Sports Organizations

1
Sports Organizations

• The Evolution of Sports Organizations in American
  Culture

2
Sports Organizations

• As weve discussed, sports organizations must
  meet certain exigencies or needs in
• legitimating,
• creating audiences for,
• and selling their sports.

3
Sports Organizations

• We will trace major sports organizations from the
  early nineteenth century to today. This will
  allow us to examine how organizations met these
  needs and helped create the story and public
  image of sport in America.

4
Sports Organizations

• NOTE-Something as simple as setting rules is a
  rhetorical act, persuading the collective
  audience to
• See the rule of the sports organization as
  legitimate.
• See the players as models of sportsmanship and
  sports ideals.
• See the game as fair.
• Trust the sports organization to have the best
  interest of the sport and sportsmanship at heart.
• Rely on sports organizations to offer a
  consistent quality product.

5
Origins of Sports Organizations in America

• The Nineteenth Century
• Three sports enjoyed popularity in 19th century
  America, horse racing, boxing, and baseball.

6
Origins of Sports Organizations in America

• Well briefly trace the origins of the first
  governing organizations for each sport to see how
  they
• 1.) established official rules for the sport,
• 2.) drew on common values to create an image
  for the sport and its players,
• 3.) created an audience for the sport.

7
Horse Racing and the Early American Gentleman

• INTRODUCTORY INFO
• Sports were considered a leisure activity in
  early American life. Only the well-to-do
  typically had time to take part in leisure
  activities. So, early sport was often seen (and
  sold) as an activity that demonstrated the
  refinement of a true gentleman. Horse racing,
  shooting, and taking part in formal hunts were
  activities of a gentleman. Horse racing was
  the only one of these sports that posed much
  interest as a large spectator sport.

8
Horse Racing and the Early American Gentleman

• Horse racing associations most commonly appeared
  in southern states (e.g. Kentucky) and border
  states (Maryland) where races could take place
  much of the year.
• Horse racing associations were often loose
  alliances between plantation owners.

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Horse Racing and the Early American Gentleman

• Racing Associations were developed to
• 1. Eliminate cheating and bad gambling
  (gambling run as a business rather than a
  gentlemens agreement).
• 2. Reinforce the value of ownership by limiting
  the number of recognized race horse owners.
• 3. Regulate rules.
• 4. Through all of these, reinforce the
  perception of the sport as a gentlemans sport.

10
Athletic Clubs and Boxing as a Gentlemans Sport

• INTRODUCTORY INFO
• By late century, most large cities had an
  athletic club. These clubs typically held a
  gymnasium, a bar, an area for gaming (poker,
  whist or other games of chance), rooms for rent,
  and a club restaurant. Being a club member was a
  status symbol. It also offered a place for men
  to go to enjoy manly pastimes.
• Boxing, on the other hand, was a dubious sport at
  best, one that was illegal in most states (many
  championship fights had to be held on ships
  sailed out to a safe distance from shore and
  police jurisdiction). The San Francisco Athletic
  Club began to legitimate Gentleman Jim Corbett
  as a gentleman and a boxer in the 1880s.

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Athletic Clubs and Boxing as a Gentlemans Sport

• MORE INTRODUCTORY INFO
• John L. Sullivan became the first undisputed
  heavyweight champion of boxing in 1882. He
  helped popularize the sport by taking on all
  comers following London Prize Rules of
  bare-knuckle fighting. The uncontrolled violence
  of these fights, while popular, reinforced
  boxings image as a sport of the lowest
  classes. Sullivan was never defeated in a
  bare-knuckle fight. By 1892, James J. Corbett
  had become Sullivans most popular challenger.
  Corbett was a good looking and sophisticated
  dandy who changed boxing from a borderline
  criminal activity to the most popular non-team
  sport in America.

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Athletic Clubs and Boxing as a Gentlemans Sport

• Sullivan vs. Corbett
• John L. Sullivan James J. Corbett
• Last of the bare-knuckle/London First of the
  Marquis of
• Prize Rule Champions Queensbury Champs
• Under the London Prize Ring rules, bouts were
  divided into rounds that ended only when one of
  the boxers fell or was knocked to the ground. If
  the fallen man was unable to resume the contest
  in 30 seconds the referee awarded the bout to his
  opponent. The referee, however, had no power to
  stop the boxers from kicking, wrestling, or
  gouging, and these maneuvers usually played an
  important part in every fight. Most matches
  lasted until one of the contestants was badly
  beaten (Comptons Encyclopedia).

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Athletic Clubs and Boxing as a Gentlemans Sport

• Sullivan vs. Corbett
• John L. Sullivan James J. Corbett
• I can lick any SOB in the joint. Boxing is a
  gentlemans sport.
• John L. Sullivan James J. Corbett
• Barely literate. Played Broadway.

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Athletic Clubs and Boxing as a Gentlemans Sport

• Sullivan vs. Corbett
• John L. Sullivan James J. Corbett
• Chased fights across the country. Fought out
  of the San Francisco Athletic Club.
• John L. Sullivan James J. Corbett
• Boxing as war. Boxing as sexy.

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Athletic Clubs and Boxing as a Gentlemans Sport

• Women consistently snuck into Corbetts fights as
  he became the first true sports figure as sex
  symbol (wearing the equivalent of a thong to box
  in).
• Corbett beat Sullivan in 1892, forever changing
  the public perception of boxing.

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Athletic Clubs and Sports Promotion

• Some Conclusions
• Athletic clubs did little to regulate sports.
  Their primary function was in creating a positive
  image for the sports they promoted. They did
  this in two ways
• 1. Promoting the vigorous sportsmans life.
• 2. Promoting specific athletes as gentlemen
  sportsmen.

17
Baseball The Peoples Sport

• INTRODUCTORY INFO
• Where horse racing was identified as a
  gentlemans sport and boxing as little above
  barbarism, baseball evolved into the sport for
  the common person through the early part of the
  19th century. You didnt need to be a
  millionaire or allow yourself to be maimed to
  play baseball. You only need an empty field (in
  ready abundance in early 19th century America), a
  stick of wood, and a ball.

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Baseball The Peoples Sport

• MORE INTRODUCTORY INFO
• Amateur baseball clubs appeared up and down
  the east coast in the years before the Civil War.
  Rules were seldom consistent between clubs and
  the clubs existed solely to play, not promote the
  sport. Tracing the growth of baseball
  organizations will help us trace the growth and
  importance of sports organizations as public
  entities.

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• The New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club
• (1846)
• Goals of the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball
  Club
• Establish consistent rules for the game.
• Popularize the sport around the greater New York
  area by challenging other clubs to play.
• Set rules for decorum (again, presenting yourself
  as a gentleman was extremely important for
  making the sport socially acceptable).

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• An Illustration from the Knickerbocker
  Constitution
• Article V
• ON PENALTIES.
• Sec. 1. Members when assembled for field
  exercise play, who shall use profane or
  improper language, shall be fined 6 ¼ cents for
  each offence.

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• The National Association
• (1871-the first full league of professional
  clubs)
• Problems with the National Association
• Inconsistent play.
• Financial failures (clubs often went bankrupt).
• Players viewed as roughnecks (heavy drinkers,
  promiscuous, brawling, low brow, likely to cheat,
  poor models for the audience).
• Gambling on games (a problem that would hound
  baseball at least until 1920).

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• The National League
• (1876)
• The longest continuous sports organization in
  American history, this remains the National
  League of Major League Baseball. The National
  League challenged the National Association by
  dealing with most of the N.A.s problems through
  organizational rules.

23
Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• Key Improvements in National League Rules
• Unified rules for all teams.
• Created rules reflecting larger social norms
  (e.g. following Blue Laws by not allowing
  league teams to play on Sundays).
• Significantly strengthened rules regarding player
  behavior (players were not allowed to drink,
  smoke, or swear during games, were not allowed to
  drink away from games, were to live moral lives,
  and so on).
• Created the reserve clause-for good and (much)
  bad, the reserve clause was the most important
  sports innovation of the 19th century. The
  reserve clause would remain largely unchanged for
  100 years.

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• The Reserve Clause
• The reserve clause was a clause in every players
  contract that said that, if the player was not
  signed or released by their club by a given date,
  they would automatically be contracted to the
  club under the same contract as in the preceding
  season.
• The role of the reserve clause in shaping sports
  values in America during the 20th century cannot
  be overestimated.

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• Effects of the Reserve Clause
• Players had no control over their career choices,
  longevity, or use.
• Teams could control players throughout their
  careers.
• Teams often held players for the entirety of
  their careers.
• Players became closely identified with teams.
• Players became closely identified with
  communities.
• Players came to be seen as role models and idols
  in their communities (Joe DiMaggio was the Yankee
  Clipper, Duke Snider was the Duke of Flatbush,
  Ted Williams was Bostons Splendid Splinter,
  Yankee Stadium became The House that Ruth Built).
• Through player identification, sports
  teams/organizations became closely identified
  with their communities (its said that, when the
  Dodgers left, Brooklyn died as a city).

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• Some conclusions on the success of Major League
  Baseball.

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• The NL succeeded in identifying baseball with
  popular social values by creating rules that
  reflected those values.
• The reserve clause helped create close
  identification between teams, players, and
  communities.
• The AL succeeded in creating a symbolic balance
  between the Conservative NL and the Maverick
  AL.

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Baseball Organizations Goals and Strategies

• The league succeeded in controlling revenue and
  labor costs through the reserve clause.
• Through this control, the league established
  tremendous consistency (no franchise moved or was
  lost for fifty years) creating greater legitimacy
  in American culture than any other sport has
  possessed.

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Bonus Material for Football Fans

• Football was solely a college sport in America
  until well into the 20th century. No consistent
  rules governed play and it remained a variation
  of British rugby until Walter Camp, coach at
  Yale, got several other coaches and schools to
  agree to consistent rules in 1871.
• These rules included have 11 players to a side,
  downing the football before play resumed, a
  variation of todays snap, and (added in 1882) a
  set of downs to complete play.
• Football remained excessively violent (at least
  18 players were killed in play over the next few
  years) and many schools banned it. In 1905,
  Theodore Roosevelt prevailed on several major
  universities to save the sport. From this grew
  college and, later, professional football in the
  20th century.

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NFL Innovations

• NFL football is more closely tied to media,
  especially television, than any other sport. The
  NFL Commissioners office has seen its primary
  mission as
• Regulate play (set rules).
• Promote the sport.
• Enhance the value of the owners investments.
• Expand the league.

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Football and the Growth of Media Sports

• Pete Rozelle, NFL Commissioner through the 1960s
  and 1970s saw television as an invaluable tool in
  accomplishing the leagues goals and used it to
  do the following
• Legitimate the sport as spectacle-both Monday
  Night Football and the creations and exploitation
  of the Super Bowl were key elements in this.
• Legitimate the sport as entertainment-again, MNF
  was key as were expanded television packages sold
  to the networks.
• Expanding the league-after the AFL merged into
  the NFL, expansion has continued (1976-the
  Seahawks and Buccaneers, expansion in 1993,
  realignment of the league, etc.).
• Promote the sport-expansion of marketing
  (especially through television), expansion of
  programming beyond games (the Super Bowl
  spectaculars, etc.).

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The AFL Challenge

• The NFL has only had one major challenge to its
  dominance as the major football league in
  America. This occurred in 1960 when the American
  Football League was developed. The AFL employed
  the following strategies to gain legitimacy
  before the American public.

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The AFL Challenge

• Gain television contracts for games.
• Draft the top college players, offering them more
  to play than the NFL.
• Place teams in all major markets (New York,
  Dallas, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and so on).

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The AFL Challenge

• The AFL succeeded in getting key television
  contracts, in drafting Joe Namath, the most
  popular college player of the day, and in placing
  functioning franchises in all key areas.
• In 1969, the NFL acknowledged the AFLs success
  by seeking a merger. They merged into the
  current NFL.

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Failed Football Challenges

• The following attempts to challenge the NFL
  failed for the listed reasons
• The World Football League (1974-1975)-failed to
  gain key television contracts.
• The United States Football League
  (1983-1985)-failed to keep important television
  contracts, too many financially unsound
  franchises.
• The XFL (2002)-failed to legitimate its league as
  professional caliber football.

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Some Conclusions on Sports Organizations

• Sports organizations (including governing bodies)
  exist to generate revenue. To do so, they must .
  . .

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Some Conclusions on Sports Organizations

• Promote the sport-through advertising, marketing,
  personal sales, identification with community,
  creating spectacle, building a sense of
  legitimacy and competition in the public mind.

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Some Conclusions on Sports Organizations

• Legitimate the sport-through creating consistent
  rules, regulating the image of the sport and its
  players, eliminating fears of cheating, creating
  sports heroes.

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Some Conclusions on Sports Organizations

• Expand the sport-through promotion in new
  markets, creating new teams, promotion through
  new media, creating broader fan bases.