The Clueless Sports Fan

            This week, we covered a few racial topics within the sports journalism world. The first is word choice of journalists. Many feels as though the words used to describe players based on said players race. A lot of times, white players are described as intelligent, smart, and witty, while black players are pinned as being athletic, powerful, and strong.  Another issue, one that was covered in the textbook, is the diversity rates among sports journalist jobs. Some statistics taken from the article "Warriors Owner Reportedly Adding A Bay Area WNBA Franchise" cited in the textbook reads "White males dominate sports journalism jobs including 85% of sports editors, 80% of columnists, and 82% of reporters" (McCreary, 2018).

       This week in class, we covered concussions and its ties to social norming. For a while many players were getting CTE . Short for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE is a brain disorder caused by repeated concussions. For a long time, players were developing it, but the NFL was brushing it under the rug. The pay for concussions were scored with cognitive functions in mind. Black players were labeled as having lower cognitive functions. This is called social norming. Authors Terry L Rentner and David P Burns of Social Issues in Sports Communications says, "Black football player starts at a lower level of cognitive functioning than the average White player at the outset of their careers, Black players need to show larger cognitive declines than White players to qualify for compensation."(40, Rentner, Burns). Social norming is a form of systemic racism. Rentner, T. L., & Burns, D. P. (2023). Social Issues in Sports Communitions . Routledge.