Commodification of Sport

This week’s discussion focus on sports commodification. Commodification is defined as changing goods or services into an item that is for sale. In our capitalist society sports tend go hand in hand with marketing and consumption.  But has making money off of sports gone too far? Are we putting populations at risk because of the emphasis placed on making money?

Super Bowl 50’s thirty second spots sold for 5 milliondollars. This was a 4.4 million increase over 2015. The price is expected to stay around 5 million this year. In my head this seemed like a large jump, but businesses were willing to pay that price last year, and are willing to pay this price again this year. This money doesn’t even go back into the game of football. The money goes into the hands of the media outlets showing the game. The athletes, do not benefit off of the increased prices in commercials.

Jenn M Jackson talks about The Trouble With the Commodification of Athletes’ Labor. The issue she watched in sports involved the athlete’s protests during the national anthem. She educated her readers that the NBA requires in their contract that all players stand for the national anthem, but the NFL does not. She felt that athletes lost their ability to be themselves and stand up for what they believe in with the risk of losing sponsors. By doing that she believes players could be considered “sell outs” by choosing to make sponsors happy and change your behavior.

Now, when the protest started by San Francisco 49, Kaepernick was making a political statement. He may not have known how his action would affect his chance of staying on the team. Jackson points out that players that followed Kaepernick’s example lost personal endorsements.

After reading the chapter and Jackson’s article I agree that athlete’s put themselves at risk of losing personal voices by being paid for their actions on the sports field. Until this semester, I didn’t realize that corporate sponsors were so available to individual players. I thought it was an elite few that earned personal endorsements. That gives me a different view on players as I have been learning about a team environment that is so prevalent in sports. Jackson’s argument that people could be “sold’ to get the desired results from an individual and that seems odd putting one person ahead of the team.  “These tenuous ties to capitalistic organizations hampers his (the athlete’s) full autonomy and agency, making him both master and subject of his own political existence.”  

This job is full of people that make good money and to use the players in political games does not make me feel like a team is being created. That sounds like a bunch of “I’s” to me, in a job that needs more focus on us.

I do not think athletes should have all the pressure written into the advertiser’s contract to “behave” a certain way out of fear of making themselves look bad. I do think the ad company has a chance to report and alter the advertisement, They should not sign a contract without looking at what his/her actions can be while this debate goes on.