Big-time Sports Research Articles

Media aspects of the relationship between politics and sports using the example of the Russian Federation’s exclusion from international competitions

RELEVANCE. The relationship between politics and sports is a pressing issue, since political contradictions between states are reflected in sports. Major sporting events are not just competitions between athletes, but also fierce political struggles. Through professional sports with the help of various media technologies, it is possible to influence global society and achieve geopolitical results. The relationship between elite sports and politics is considered using the example of the exclusion of Russian sports from international competitions and materials about this in the media.MATERIALS AND METHODS. Materials from foreign media have been studied on the topic of removing Russia from big-time sports, depriving it of state symbols, removing Russian athletes from international competitions due to disagreement with the political course of the authorities of the Russian Federation, and the introduction of so-called sanctions in the field of sports. The study was based on a comparative historical method, which helps to consider the dynamics of the development of relations between Russian sports and the political course of Western countries. The theoretical basis was the work of domestic and foreign researchers of the history and theory of sports. Content analysis was also used to study materials from Russian and foreign media with the aim of determining the attitude of foreign states towards Russian sports and its oppression in the international sports arena from 2014 to 2024.RESULT AND DISCUSSION. An analysis of foreign media materials confirms that pressure on Russian sports is being exerted by Western countries due to their disagreement with the political course of the Russian Federation. An analysis of sources showed that Western media agree on the issue of sanctions against Russian sports: they support the introduction of restrictions against Russian sports, but at the same time they call such measures an instrument of geopolitics, an instrument of “containing Russia”. This confirms the politicization of sports through the media.CONCLUSION. Analyzing the content of publications in both foreign and Russian media, we can conclude that pressure on Russian sports and members of the Russian national team began to intensify after the victory of the Russian team in the team event at the Olympic Games in Sochi 2014 and after the Republic of Crimea joined the Russian Federation . After the Russian Armed Forces launched a special military operation in Ukraine, even more sanctions and restrictions were introduced against Russian sports, and Russia was actually excluded from international sports. The author believes that the pressure on Russian sports will only increase.

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE COVID-19 SITUATION AMONG THE SPORTS COMMUNITY

In 2020, the world community faced a problem that affected all aspects of human life, first of all, his health. The pandemic has led to the temporary suspension of people from their normal professional activities, as well as the transition of many processes online. Big-time sports were no exception: since the beginning of 2020, professional athletes have massively refused to travel to competitions, and some organizers have closed access to spectators [1,5].

On the cultural-symbolic nature of sports: politico-philosophical aspect Irina I. Myurberg

The purpose of the study is to revise sports as a phenomenon of European culture, placed in the context of modern socio-political pictures of the world. The relevance and novelty of the goal is ensured by phenomenological approach to the subject of research, supplemented with the historical analysis of the main tasks - those associated with the purpose of revealing cultural and symbolic content of such a concept as “competitive sports”. The research is centered on the task of situating modern approaches with those which associate the phenomenon of sports within F. Nietzsche’s philosophical message. Philosophically topical here are cultural and symbolic meanings (those manifesting themselves in “big-time sports”) surviving as political and normative hallmarks; they empower theory to search for interdisciplinary continuity between the analysis of the socio-political evolution of the changing European world and studies dealing with durable cultural and symbolic meanings.

The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics

Texas is usually at the center of United States history. Whether it was as one of the causes for the Mexican–American War or the setting for the landmark ruling of Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion, the state has played and continues to play a significant role in the shaping of the nation. As Perry Como's 1942 hit tune begins, “The stars at night are big and bright (fast clap 4 times) deep in the heart of Texas!” In Frank Andre Guridy's book, The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics, the sports stars were indeed big and bright. Add the emergence of the commercialization of sport, the economic investments, and the pioneering visionaries in Texas in the 1960s and 1970s, and the result is the creation of today's modern sports industrial complex.Guridy's purpose is to explain the “consequences of [the] legal and political transformations vividly played out in sports” during the “Second Reconstruction” in Texas (4). The state was at the forefront of the convergence of social, political, and economic changes that manifested as the sports revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The book begins with a snapshot of sports in Texas during the Jim Crow era, including the success of African American teams like the track team at Texas Southern University and the Mexican American basketball team at Lanier High School in San Antonio. He also notes, in 1969, the Texas Longhorns were the last all-white football team to win an NCAA championship in the sport. Guridy then transitions into the factors that led to the evolution of sports in Texas: wealthy businessmen looking to cash in, the booming energy sector, and the securing of state-of-the-art stadiums.Houston and Dallas are at the center of this volume. In the 1960s, the Black community in Houston threw its support behind a proposal for a domed stadium. The promise was that the seating, teams, and jobs would be desegregated. The AstroDome was the first indoor stadium in the nation, bragging a host of architectural firsts that others would copy, including the injury-prone astroturf. The “Phi Slama Jama” era of basketball at the University of Houston demonstrated that dunks drew TV ratings. In addition, Black players like Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler had a significant impact on the college game and later the NBA.Inspiration (or envy) struck the Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison Jr. after the opening of the AstroDome. Tired of the decaying Cotton Bowl, he built Texas Stadium in Irving. Guridy explains how the construction of these two pathbreaking sports venues changed the landscape not only in Texas but nationwide, as other cities carbon-copied the Texas blueprint for success and profitability.The next chapters deal with the integration of the Southwest Conference and the subsequent race to acquire the best African American football players, inevitably resulting in NCAA violations. Guridy also explains how the Texas Rangers moved from Washington, DC. The common thread was how “commercialized sport catalyzed social change by unhinging the historical hierarchies of the Jim Crow era” (79). The San Antonio Spurs and the impact of the Mexican American working-class fan base also has a dedicated chapter.Guridy's best chapters address how Texas served as the background for two significant events during the sexual revolution: the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match and the formation of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, held in the Houston Astrodome, was a turning point for feminism. Millions of television viewers witnessed King's victory, resulting in the development of the women's pro tennis tour.The author's chapter on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) “exposed some of the contradictions of the sexual revolution,” including their woeful pay to the hypersexualized way they were used to sell tickets and garner television ratings (213). African American cheerleaders were members. Television producers and directors helped fuel the DCC's popularity by scanning the sidelines frequently during games.Since this is a book about Texas sports, there is no shortage of newspaper articles to choose from; however, most of the sources are secondary, taken from a wide array of sport history books. Guridy aptly shows, albeit grudgingly, how sports in Texas desegregated certain areas of the social and cultural scene. My one structural complaint is that there is no bibliography, only a notes section.The volume offers fans the genesis of big-time sports and how events in Texas fundamentally altered sports for the better. Guridy's book adds value to the historiography of sports history through the lens of civil rights, feminism, and the sexual revolution. Women's studies scholars and Texas historians would benefit greatly by adding this book to their list.

Physical education and sport as factors of health and formation of a healthy lifestyle

The article analyzes the influence of physical culture and sports on the health of the population. The author explores the behavioral factors of health and illness, using experience and examples from previous Russian and international research. The work highlights the main components of a healthy lifestyle and obstacles that prevent it from practicing, such as lack of material and time resources, lack of will, bad habits, high pace of life and work, etc. Based on the latest statistics and analysis, it is shown that there are few people leading a healthy lifestyle in Russia (from 12 to 25% according to various estimates), but there are real barriers to improving the situation. Furthermore, there is a lack of motivation among the population itself. The article focuses on the importance of adequate physical activity to preserve health. Author presents data on the share of those practicing physical education and sports in Russia and in the world, as well as the results of scientific research confirming the fact that the interest of Russians with sports activities has increased, they began to devote more time to physical development. However, it will take time to achieve the indicators typical for the countries of Northern Europe and the USA. The problem of high-performance sports, associated huge costs, its use as an effective instrument of “soft power” in world politics, dehumanization and commercialization of big-time sports and, of course, the issue of its impact on health are touched upon. It also analyzes the importance of professional sports for the development of mass sports and increasing the motivation of the population to engage in physical culture.The situation in the development of physical culture and mass sports in Russia and the involvement of the population of our country in these practices are assessed. Author analyzes interlinks between physical activity on one side and influence of socio-demographic characteristics of the population, such as gender, age, level of education and income, region of residence on the other side.The empirical basis of the work consists of data of the WHO, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), as well as the study undertaken in 2018–2019 by the Department of Sociology of Family and Demography, Faculty of Moscow of Sociology, Lomonosov Moscow State University (2489 respondents) “Interregional studies of life values and nontransitivity of family and child orientations among women, men and married couples on the basis of crosscutting analysis of comparable data” (SEDOZH).

H. George Frederickson, HOT TICKETS, Crimes, Championships, and Big Time Sports at the University of Kansas (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Books, 2019). 256 pp. $25.00 (soft cover), pISBN: 978‐1‐4766‐7787‐3; eISBN: 978‐1‐4766‐3748‐8

<i>H. George Frederickson</i>, HOT TICKETS, Crimes, Championships, and Big Time Sports at the University of Kansas (<i>Jefferson, NC: McFarland Books, 2019). 256 pp. $25.00 (soft cover), pISBN: 978‐1‐4766‐7787‐3; eISBN: 978‐1‐4766‐3748‐</i>8

The Impact of Big-Time Sports on University Academic Outcomes: Evidence from NCAA Conference Changes

Advocates of big-time college athletics posit large advertising effects from college football and men's basketball. Subsidies of about $20 million per year from universities to athletic department also motivate interest in this topic. Most research focuses on athletic success to quantify advertising effect strength. Although athletic success likely generates advertising effects, universities interested in increased national exposure cannot rely on athletic success alone, since athletic competitions generate zero sum outcomes. We estimate the collective effect of big-time college sports on educational outcomes rather than focus on success using conference changes as quasi-random shocks to the sports-driven advertising effect and estimate average treatment effects of conference changes using Integrated Post-secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data for 90 NCAA D-1A/FBS universities over 2002 to 2015. Difference-in-differences estimates provide weak evidence that changing conferences reduces applications and mixed evidence of impacts on state appropriations.

Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954

Book Review| April 01 2018 Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954 Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954. By Timothy B. Neary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 293 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $45 (cloth); $36 (paper). Paul Emory Putz Paul Emory Putz Baylor University Paul Emory Putz is a PhD candidate in history at Baylor University. He is writing a dissertation on the links between Christianity and big-time sports in the twentieth-century United States, has published articles in Nebraska History, and has articles forthcoming in the Annals of Iowa and the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2018) 37 (3): 134–136. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.3.0134 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Paul Emory Putz; Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2018; 37 (3): 134–136. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.3.0134 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Ethnic History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2018 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Racial Bias: The Black Athlete, Reagan’s War on Drugs, and Big-Time Sports Reform

Len Bias was on the brink of unimagined worldly success- pro stardom and millions of dollars in salaries and product endorsements. And it was all blown away in moments by a mistaken fling with drugs. But if his death inspires a war on dealers and a reform of college athletics, it will not have been in vain.John Jacob, Len Bias Tragedy, Baltimore Afro-American, 22 July 1986Too many ivory tower types on faculties who choose to ignore sports scandals consider them unrelated to their teaching and research. And the factory system of education found at large universities has given administrators enormous power. Most faculty members are convinced they have little effect on athletic matters. Few faculties have attempted to speak out collectively on this issue.College Athletics' Smoking Gun, Christian Science Monitor, 21 July 1986On the morning of June 19, 1986, the University of Maryland's (UMD) African American star basketball player Len Bias died of cocaine intoxication. Bias's death sent shockwaves across the United States, for less than two days before, the illustrious Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) had drafted him in the first round, offering him a lucrative contract. Young, gifted, black, and now on the cusp of being wealthy, he had everything to live for; he was the epitome of the American Dream, a story of racial uplift through intercollegiate athletics. Yet, his life was now over thanks to one night of celebration with an illicit in a college dorm room.Even before the NBA draft, Bias was already nationally renowned. He was the UMD Terrapins' all-time leading scorer, a two-time Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) player of the year, and named to the All-America Team. A dynamic player who moved with exuberance, one sports journalist described Bias as akin to Muhammad Ali on the court.1 At 6'8, 210 pounds, he was a picture of health and vitality.2In a matter of days, his death became the center of a national conversation about the dangers of cocaine, especially the new demon drug of crack cocaine, and the need for a more concerted war on drugs.3 Bias's tragic demise and its aftermath typically garner a line or two in most histories of President Ronald Reagan's war on drugs and the so-called crack epidemic as a catalyst for the increasingly punitive turn in policy and the concomitant criminalization of African Americans.4 However, no one has yet unpacked why this upand-coming black athlete became one of the chief symbols driving the frenzied rush to national action and the resulting expansion of the neoliberal carceral state. By analyzing the racial and gendered formation of the black athlete as criminal suspect, this article builds on work that explores the cultural construction of the war on drugs and the normalization of punitive logic in the United States.5The fallen Bias proved to be a flexible figure that government and university officials from across the political spectrum used to support various types of policy reform. At the same time that Bias's death became a justification for the criminalization of black youth beyond the university, it also inspired calls for the more systematic disciplining of black athletes, along with the expansion of policing on college campuses. However, Bias's abuse at UMD was not the only cause for concern. In the weeks after his death, reports surfaced exposing Bias's and his teammates' academic failures.6 Although a senior, Bias was twenty-one credits short of graduation, and he had dropped two and failed three courses in his last term. Likewise, four of his teammates had flunked the previous semester. These revelations sparked debates about the proper management of student athletes in revenue-producing sports, particularly NCAA Division I men's basketball and football, which by the mid-1980s were dominated by black male athletes.7In addition to exploring the national calls for a more sweeping war on drugs that followed Bias's passing, this article examines UMD's response through a critical analysis of two university task force reports: (1) The Task Force on Academic Achievement of Student-Athletes: Final Report (September 1986) and (2) The Model University Program for Education & Prevention of Drug Abuse (December 1986). …

Best Practices in Higher Education Graduate Programs: Preparing the Next Generation of Intercollegiate Athletics Administrators

The commercialization of intercollegiate athletics since the turn of the 21st century has led to an increasingly prevalent view of college athletics as “Big-Time Sport” business enterprises [Bowen, W. G., & Levin, S. A. (2011). Reclaiming the game: College sports and educational values. Princeton, NJ: University Press; Croissant, J. L. (2001). Can this campus be bought? Commercial influence in unfamiliar places. Academe, 87(5), 44–48; Lapchick, R. E. (2006). New game plan for college sport. Westport: Praeger; Sperber, M. (2000). Beer and circus: How big-time college sports has crippled undergraduate education. New York, NY: Macmillan.]. While college athletics often are associated with this big-business mentality in the media, the placement of intercollegiate athletics is fundamentally a functional unit nested within higher education institutions. To this end, the 21st century has marked a significant shift in the preparation patterns of intercollegiate athletic practitioners with programs that take a more holistic approach with curricula that encompass knowledge of higher education systems. This manuscript examines the career preparation patterns and graduate school experiences of aspiring intercollegiate athletic practitioners. Framed from a constructivist approach, this presentation draws from Kolb's [(1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall] Experiential Learning Theory to understand what contemporary professionals who aspire to work in intercollegiate athletics value in graduate preparation programs. This pilot study draws on the voices and narratives of graduate students who are currently completing athletic administration training, nested within higher education programs. Implications and recommendations are provided to inform and enhance graduate level preparation programs.

Big Time Sports in American Universities

Big Time Sports in American Universities

Are Big-Time Sports a Threat to Student Achievement? Another Look at the Differences between Men and Women

We revisit a recent study by Lindo, Swensen and Waddell (2012), who found a negative relationship between the success of the University of Oregon football team and the academic performance of students as measured by grades. Using data from Clemson University, we also find that the football team's winning percentage is negatively related to academic performance. Although Lindo, Swensen and Waddell (2012) found that the academic performance of male students was more sensitive to changes in the winning percentage than the academic performance of female students, we find evidence of the opposite phenomenon in the Clemson data. Moreover, the negative relationship between wins and academic performance at Clemson appears to persist into the spring semester.

Book Review: Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Book Review: Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Are Big-Time Sports a Threat to Student Achievement?

We consider the relationship between collegiate football success and non-athlete student performance. We find that the team's success significantly reduces male grades relative to female grades, and only in fall quarters, which coincides with the football season. Using survey data, we find that males are more likely than females to increase alcohol consumption, decrease studying, and increase partying in response to the success of the team. Yet, females also report that their behavior is affected by athletic success, suggesting that their performance is likely impaired but that this effect is masked by the practice of grade curving. (JEL I21, L83)

Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Big-Time Sports in American Universities

Book Reviews

John J. Siegfried of University of Adelaide and American Economic Association reviews “Big-Time Sports in American Universities” by Charles T. Clotfelter. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Examines the phenomenon of prominent, commercialized university-sponsored athletic enterprises and considers the consequences for the universities that operate them. Discusses strange bedfellows; priorities; the bigness of “big time;” consumer good, mass obsession; commercial enterprise; an institution builder; a beacon for campus culture; ends and means; and prospects for reform. Clotfelter is Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economic and Law at Duke University. Index.”

Big-time sports in American universities

For almost a century, big-time college athletics has been a wildly popular but consistently problematic part of American higher education. The challenges it poses to traditional academic values have been recognized from the start, but they have grown more ominous in recent decades, as cable television has become ubiquitous, commercial opportunities have proliferated, and athletic budgets have ballooned. In the second edition of his influential book Big-Time Sports in American Universities, Clotfelter continues to examine the role of athletics in American universities, building on his argument that commercial sports have become a core function of the universities that engage in them. Drawing on recent scandals on large-scale college campuses and updates on several high-profile court cases, Clotfelter brings clear economic analysis to the variety of problems that sports raise for university and public policy, providing the basis for the continuation of constructive conversations about the value of big-time sports in higher education.

Toward a framework for understanding Black male athlete social responsibility (BMASR) in big-time American sports

Stemming from their commodification as a means for growing sport into a commercial entity, multi-million dollar professional contracts with teams and sponsors, and sometimes, socially (un)acceptable acts, current Black male professional athletes in big-time American sports face not only the pressure to perform athletically, but also to conduct themselves in a socially responsible manner. Given the above mentioned factors, this paper sees today’s Black male athlete as a business, therefore necessitating them to engage in socially responsible acts as a means of management, just as scholars have encouraged CSR initiatives, among many strategies, to manage a corporation. Answering the call of sport management scholars to further analyse and expand CSR principles in sport, the purpose of this paper is to illuminate on Black male athlete social responsibility (BMASR) as a management strategy with the intention of moving toward a framework for understanding this concept.

Full-Throttle Jesus: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Stockcar Racing in Theocratic America

There's a logic to evangelical Christianity and big-time sport having this kind of cozy relationship. In many ways, they're similar. Both are win-loss mentalities. In evangelical Christianity you a...