent.
Baseball also faces other challenges in its attempts to attract participants at the
youth level. For one thing, more than any other sport, baseball at the youth level has
relied on parents to serve as coaches and team administrators. In many families, however,
both parents are now active in the workforce and therefore have limited time for such
activities. In addition, fields are expensive to develop and maintain, particularly in urban
settings. Youth baseball has even been touched by scandals in which players lied about
their age in order to compete in divisions for which they were too old or lied about their
legal place of residence.
Participation in individual sports that traditionally have been popular—for
example, ice skating, skiing, golf, tennis, and gymnastics—have had their ups and downs
over the past five years. Gymnastics and skiing have been trending upward, tennis and ice
skating have been flat, and golf has been declining (SFIA 2014). The primary obstacle to
growth for these sports lies in the expense of practicing and competing. Some affordable
community programs are available for young people just starting out, but athletes who
aspire to higher performance must participate in an elite program. Therein lies the catch.
According to experience-based estimates by various families, supporting one child in an
elite program costs $20,000 to $25,000 per year, depending on the sport and the amount
of travel required. That figure includes expenses for coaching, equipment, and travel to
competition, for both the child and for a parent chaperone.
N. Organized Youth Sport
Sport at the youth level is organized by one of two groups: youths or adults. Both
approaches have grown in recent years, and the question is whether one will dominate the
other over the long run. The two approaches can differ considerably in intent, application
of traditions and rules, social influences, and financial cost. Sports organized by adults
tend to be more reflective of adult and professional models of sport. They offer kids a
glimpse into the adult world of sport and socialize them into a system that prepares them
for continued play in high school, college, and beyond. In contrast, sport programs
organized by young people are more likely to be accepted as an end in themselves, to
offer an opportunity to simply have fun and enjoy competition, and to allow participants
to control their level of involvement and dedication.
Athlete-organized sport involves sports and games that develop naturally as
children go outside to play. Free from school, parents, and other adult supervision,
children choose an activity, agree on the rules, and settle disputes among themselves.
Games begin and end by mutual agreement or when the child who provided the
equipment decides to go home. Sides are chosen by natural leaders, who are often the
best players or the oldest kids. The hurt feelings of those chosen last are ignored, and kids
learn where they stand in the minds of their peers. The most popular games provide lots
of action for every player and flexible rules to mitigate imbalances due to size, age, or
level of experience. For example, younger children who might often strike out in
baseball-type games are often given a chance to bat until they actually hit the ball.
At about age six, many children begin playing soccer, munchkin tennis, tee ball,
biddy ball (a form of basketball), or flag football in an adult-organized program. Parents
are often heavily involved in both practices and games, serving as coaches, partners,
pitchers, or base coaches. The rules are modified to suit the ability of the players so that
their introduction to the sport is successful. Rules are also established to protect the safety
of each child, ensure fair allotment of playing time, and control game length.
Youth sport has the potential to be either a terrific, positive influence on family
life or a divisive, painful experience for all. To maximize their kids’ chances of having a
positive sport experience, parents can read educational materials, attend orientation
sessions, and talk with other parents in order to understand the sport philosophy, policies,
and expectations of local sport programs before their children begin to participate. Then,
when their children come home and say they want to sign up for soccer because their
friends are doing so, parents will be armed with accurate and helpful information.
Most kids are first attracted to sport because their friends are involved. The
chance to spend time with peers, make new friends, and escape from the adult world (and
maybe school or boredom) all factor into the attraction of sport. In addition, kids seem to
enjoy the physical challenge of games and activity. In the typical suburban household,
friends are separated by geography, and sport offers friends an opportunity to spend time
together. There is little doubt that if a child’s parents have a favorable attitude toward
sport, as most parents do, then the child is more likely to be encouraged to join a team or
program. Once a child is involved, if parents initiate positive interactions, support, and
encouragement—and avoid pressuring the child—then he or she is more likely to
embrace challenges and display greater intrinsic motivation.
Burnout is simply a natural reaction to chronic stress. Kids who have burned out
in a sport seek to reduce the stress by withdrawing from the sport. If they know that their
parents and coaches will be disappointed in them, the stress is heightened, and they may
feel forced to take drastic measures, such as faking an injury or illness. In fact, the
pressure they feel may even produce an illness.
The scars from a negative sport experience can turn a happy, well-adjusted kid
into a withdrawn, unhappy kid. Therefore, parents also need to learn to recognize when
their kids show signs of burnout, which may include avoiding practice or games, never
smiling, frequent physical ailments, lack of caring about performance, emotional
outbursts, or other behavior that is atypical for that child. Once burnout is suspected,
intervention by trained professionals may be necessary to plot a path back to normalcy,
which may or may not include the sport in which the child burned out.
O. Reforms for Youth Sport
Now that we have traced the history of youth sport and considered some current
issues, perhaps you think that changes should be made. It’s natural to try to improve an
experience for children, whether it involves education or recreation. Kids need to be able
to adjust to the world they will live in—not the one we lived in the past. As a result, they
will need different.
Perhaps the most inclusive organization is the National Alliance for Youth Sports
(NAYS), a multisport corporation established to foster the continued education of youth
sport administrators and to support the growth and development of young people through
participation in organized youth sport. Building on past work, NAYS developed the
National Standards for Youth Sports (2008). These standards—available to all youth
sport programs, parents, and participants—address key issues affecting the delivery of
youth sport programs.
Recent headlines have often decried the lack of physical activity and the rise in
obesity among people of all ages. Although we seem to get many children started in the
right direction for lifetime fitness, we tend to shut down their progress just as they enter
adolescence. Youth sport seems to be more of an elimination process, selecting the most
talented kids for later sport participation in high school and relegating the rest to a life
without organized sport.
What kids say they want out of sport programs—and what they need—often
differs from the offerings of adult-designed programs. One major theme that has emerged
from kids’ comments is the fact that they want sport to be fun. However, it seems that fun
can mean quite different things to different people, depending on their motivation for
participation and their individual needs.
