American Sport in the 21st Century - Howie Ball and Nick Somma

In class on November 21st and 23rd, we discussed how gender and sport are related. The first thing that we discussed is sex role stereotyping. Sex role stereotyping is the belief that differing traits and abilities make men and women particularly well suited to different roles. Women are viewed as emotional, creative, affectionate, talkative, and patient where as men are viewed as aggressive, courageous, easy going, and ambitious. There are three main agencies of sex role stereotyping; the family, school, and the media. Each agency has a different role. In the family, people tend to act like their parents, so if your parents are masculine you act masculine and vice versa with being feminine. Also, children develop gender type patterns at 15-36 months old. School tends to steer boys and girls to different activities. It gives kids a perception of what men and women are good at. Lastly, the media. The media is one of the most influential forces. Pre-school children watch an estimated 24 ...

In class on October 26th and 31th, we discussed how sports and the media are related. We first discussed how closely related sport and the mass media are. They are two of the most successful industries in the U.S. Sport has become so popular because of the media. There are two types of media we discussed, print media and digital media. Print media comes in a tangible form whether it be newspapers magazines, or anything else that has words and images printed on it. Digital media is all electronic. It is basically words and images we receive through audio and/or video. Sports depend on the media to make money, but at the same time media depends on sport. Social media is a way that the sport industry gets a lot of free advertisement. There are people on apps like facebook and twitter who are constantly discussing sport. There are also things like hulu, youtube, and instagram where you can watch different things relating to sport. In the article Studying Role of Mass Media in Sport...

In class on October 19th and the 24th, we discussed how sport and the economy are related. We went over a lot of information within the two class, but the main point is that money has become the foundation of sport at all levels. For a sport or team to flourish, there are four main things that they must have. Those for things are a market economy, large, densely populated urban areas, people interested, and large amounts of capital. Salary caps have become a large part of the sport industry. The MLB is the only major league without a salary cap. The NFL, NBA, MLS, and NHL all have salary caps in effect. We learned about the two different forms of salary caps, hard cap and soft cap. With a hard cap, you can not exceed the cap at all, but with a soft cap you can go slightly of the salary cap. In the article Not Just a Game:The Impact of Sports on U.S. Economy written by Gwen Burrow, she discussed the impact of sport on the economy. One of the first thing she mentions is how the sport i...

On November 2nd, My American Sport class in the 21st century discussed the topic of deviance in Sports today.  We discussed the different degrees of deviance, these degrees are Culturally specific, and Situationally specific. We also talked about how violence in sport parallels with the reality of violence in society as a whole. Examples of Deviance in Society: The use of Illegal drugs Violent crimes- Murder, rape, abuse, Battery Stealing/ Robing a bank Examples of deviance in Sports: Drug use Domestic abuse Deflating Footballs fighting Bounty hunting Academic Cheating Performance enhancing drugs Gambling Illegal recruiting processes Deviance Among Athletes Athletes are commonly found cheating, playing dirty, fighting, and violence. These are a lot more popular in sports today rather than in the past. It was found that a little over 80% of men and women in the top level of college sports in the USA sustain at least one serious injury while playing their...

On November 9th, My American Sport in the 21st century class discussed a lot of information on the topic of race and ethnicity in Sports. It was stated that sport is considered to be a meritocratic institution. In todays sports, Racial minorities in the U.S continue to face systematic and pervasive discrimination. There were many key words and definitions that are important based off this topic. Key Words: Bigot- Someone who is stubbornly attached to an opinion or belief. Prejudice- Judge something without knowledge of the facts. Stereotypes- Fixed ideas about a group. Discrimination- to be rude to someone because of their physical appearance, treating someone different from others. Race- Social category constructed and accepted by society to describe members with genetic similarity. Ethic group- Socially distinct population that shares a way of life. Minority group- members who share common group characteristics. 2017 NFL Protest The protest of some NFL players re...