Lingerie Football, Legitimate Sport?

The Lingerie Football League is a growing league that is getting mixed reactions. Torkwase Fraser, a former pro sprinter who last season played for the San Diego Seduction, says that this league is full of competitors and says they are serious football players. The LFL has been criticized as "both a tawdry gimmick and blatantly sexist for its unabashed appeals to the base instincts of young male viewers." Fraser also said that it’s her choice to show her skin and she joined the league to show off her skills to a stadium audience and challenge herself physically.
Ryerson University sociology professor Nicole Neverson said the sport degrades women, exploits its unpaid athletes and is yet another example of the “sports media complex,” which reinforces gender stereotypes constructed around heterosexual male desires." The women may be athletic, Neverson said, but their athleticism is "not the hallmark of their participation in this league."
Fraser also stated that almost half of the women have played at least US college-level sports and about player in their underwear, "the get up isn’t much different than the two piece sprinting garb she wore at track-and-field meets."
All I can say is wow. This is definitally going to get some attention. I can defintitley understand the sexist part of the arguement but if the girls are not against playing in the lingerie then it is their choice. This falls into gender and sports when we talked about gender stereotypes on March 22nd when we brought in newspapers and our sexist ads. My only suggestion to this dillema is to put an age limit on the program so only adults older than 18 can go to the games and put a mature TV rating when it appears on TV.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/974456--lingerie-football-no-gimmick-say-players

Equipment Gap Hinders Some Teams

Sad to say but because of the economic crisis that we have entered her in the United States it has affected the low budget high school sports teams. Mainly baseball and softball have been affected the most because of all the equipment that is required for the players. Some schools only offer the jerseys and travel bags and require for the players to get their own bats, gloves, cleats, and other essential equipment to play. So players who may have great talent but because they can't afford the right equipment they will not perform to their potential and to the extreme may cause them to quit playing. Steve Garland who is the coach of East Hamilton's baseball team said "Economics play a big role in this game now and that’s a bitter pill to swallow for someone like me who loves baseball. I don’t want it to be a rich kid’s sport, like golf or tennis, but its gotten to the point with the expense of bats, gloves, cleats and private instructors that that’s what the game has become." High school is where kids should get the chance to play and the kids should not have to pay for anything. The parent are already suffering enough by trying to take care of their family and now they have to pay hundreds of dollars for baseball/softball equipment. That will not go over real well.
How the economy is affecting sports is what we talked about in class on March 15th and 17th. We talked about the prices that people have to pay to see/play for their favorite sports and how its risen.

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/apr/03/equipment-gap-hinders-some-teams/

Budget Cuts? Not in the Big 12

Fox Sports Group has agreed with the Big 12 to play football games for the next 13 years for a small cost of $1.1 billion. Fox networks will play 40 games each season and to satisfy the financial needs of the schools that decided to leave the league last summer. This will take effect in the fall of 2012 and will average $90 million a season. This might increase the payment by customers to cable and satellite providers for getting these Fox channels. The conference is also has an eight year contract with ABC and ESPN worth $480 million that runs through 2015-16. Their total TV revenue will average about $150 million per season for the 10 team league.
This is INSANE!!!! This is one of the main revenue streams for each school and it goes right back in the athletic department while the rest of the country is in an economic drought. We learned in class on March 22nd and 24th that rights fees have in fact escalated rapidly since 1960s. We also learned that sports depend very highly on media to broadcast them to the public or otherwise people will not know what is going on in the world of sports. People will pay their cable provider an outrageous amount of money to see sporting events. Which is why there are so many sports channels you can chose from.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/fb/fbc/7520352.html

Tiger Woods Video Game Sales at 14 Year High

After the whole Tiger Woods scandal, his sponsorships were dropping like flys. But there was of one of the very few that stuck with him that through the tough time. EA Sports decided to continue there video game as Tiger Woods as their cover boy. Tiger's deviant acts cost him lots of money and fans can tell it is really affected his golf game. EA Sports may not have gotten rid of him but they went a different route for the cover. Instead of the usual Tiger picture on the cover they opted with a picture of the course at Augusta. Last years copy suffered severely because of the incident and comparing it to this years copy, in the same week the sales grew 200%, and were the highest its been in the 14 year history of the franchise.
I certainly disagree with Tigers deviant actions but I do believe that he knows what he did was wrong and that he is a changed man. I do believe that he will win again and that it is just a matter of time. In the classes on March 29th and 31st we were taught about deviance and where it had occurred in sports. Tiger's behavior referring to the world of golf and brought negative nation-wide attention to the sport. I believe the video game will continue to be a success because even if Tiger Woods retired tomorrow he would still be considered as on the of the best golfers of all time.

http://progolftalk.nbcsports.com/2011/04/13/masters-video-game-selling-better-than-hot-cakes/

Kathy Switzer, Remembering 44 Years Ago

The 1962 Boston Marathon was a race to put in the record books, not because of who won or how many people competed but the first woman crossing the finish line. Registered under the name K.Switzer, she entered the marathon that had a rule that only males could compete. As she raced with a hood over top of her head so no one could tell that she was female, the wind pick up and blew her hood off her head. An angry official chased her down and tried to remover her from the race her former boyfriend, an All-American football player tackled the official. She then gathered up the rest of her strength and finished the race. She knew if she failed to finish the race it would set women back and prove that women can't do it. Even today this event is remembered as the initial start of women's sports and participation then skyrocketed.
Switzer spoke at Vassar College, which was founded as a women's college in 1861, of the importance of gender equity of sports and how that dreadful day became a major starting point in women's athletics. She made sure to ensure that the crowd that was listening to her when she said "Men are not better athletes than women, they are different athletes. Talent is everywhere; it's just waiting for an opportunity."
Kathy Switzer is not just an important person in women's sports history but in history in general. Just because of her run and how she made sure she finished the marathon inspired not only women athletes but also women who were not athletes. She showed that no matter what people say, you can achieve what ever you set your mind to. I am glad to have learned about Kathy in our class on April 12th. She is one of the greatest female athletes of all time and will continue be the role model for young women all around the world.

http://www.miscellanynews.com/2.1576/switzer-speaks-on-gender-equality-in-athletics-1.2541405?MMode=true

Meet Henry Jones

Winner of the Georgia Boxing Championship Lifetime Achievement Award, Henry Jones is now a DC Boxing Hall of Fame inductee. This may seem like no big deal unless you know the history of Henry Jones and why this man is a legend as a boxing ring announcer.
In 1988 his career started as the first ever black boxing ring announcer. He said he "didn’t even consider ring announcing at the time because he had never seen a black man famous for it." Jones started his career by doing the announcing for free just to get his name out there. He steadily earned a good reputation. But he feels he did not get the start he thought he should of got because of the color of his skin but in 1998 the first black World Flyweight Champion Mark Johnson demanded in his contract that Jones serve as his announcer in a fight that was going to air on ESPN. But sadly the discrimination continued, in 2008 he claims that even HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg discriminated against him. Even with tons of emails asking for Jones, Greenburg said he "was not interested" and asked Jones to tell people to stop sending emails because they were jamming his inbox. Eventually Jones replaced DJ Ed Lover as the announcer of HBO's "KO Nation" because Lover did such a poor job.
This is a very great story about doing something that you love doing and not giving up because somebody tells you that you can't do it. Sadly this also shows that discrimination still occurs today which is also we were taught on April 5th and 7th in class. As hard as it is to do, this world will always have some form of discrimination and the only way to try to cure this problem is in education. People need to learn that no matter what we look on the outside, we are all the same on the inside. We are all human beings.

http://www.afro.com/sections/sports/story.htm?storyid=4624

Sport and Politics

Sports try there hardest to keep politics and the government out of their managment. But the politcs have been intertwined with sports whether people know it or not. This is mainly found when a country hosts the olympic games. In class on Feburary 24, 2011, we learned about all of the olympic games that had a form of political stress to them. One of the most popular Olympic games that had a significant politcal event that happened before or during them is the 1936 Summer Olympic games hosted in Berlin, Germany. These games are sometimes known as "Hitlers" olympics. During these olympics Adolf Hitler was going to show the world of his belief of Aryan Supremacy. He shook the hands of all the white athletes and but ignored the black. But to spoil his beliefs Jesse Owens of the United States won 4 gold medals in track and field.
Acorrding to an article found from the New York Times, it showed an instance when sports and politics should combine. Over in Europe, a soccer match was played between Manchester United and Europe XI to demonstrate how the two have grown together.This match is not only to celebrate the 50th anniversery of Manchester United's participation in European football but also marks the 50th anniversery of the signing of the Treaty of Rome to show that the European Union is still growing. They played to a sell out crowd of 72,000 people, was televised in 15 countries, and they are playing to in aid of charities to help benefit children. This is an example of how politics and sports can work together to help the country. The NBA did something similar to this when they put on a game during the offseason to help benifet the victims of Huricane Katrina. When an organization uses what it already has to help the country it is spectacular and shows that people are willing to show that they care for their country and for the other people who live in it. If politics and the government decides to make their own rule book is when I think it is crossing the line.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/sports/12iht-soccer.4885683.html

Sports and Education

In class on February 17, 2011 we were taught about the concept of sports and education. Sports and education have been conflicting for a very long time. This of course refers to student athletes at the high school and college level. First with high school, sports is looked at as an after school activity to help students stay in shape and work together with their fellow students. But what people do not realize that all sport practices are after school and they can be as long as 2 hours or even longer. To add to that some students even have jobs. This leaves very little room for homework and papers that the students have to do for classes the next day. It can be very stressful for young students.

In college the argument is almost completely different. It is being argued that colleges are putting too much money into the athletic departments at universities. I found an article that is very interesting to me. This article was composed with the use of other articles that Stanford University gave its student athletes a list of "easy" classes. Though reporters got different answers  from different members of faculty, they did confirm that there was a list of classes gave out to student athletes. In the article it says "The course list in itself isn't a violation, but promoting courses because they're easy isn't, ethically, something that academic advisers should do." I can make a comment on this being a college student myself, I feel this is completely unfair to students who do not play a sport. I understand that athletics is a big part of the revenue of a university but all students should be treated the same whether they play a sport or not. The main focus about coming to college is to get a good education to help you in the work force. College are run like a business instead of a school.

http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-and-education-news/articles/stanford-university-said-to-give-student-athletes-list-of-easy-classes-11031002

Youth Sports

Starting kids playing sports at a younger is being in question which is hurtful to here. Parents are being more protective over their kids over injuries which is understanding but sports for kids is a great teacher for them. At http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/117005/the_importance_of_sports_for_the_youth.html, the user Karmatrain makes some very good points. He says, "Sports are an important teacher for youngsters, it teaches them so many things that just can't be as easily learned anywhere else. Parents can teach their children to persevere, to spit in the face of adversity, to fight the good fight and never give up, but those are lessons that really cannot be learned until they are put into practice." I agree 110 percent. Sports can teach kids how to become leaders and how to interact with their teammates to acheive a common goal . Those are very good qualities where they can not only use in sports but in the real world as well. " The star players learn how to be leaders, how to set a goal and meet that goal. How to inspire those around them to greatness and lead their peers to new heights that were thought to be unreachable. The lesser players learn a valuable lesson in commitment and perseverance. If a youngster wants to be a starter but isn't really good enough, he needs to put in extra time and practice and work to improve. The lesser players may actually learn more about life and the real world than anyone else, they learn early on that there are no free rides and they will have to earn everything they get in this world." I could not of said it any better myself. Not only does it provide kids to become friends but it gives other kids an opportunity who would be getting themselves in trouble, this is the same exact concept that we learned in class on Feburary 10, 2011.

The Sports Industry

When people think of high revenue businesses they might think of the entertainment industry or the transportation industry but what they often leave out is the sports industry. According to plunketresearch.com, "the estimated size of the sports industry in 2010 was about 414 billion dollars with the NFL being the sport bringing in the most revenue." This is why people and students in general should study sport. This industry is full of jobs and opportunities and should be at the top of more people's " that's what I want to be when I grow up" lists. Now I'm not talking about being a professional athlete, slim few get to play at that level. I'm talking about management, with the proper education more people could get into this field and make it bigger that what it is today. Also with the advancements in technology more jobs are being created at the professional, collegiate, and high school levels. The top 3 sports leagues bringing in revenue are the NFL which is bringing in 7.8 billion dollars, the MLB is bringing in 6.8 billion dollars, while the NBA is bringing in 4.0 billion dollars.
As a sports management major here at Slippery Rock University I can say that I am glad to be in the field that I am. There are lots of opportunities to learn how to how you can compete for a job in your favorite sport. We learned this concept about the sports industry on the first day of class because this is mine and my classmates major and this is the career that we want to get. The sports industry will always bring in money because people love to watch and compete in competitive and violent sports, not only is that who sports fans are but that can be said about the nation as a whole. With these facts the sports industry will always be one at the top.

http://www.plunkettresearch.com/