Kenny Baker

Sports, Media, and Pop Culture

October 20, 2017

Sports, Politics, and the Postgame Interview

During the first session of this class, we watched a documentary speaking on politics and

its infusion into sports. There was a lot of discussion on how without even noticing it, we see

politics in sports every day, often times without even noticing it. Whether this be a marine

throwing out a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game or as we might immediately think of

now, even bringing out athletes in front of the crowd to stand for the national anthem to show

patriotism. In society today, there is a lot of talk of watching football to “get away from politics,”

which I don’t blame people for saying. What many don’t realize though, is that there is politics

out on that field almost every game. We may just be blind to it. One thing that is particularly

interesting to me is the postgame interview. In recent years we have seen several athletes say

things that ended up being more newsworthy or controversial than what they intended for them

to be, or maybe some that were planned as such.

Just recently, Cam Newton got himself into a little bit of an odd situation, where he told a

female reporter that it was “funny” to hear a woman talk about routes (asked him about the

physicality of which one of his receivers was running). He did apologize, and proceeded to

answer the question, but that did not stop the circus that would follow him for about the rest of

the week. What he stated was labeled as sexist, and he was ridiculed.

This brings up another huge topic-women in sports media. We discussed Jessica

Mendoza in class, and how she has made her way into an announcer position for ESPN as a

baseball analyst, replacing Curt Schilling (could go into more politics). According to Michael B.
Salwan (1998) sports and sports media has been “long considered a field of male dominance his

had little headway in bringing in female staff…” which we still see clear evidence of today,

nearly twenty years later. While usually we don’t see intentional sexism and discrimination, the

“male dominated culture of sports and sports journalism continue to perpetuate the status quo

and make meaningful change difficult” (Schmidt 66). Despite there being a breakthrough in the

announcer’s arena for women, (we should also recognize Doris Burke and her work for the

NBA) there is still trouble truly breaking through. There is a huge importance placed on

announcers during an athletic sporting event. Even though people could watch a game with no

volume and likely understand exactly what was going on, in a study it was found that the

communicator (announcer) is often given the most attention (Kennedy and Hills 57).

There could-right or wrong- be many reasons people enjoy listening to men more than

women while watching sports. Firstly, would be the “masculinity” of the major sports. The

naturally deeper and calmer tone of male announcers, or maybe even the belief that women just

couldn’t quite understand these games because they have never played them. This situation just

gives us a look at one area of struggle for women in the sports world.

We can also see this Cam Newton mess up show ramifications for him in financially, and

in the media through advertising. After this mid-week press conference happened Dannon yogurt

pulled him off of their advertising. As discussed at length in Chapter Six of Sport, Media and

Society, Dannon yogurt’s primary target audience, is woman! It makes sense that the one (at least

major) brand that pulled sponsorship of Cam Newton pulled him after a statement that could be

sexist. That is advertising 101. This is still an example of politics and business in sports. This

also shows the power of the media as well, that one mess up in front of cameras (and not in front

of cameras) can cost an athlete money, as well as earn them negative publicity on the front page
of the news. One of the things that this makes me think about, is press conference etiquette. Is

there any? Should there be any?

The NFL enforces the rule that you must give the media time and answer questions,

whether that be in the locker room or in the press room. Several years ago, Marshawn Lynch had

a run in with the press rules, to the point where he walked into the press conference and told the

press that he would answer every question the same way: with the statement “I’m just here so I

won’t get fined.” He then later lectured the press, asking them “I don’t know what story you are

trying to get out of me.” I guess the question is this: Why does there seem to be a trend by

players and coaches to act above the media? We are seeing it across sports and across levels of

athletics. Nick Saban (head football coach at Alabama) often loses his temper for the media, for

what feels to be routine questions. Last year during the NBA playoffs Chris Paul became

annoyed by a reporter who asked a question that had to be asked. Brian Kelly of Notre Dame

football lost his cool with a reporter within the last several weeks as well. Perhaps it is difficult

to understand unless you sit and talk with the press several times a week for a number of years,

but it is still an interesting dynamic to watch.

One of the most interesting interviews in sports history had to of been Richard Sherman,

after the NFC championship game in 2013. In a post-game interview (still on the field) Erin

Andrews asked Richard Sherman to “take her through the last play.” He looked directly into the

camera told the world “not to challenge the best” (himself) with a “sorry” receiver like Michael

Crabtree. This interview was polarizing for football fans. According to Joe Thompkins, this

created two sides to which began fell to feel about Richard Sherman- “overtly racist

denunciations of Sherman as a classless “thug” and counter-representations of self-enterprising

talent.” He also went on to say that these two images register “permissible narratives of
difference.” (Tompkins 294). Although the NFL is a marginal sport league in the eyes of the rest

of the world, in the United States the NFL is a “vitally important source of financial profit and

cultural ideals” (Oates 163). This divided people. Personally, with all opinions aside, we caught

Richard Sherman at a time that makes sense to be extremely emotional and intense, clinching a

trip to the super bowl after he made the clinching play.

If you don’t like Richard Sherman, does this make him a “thug?” It would probably be

argued no. Throughout other press conferences and interviews through different forms of media

such as Twitter, we can see how well-spoken Richard Sherman is. More than that, we can see

that he is extremely smart! It is tough to criticize a player in such an emotional situation, but still,

Sherman wasn’t the same smart, well thought out man that we as a society had seen previously

as well as so many times since. Whether or not he is a “thug” is not going to stop certain people

from associating him as one after an interview where, to be fair, he didn’t sound his best, or

really even his usual self. From Sport, Media and Society, Kennedy and Hills (2009), there is a

good section from chapter four, discussing what the media commonly does with sporting events

to continue to draw and keep fans intrigued. “The media reconstructs the sporting event as a

story, identifying heroes and villains, developing a plot and creating drama and unrest.” They

also discuss how depending on your specific culture (which there is plenty of variance in this

country) contribute to “illuminating values and discourses within specific cultures” (Kennedy

and Hills 73).

Depending on the environment and culture in which we live, we are likely going to see a

different story! We see this constantly in our society. It makes complete sense. We continually

look for stories and opinions which match ours, and for a media person to make a good living,

answering the demands of your culture and culturally values which you give news and media to,
it probably helps to appease those beliefs. Although this isn’t necessarily true, even if it isn’t

your local newspaper, we tend to go out and seek those opinions of those which we agree with,

be it sports, politics, news- any of it. Those who believe that Richard Sherman was acting like a

“thug” are likely to pay attention to stories which side with those beliefs. So not only is this

sports media, a Richard Sherman story became a race and societal story. This is one of many

examples of how heavily sports media and even just sports interviews can affect society.

The most obvious example of sports media affecting society is the situation involving

Colin Kaepernick and his protest. Depending on your beliefs (which we know these specific

beliefs are closely related to political beliefs) you are likely going to be reinforced by those and

seek out the opinions of those who agree with you, which obviously continues to polarize us

even further. After the first two weeks of protests, Colin Kaepernick, believe it or not, was the

most intriguing and sought after postgame interview in the entire National Football League, even

though Kaepernick was having one of the worst seasons of any quarterback in the league. What

he had done transcended his mediocre play, and gave him huge national attention- and rightfully

so. During that interview it is impossible not to hear the roar of questions which erupts from the

reporters after Kaepernick finishes answering questions. It was in one of these postgame

interview, where there was almost zero talk about football, rather about fifteen minutes of talking

about his protest, and where Kaepernick gave his reasonings for protesting, and why he was

protesting in the manner in which he was.

Kaepernick laid this outline a year ago, and it is still prominent news to this day. Him

laying out his protests for everyone to hear, lead to the widespread protests we have seen across

the NFL in 2017. His interviews have given an opening for others, such as the Bennet brothers to

speak their minds about police brutality, or someone such as Lebron James to discuss the issues.
Lebron James spent a significant portion of NBA media day discussing the NFL protests and

Colin Kaepernick. That seems remarkable for the best player in the National Basketball

Association, to spend media day discussing the NFL, but this is the intertwined nature of sports

and politics, as well as the relationship of athletes and society through the help of sports media

and sports media and sports press.

In reaction to the protests across the National Football League, President Trump used his

platform to enflame the beliefs and passions of those opposed to the protests. Calling the players

derogatory names and calling for players who kneel to be fired. Colin Kaepernick’s protest

helped lead to that. This, obviously lead to the “most potent demonstration of social activism

among athletes in the history of the U.S.” (Altman and Gregory).

So even though we may think that that we don’t want politics in our sports, and that we

don’t think or want the media to play a part in our sport or political beliefs, they are. We know

that to sell a story, the media will create good and bad, alienate people, stand by people, give hot

takes. The reason it happens is because society bites. We go all in on it. So perhaps we should

pay close attention to that next postgame interview or postgame press conference a little more

closely, because we can see the dramatic effect that it has on sport, and society.
 Works Cited

Altman, Alex, and Sean Gregory. “Trump's Offensive Playbook- A deliberately provocative

President picks his latest fight over free speech in sports .” Time, vol. 190, no. 14, 9 Oct.

2017, eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=ea20062a-2da3-4b12-8887-

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Kennedy, Eileen, and Laura Hills. Sport, media and society. Berg, 2009.

Chapter 3- “Televised Sport” 53-72

Chapter 4- “Sport and the Press” 73-94

Chapter 6- “Sport in Advertising” 117-134

Oates, Thomas P. “Race, Economics, and the Shifting Politics of Sport Media The Case of

Jimmy the Greek.” Radical History Review, 1 May 2016, pp. 159–169.,

eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=10&sid=c13f4ce4-025e-42de-b751-

a6fa22744418%40sessionmgr4010.

Salwan, Michael B. “Finding their own place in journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists'

Professional Problems.” The Sport Journal, 1998.

Schmidt, Hans C. ““Still a Boys Club”: Perspectives on Female Sports and Sports Reporters in

University Student Newspapers.” Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, vol.

16, no. 1, Jan. 2015, pp. 65–74., doi:10.1080/17459435.2015.1086422.

Tompkins, Joe. ““A Postgame Interview for the Ages”.” Journal of Sport & Social Issues., vol.

40, no. 4, Aug. 2016, pp. 291–314.,

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