Search Results

Antonio Gramsci argued that ruling classes stayed in power as much through cultural hegemony as through economic hegemony or brute force. Gramsci maintained that the dominant class established and maintained this cultural hegemony through negotiation and persuasion. Gramsci’s theory offers much to sport communication scholars who try to ascertain why certain communities (especially their civic leaders) build stadiums to attract major-league sports teams and events despite mounting economic evidence that these ventures often fail to yield the financial benefits touted by their advocates. This paper uses Gramsci’s theory to examine how the civic leaders of Atlanta enticed the populace and sporting press to use public funds to build a new sports stadium in the mid-1960s. Atlanta’s leaders used the sports stadium not only to lure a Major League Baseball team to the city but also to persuade the city’s populace that this move made the metropolis “big league.”

Recently, the controversy surrounding the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs by Olympic and professional athletes has captured the media spotlight, in part as a response to the very public and pervasive steroids scandal plaguing Major League Baseball (MLB). This article examines trends in Americans’ attitudes toward the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs in Olympic and professional sport as a way to better understand the messaging challenges that policy makers, players, managers, coaches, and publicists face when trying to influence the media agenda. As the poll data presented suggest, Americans feel that the incidence of performanceenhancing- drug use in professional sport is significant, especially in MLB. Furthermore, Americans suggest that the leadership of various professional sports is not doing enough to combat the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs by top competitors.

In this case study analysis, we explored the motives for playing Strat-O-Matic Baseball (SOMB), a baseball simulation played as a board game or online, from the perspective of the uses-and-gratifications theory. In phase I of the study, SOMB manager narratives (N = 50) were analyzed for motive statements. In phase II, an online survey asked SOMB managers (N = 222) to respond to motive items as well as four measures of Major League Baseball (MLB) and SOMB identification. Overall, eight motives for playing SOMB emerged from the 64-item pool of motive items. These eight motives were nostalgia, knowledge acquisition, social bonding, enjoyment, vicarious achievement, game aesthetics, convenience, and escape. Our findings suggest these motives predicted measures of MLB and SOMB identification in significantly different ways. Theoretical implications, future research, limitations, and discussion questions are presented in this analysis.

This case study explores the use a Major League Baseball team’s organizational weblog. Organizational weblogs are forums for the 2-way exchange of information and commentary between an organization and its publics. Most sport organizations, however, have yet to embrace the weblog as a form of organizational communication. Recent research suggests a greater need to understand how sport organizations might use weblogs to outreach to target audiences from a communications perspective. This study assesses whether readers perceive an organization’s official weblog to be an effective form of 2-way communication and profiles the readers of an organizational weblog based on demographics, consumption patterns, and points of attachment. Results showed that readers perceived the organizational weblog to be highly conversational and effective at communicating organizational commitment. In addition, readers were voracious media consumers of the team’s games, repeat ticket customers, and highly identified, both with the sport and with the team.

CBC Distribution and Marketing, Inc. (CBC), operator of CDMsports.com (CDM), offering fantasy-sports products and services, brought this action against Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (MLBAM), to establish its right to use without license the names and, inherently crucial for fantasy-sports operators, statistical records of Major League Baseball (MLB) players. MLBAM, the interactive media and Internet company of MLB, counterclaimed that CBC’s fantasy-baseball products violated MLB players’ rights of publicity, which were licensed through the MLB Players’ Association (MLBPA) to MLBAM. The MLBPA intervened in the suit, joining in MLBAM’s claims and further asserting a breach-of-contract claim against CBC. The district court granted summary judgment to CBC—see C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P., 443 F. Supp. 2d 1077 (E.D. Mo. 2006)—and MLBAM and the MLBPA appealed.

In this essay, the author proposes that, in order to understand how the issue of performance-enhancing-drug use in professional baseball has been defined for mass audiences, scholars need to consider the political and economic interests of both baseball and the media companies that have covered the issue. Where performance-enhancing drugs are concerned, media characterizations have had a significant impact on the formation of public and organizational policy, and the author seeks to demonstrate that portrayals and perceptions of drug use in baseball can be understood through the media product that results from an intersection of normative standards with powerful influences on those standards. Calling out the heavy hitters in a culture of pervasive drug use is unfair to elite performers in that media reports sometimes give the impression that athletes have reached superstar status because they were willing to do what others were not; this is a basic falsehood.

The game of baseball and its internal cryptic communication system has always been vulnerable to sign stealing. By systematically studying the signals of an opponent so as to decrypt and intercept opponent communications, one can garner valuable insight into future events and strategies. Such “theft of signals” can lead teams to frequently change their sign indicator, should they suspect it has been compromised. The current paper presents a theoretical process of “hot” sign indicator obfuscation whereby the pitcher and catcher use unique hot indicator values that are generated after each pitch via an algorithm derived from randomly changing situational and/or scoreboard data.