3.3 - Business interests in sports

Question 1

1. What was it about sports that Americans felt reflected their best characteristics?

Answer 1

• Pre-70s: many Americans felt sport reflected all good about ‘American way’
• Both: capacity for hard work, equal opportunities for advancement, frequent success
• Team games + spirit = good citizenship + fostered sense of community + strengthened character

Question 2

How much money was there in sport by 1973-80 and where did it come from?

Answer 2

• Colleges, teams, athletes earned vast sums
• From spectators, corporate sponsors, TV rights
• Money only increased in 70s
• Money NFL received from TV rights: 1970-3 = $188Mn to 1978-82 = $646Mn

Question 2

Timeline of sport commercialisation

Answer 2

• Mid 19C but accelerated in 20C
• Especially 70s: argued that over-commercialisation encapsulated all bad of the American character specifically excessive greed

Question 3

Why did corporate sponsorship increase?

Answer 3

• More sport on TV + corporate advertisers could target increasing numbers of armchair spectators
• American TV viewers sports programmes > everything else (except movies)
• 90% of men watched sport but supposedly only 75% of women

Question 4

How did changes to the Oakland Raiders and the New York City Marathon reflect the increasing corporate role in sport?

Answer 4

• Teams (eg: Oakland raiders) dumped supporters + trad homes to move to another city
• Raider’s owner Al Davis failed to get Oakland city to finance stadium improvements therefore moved team to LA
• NYC marathon: Fred Lebow took control and changed nature of NY road runners club from volunteer organisation facilitating athletic interest of members to business enterprise
• Increased marathon’s attractiveness to corporate funding by raising ppt no.s

Question 5

Why did NFL players and other athletes win higher salaries in the 1970s?

Answer 5

• Athletes demanded greater share in sports profits + resented restrictions on ability to earn more money
• EG: John Mackey of Baltimore Colts sued NFL to fain greater bargaining power over salaries + club movements
• Mackey + NFL player’s union won 1976 case
• Labour disputes, lawsuits, walkouts characterised team sports of 70s
• Thought legacy of 60’s challenge to authority as many players were black Americans who drew on CR + BPM traditions

Question 6

How far was cheating a part of sport in the 1970s?

Answer 6

• Big money in sporting = temptation to cheat
• 70s: rise in investigative journalism led to much exposure of seemingly ever-increasing corruption
• Players tipped to make money
• Estimated that 1/3 of US olympic team used steroids in 1968 + 68% by 1972
• 1980L University of New Mexico coaches found falsifying athlete’s grades to keep mediocre students who earned uni gate-money

Question 7

How far was violence a part of sport in the 1970s?

Answer 7

• Violence in sport nothing new but increased due to money in 70s
• a 1978 football game: New England patriot bumped into Oakland raider jack Tatum and suffered 2 fractured vertebrae leaving him quadriplegic
• Yet Tatum said did not feel guilty because it was ‘what owners expect of him when they give him his paycheck’