soc 117 final
What did the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 establish? Why does it exist?
Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) — governs all forms of interstate commerce to prevent development of anticompetitive activity.
What, in summary, is "the shame of college sports", according to Branch?
Ultimately, it is the shame of college sports because the athletes are deprived of their well-earned wages.
What role did intercollegiate athletics play during this transition? What does this imply about how visible intercollegiate athletics was prior to this? (For, intercollegiate athletics had been around since the late 1800s!)
Until the late nineteenth century, athletics were peripheral to organizational life in U.S. higher education. Intercollegiate baseball, rowing, and track and field competitions, often organized by students, were common but largely informal. Historians agree that football profoundly changed the character and organization of U.S. higher education. ...... Even at this early point, fielding a football team symbolized legitimacy. By the 1930s, an important mark of a university's stature was the size of its football stadium
1. What is the culture of (professional) esport with respect to commercialized self- promotion? 2. Why might this represent an obstacle to esport achieving varsity sport status?
1. --------------- 2. ---------------
1. Approximately what is the overall varsity participation rate in NCAA Division I-FBS, which includes Cal? 2. Is the varsity participation rate higher or lower at the NCAA Division III level?
1. 2.62% 2. higher
1. Approximately what percentage of players in the National Football League (NFL) are Black? 2. What percentage are White?
1. 2/3 2. like 20%
1. Approximately what percentage of all schools with intercollegiate athletic programs are NCAA schools? 2. Approximately what percentage of all varsity athletes compete for an NCAA school?
1. 52% 2. 70%
1. Why is there more genetic variation among peoples from the African continent than in the entire rest of the world? 2. What implications does this have for the notion, based on the observation that some of the most athletically genetically gifted people in the world appear to be African or of African descent, that Africans are genetically superior athletes? 3. Would Epstein agree with this or not?
1. Data from around the world shows that the genetic diversity of native populations generally decreases the farther the population is along the human migratory path from East Africa, with populations native to the Americas tending to have the least genetic diversity 2. We all come from the same place, so it shouldn't mean that race is biologically different 3. Yes
1. What is the "performance orientation" in contemporary sport? 2. How does it differ from de Coubertin's philosophy?
1. Gone is the gentlemanly (sic) sportsman willing to take the risk of losing. - Governments plan and coordinate athletics.- Sports is the province of corporations selling products. - Athletes compete for money—not just for sport. 2. no gentlemanly sport anymore
1. What effect might Title IX have on gender in sport? 2. Why might Title IX be a reason that esport does not become a varsity sport at the intercollegiate level, despite its growing popularity? (Think in particular of the pressures already imposed upon Cal Athletics in light of Chancellor Christ's directive to move to Prong 1 compliance by 2021.)
1. If esport is going to be considered legitimate, it needs to either include more women or less men (it needs to adhere to title ix) 2. Esport participants want to play it as they please, do not have to adhere to certain principles.
1. All told, what would be Levey Friedman's objection to the observation that youth sport is just about "participation" in society today? 2. Is her objection empirical (because she thinks that youth sport as it exists is about something else), moral (because she thinks youth sport ought to be something else), or both? Why?
1. Its not - its about class anxiety, not everyone can compete to the same capacity. 2. empirical - youth sport plays a role in perpetuating class stratification.t
1. What is macroscopic vs. microscopic vs. mesoscopic theory? 2. At which level have we primarily operated in this course?
1. Macroscopic sociological theory-corresponds to grand theory(the theory which goes to explain everything). Theories which scopes is entire nation or entire globe Microscopic sociological theory: Theory which focuses on everyday interactions (have students stand face to face in elevator) Mesoscopic social theory: Middle level logic that are behind some social action. Looks at institutional order 2. Mesoscopic
1. What role does skin color play in who has the ACTN3 gene? 2. What factors do at least partially determine whether one has the ACTN3 gene or not?
1. None 2. has to do with where you come from
1. What does Bourdieu mean when he proposes to problematize the supply of and demand for sports? 2. What implicit criticism does this carry of how we might typically think about why there are sports, and sports spectators/fans, in society?
1. Sport is a supply intended to meet a social demand 2. we usually don't think about the social structure, it just a matter of life
How does the institution of fantasy sports, as described in the McGrath article from The New Yorker, shape fandom along Giulianotti's globalization and commodification axes, and why?
Fandom becoming less local/attached to specific places, more commodification
How many aspiring Canadian hockey players play collegiately in Canada?
Few- most go to US
What was the O'Bannon v NCAA (2014) case about?
O'Bannon v NCAA (2014) decision: The NCAA can't use players' likenesses without paying them. (Judge Claudia Wilken)
What are the different divisions within the NCAA? What is the top level? What is the bottom level?
NCAA Div 1 FBS, NCAA Div 1 FCS, NCAA Div 2, NCAA Div 3
How was televised college football regulated between the 1950s and 1984?
NCAA voted to restrict which college athletic events could be televised to only a few licensed by the NCAA staff
What are the key organizations that push for maintaining the amateurism model in college sports?
NCAA- but like to the extreme, like don't give the athletes breakfast
Who are the principal current-day (U.S.) representatives of each type of logic?
NFL and MLB
Why are 29 of the NFL's 32 teams listed in Forbes magazine's list of the 50 most financially valuable sports teams in the world?
NFL: commissioner was strong + owners had a history of cooperation --> commissioner convinced owners to pool their TV rights and sell to national networks collectively.
What does Leifer mean when he says the "opening" for a league functioning according to a logic of modern publics is a television network without a sports contract as opposed to a large city without a sports team?
National public teams operate by selling their TV rights hence a TV network without a sports contract would be an opening for that league to jump on it and sell their TV rights as opposed to trying to attach themselves to a large city because only local teams rely on city attachment to function bette
What role does television play in Leifer's historical story?
TV allowed people to search for their home teams --> assisted in creating modern publics
What is the difference in cultural logic of modern vs. local publics? What does "settling" vs. "searching" mean?
The NFL: instead of settling for the local team, we search for a team (on national television)
What does globalization mean in the context of sports?
teams are becoming increasingly heterogenus
Why does Epstein subtitle Chapter 1 "the gene-free model of expertise"?
aint genes! its all practice baby
What does mens sana in corpore sano mean?
"a healthy mind in a healthy body"
According to Eckstein & Delaney, why does there continue to be public spending on sports stadiums, even in the near-unanimous evidence that stadiums bring any public benefit?
** One answer: it's not just a private enterprise, they can constructed as vital for community self-esteem 1) Residents' perception of their own community
The nation-state as "historical project":
- 19th century Europe: sport connoted social class, not nation-state. - Early 20th century: sport becomes more identified with nation-state, but even then, only as a matter of residence, not identity. - World War I: sport takes on the modern, strong meaning associated with nation-state. - Creating/sustaining the importance of nation-state throughout the 20th/21st centuries: understand FIFA's role in this project.
Markovits & Rensmann—explaining U.S. exceptionalism in terms of Ecological factors:
- Ecological factors: size/isolation of U.S. vs. Europe fans don't follow the home team on the road as much; intense local rivalries in pro team sports mitigated by territorial exclusivity enforced by leagues. - Multiple hegemonic sports cultures vs. European sports monoculture. - Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. - Little national dimension to hegemonic sports cultures in the U.S. - ...
What are the two major positions on how to reform college sports? Generally speaking, what do they see as the problem to be solved? Which side is Branch on?
-College sports is still at the core of the academic mission: the solution is to re-integrate athletics into the academic mission. -College sports is a business: ... and it's not going anywhere. But if it is a business then we must acknowledge that student-athletes are wage laborers. (BRANCH's SIDE)
1. What role did compulsory schooling during the Progressive Era in the U.S. (1890s-1920s) play in bringing about organized youth sport in America? What does Levey Friedman mean by compulsory schooling "creating leisure time" for children?
-Creates "leisure" time for children—how to fill those hours? -Organized youth sport "gets kids off the street". -Youth sports centered in schools and school-related associations (New York City's Public School Athletic League).
How is Title IX enforced? What happens when a complaint is raised? Is enforcement negotiated or unilateral?
-Driven by complaints rather than by mandatory certification -Negotiated rather than unilateral process -No school has ever had federal funding withheld on the basis of athletics-related Title IX violations
What are some characteristics of the contemporary "professionalization" of competitive youth sport?
-Increased competitiveness within increasingly age-stratified divisions. -The rise of the full-time paid coach. -The emergence of the year-round season. -U.S. Youth Soccer (USYS) and its explicit focus on elite/travel soccer teams has displaced the "everyone plays" AYSO
What was the ensuing culture of spectatorship?
-The innovation of sports leagues made geography relevant to sport spectatorship in a way that it hadn't before. -Although television technology offered the potential to make geography irrelevant, territory remains relevant in MLB and the NBA. -The nationalization of NFL television rights has made it less sensitive to territory.Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your perspective.
According to Diketmüller, whose research is cited by Markovits & Rensmann, what is the relationship between the production of high-level men and high-level women soccer players in a country?
-count of number of high level players that countries produce Inverse relationship about how popular soccer is, and the number. Argument: in countries where soccer is popular, there is a hegemonic culture that men should be playing soccer
generally, professional sports teams in the U.S. need labor; customers; and a place to play sports. In what way do U.S. pro sports teams avoid the difficulties of free/fair market competition in securing all three?
1) Players: when a player's contract expires, the rights to the player are retained by the team The player is thus not free to move to either another team, or another league, wages low 2) Fans Teams compete for fans in the city and surrounding geographic area for fans Leagues, not team owners, control where their franchises can locate 3) A stadium The municipality—not the team—becomes the owner of the stadium. (it is the regional's responsibility to come up with the money NOT THE TEAM ie. through hotel taxes) The bonds are not a loan to the team—it is the municipality's obligation to come up with the revenue to service the debt. Sport leagues have antitrust exemptions: Sports leagues are essentially legalized monopolies, which enables them to control markets for players and consumers to degrees not seen in other industries. THEY ARE A LEGAL MONOPOLY!
How does this illustrate why the popularity of college sports in the U.S. can't simply be explained by the popularity of sports, in general, in the U.S.?
1)Markovits & Rensmann: Geography/Ecology- Ecological factors: college sports is often "the only game in town" 2)Lifschitz/Sauder/Stevens: athletics is the key status instrument as schools seek national rather than only regional recognition - status is important on a bigger scale 3)Markovits & Rensmann: athletics is the key branding mechanism for schools as higher education in the U.S. is extended to the masses - again, status
What three historical factors brought about this transformation?
1)The use of the Olympic Games as a propaganda vehicle (specifically, during the Cold War).2)Increase of commercial/media interests.3)Scientific rationality.
1. What are three dimensions of Title IX compliance? 2. Which of the three dimensions drove the Cal Field Hockey program's complaint in 2016?
1. Prong 1: Proportionality: That's a big phrase and a chance for you to use a little math. The first test means to compare the ratio of female to male participants in the athletic program with the ratio of female to male full-time students (undergraduates for intercollegiate investigations). If the resulting ratios are equal, the school is most likely in compliance in this area of Title IX. Prong 2: History and Continuing Practice: Has your school shown a history and continuing practice of program expansion for the underrepresented sex? The courts have been firm in noting that the word "continuing" is important when using the second test. Many schools added considerable numbers of women's teams in the 1970s but either kept the status quo or decreased opportunities during the 1980s. Those changes occurred quite long ago. So, let's stay focused on our current generation of young people and their athletic opportunities. Prong 3: Effectively Accommodating Interests and Abilities: Are the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex fully and effectively accommodated by the current program? In the third test, the key words are "fully and effectively." Educational institutions that offer athletic programs are required to effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of their students. Under Title IX, these institutions must provide opportunities for individuals of each sex to participate in sports, as well as provide those individuals with competitive team schedules 2.3
1. What key concerns did UC Berkeley's Chancellor's Task Force on Academics & Athletics (TFAA) raise regarding Intercollegiate Athletics at Cal? 2. What types of policies did it recommend?
1. -Jurisdictional/organizational prioritization issues. -Inadequate academic support & advising. -Scheduling issues/majors "clustering" -Lack of support/understanding from faculty. -Lack of integration with non-student-athletes. 2. reintegrate them back with students
1. What is Harry Edwards' explanation for these disparities? 2. What is the difference between the role of institutional racism vs. of personal racial prejudice? Is Edwards identifying the former or the latter as the chief issue? 3. Why—i.e., what leads people inside football to push people of particular races to particular positions on the football field?
1. Teams are imitators - they do what has worked in the past 2. institutional racism 3. When people & organizations do not know how to do things with certainty, they look for models of action that have legitimacy—including models based upon racialized understandings of their world.
What is Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule" and its implications for the role of genetics in athletic excellence? Would Epstein agree with Gladwell or not? Why?
1. The 10,000 Hour Rule holds that 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" are needed to become world-class in any field.Success is (at least partially) "nurtured" 2. No, Gladwell thinks it has more to do with socialization
1. What was/is "GamerGate"? 2. What does it say about the role that gender plays in esport?
1. The Gamergate controversy stemmed from a harassment campaign conducted primarily through the use of the hashtag #GamerGate. The controversy centered on issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture. 2. Women are not welcome
1. How does public financing work? 2. Why does Coates, who is otherwise sympathetic to critics of public spending on stadiums, observe that the criticism that "money used for stadiums could have been used for schools" is misleading? 3. What are the "opportunity cost" threats that Coates would agree the public does face?
1. The bonds are not a loan to the team—it is the municipality's obligation to come up with the revenue to service the debt.•Revenue comes from: rent, taxes (sales, hotel, payroll), stadium naming rights, and other sources.•Municipal bonds are attractive to investors because the interest from them is typically exempt from federal taxes. 2. 3. in Clark County, the hotel tax pays for schools and transportation. If revenue projections are not met, the cost for servicing the debt is taken out of money that could have been spent there.
1. What was ex-University of North Carolina (UNC) chancellor Holden Thorp's reaction to the "no-show" classes scandal at UNC? 2. How does this illustrate the growing separation between major college athletics programs and the administrations that putatively oversee them?
1. Thorp was shellshocked by the experience of dealing with a scandal. As a lifelong North Carolina partisan, he had bought into the myth of the university as a place that harvested genuine student-athletes. The scandal showed him a reality he never before had to face.It also engulfed him. If you are a college chancellor or president, you can't delegate when there is a problem in the athletic department. "The governing board, the newspaper, the fans, the faculty, they all expect you to sort it out," he said. He was spending, literally, half his time dealing with the football team. Yet he had no real experience with the business of college athletics — nor, for that matter, do most college presidents.He found himself buffeted this way and that. At first, he supported his coach, but then he finally felt he had to fire him. He did so at the worst possible moment: on the eve of a new season. His press conferences dealing with the scandal were, by his own admission, "terrible." He was, to be blunt, in over his head. 2. Big-time college athletics has become so alien to universities that university officials don't know how to administer them
1. What is the difference between the Universal Cheerleading Association, National Cheerleading Association, and United Spirit Association? 2. What do Grindstaff & West mean by hegemonic vs. subordinated masculinities?
1. Universal Cheerleading Association: Most "gender conservative": men aren't allowed to do "feminine" things. National Cheerleading Association: More performative; men are allowed to dance and jump, but in visibly "masculine" ways compared to women. United Spirit Association: Most performative (in the "feminine" sense) 2. Subordinate masculinity is acting or being in opposition to hegemonic masculinity.
1. How likely is it that a person with the "fast twitch" ACTN3 gene will be a world-class sprinter? Why? 2.How likely is it that a person without the ACTN3 gene will be a world-class sprinter
1. Unlikely 2. Super unlikely Bad genes might exclude people from being elite athletes, but good genes do not guarantee elite athleticism for those who have them. (Practice, etc, matters, too!)
1. What distinguishes elite ("grandmaster") chess players from complete novices? 2. What distinguishes grandmaster chess player from merely very good players?
1. You can forsee your opponents next move 2.
1. What is the racial breakdown of players who play the quarterback and center positions, vs. the running back and wide receiver positions? 2. Putting aside for the moment the extreme over-representation of Blacks in the NFL, what would we expect the racial breakdown of players at those positions to be—if race played no role in determining an NFL player's development?
1. black players each less than 20%, around 80% 2. that they played 2/3 of positions
1. Where are intercollegiate esport programs located on college campus? 2. Are they generally organized the same way, or is there considerable variation at this time?
1. has no universally accepted place on campus. some put it in the athletic dept, some put it in academic affairs 2. considerable variation
1. What does Leifer mean when he says that early leagues promoted "sameness" in competition? 2. What are examples of this/how is this achieved? What problem does sameness solve? 3. What does he mean when he says that fans "look for difference" between teams?
1. imposing "sameness" on teams would make contests more even, and hence presumably more dramatic 2. ------- 3. attaching teams to cities: -creates permanent fan bases -makes supporting the "home" team a matter of communal obligation rather than of desecration of purity of amateur competition
Who owns publicly-financed stadiums? Who is responsible for paying back any debt? What sorts of strategies are used to repay debt? What is a typical timeframe for paying back all the debt?
1. the municipality. revenue comes from: rent, taxes (sales, hotel, payroll), stadium naming rights, and other sources.•
1. What association was there between sporting and partisan politics in the late 1700s and early 1800s, according to Cohen? 2. What expectations were there that candidates for elected office would incorporate sporting into their campaigns?
1. there was a place for politics and campaigning. Sport was used as an instrument for political mobilization—of voters, and for organized interests 2. candidates were to be involved in sports and they were a great place for campaign
1. How does the 1984 decision figure into Branch's explanation of why the NCAA is so keen to promote the amateurism model today? 2. What about the Kent Waldrep case in the 1970s?
1. they want to keep control 2. Waldrep was paralyzed: he had lost all movement and feeling below his neck. After nine months of paying his medical bills, Texas Christian refused to pay any more, so the Waldrep family coped for years on dwindling charity. Through the 1990s, from his wheelchair, Waldrep pressed a lawsuit for workers' compensation.
1. What is a "ritual inversion"? 2. Why is powder puff football an example of a ritual inversion? What function does the ritual inversion serve?
1. when a ritual or special event provides a frame that gives license for people to violate everyday cultural norms and social codes 2. institutionalized rituals meant to remind society that it's absurd for women to participate
1. What is cultural capital? 2. What are the five elements of "competitive kid capital"? 3. When Levey Friedman talks to parents of youth sport participants, what is her point about how parents talk about the types of capital imparted onto their children by playing youth sport? (The point: it's about class anxiety.)
1. your knowledge and skills 2. Understanding the importance of winning Being able to recover from a loss Performing under pressure Being able to be judged by others Time management 3. youth sport has become a key way upper-middle-class parents seek to develop cultural capital for their children
What "problem" does Leifer propose that organizers of this original form of competition confronted?
1.)Cultural skepticism of professional sports. 2)Contests involving dominant independent teams lacked drama. 3)Since independent teams had no "home", their audiences were always temporary.
How many aspiring Canadian hockey players play collegiately in the United States?
109
About how much per year does it cost to service this debt, between Intercollegiate Athletics (IA) and the central campus?
18 million total
What were the circumstances of the Amateur Athletic Union turning its attention to organizing youth sports?
1978 displacement from the Olympic Games by the USOC - us olympic committee
1. Did de Coubertin care about athletes competing to the best of their abilities? 2. Did he care about competitiveness or winning?
2. competition
Approximately what percentage of genetic information is identical between all humans?
99.5%
How do we see the consequences of these different cultural logics in the results of the Sports Fandom Survey class?
Although most of the survey responders are from California, there is no correlation between the respondent's favorite team and the region where they are from because the NFL is less a local, cultural product than the NBA.
What are Bertoli's overall findings for the link between participating in the FIFA World Cup and propensity for initiating a Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID)?
As soon as qualifiers have been decided, the "treatment" effect lasts for 2+ years. Surge in likelihood of starting and interstate dispute. Provides evidence that internationalization in sports is associated with nationalist sentiment
How did the geographic scope of the status system in higher education change in the 20th century?
As the population group and As ambitious schools sought a wider, national profile, the status metric was no longer just admissions selectivity
What is the difference between club sports and the World Cup as the two main top- level forms of soccer competition in the world? Which is globalized and which is international with respect to how team rosters are chosen?
Club Sports: Globalized, mixed team players 1. Globalization of leagues- Geographic expansion of leagues across national boundaries (NHL is present in US & Canada) 2. Globalization of team composition - Prominent national leagues with international rosters (Yao Ming) World Cup: International, one nationality
During this time, what was the NCAA's position on college sports as an amateur vs. commercialized activity?
College athletics is about the amateurideal. Colleges need to shape up.
In what sense was televised college football not a business during this period?
College football was not a business before NCAA v University of Oklahoma because the NCAA had control over which, if any, college football games were televised and the NCAA did not adhere to the logic of supply and demand. Meaning, they did not televise the sought after games, the Division I games, rather they televised everything essentially equally, including the low-in-demand Division II and Division III games, with no sense of what the consumers, the television viewers, wanted, or "demanded." The NCAA restricted the supply of televised college football games for the purpose of maintaining an air of equality amongst colleges, in doing so, did not adhere to the business principle of supply and demand. Thus, if a business is defined as something that abides by the logic of supply and demand, producing content based on what the consumers want, college sports before NCAA v University of Oklahoma was not operating as a business.
What is the key mechanism of sports globalization (on the consumption side), for Poli?
Commercialization, commodification, television
What motivated de Coubertin's vision of the modern Olympic Games?
Coubertin's primary motive for initiating the modern Olympic Games was to establish an educationally oriented program that would reverse the spiritual and moral decline he, and others, attributed to the growing materialism of 19th-century industrial capitalism
What is the #1 priority for the Intercollegiate Athletics (IA) department, as identified by personnel across the University?
Despite all parties agreeing that student-athlete well-beingought to be IA's highest priority, actual staffing for student-athlete support hasn't reflected that.
According to Bertoli, why might international competition promote cooperation between nations?
Does the world cup make countries start a war? • Brings out nativist expressions in states • Participating in int'l competition may bring out nativist expressions among supporters. • Does it also generate nationalist impulses that push gov't to use MIDs? • Sports is an outlet for nationalist aggression • It can lead to peace or conflict.
Is athletic excellence about more than genetics?
Elite athletics only has a little to do with elite genetics, it is mainly because of things that don't have to do with genetics --> socialization
How did Kaufmann & Patterson empirically measure the popularity of a sport?
Elites can only their maintain eliteness if they exclude others from participating → it will never become popular basically, if its not elite, than it can be popular
What is Kaufmann & Patterson's basic argument for whether a sport is likely to become popular or not? What role do status systems play? What is the key characteristic of a country's status system in their story?
Elites can only their maintain eliteness if they exclude others from participating → it will never become popular basically, if its not elite, than it can be popular
What obstacles did women encounter playing soccer in England and in Germany in the 20th century?
England: Dick, Kerr ladies were prohibited from using soccer facilities and therefore had no place to play. Also, the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 continued to make it difficult for women to play soccer despite the growing gender equality sentiment in other parts of society. Germany: DamenfuBball creates rules that make women's soccer inherently structurally inferior to men's soccer (shorter games, use of "youth" soccer balls rather than regular soccer balls, and no championship games).
What is "celebratory nationalism" in sport? How does it differ from partisan politicking?
GO US, vs Go Republicans
1. What are generalist vs. specialist strategies regarding youth sports participation? 2. Who is more likely to follow one vs. the other? Is there a convergence in strategy once a youth reaches, say, high school age?
Generalists (being well-rounded) vs. specialists Generalists: being comfortable in many different types of activities More likely to produce specialists: households with at least one immigrant parent. more likely for you to start out as a generalist then become a specialist
what do the two axes—globalization and commodification—of Richard Giulianotti's schema of fan identities refer to? What does it mean to be on the upper half vs. lower half of the grid, or the left-hand side vs. the right-hand side of the grid? What are the ideal types of identity in each cell of the grid?
Globalization and internationalization: internationalization (territory matters) is on the top of giulonotti's grid, and globalization is on the bottom Vertical axis: globalization. At the top: our connection to sports is connected to space Left to right: on left, traditional (like family, communal obligation) Right side: commodification of sports identity -Globalization: the declining significance of local territory in spectator identity. -Commodification: the increasing significance of the market in mediating the relationship between spectator and sport.
What is meant by the notion that sport is heteronormative?
Male participants in real sports are heterosexual. Male participants in activities that aren't real sports are gay.
Would Cohen agree or disagree with the widespread objection to Kaepernick's political protests? Why?
He would disapprove of the disapproval. Sports used to be a place of political discussion, and he would disagree with the widespread objection. No historical justification that sports are neutral to politics.
What routes do Canadians take to get to the United States?
If you are canadian, and want to play in the NHL, you would play american college hockey, do the canadian minor league, very few play in canadian college
1. How have MLB teams decided what types of people should be the general managers (GMs; or, the senior baseball operations officers whether they carry the exact title "General Manager" or not) between the 1970s and today? 2. What has been the significance of having played professional baseball (at either the minor or major league level) or having graduated from college? 3. What about having specifically attended a very selective college, or even more specifically an Ivy League college?
In the 70's, most gm's did not have college degrees and they were mostly pro baseball players in some capacity. These people were seen as legitimate. Nowadays, a college degree is basically required and there are less individuals who played baseball in any pro capacity who run a team. Moneyball culture promoted the college degree as a key to being a GM because they are more likely to come from statistical background. Gender shapes what counts as a sport because sports must be competitive/not supportive/heterosexual.
What is meant by the notion that sport is not supportive?
It is not supporting another sport to win. It is in the stands.
What happens in the U.S.? If elites playing cricket are faced with the prospect of the masses intruding on "their" game, what are their alternatives if they want to maintain their status? What problem do they face that their elite counterparts in India do NOT face?
It would appear that the popularity of cricket in both the United States and Canada suffered primarily from the exclusionism of its elite practitioners. North American cricket prevailed, though weakly, in places where status anxiety was high among wealthy families and where these families established and maintained multiple dense networks of rival cricket clubs.In both Canada and the United States, an egalitarian ethos encouraged economic elites to cultivate exclusive status-based activities with which to maintain their superior position in the social system. Cricket was not an inevitable response to this status anxiety, but it was one viable option.
What are the treatment and control groups of an experiment? How important is it that there be an element of randomness in who can get assigned to either group?
Key element of proper experimental methodology: it should be essentially random whether a subject can get assigned to the treatment group vs. the control group. Control: missed qualifying in the knockout stage
Comparison: behavior in European soccer stadiums (BBC|Panorama "Stadiums of Hate") vs. behavior in U.S. sports stadiums.
Main point: we do not see the organized racist expressions in the U.S. that we do in Europe.
What is "compensatory hypermasculinity" and which athletes, in which sports, are we likely to observe it?
Male cheerleaders engage in acts of "compensatory masculinity" to prove that they cannot be gay. ex: lifting weights, they get to hang out with women
What implication does Markovits & Rensmann's story have for theories that seek to explain lagging women's participation in a given sport in terms of physiology and/or the purely tactical elements of sport?
Markovits & Rensmann's story says that these theories are lacking, because they do not consider relational/sociological relations. Women's lack of participation in a sport is not a function of the sport's inherent characteristics (e.g. men do not have an exclusive hold on football just because of the characteristics of the sport of football; it's because of the hegemonic culture that is deliberately, socially enforced).
How does their theory help us explain what role "powder puff football", as described in the Foley piece, plays in explaining the absence of women playing football in the U.S.?
Markovitz and Rensmann's theory: valid and popular sports must follow hegemonic culture (i.e. reinforce normative gender roles). Football is a popular sport, so Powderpuff football demonstrates the absurdity of reversing normative gender roles.
How did Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta evaluate baseball players?
Moneyballers evaluate based on stats. They have statistical backgrounds. Both sides do not see eye to eye with each other. The game was heavily skewed in favor of traditional scouts at the time.
How did scouts evaluate baseball players, according to Michael Lewis?
Scouts evaluated baseball players based on their elite status Scouts liked picking high school players because they were "fresh", but they were not experienced -For example, high school pitchers did not necessarily have the skill of deception they were only able to control a fastball's velocity Their backgrounds are usually in baseball -Former players, etc. According to Lewis, the scouts' knowledge of the game was widely accepted as legitimate and was the traditional and right way to do things.
What are fantasy sports? What is the difference between season-long fantasy and daily fantasy sports?
Season-long fantasy sports require participants to wait an entire season to determine the victor. -Daily fantasy emerged to provide a more instant-gratification experience. Daily fantasy: contests are much shorter-term (daily) and hinge on more immediate outcomes vs. performance over the course of an entire season.
Why could the elite (in 2004) baseball player Albert Pujols not hit softball player Jennie Finch's pitches?
Since Pujols had no mental database of Finch's body movements, her pitch tendencies, or even the spin of a softball to predict what might be coming, he was always left reacting at the last moment
What happens to this connection if we separate the countries in his study into those where soccer is the most popular sport vs. those where soccer is NOT the most popular sport?
Soccer popular: • There is a strong evidence to support the fact that in countries where soccer is the most popular sport, participating in the world cup creates a higher likelihood of initiating a militarized interstate dispute not popular: inconclusive; we cannot really tell what is going on.
Why does the widespread popularity of softball in the U.S. make it unlikely that women will play baseball?
Softball was intentionally created with rules that make it appear inferior to baseball (softball has fewer innings, shorter throwing distance, bigger ball), because it was created for girls so that baseball could be reserved for boys. Women who are good at a bat-and-ball sport are institutionally driven to play softball rather than baseball, as all opportunities to play at an organized, kind-of-professional level are in softball.
What is Cohen's theory about why the rules about politics in sport began to transition from partisan politics to celebratory nationalism? When did this happen?
Sports used to be a place where participating in partisan politics was normal. Then it was later changed to be politically neutral or at very least just nationalistic. this happened when african americans entered the sports world. They didnt' want african americans to be have a voice
What was the chief status criterion for colleges & universities during this period?
The degree to which any one school was able to corner the market on the patronage of nearby upper-class families defined the limits of that school's prestige
What is meant by the notion that sport is not performative?
The idea of winning ugly rather than losing pretty. It looks pretty when performing the sport.
Why do Grindstaff & West sound a skeptical note about the desirability of cheerleading becoming seen as a sport? (We might also ask: what might a "real" cheerleading sport look like that Grindstaff & West would approve of?!)
The process of protecting sport from feminization has been an ongoing one in which masculinity and femininity must be continuously differentiated in order to keep the latter at bay ... When male cheerleaders distance themselves from the sexualized, performative dimensions of cheerleading, for example, they contribute to the perception that femininity and performativity are "naturally" intertwined and that both are the purview of women
What was the reserve clause in MLB? Why did salaries for MLB players (technically, the maximum salary for MLB players) go up rapidly after 1975?
The reserve clause, in North American professional sports, was part of a player contract which stated the rights to players were retained by the team upon the contract's expiration.
What is meant by the notion that sport is competitive?
There is a winner and a loser.
What does Epstein mean when he says that elite athletes can "predict the future"?
They can know their opponents next move
What is the "treatment" in Bertoli's study? How does he identify and assign subjects to his treatment and control groups?
Treatment group: participating in the knockout stage, does it inflame passions that it leads them to a higher likelihood to start a war?
Labor: What was the significance of the 1922 Federal Baseball Club vs. National League decision? What did it establish?
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply to Major League Baseball.
What type of households are more likely to be involved with organized, competitive youth sport (especially soccer)? What does this say about who benefits most from "competitive kid capital"? What does this say about which segments of society are more likely to get a boost to socioeconomic mobility?
UPPER MIDDLE CLASS ! Since youth sport participants are principally from upper-middle-class families, CKC imparted is unequally distributed by class
What organizations played a central role in youth sport during this era?
YMCA, Little League Baseball, Pop Warner Football
Why is there a greater emphasis on youth sport participation than in other countries which are otherwise equally concerned with cultivating their youths, and with sports? What is Levey Friedman's argument?
admissions counselors take into account extra cirricularts
What are ex post studies? What is the general finding from these studies about the economic value of public spending on sports?
after the fact studies. These ex post studies reject stadiumsubsidies as an effective tool for generating local economic development.
When did celebratory nationalism first begin to appear in sporting, in the U.S.?
around civil war
1. How was team sports competition originally organized in the United States? 2. What culture of spectatorship was associated with this?
associated with place - you supported wherever you were from associated with the culture of sports spectatorship
who has been pro commercialization of college sports
athletic conferences•sports media companies•sports equipment suppliers
Chancellor Christ wants to move from Prong 3 to Prong 1 compliance by 2021. Right now, men are significantly overrepresented among varsity athletes compared to their proportion in the overall undergraduate student body, so IA is certainly not Prong 1 compliant right now. What are the "good" and "bad" ways that Prong 1 compliance can happen by 2021 and why are they good or bad?
bad: cut out men to make it even to the amount of women good: add women
What were the objectives of organized youth sport during this period? From which social classes were children targeted?
civilize the Poor children
What was the University of Oklahoma's complaint?
colleges should be able to negotiate deals and mark themselves as a business themselves
How does this explain why cricket spread to the masses in India but not in the U.S. or Canada?
culture of equality left social elites with few means to maintain their social superiority within cricket. So they simply excluded others from playing it.
What was the context of the original formation of the NCAA, in the first decade of the 1900s?
deal with corruption and the exploitation of athletes
Whose rule is Title IX?
dept of education
What are the two meanings of "well-roundedness" that Levey Friedman discusses, with respect to generalist strategies?
find passion, whole person
What is the difference between globalization and internationalization. What is the significance of territory for the social ordering of sporting activity in each? Specifically with respect to the significance of territory in sport, would internationalization in sport correspond with the upper half of the grid in Giulianotti's schema?
globalization : Implies a world in which social processes (economic, political, cultural, etc.) increasingly take place independently of the nation-state. internationalization: Implies a world in which social interaction is largely organized through nation-states. Internationalization has to do more with the top part of guilonottis top part of graph
What is the typical justification for using public monies for sports stadiums? By what methodologies are these justifications supported? What methodology do critics of public spending for sports stadiums use?
good for local economy ! they usually support this claim through economic impact reports. their opponents usually like to look at the before and after of the economy and say that any economic benefits come only go to the rich
Why, in countries where there is a "hegemonic culture" for a sport, do women tend to not participate in that sport, according to Markovits & Rensmann?
hegemonic culture = popularity = cultural resistance to women playing; Women's sports only have "ample space to develop and flourish"when the male-version of the sport is not popular (and therefore not following hegemonic culture).
Between 1988 and 2018, when was the average number of amateur scouts in MLB teams highest? When was it lowest? What was it like at the time of the Moneyball story in 2002?
highest: 90s and 2010s, lowest: early 2000s during moneyball: early 2000s
Taken as a whole, where does Leifer say the institution of the "home team" comes from?
home teams emerged bc people could settle and didn't need to/couldnt search
How does Taylor Branch describe the NCAA's status as a regulatory power in the first half of the 20th century?
illegitimate
What is the source of Cal Athletics' operating deficit?
in a deficit after subtracting money allocated to athletics from general campus funds
How did the courts rule? Who controlled TV rights after the decision?
in favor of colleges, colleges themselves
How do we see the reverse side of this logic illustrated in San Francisco—where the baseball stadium is one of the few that was 100% privately financed; where the football team left because the city wouldn't agree to use public money to build a new stadium; and where the soon-to-be basketball arena for the Warriors is to be constructed entirely with private money?
in the case of LA and SF, they already have a heightened community self-esteem. They don't need the spend on stadiums.
What is their prediction about when certain municipalities will support public spending for stadiums and when they won't?
in the case of LA and SF, they already have a heightened community self-esteem. They don't need the spend on stadiums.
Who was Walter Byers? How did he frame the problem of college athletics in the 1950s?
in the early 1950s, the NCAA, under the leadership of Walter Byers, took the opportunity to enforce their control over college sports by handling two particular scandals: one in which the College of William and Mary falsified the grades of their athletes to keep them eligible to continuing playing and another "point-shaving conspiracy" in college basketball in which gamblers paid athletes to perform poorly. The corruption rampant in college sports became represented by these scandals and thus, called attention to the fact that college sports needed an overarching controlling force to prevent and handle controversies such as these. After these scandals, the NCAA had more legitimacy to enforce rules on universities. Byers formed a board to determine penalties without the consensus of all of the convention of NCAA schools. Ultimately, these cases gave the NCAA legitimacy it did not have before because they gave the organization to handle a situation and exercise control, proving the necessity and competency for such an organization. The change in the NCAA's enforcement of regulation of colleges was exemplified shortly after when the NCAA voted to restrict which college athletic events could be televised to only a few licensed by the NCAA staff. While two universities were highly opposed to this, Byers remained steadfast in enforcing penalties for universities that violated this rule and ultimately the two universities yielded to the NCAA command.
What is the attraction of municipal bonds, to investors? Why are sports stadiums financed by municipal bonds thus potentially objectionable—independent of whether the debt can be serviced or not?
interest is high and usually exempt from taxes
Two models of sports globalization on the participation side: - Globalization of leagues. - Globalization of team rosters. □ Globalization of consumption:
leagues, team rosters, and consumption have become more diverse
Would de Courbertin's vision of the Olympic Games (see below) be located on the left- or right-hand side of the grid? Why?
left side! good old fashioned competition
Considering both Bertoli's as well as Poli's arguments, what are the social consequences of the de-territorialization of identity?
less nationalism
Understand: globalization of participation (the "production" side) vs. globalization of consumption (the sports fan side).
less people care about their territory, they care more about teams more than ever. and participants are now from a bunch of places (ex: not everyone on the italian team is italian)
What does Leifer mean by "traveling public" vs. "local public"?
local: Publics are tied to geographic locales (people "settle" for the local team). traveling: People "search" for a team of their own choosing to follow, through the media
Bertoli's study:
look at large scale countries in a major competition (FIFA) and see how/if the countries are aggressive
What is the theoretical threat (never realized) of being found not in compliance with Title IX?
losing its federal funds
How might the number of amateur scouts an MLB team employs reflect the legitimacy that amateur scouts' knowledge has?
maybe not at first, because it was unheard of, but the more they won, the more it became legit
What does internationalization mean in the context of sport?
sports nationalism
The cultural logic of modern publics vs. local publics
modern: more commercialized, bigger (NFL) local: people rooting for home team (MLB)
Why did Beane and DePodesta prefer to draft college players over high school players?
more reliable stats on them
Based upon Leifer's story, where are NFL spectators more likely to fall on Giulianotti's grid of sports spectator identities, compared to say MLB spectators? Why?
more searching!
However, you should be able to answer: is it likely that a significant percentage of NCAA schools are Prong 1 compliant in terms of participation? Why or why not?
no - most have more male athletes
If you were a popular college football program during this period, did the rules of televised college football favor you or not?
no - you were treated just like the unpopular ones
Does IA staffing reflect this priority? Why or why not?
no, they can't afford to actually follow through with it
1. What do you think Pierre de Coubertin (see: Is sport about winning at all cost? above) response to the analytics trend in baseball—arguably, across much of team sports—might be? Why? 2. To the extent that notions of sport as "gentlemanly competition" (sic) persists in sport today, how does this help us understand the backlash against the analytics trend, both inside baseball organizations and among sports fans in general?
not about the game, about stats and winning and following market logic. HE WOULD DISAPPROVE !
Consider the examples given from media-based sports spectators in class (from The Daily Cal and The Washington Post). What are their objections to analytics?
not everything, ruining sports!
How common is it for stadiums in Major League Baseball or the National Football League to be at least partially publicly financed?
p common
What are the "picayune rules" Branch refers to? Whose rules are they and what purpose do they serve?
petty rules. pretty much the NCAA just wants to enforce rules for minor things just for the purpose of having authority
What does Leifer mean when he says that the "timeframe of the product" of sports has been extended from individual games to league races?
product lasts longer when ppl are engaged for longer
Which of the two major positions above does the TFAA seem to hold and why?
reintegrate student athletes back into academic life
Consider now a sports spectator who embraces analytics, and who evaluates baseball teams as much by the quality of their front-office decision-making as by the quality of on-field play. Where in Giulianotti's spectator typology does this new type of spectator go? Why?
right side
In 2002—the time of the Moneyball story—whose knowledge had authority within Major League Baseball (MLB) teams about how to evaluate amateur (college & high school) baseball players?
scouts
What is meant by a supply-side as opposed to a demand-side conception of a sport's popularity?
sports fail to become popular not because they don't have an inherent cultural appeal to large numbers of potential fans. Rather sports fail to become popular because the people who play them don't want them to become popular. Because being one of the select few that participates or consumes a sport (or other activity) confers exclusive social status. Which is ruined if everyone does it.
What was the solution to this problem?
sports leagues ! sports leagues solved problems confronting independent teams
How does the example of Cal's Beach Volleyball program, founded in 2014, represent the theoretical financial risks of Prong 3 compliance?
that it costs a lot of be compliant - almost $30 million actually
What is Bryant's theory about why the "no protest" rule in popular sports has intensified in recent years?
the "no-politics" rules that have long existed in sports intensified after 9/11.
How is the relative popularity of college football and college men's basketball in the United States compared to the major professional team sports evident in the spectator capacity of major college football stadiums relative to pro football stadiums?
the biggest stadiums are college ones!
How is Kaufmann & Patterson's story a supply-side rather than a demand-side explanation for a sport's popularity?
the elites control the supply
Customers: Why do pro sports leagues in the U.S. control where teams in the league get to locate? Why can the owners of the MLB Oakland Athletics not move to San Jose, as they have expressed interest in doing in the past—i.e., what is accomplished by preventing the Athletics from moving to San Jose?
the leagues decide where they can play, not owners
When U.S. colleges & universities compared themselves to their peers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, how wide a geographic territory did they cover?
their local regions
What do Beamish & Ritchie mean by the role that scientific rationality played in bringing about the "performance orientation"?
theres a formula to winning!
What is Meg Rowley's ("Post-Moneyball's Clubability") criticism of analytics as it is currently practiced within MLB?
theres not a perfect way to playing baseball!
For what reasons do sports stadiums not have the public economic benefit that supporters claim they will?
they don't really create new jobs, they are already there . people save up, so they decide to stop going to movies etc may reduce visitors for non-sports reasons
What are their findings regarding the principal criteria for determining what counts as sport?
to be a sport, it must make you feel like you are better than women
What is the relevance to sports of "signal tests" administered to air traffic controllers?
traffic air controllers have to perceive movements very quickly, just like athletes
Leifer describes three distinct types of cultural/historical logics associated with professional team sports in the U.S.: the traveling, local, and national publics. What is the significance of territory in the connection of spectators to sports in each?
traveling: People "search" for a team of their own choosing to follow, through the media local: Publics are tied to geographic locales (people "settle" for the local team). national: City size and travel distance lost some of their importance in determining the viability of a league. A city left without a franchise was less of a nucleus for the formation of a rival league than a television network without a league contract. people search for a team
What circumstances led to the NCAA's rise to prominence in the 1950s?
two scandals: -grading scandal at William & Mary -point-shaving conspiracy at Kentucky
Who was Bill James? How were his ideas accepted by the baseball establishment? To the extent that the current analytics paradigm that has been attributed to him is "correct", what does this say about the notion that organized, competitive sport is necessarily driven by merit?
used stats! nope not for 10 years
1. Why is Leifer's story about the trajectory of NFL spectatorship an example of what Giulianotti means by "globalization"? 2. Why do Leifer and Giulianotti come to opposite conclusions about the desirability of globalization processes in sports spectatorship?
we are less and less attached to our home team - we are more and more searching
How is the relative popularity of college football and college men's basketball in the United States compared to the major professional team sports evident in the television viewership of college football/basketball championship games compared to championship games of professional team sports?
with exception of Super Bowl, the college sports are way more popular
The NFL Rams' move from St. Louis to Los Angeles.
wouldn't have made a difference for LA
The NFL Raiders' imminent move from Oakland to Las Vegas.
wouldn't have made a difference for LV
Comparing Giulianotti's and Poli's stories: what are their respective positions on the role that the commercialization (or commodification) of sport plays in sports fan identity? Is this good or bad for Giulianotti? Is this good or bad for Poli? Why?
• For Giulianotti, commodification is a negative, corruptive influence. move toward the commodification of sports (doing sports has nothing to do with paying alliance to your nation, its more of a market consumption - it represents a corruption of a communal ideal) - For Poli, it also reps an alternative organizing principle other than sanctity of national identity. - The commodification of sport, in this context, represents the possible liberation of sports cultures from undesirable nationalist elements.
What happens to this connection if we separate the countries in his study into those that have strong democracies vs. those that are not democracies?
• In a non-democratic country, the treatment effect of playing the world cup tournament is significant. • In democratic countries, the likelihood of going to war bc you are participating in the world cup is muted or minimized. It is less likely to start a war just because it is qualified for the world cup.
Understand Poli's anecdotes (Diego Maradona and Naples, Italy; who Ivory Coast youth soccer players identify as their favorite soccer players) and their significance
• More than any Neapolitan player, Maradona has been adopted and adored by Neapolitan fans who have elevated him to cult status. This devotion dates back to the 1980s, when Maradona enabled SSC Naples to win two Italian championships and, above all, to take an historical revenge against the well-off clubs of the wealthy northern cities of the Peninsula, Milan and Turin. • During the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup played between Italy and Argentina in Naples, many Neapolitans preferred to support Argentina instead of Italy, which resulted in an increase in the historical tensions existing between the Southern and Northern parts of the country. • Maradona's case merits particular attention because it shows that, in the context of a growing migratory circulation of sportsmen, the geographical origin of the latter is not a hindrance to identification. On the contrary, the individual identification with a foreign sporting star can sometimes surpass the criterion of national belonging when it comes to choosing which team to support. • The hypothesis was that Ivorian, and more generally, African players taking part in European leagues would have been the most cited. Perhaps not surprisingly, but still pertinent to underline in an article on denationalization, no footballer playing at a local level was mentioned. • More surprisingly, the most named players were not African or Ivorian, but two French players taking part in the English Premier League and the Spanish Liga respectively: Thierry Henry and Zinédine Zidane.
What does Poli mean by de-territorialization of identity?
•Our identities are not necessarily socially constructed according to local place. • Players are commercial products • commodification of sports highlights the declining significance of the nation state. The consequences are that we are unlikely to see the same types of aggressive behavior that rooting for the home team tends to produce. [Commercialization is a disillusion of a nation state and logic of internationalization] less localization of sports
