Discrimination In Sports

Race, Gender, and Discrimination Within Sports and the Media When considering the largest industries and markets in the world, most individuals would immediately consider retail, food, or even banking, however, the sports industry is quickly becoming one of the more lucrative and fastest growing markets in the United States. According to Forbes, the sports industry is expected to be worth over 73 billion dollars by the end of 2019. Although the sports industry is growing at such a rapid pace, and can be viewed as one of the more diverse labor forces to work in, this was not always the case. Discrimination has been alive within sports for quite some time for various reasons such as race and gender. As professional sports continue to develop,
More recent than the Atlanta Braves, the issue concerning the team nickname of the Washington Redskins was recently in the national spotlight. Considering the fact that a large percentage of the population didn’t see a problem with this issue, this is a prime example of how racism continues to play a part in the world of sports. While there are a handful of references to Native Americans, there are not several examples of insulting nicknames for other races of people, “if a derogatory word for people who are Jewish, African American, or Chinese was proposed as a sports team name, it wouldn’t be allowed, no one would stand or it, but for some reason, the term ‘Redskin’ gets a free pass”. In order to continue to move forward as a society, it is important that these concerns are addressed as
Professional athletes are idolized by millions of Americans, which sometimes causes these prejudices to go unseen. When viewing the issue of race, the pure majority of owners being white proves that ideals of whiteness are entrenched within the majority of these teams. Considering the fact that owners of professional sports teams hold ownership for a long period of time, this issue may be tough to solve in the short-run, but in the meantime, commissioners of these major sports leagues should put rules in effect in order to help solve this issue. The issues that exist pertaining to gender cannot be overshadowed as well. In our society, many people believe that there are exact definitions of both femininity and masculinity, and these two classifications is very apparent within sports, “Women athletes are less likely to be portrayed as active participants in sport and more likely to be portrayed in passive and traditionally feminine poses”. In order to help solve some of these issues, I think studying the new American Studies would help these leagues quite a