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Interview With Rui (Blanca) Qi, Content Creator, Internet Celebrity, and Chinese Football Journalist in Europe
Zesheng Yang
Abolishing Amateurism: Reimagining the Future of U.S. College Football
Kirsten Hextrum and Howard Croom III
Recently, college athletes have won new rights to their name, image, and likeness; to educational benefits; to transfer; and to earn compensation based on the revenue their labor produces. Using critical race theories, we review the desegregation of college football alongside the legal protections for National Collegiate Athletic Association amateurism, as it was practiced from the 1950s through recent days. We argue that such amateurism still structures a racialized property relationship that grants ontological, monetary, and educational benefits to white stakeholders at the expense of Black football players. Throughout, we offer legal and historical insights about the limitations of the law for social change. We conclude with suggestions to dismantle amateurism and establish a labor market for college football players through which athletes can secure just compensation and workplace protections.
Abolition or Reform? A Review of Historical Perspectives on Football Safety From the 1890s to 1950s and How They Shape Youth Football Debates Today
Kathleen Bachynski
This essay provides a synthesis of secondary literature and primary sources to trace debates about football’s safety and value. It examines ideas from the Progressive Era to the 1950s and shows that such perspectives inform how the American public grapples with increasing research on the risks of repetitive brain trauma and the acceptability of football for younger children in the 21st century. Whether football’s risks were celebrated as inherently good, treated as short-term nuisances that could be minimized through safety reforms, or decried as long-term calamities preventable only by abolishing the sport has always depended on deeply contested social values that remain in tension and unresolved.
Exploring Branding Strategies and Barriers of Female Collegiate Athletic Coaches
Hailey Harris and Natasha Brison
Branding has been conceptualized, contextualized, and operationalized in various ways. However, little research has been conducted exploring coaches and their personal branding. Although researchers have investigated the content that collegiate male coaches post on social media, there is a dearth of research investigating female collegiate coaches and the strategies they utilize when constructing their brand online. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the branding strategies used by female collegiate coaches when constructing and presenting their online brand. The authors collected data via a qualitative methodology, utilizing semistructured interviews with female head and assistant coaches in college athletics. Results indicate that the coaches were strategic in their approach to social media, while also encountering obstacles when deciding how to communicate aspects of their brand. Theoretical implications stem from findings that are consistent with decision-making processes outlined by behavioral decision theory, and practical implications are centered on strategic branding suggestions for coaches.
Symbolic Interactionism and the Metamorphosis of Sports Brands: Indian Premier League’s Journey From Niche to Mass Cool
Amit Anand Tiwari and Venkatesha Murthy
This study delves into the evolution of the Indian Premier League, the world’s second-largest sports league, charting its transition from a niche to a mass cool brand. Through the lens of symbolic interactionism, it scrutinizes 13 years of the Indian Premier League’s promotional videos with 18 in-depth interviews of cultural intermediaries. The research spotlights the nuanced process of brand coolness within the Indian Premier League, demonstrating how the league’s brand identity undergoes a deliberate reconstruction, blending both traditional and modern sociocultural elements. A pivotal “boost cool” phase is identified, signaling a strategic shift to expand the brand’s appeal to a wider audience. This research contributes significantly to brand coolness literature by conceptualizing a brand coolness life cycle, charting a path from uncool, through niche and boost cool, to mass cool, and eventually to uncool or reinvention, highlighting “boost cool” as a critical transitional stage.
How Racial Tasking Leads to Inequitable Financial Remuneration Among Power-5 College Football Coaches
Chris Corr, Charles D.T. Macaulay, Christopher Atwater, and Nicole Sellars
While occupying a significant number of coaching positions in Power-5 college football, Black coaches are routinely overlooked as head coach or coordinator candidates. Although Black Power-5 football coaches generate significant value for their respective teams, such stagnation within the promotion and hiring of Black assistant coaches raises concerns about whether Black coaches receive equitable compensation for the value they generate. Utilizing Ray’s theory of racialized organizations, this study examined the race and salary of Power-5 football coaches to determine whether Black and White coaches receive equitable compensation. Results reveal that while Black coaches create inordinate value in recruiting prospective athletes, compensation among White Power-5 football coaches is exponentially greater than their Black counterparts. The economic value of Black and White stakeholders (e.g., coaches and athletes) to the college football enterprise is also discussed.
La reconnaissance du sport pour handicapés physiques par l’État français: gestion des effets inattendus d’une scission fédérale (1963–1977)
Sylvain Ferez and Sébastien Ruffié
After being founded in 1963, the Fédération Sportive des Handicapés Physiques de France (FSHPF) began a timid move towards regional structuring, with the creation of a Comité Régional Lyonnais-Forez-Dauphiné-Savoie (CR-LFDS) – alongside that of Ⓘle-de-France – in 1965. From 1968 onwards, the strengthening of links with the French State Department for Youth and Sport helped to accentuate this movement. The FSHPF, renamed the FFSHP in 1968, finally obtained a delegation of powers from this department on 20 June 1972. This article looks at the conditions and reasons for this accelerated recognition by the State. It puts forward the hypothesis that it was paradoxically the result of the crisis that led to the split into two federal organisations in early 1972 (the FFSHP and the FFOHP, created on the initiative of the president of the CR-LFDS). This hypothesis is explored by crossing the archives of the Department of State for Youth and Sport and those of the two rival federations (as well as testimonies collected from the leaders of the time). These archives shed light on the tensions generated in the early 1970s by the organisation of international sporting events and the desire to control the development of a growing sport for the physically disabled. In 1971–1972, the crisis that erupted around the organisation of the “World Winter Games” helped the FFSHP gain the status of a delegated federation, a prerequisite for its entry into the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) in 1973 and the secondment of technical advisors by the State (1976).
“One Day . . . It Won’t Be a Big Story”: Analyzing the Media Response to Female National Football League Coaches
Katie Taylor
In 2015, Dr. Jen Welter became the first woman to coach in the National Football League (NFL). Other female coaches followed. Yet, sports-studies scholars know little about the media’s response to these football pioneers. This paper presents critical themes on how popular media discussed female coaches by analyzing the hiring announcements of four women who coach or have coached in the NFL. Utilizing a critical feminist lens, this paper demonstrates that media outlets reproduced conventional media tropes by reassuring readers that women have the requisite knowledge, trivializing women’s achievements, underscoring the need for male player support, emphasizing appearance, and permitting sexist comments. However, it is evident that online publishers are simultaneously making progress. In most cases, the articles represented the coaches in ways that differ from how female athletes have been historically depicted. This research reveals nonlinear and incremental progress toward gender equality in football.
Women Movement Behaviors During Pregnancy and 2 Years After Childbirth: Physical Activity, Sedentary Time, Sleep, and Rhythm Changes in a Brazilian Birth Cohort
Andrea Wendt, Rafaela Costa Martins, Adriana Kramer Fiala Machado, Luiza I.C. Ricardo, Shana Ginar da Silva, Bruna Gonçalves Cordeiro da Silva, Gregore I. Mielke, Marlos Rodrigues Domingues, Pedro C. Hallal, and Inácio Crochemore-Silva
Objective: To describe physical activity (PA), sleep, and rhythm patterns during 24-hr cycles from the second trimester of pregnancy up to 2 years after childbirth. Methods: This longitudinal study used data from mothers of the 2015 Pelotas Birth Cohort (Brazil). Women were invited to wear the accelerometer during 7 days on the nondominant wrist during the second trimester of pregnancy and 2 years after childbirth. Data collected included PA, sleep, and rhythm variables. We compared the means/medians of variables during the pregnancy and 2 years after the childbirth. We also describe the shape of acceleration across the day in the two evaluated periods and stratified this curve according to covariables. Results: This study includes data from 1,293 women with valid accelerometer data for both periods. The nonbouted moderate-to-vigorous PA average was 94 min during pregnancy and increased to 122 min 2 years after childbirth (p < .001). Sleep decreased by 11 min (388–377 min; p < .001) in the evaluated period. The pattern of acceleration across the day did not change in the evaluated period with two marked spikes of activity at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The amount of activity, however, increased. Conclusions: These findings may be helpful to better understand changes in PA and sleep during this specific period of life and assist in planning recommendations.
“It’s Like This One Man’s Baby”: Gender and Decision-Making Power in Sport for Development and Peace Organizations
Lucy V. Piggott
Within this article, the author draws on Rao et al.’s theory of the deep structure of organizations to analyze the extent to which decision-making power across sport for development and peace organizations is gender inclusive. Findings from interviews with women and men leaders indicate that decision-making power across the organizations is inclusive to women, with women holding positional power and having a voice to influence. However, the author emphasizes that caution must be taken in claiming that such decision-making power is fully gender inclusive. This is because “women” in positions of power mostly represent privileged profiles, and men hold the most powerful positions. These findings are strongly linked to the origin stories of the organizations, with all having men (co)founders. The gendered implications of such men-dominated organizational histories were found to span both inward- and outward-facing organizational elements and were reported to be difficult to challenge.