Sports Culture “Playlist”: Respect All! Fear None! Diversity in Sport Media.

Sports Culture "Playlist": Respect All! Fear None! Sports Media investigates the intersectionality and intertextuality of 5 sports media, including Heart of A King- Budweiser and Lionesses, Hey Kid, Catch!- Coca-Cola, You Can't Stop Us – Nike, Michael Jackson Jam, and Family Guy's Patriot Games. Throughout the playlist, sports develop from physical activity to a massive media industry that shapes the sports cultures by providing match information and the athletes' identity and performance on the field. Hence, this playlist advocates for diversity and against historical sports stereotypes about background, race, and gender. Consequently, it expands the participant demographics such as women, African Americans, and other oblivious communities.

Sports are not just competitive contests between two teams; they deliver significant values for individual or professional athletic careers by focusing on physical strength, discipline, and teamwork. Hence, these values give "fame" and money, mainly to the "immigrants," as pride and identity expression. Moreover, national development is also referred to by highlighting the "community" and "togetherness" among its citizens' success. The Family Guy episode, Patriot Games, expresses these concepts by teaching athletes to accept the game results and respect others. Notably, Peter Griffin's stubbornness on the field, with his chubby body, highlights the "climatic contest convention" as a "moral order" that rewards the protagonist's "hard work" and reduces his masculinity. However, this episode praises Peter Griffin, a hero who "overcomes the obstacles" and gathers the sports spectators with the song "Shipoopi". So, football becomes an "educational" sport that is representative of a diverse "individual's success" in American society.

Furthermore, sports motivate the youth to gain "a ticket to success" like the famous athletes' hard work and "self-reliance" achievements on the field (Baker, 45). For instance, Michael Jackson's music video, Jam, portrays Jordan as the best-known African- American basketball athlete worldwide in the NBA or a "symbol of mainstream success" (Baker, 43). Jordan's "fame" and wealthiness symbolize an equal opportunity for every individual's athletic success and "the All- American" that also includes the African- American community (Baker, 34). In addition, his outstanding achievement inspired other mass media and diverse demographic groups rather than only the masculine, patriarchal, white male community. The increase of spectators and fans leads to the rise of sports industries changing sports into media, economics, culture, and promoting global sports events for diverse demographics. For instance, women are a demographic group suppressed under the "limitations" by "evading their achievement" throughout sports history (Baker, 77). Remarkably, the campaign, Heart of A King- Budweiser and Lionesses, challenge the female athletic identity by gathering influential women from a diverse field and providing "equality, opportunity" and legally "athletic access" to football for women (Baker 82). As a result, it increases women's sports interest and spectatorship toward young females and reveals the symbiotic relationship between the sports and media industry. Specifically, the media industry has "control over sports" by expressing sport's cultures, athletes' identity, and performance through the media (Anthony, Forbes). Furthermore, the matches' location, results, and ticket cost attracts fans to sports activities, leading to the rise of sports "bureaucratization" and commercialism, which strongly developed during World War II (Baker, 82). The sports media industry also creates the emergence of sports stars, including Michael Jordan and other athletic individuals who appear in newspaper organizations and other mass media forms to earn sponsored salaries and generate their "branding." For example, the commercial, Hey Kid, Catch! – Coca-Cola, emphasizing Joe Greene's transformation from a sports star into a global brand. Remarkably, Joe Greene's smile at the white kid who offers him a Coca-Cola provides a new perspective about African-Americans that their "imposing size," "stature," appearance does mean the black athletes are always associated with "danger" and "aggressive" (Regester, 271) However, due to the sports stars' appearance and popularity, the commercial businesses have developed merchandising that refers to the sports stars such as Coca-Cola, Nike, and Budweiser to gather more sports spectators and participants.

The sports media plays an influential role in team management and widely spreads the assumption of sports cultures such as race, gender, and political perspective. For example, Nike's commercial ads, You Can't Stop Us, maximize its fan base and revenue by including athletes from different backgrounds, races, gender, and sports. This commercial represents diversity and accessibility that the products of Nike and sports are suitable for a variety of sports and customers rather than serving only a specific group of people. Moreover, by referring to the issue of the Covid-19 pandemic, You Can't Stop Us also evokes a sense of "homogeneity" and "community cohesion" in solving the problem of self-identity and the pandemic, thus continuing the sports passion from the worldwide athletes and spectators (Baker, 33).

To conclude, sports became an essential part of modern life, and its symbiotic relationship with the media became an extraordinary level. Furthermore, commercialism demonstrates that contemporary sport cultures have shifted the interest in black culture, women, and other oblivious communities that did not have access to sports throughout American sports culture history. This social change enhances diversity in sports media by extending the range of participants, including the spectators and the athletes, into the sports culture.

Curated Work List:

1. Heart of A King- Budweiser and Lionesses.

Heart of A King

This is one of the most popular 2019 sports campaigns that gathered influential women such as Jessie Ware (singer-songwriter), Zawe Ashton, Naomie Harris (actress), Rachel Yankey (football player), and Nicola Adams (boxer). These women recreate Queen Elizabeth I's 1588 "Heart and Stomach of a King" speech at Tilbury during the Spanish Armada. Specifically, the word choice in Queen Elizabeth’s speech has been changed to fit the football spirit, changing from first person, “I” to “You” or having additional word choice such as “on the field of play”. This word choice allows the campaign to highlight the narratives of hard-working achievement by referring to the 1950s-1970s wave of feminism that was firmly against the traditional patriarchal ideology. Thus, the campaign encourages British football fans to support the Lionesses (England National Female football team) ahead of the World Cup. For Budweiser, this sports campaign highlights its growth as a long-standing partner and reaches out to new fans, potentially new players, and customers for their beer, the women's community. Hence, Budweiser and Lionesses' Heart of A King plays a vital role in sports history, culture, and media by providing women an "equality, opportunity" and legally "athletic access" to football.

2. Hey Kid, Catch! – Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola 1979 Commercial Long Version

This is a story arc football commercial showing Pittsburg Stellers' Defensive Tackle football player, Joe Greene, tiredly walking into a stadium tunnel with his bloody wounds and Pittsburgh Steelers jersey ripped off. A young boy gives him a bottle of Coca-Cola to support him after a football game. The scene of Greene smiling and giving the boy his Jersey after offering his Coca-Cola strengthens the audience’s curiosity. By showing Joe Greene as a famous athletic and aggressive individual, his toughness and kindness break the assumption that Black athletes are aggressive and dangerous due to their violent performance on the field. Consequently, the humanity in the ads shifts Greene's mood and the audience's atmosphere from exhausted to thankful. The success of "Hey Kid, Catch" influenced the 1980s pop culture and mass-communication media and created a phenomenon for the recognition of Coca-Cola. Simultaneously, this commercial raises the stock values for Joe Greene as his branding, becoming a legendary commercial for the descended audiences. Consequently, "Hey Kid, Catch" emphasizes the narration of hard-working achievement, race, and gender in sporting culture by turning an African-American male sports star into a global brand.

3. You Can’t Stop Us – Nike

This latest sports commercial ad for Nike was created by Portland-based Wieden+Kennedy, which delivered the message of self-identity, inclusiveness, collectivism, and perseverance during the pandemic of Covid-19. This commercial is presented as collective split-screen footage of athletes of different backgrounds (healthy, disability), races (Black, White, Asian, and Muslim), gender (male, female, LGBTQRI+), and sports (swimming, tennis, track and field, basketball, football, baseball, etc.). By referring to the theme of self-identity, inclusiveness, collectivism, and perseverance, this ad creates two questions for the audience: "who are we" and "what is stopping us." Furthermore, the ad's script expresses its narration with a repetitive and poetic cycle of challenging (set-up), doubt (conflict) and overcoming (resolution) throughout the whole video. The set-up and conflict refer to self-identity since sports are strongly associated with an able-bodied white male during the 1950s. However, the diversity of races, genders, sports, and body conditions as a resolution highlight the theme of achievement, heroism, determination for every individual despite our differences. Hence, this implication suggests that Nike's products are suitable for diverse customers and sports. The ad also addresses the Covid-19 crisis, showing split-screen images of workers in hazmat suits spraying down stadium seats, which encourages audiences and the sports players to keep themselves "stay safe together" to continue for the joy of watching and playing sports and removing the Coronaviruses.

4. Jam -Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson's music video focuses on the idea of self-identity and belonging. The video starts with a BLUE BALL, specifically a Globe Ball, flying through the window glass. This imagery symbolizes our Planet being "played with," particularly the black community that will appear later in the music video. Remarkably, the black community is depicted as "trashed streets, broken, and neglected," which explains the initial appearance of the two black boys and a black mother (women) as a sad facial expression since they do not fit in with society. However, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson's appearance functions as a hero that brings happiness to the black community. Firstly, Michael Jordan represents a hard-working individual who is constantly focused on rehearsing and training to expand his potential, allowing him to receive recognition from others. In contrast, Michael Jackson represents someone doing a specific activity for passion and joyful expression. Specifically, Michael Jackson teaches Michael Jordan to dance and play basketball together, they express an optimistic attitude in their performative activities that inspire the two black boys in the video. Consequently, this music video supports the utopian narratives of achievement and self-determination for every black man to fit into society

5. Family Guy: Patriot Games

The episode focuses on Peter Griffin, a New England Patriots football player who gets fired by showboating. This episode highlights the richness of story-telling about achievement, heroism, and gender in sporting culture by depicting Peter Griffin as a hard-working and non-masculine athlete who becomes a hero after football. Peter expresses his athletic identity by staying alone to carry the team in the game between New England Patriots and London Silly Nannies, while his teammates are intimidated Another scene that reduces Peter's masculinity is when he takes a shower with another New England Patriots male player who possesses a 6-packs muscular and firm body, while Peter has a chubby body. This scene and Peter's showboating with "Shipoopi" humiliates and against the traditional assumption that sports are only suitable for white masculine men. Moreover, Peter's "Shipoopi" functions as a musical parody that attracts everyone in the stadium, increasing the interest of spectators in the games due to the song being fully choreographic and musical fireworks. Besides football, the episode also refers to the gender blinding in boxing. Notably, Brian bets $50 on Mike Tyson for the match between him and Carol Channing (women), and he loses. This reference also strengthens that the contemporary sports culture has started to provide gender and athletic equality for women in participating and spectatoring sports in the United States.