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Michael Lahoud is a professional soccer player who currently plays for Miami FC in the North American Soccer League (NASL). He was born in Sierra Leone, where he escaped civil war when he was 6 years old. As a refugee, soccer helped him integrate in the United States, where he was drafted as the ninth overall pick in the 2009 Major League Soccer (MLS) superdraft. He is a community advocate who uses his sport to support charitable efforts such as the Wall Las Memorias project, the NoH8 campaign, and Schools for Salone. He was the MLS Humanitarian of the Year in 2010, and, together with Kei Kamara, he is the recipient of the 2015 FIFPro World Players’ Union Merit Award (a prize worth $25,000), which recognized their involvement in the Schools for Salone project that builds schools in their home country of Sierra Leone. His brand is Soccer can make a difference. This interview consists of two parts, with the first part being conducted in December 2015 when he was a player with the MLS team Philadelphia Union and the second part being conducted in July 2016 after two transfers within 4 months. The interviews provide an overview of his approach to athlete branding via social media and its impact on his career.

This study examined differences in the Seven Network’s primetime coverage of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games on all of its channels. Over 102 hr of total coverage was analyzed for clock time, name mentions, and the descriptions of athletes by announcers divided by gender. Results found that male athletes received the bulk of the clock time; 13 of the top 20 most-mentioned athletes were men. There were also gender differences in the word for word descriptors of success, failure, physicality, and personality. From a theoretical perspective, results found the framing of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games to favor male Olympians. The top three sports that were broadcast featuring women were ice hockey, freestyle skiing, and snowboarding, which differs from other studies in this line of scholarship, so differences in the sports covered in the Australian context provides a unique context to study the Winter Olympics. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.

International sport has always been associated with nationalism. The purpose of the study was to explore how Chinese media and the general public perceived the doping scandal of their national sports hero, Sun Yang. Through analyzing 11 Chinese media outlets’ coverage on Chinese social media Weibo, the results revealed that Chinese media covered Sun and his team’s reaction and perspectives on this issue more when compared with other news. The general public’s perceptions toward this scandal tended to be favorable toward Sun, with 55.5% of selected Weibo comments defending Sun after his 8-year ban for doping was handed down. The analysis of these social media comments posted by sports fans showed that the general public’s perceptions might have been impacted by their nationalism, international relations, and media coverage. In addition, the study revealed the Chinese public’s perceptions toward current antidoping regulations.

Informed by framing theory, the study strove to investigate nationalism by examining Chinese newspaper coverage of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. Through document and textual analysis of 324 articles from 5 mainstream newspapers, the study indicated that Chinese newspapers always portrayed Chinese athletes as “dominating the competition” and “lacking opponents in Asia” while portraying other countries’ athletes as “less competitive” and not at the “level of Chinese athletes.” The results also suggested that Chinese newspapers tried to positively spin the story when reporting the failure of Chinese athletes at the Asian Games. However, to increase readership and enhance public awareness of the Asian Games,Chinese newspapers also attempted to created rivalries between Chinese athletes and competing nations and, at times, emphasized national failures.

Media coverage in China and Australia examined a conflict between 2 Olympic swimmers, Chinese Sun Yang and Australian Mack Horton, during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. While both swimmers performed well, there were several conflicts between the 2 leading to both nations’ media coverage portraying the foreign athlete negatively. An analysis of 398 print-media articles revealed there were sharp differences between the 2 nations in both the amount of coverage and the valence of the information sources. From a theoretical perspective, the framing of this conflict showed an “us vs. them” dichotomy, suggesting that both countries’ coverage was strongly influenced to protect the reputation and honor of the home athlete. Coverage in both nations was markedly different, suggesting a home-nation favoritism. Implications for sport communicators are discussed.

With the development and advancement of new technology and the increasing penetration of digital media, traditional media outlets such as TV, radio, and newspapers are not the only platforms for sports audiences to watch major events such as the Olympic Games. In this study, we explored how Chinese Olympic audiences embraced different media platforms to consume the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Through a survey of 383 Chinese participants, results revealed that social media, TV, and digital media were the most popular platforms on which to watch the 2020 Olympic Games. There were generational differences in media behaviors, motivations, and preferences between Generations X, Y, and Z. In addition, findings revealed that traditionally popular sports in China, such as badminton and table tennis, were still the most popular across different generations. Theoretical and practical implications for Chinese viewers are provided.