The Militarization of American Professional Sports

Abstract

This article investigates how "war-speak" is incorporated into both sports media coverage and athletic rituals. It posits that while the militarization of American sporting events may help to comfort a nation in crisis and afford the Armed Forces a valuable recruitment tool, it simultaneously encourages a coercive patriotism that is morally problematic for many athletes and fans, especially during wartime. Likewise, although the use of war metaphors in sports media coverage provides exciting and dramatic language for players and sportscasters, it also devalues the war experience by trivializing its horrors and helps to sell the concept of war as sport.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Military-Related Remembrance Rhetoric in UK Sport: Communicating Consent for British Militarism

“…deployed as soft-core weaponry in a hard-core militarized industrial complex, fighting wars. (p. 3) Since 9/11 (and the subsequent invasion/liberation of Iraq by a coalition of US-led western nation-states' military forces), sport has been an even greater strategic cultural practice-"soft-core weapon"-used by the United States and allies to enable and encourage citizens to support and thank their governments' national military actors (see Butterworth, 2005Butterworth, , 2008Butterworth, , 2010Butterworth, , 2017Cree & Caddick, 2019;Fischer, 2014;Jenkins, 2013;Kelly, 2013Kelly, , 2017aKelly, , 2017bKing, 2008;Scherer & Koch, 2010;Silk, 2012;Silk & Falcous, 2005). Government propaganda departments Operation Tribute to Freedom (USA) and Operation Connection (Canada) emerged in 2003 and 2004 and have placed sport and other such patriotism-inducing cultural events at the centre of their "support the troops" initiatives (see Butterworth & Moskal, 2009;Scherer & Koch, 2010;Stempel, 2006).…”

“…This was a moment, then, in which the banal, the sporting popular, was harnessed, politicized, and…deployed as soft-core weaponry in a hard-core militarized industrial complex, fighting wars. (p. 3)Since 9/11 (and the subsequent invasion/liberation of Iraq by a coalition of US-led western nation-states’ military forces), sport has been an even greater strategic cultural practice—“soft-core weapon”—used by the United States and allies to enable and encourage citizens to support and thank their governments’ national military actors (see Butterworth, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2017; Cree & Caddick, 2019; Fischer, 2014; Jenkins, 2013; Kelly, 2013, 2017a, 2017b; King, 2008; Scherer & Koch, 2010; Silk, 2012; Silk & Falcous, 2005). Government propaganda departments Operation Tribute to Freedom (USA) and Operation Connection (Canada) emerged in 2003 and 2004 and have placed sport and other such patriotism-inducing cultural events at the centre of their “support the troops” initiatives (see Butterworth & Moskal, 2009; Scherer & Koch, 2010; Stempel, 2006).…”

16 Sport, media and the promotion of militarism: theoretical inter-continental reflections of the United Kingdom and South Korea

“…The current phase of the sport-media-military nexus, precipitated and sustained by the US-led "war on terror," has a fascinating history (for example, see Jansen and Sabo 1994;Silk and Falcous 2005;Butterworth 2005Butterworth , 2008Butterworth , 2010Butterworth , 2017Stempel 2006;King 2008;Scherer and Koch 2010;Jenkins 2013;Kelly 2013Kelly , 2017aKelly , 2017bPenn and Berridge 2016;Cree and Caddick 2019). The American and Canadian governments developed propaganda departments designed to use the mediatization of popular cultural activities to elicit, manufacture, and communicate consent for their respective military actors and actions, the latter of which consisted largely of two controversial wars in the Middle East (an invasion of Iraq and an occupation of Afghanistan) (see Stempel 2006;Butterworth and Moskal 2009;Scherer and Koch 2010).…”

Consumption attachments of Brazilian fans of the National Football League

“…In addition, its 32 teams are among the top 50 most profitable teams among all sports modalities (Badenhausen, 2017). Still, the commotion of its audience influences the recall of advertisements broadcasted during the games (Pavelchak, Antil, & Munch, 1988) and shapes public perception about the brands (Jenkins, 2013). However, NFL brand value is not limited to the economic sphere.…”