The Unequal Opportunity for Equal Ability Hypothesis: Racism in the National Football League?

Kooistra, Paul G.; Mahoney, John S.; Bridges, Lisa J.

doi:10.1123/ssj.10.3.241

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Berghorn (1988, 1993) demonstrated that while black athletes had made inroads into central positions in collegiate basketball, this progress was due mostly to the huge increases in the number of black athletes participating and was not proportional to the numbers of new athletes entering the sport. Stacking still exists in women's collegiate volleyball (Eitzen and Fürst 1989), professional baseball (Smith and Seff 1989;Lavoie and Leonard 1994) and professional (Schneider and Eitzen 1987;Kooistra, Mahoney and Bridges 1993) and collegiate (Jones et al 1987;Lewis 1995) football. These studies suggest that while many black athletes have achieved notoriety and success in the white-dominated forum of sport, racial stereotypes of minorities' supposed lack of leadership and intellectual qualities still flourish.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 96%

Race Logic and “Being like Mike”: Representations of Athletes in Advertising, 1985–1994

Dufur

1997

Sociological Focus

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Although participation in sports by black athletes has increased, evidence remains that these athletes still face discriminatory practices. One arena in which black athletes are treated differently from their white counterparts is the advertising of products by athletic spokespersons. This paper examines the stereotypes used in portraying black athletes in advertising by scrutinizing advertisements in Sports Illustrated from 1985 to 1994. I hypothesize that advertisers will draw on stereotypes from both sport and more general society to depict athletes. Two hundred ten advertisements in the sample contain well-known athletes; content analysis reveals that black athletes are more likely to be portrayed as succeeding because of innate physical abilities, while white athletes are more often portrayed as succeeding because of hard work, intelligence or leadership qualities. In addition, black athletes are more likely to be portrayed as angry, violent or hypersexual.

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Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 96%

Race Logic and “Being like Mike”: Representations of Athletes in Advertising, 1985–1994

Dufur

1997

Sociological Focus

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“…1. Kooistra, Mahoney, and Bridges (1993) also find evidence that White players were disproportionately rewarded with regard to their contract status compared with African Americans in the NFL.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 71%

Race, Quarterbacks, and the Media

Niven

2005

Journal of Black Studies

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Talk show host Rush Limbaugh made headlines in 2003 when he appeared on a cable sports program and claimed the media were biased in favor of African American quarterbacks. Using a sample made up of the seven African American starting quarterbacks in the National Football League matched with seven White quarterbacks with comparable statistics, this study considers whether newspaper coverage was slanted by race. The data, including more than 10,000 articles published during the 2002 football season, show minor and inconsistent differences in coverage between African American and White quarterbacks and offer no support to Limbaugh's position. Despite themedia's apparent lack of bias in this situation, response to Limbaugh's comments in the media avoided the larger issue of race and instead focused on the playing ability of African American quarterbacks.

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“…Research examining race and football participation around 1993 indicates that 44% of Division I college football players were Black 2 . Additional research indicated that only about 40% of NFL players were white 3 . These percentages, combined with historical census data, make it reasonable to argue that white persons would fill only half of the contemporary NFL head coaching positions if the playing field were level.…”

Section: Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Race and the NFL: Teaching the Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test

Foster¹

2021

Significance

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The lesson focuses on the chi-square goodness of fit test, a statistical test that examines whether observed frequencies deviate from what might be expected based on a proposed hypothesis. This statistical test is used in all manner of research areas. For example, researchers might examine whether consumers deviate from expectations when they select particular products. Researchers could similarly examine whether the presence of personal attributes in a subpopulation (yes or no) differs from the observed frequencies in the broader population. I typically teach this lesson after students have learned levels of measurement, descriptive statistics, fundamentals of inferential statistics (e.g., the nature of p-values), and other inferential statistics tests (e.g., z tests, t tests, and so forth).This lesson has an additional purpose. I want to show students that they can use statistics to gain insight into contemporary social issues. To that end, I decided to have my undergraduate students compare the observed frequencies of National Football League (NFL) head coaches to expected frequencies based on race. Conceptions of race are socially constructed, but that does not negate their impact. 1 The context of race and NFL head coaches provides a statistically driven method for considering the nature of prejudice in contemporary United States society. This type of examination is especially timely given the recent prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the political climate around inclusion more generally (pewrsr.ch/3kEIKzH).

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The Unequal Opportunity for Equal Ability Hypothesis: Racism in the National Football League?

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Race Logic and “Being like Mike”: Representations of Athletes in Advertising, 1985–1994

Race Logic and “Being like Mike”: Representations of Athletes in Advertising, 1985–1994

Race, Quarterbacks, and the Media

Race and the NFL: Teaching the Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test

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