Main description:

Warren Buffett once opined that "only when the tide rolls out do you discover who's been swimming naked." In a similar vein, American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic focuses on how communication practices, structures, and principles change when a key locus-sport-has much of its cultural and political-economic power disrupted. How intertwined is the economic viability of an American collegiate institution to the communicative enactment of the regular staging of collegiate sports? What proportion of a sports media contract is for the competition itself, as opposed to the documentation of fans being "fanatic" as they witness contests live and in-person? Who and what is deemed most disposable, and how do such decisions play out for athletes of different genders, races, and abilities? Questions such as these form the core foci of this volume. As many have observed, out of crisis comes opportunity. In this instance, this volume provides an opportunity for leading scholars of communication and sport to consider which principles should be rethought or reconceptualized based on the effects of the pandemic on our culture, politics, and economy.

Contents:

Acknowledgments - Andrew C. Billings/Lawrence A. Wenner/Marie Hardin: Introduction: Situating Communication and American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic - Erin Whiteside/Sam Winemiller: Reimagining the Role of Local Sports Media During the Pandemic Pause - Courtney M. Cox: Force Majeure: Pandemic Labor Insights within the Sports- Media Complex - Simon Licen: More Than Fun and Games: How the World Will Look at American Sports- and America- After COVID- 19 - Daniel A. Grano: "Year of the Bubble": The Black Athletic Body as Event, and the Politics of Subtraction - Abraham Iqbal Khan: Reading Against the Platform: Communicative Capitalism and the NBA Strike - Michael Serazio: Hegemonic Masculinity on the Sidelines: Workplace Dangers, Gendered Ideologies, and Athletic Participation in the Pandemic Era - Travis R. Bell/Christian Dotson- Pierson/Janelle Applequist: Big Risks, Big Rewards: Framing the NWSL Challenge Cup Amid a Pandemic - Katherine L. Lavelle: "The Team's Best Interest": COVID- 19, Mental Health, and Neoliberalism in College Football - Scott Parrott/Nathan A. Towery/Andrew C. Billings: Sports Figures as Public Health Prompts: The Broadening Role of Celebrity Athletes in Health Communication - Gregory A. Cranmer: Socialization and Team Management in Post- COVID- 19 Athletics - Michael L. Butterworth/Katie Lever: Coronavirus, College Football, and the Collapse of American Exceptionalism - Lauren Reichart Smith: The NCAA Response to the COVID- 19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Enjoyment - Karen L. Hartman: COVID- 19, the NCAA, and Title IX: A Time for Gender Equity - Walter Gantz: What Missing Sports Really Means: Mediated Sports Consumption in the Post- Pandemic World - Jimmy Sanderson: Managing the Unprecedented: How Sport Organizations' Social Media Strategy Adapted and Evolved in the Midst of a Global Pandemic - Ryan Rogers/Lee K. Farquhar: Esports: A Pandemic- Proof Alternative to Traditional Sports? - Tang Tang, L. Meghan Mahoney/Ashley Spiker: Olympics in the Shadow of a Pandemic: Communication, Empowerment, and Concern through Crisis - Dunja Antunovic: Keeping a Sense of Community: Women's Sports Leagues and (Post- ) Pandemic Communication - Editors - Contributors - Index.