"Interrogating inequalities in Sports Media: Espn Online(espn.go.com)

Looking at espn online it seems that the pictures you will see depends on the sport that is being played that day. But also sports that seem to be the headliner are the sports that are in season. Most of the headlines seem to include college basketball and the NBA. Now most of the pictures seem to show young African American males who are figures that dominate basketball. I think the headliners you will see depends on the sport that is going on during that particular time. Now I did not see any headliners about female sports. Which I can understand because female sports is not that big in today's sports. It doesn't receive the same amount of attention as male sports do. I think this shows that males sports continue to dominate female sports. The media finds it more entertaining and more profitable to cover male sports than female sports.


References: http://espn.go.com/

" Reflecting on the Shame of College Sports: Should NCAA Div 1 Basketball and Football players get paid?"

College Sports have become very popular. College sports have somewhat become the face of universities. According to the article "The Shame of College Sports" states that football teams such as Texas, Florida and others earn between $40 and $80 million dollars a year in profit. Often while still paying their coaches multimillion dollar contracts annually. While players receive zero of that profit. Often times it is said that student-athletes receiving a free education equates to what they would be getting paid. But also in the article it talks about how you can somewhat compare being an student athlete to being a slave. In regards that athletes commit so much of their time for the benefit of the school and receive nothing in return expect playing in front of thousands of fans on Saturdays. Yes this is something that I have considered since I am an athlete myself. I think we should get paid for the amount of time that we commit to our sport. We put our bodies through so much in order to provide entertainment to fans. The least we could receive is some compensation for that.

High School Sports

High school sports became an outlet for youth that provided a structured environment.  High school sports taught discipline and core values such as practice and teamwork. These values are believed to be important for student athletes to learn in order to be successful people in society. High school sports became an outlet which involved physical activity. The objective of high school sport is to ultimately win. But coaches also praise athletes who receive athletic scholarships. Coaches sometimes push the idea of practice and winning over academics. Which in the long run is detrimental to the student athlete. Although that athlete may receive a scholarship he/she may not succeed academically in college. This is the reason for colleges requiring their athletes to have a specific GPA and also meet a certain number of study hall hours per week Although we recognize this has a problem. We continue to praise student athletes and treat them like celebrities.

A solution I could think of is maybe we should raise the minimum GPA requirement to 2.5 instead of 2.0 That way we can insure that athletes are taking their academics more seriously and that they aren't just barely getting by.

"Once the cheering stops: The life of a retired pro-athlete"

The life of a retired athlete is hard. The transition of constantly being in the spotlight to being a nobody is hard. Some athletes struggle with just their daily routine. Football players were so used to having a set schedule everyday of the week. Now when they retire they have so much free time they have no idea what they want to do. Most retired athletes struggle financially. They are still spending money like they are still playing. Which leads to most athletes being broke. Most of them not only provide for themselves and their family, but they also help their extended family and their friends. They spend their money on unnecessary things, because they want to be in the spotlight and see everyone that they have all this money. I think athletes struggle with this transition because of most are so immature when they sign these big contracts and after they are done playing they do not know how to conserve their money. I think it is crazy how you can go broke after earning so much money. I know for a fact that I would not be spending my money carelessly.

"Sport, Politics and the Olympics"

During the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City there were two main events known as the student massacre and racial protest. The student protest took place at the Tlateloco Plaza. The students protested the incarceration of members of the National Student Strike Committee. The students were then murdered in cold blood by army platoons. There wasn't an exact count of the number of dead students but there was an estimate of 337 students.

In regards to Sage and Eitzen's idea of Vehicle of Change in Society seems to relate to the 1968 Olympics. The reason being is that Mexico wanted to show others that they were emerging and did not need to be associated with the title "third world" anymore. But then this caused the students to protest because they believed that their were other issues that they should of dealt with before they considered hosting the Olympic games.

I would say that politics is involved in sports. An example we can see is the 1968 games. Since students felt that there were political issues that should of been discussed or that should have been dealt with before the games. Since this did not happen this was one of the main reasons for the student massacre.