Endless Contest:

1
Endless Contest

• Theorizing the devolution of advanced sports
  media cultures

2
Todd Joseph Miles Holden

• Professor, Mediated Sociology
• Graduate School of International Cultural Studies
• Tohoku University
• Sendai, Japan

3
Opening on a ClosingThe Tour de France

• The 95th Tour de France (which began on July 5th)
  will finish this Sunday, July 27th

4
Opening on a ClosingThe Tour de France

• It began this year in the following predicament
• The 2007 winner American Floyd Landis was
  stripped of his 2006 title after testing positive
  for synthetic testosterone.
• And 2 teams were banned
• Astana, the team of eventual winner, Alberto
  Contador
• Due to doping scandals over the last two years
• (Team) Cofidis
• which withdrew after Cristian Moreni tested
  positive for testosterone

5
The Contested Tour

• Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov
• Also of Astana
• Tested positive for a blood transfusion
• And was removed from the Tour last year
• Levi Leipheimer
• Also of Astana
• Also banned

6
The Contested Tour

• Ivan Basso
• 2006 Giro d'Italia winner
• A 2-time Tour podium finisher
• Was also absent, due to a 2-year ban for blood
  doping

7
The Contested Tour

• Manuel Beltran
• was ejected from the Tour (on July 11, 2008)
• For testing positive for the performance-enhancer
  EPO
• Moises Duenas Nevado
• Ejected from the tour (on July 16, 2008) after
  testing positive for EPO

8
Doping and Biking

• Besides Beltran, Floyd Landis, Roberto Heras and
  Tyler Hamilton have all failed doping tests on
  the Tour
• all are former Postal riders during Armstrong's
  seven Tour wins from 1999-2005
• all failed their tests after quitting Armstrongs
  team

9
This PaperThe Inside Dope

• Hopefully this slides title doesnt refer to the
  author
• Generally, this is a working paper
• It concerns matters like doping, but also other
  forms of what I label contest in sports

10
This PaperThe Inside Dope

• Better, it concerns the rampant contestation that
  sport has introduced into contemporary society.
• It focuses on the contest beyond the actual games
  (I.e. outside the realm that sport has
  traditionally been about)
• Such contest is abetted to a large degree by mass
  media
• The media angle is less empirical here than it
  needs to be
• For media is perhaps the central player in
  engendering endless contest in contemporary
  society

11
Some Premises/Claims

• Sport is often viewed as a sublimater of
  aggressive tendencies (Elias and Dunning 1986)
• a simulation of combat, if you will
• However, it may, in fact, work to stimulate even
  more acrimony and deeper societal schisms
• With the media as instigator/conspirator/abettor
  of these divides

12
Some Premises/Claims

• Sport increases the sense of contest in
  numerous, unanticipated ways. Including
• the heightened emphasis on economic haves and
  have nots
• the sudden attention by political, administrative
  and legal entities to rules infractions and
  enforcement
• the exaggerated attention to rules infractions
  and conduct violations
• The heightened emphasis on stating opinions and
  taking sides.

13
Some Premises/Claims

• Sport increases the sense of contest in
  numerous, unanticipated ways. Including
• 5. the increased involvement of public
  authorities in the activities of private
  entrepreneurs
• 6. the increased sideshow-like ambiance built
  around athletes and sporting events
• fueled by tabloid media
• and due to the crossover of athletes into the
  realm of celebrity, entertainment, and show
  business

14
Societal Developmentand Sports

• These developments can be located with increasing
  regularity
• It appears true for societies which are most
  developed
• i.e. which have achieved the highest rung on
  modernitys ladder (e.g. Maguire 1999)
• with the largest, most extensive and
  sophisticated sports media cultures (Miller et
  al. 2001)
• and which have evinced the most advanced stages
  of sportization (Elias 1986).

15
About this Paper

• Showing this requires attention to both empirical
  and theoretical threads
• It also can benefit from comparison
• Thus this paper will look at cases from both the
  United States and Japan
• Doing so, we can see that contest is not a
  phenomenon transpiring only in one society
• Although it is manifested in differing ways
• Due to factors such as
• the cultural history
• The political traditions (and)
• The media institution, itself
• In this way, contest can be seen as both a
  universal AND particular phenomenon

16
About the Cases

• And one or more of the following institutional
  elements
• Political
• Legal
• Administrative
• Economic
• Social

• All involve the active contestation between one
  or more of the following human elements
• Athletes
• Coaches
• Management
• Fans

17
Media Role

• The role of the media institution is
• Not as neutral reporter
• Rather, as active stimulus
• The Effect is
• A fueling of contestation between the various
  actors, above, is highlighted
• Side-effects include
• A widening of connectivity between sports and
  other societal domains legal, rational,
  administrative, economic, political,
  popular/cultural

18
Some Aims

• One avowed aim (at least in the delusional moment
  of writing my abstract) was
• to identify
• then categorize
• the various types of contestation transpiring in
  advanced sporting societies today
• then flesh out some of the ways that this can be
  understood vis-à-vis social theory.

19
A Main Contention

• The central role played by the media institution
  in simultaneously assisting
• societal evolution
• and a certain kind of devolution (through
  increased contestation)
• Though neither of these may be clearly/obviously
  seen by simply studying isolated cases of
  contestation

20
The Media Assessed

• Includes
• Talk radio
• Newspaper
• Television
• Internet news sites
• Blogs

The assessments, themselves, are of
non-systematic samples, treated via qualitative
content analysis.
21
The Cases Considered
22
The Cases Considered
23
The Cases Considered U.S.
24
The Cases Considered U.S.
25
The Cases Considered Japan
26
The Cases Considered I The Mitchell Report

• On March 3, 2006, Major League Baseball
  Commissioner, Bud Selig, announced that the
  league would begin a full-scale investigation
  into the use of performance-enhancing drugs
• MLB had banned such drugs as part of the
  collective bargaining agreement signed in 2002

27
The Cases Considered I The Mitchell Report

• Selig named former Senate Majority Leader, George
  Mitchell, to head the open-ended investigation.
• Mitchell was a director of the Boston Red Sox
• Also Chairman of The Walt Disney Co., the parent
  of ESPN
• He insisted his affiliations would have no effect
  on the investigation

28
The Cases Considered I The Mitchell Report

• Mitchells 20 month investigation ended up naming
  86 baseball players involved in using performance
  enhancing drugs
• Highlights included
• 7 MVPs and 31 All-Stars were named
• 87 players named 34 active in 2007
• Former player Jose Canseco (who wrote a
  best-selling book, Juiced confessing his steroid
  use) was named 105 times
• Barry Bonds was named 103 times
• Lenny Dykstras use between 1988 and 1993
• The case of 1996 MVP Ken Caminiti
• The 1998 case of Mark McGuire
• The complicity of players, executives and
  reporters
• Media coverage at the time

29
The Cases Considered II Barry Bonds

• Barry Bonds, a prominent name in the Mitchell
  Report, is the all-time home run leader in MLB

Here we see him in before and after shots --
from early in his (pre-steroid) career and then
later (post-steroids)
30
The Cases Considered IIBarry Bonds

• Bonds, who refused to cooperate with the Mitchell
  Commission, was featured in the book A Game of
  Shadows, written by two investigative reporters
  from The San Francisco Chronicle.
• That book alleged that there have been two Barry
  Bonds
• The likely Hall-of-Famer
• Who, for 13 years, averaged 32 home runs and a
  batting average of .298
• And the most prolific home run hitter of all time
• Who for the next 6 years averaged 49 home runs
  and a batting average of .328

31
The Cases Considered IIBarry Bonds

• A Game of Shadows documented
• how Bonds was able to increase his productivity
• during what is usually the twilight of a players
  career
• Between the ages of 35 and 40
• assisted by steroids

32
The Cases Considered IIBarry Bonds

• Based on the evidence presented in that book a
  grand jury was convened
• Bonds testified. He denied the allegations that
  he knowingly took steroids.
• He was subsequently indicted for lying to a grand
  jury and obstruction of justice.
• A free agent this year, no team has been willing
  to pick Bonds up as an active player.

33
The Cases Considered IIBarry Bonds

• The indictment was based on data obtained from
  BALCO, a bay area facility asserted to have
  prescribed steroids to numerous elite athletes
• The indictment cited 19 occasions in which Bonds
  allegedly lied under oath.
• His trial is pending
• If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 30
  years in a Federal penitentiary

34
The Cases Considered III Roger Clemens

• One name prominent in the Mitchell Report was
  that of Roger Clemens

35
The Cases Considered III Roger Clemens

• Clemens is
• A 7-time Cy Young Award winner (best pitcher in
  the league)
• Eighth on the all-time win list with 354 career
  victories
• A league MVP and All-Star
• Long considered a sure Hall of Fame entry

36
The Cases Considered III Roger Clemens

• According to the Mitchell report, Clemens may
  have been supplied with Human Growth Hormone by
  his personal trainer.
• Clemens denied these charges
• However a fellow teammate close friend, and
  work-out partner, Andy Pettitte, admitted that he
  was injected with HGH by the same trainer

37
The Cases Considered IIIRoger Clemens

• McNamee told Mitchell investigators that
• he injected Clemens with Winstrol through the end
  of the 1998 season
• and that Clemens' performance showed remarkable
  improvement
• Records show that Clemens had a record of 5 wins
  and 6 losses through the first 2 months of the
  season, then went 15 wins against 0 losses in 22
  starts with an Earned Run Average of 2.29

38
The Cases Considered IIIRoger Clemens

• McNamee also told investigators that
• during the middle of the 2000 season, Clemens
  made it clear that he was ready to use steroids
  again.
• Thus, during the latter part of the regular
  season, McNamee injected Clemens in the buttocks
  four to six times with testosterone.

39
The Cases Considered IIIRoger Clemens
A nationally televised congressional hearing
disintegrated along partisan lines

• Democrats argued that Clemens should be found
  guilty of lying to Congress
• Republicans argued that he was a hero and role
  model who, if found guilty, should receive a
  presidential pardon (from former baseball
  executive, George W. Bush).

40
The Cases Considered IIIRoger Clemens

• The entire Clemens affair further disintegrated
  into a variety of tabloid stories, about
• Clemens wife getting her own steroid injections
• The wives of Clemens and Jose Canseco comparing
  breast implants in front of their husbands at a
  party
• And Clemens alleged affair with a country and
  western singer who, when she first befriended the
  pitcher, was only 16.

41
The Cases Considered IIIRoger Clemens
The abiding image of this case, to date, was how
it quickly descended into tabloidization,
sensationalization, and lurid demonization
42
The Cases Considered IVMarion Jones

• Another BALCO athlete was Marion Jones
• At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Jones finished with
  three golds and two bronzes
• She was featured on the covers of Vogue, Time and
  Newsweek magazines
• She received multi-million dollar contracts for
  her efforts.

43
The Cases Considered IVMarion Jones

• Seven years later she publicly confessed to
  taking drugs before her Sydney triumphs
• She was sentenced to 6 months in prison for lying
  to federal prosecutors about her steroid use.
• She was also stripped of her Olympic medals
• And fined.

44
The Cases Considered IVMarion Jones

• In sentencing her to prison the judge stated
• "athletes in society ... serve as role models to
  children around the world. When there is a
  widespread level of cheating, it sends all the
  wrong messages.
• And
• "People live with their choices and the choice
  not to play by the rules has been compounded by
  the choice to break the law."

45
The Cases Considered IVMarion Jones

• In response to the sentencing, USA Track Field
  President Bill Roe issued this statement
• (The Jones case is) "a vivid morality play that
  graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in
  any facet of life, on or off the track.
• This highlights why cases of cheating occur
• I.e. their chance for huge positive payoff
• Also highlights why the media is so interested
• The idea that it is a morality play not unlike
  a Shakespearean drama or Hollywood movie sprung
  to life

46
The Cases Considered V Spygate

• In 2008 a claim was made by a former video
  assistant on the New England Patriots
• Considered the team of this decade in the
  (American) Professional Football League (NFL)
• The claim was that New England coach Bill
  Belichick, had authorized the filming of rivals
  practices and the interception of their sideline
  hand signals during games in 2007
• Both violations of league rules
• In a nod to the famous political espionage
  chapter in United States politics (Watergate)
  this affair was dubbed spygate by the U.S.
  sports/news media

47
The Cases Considered V Spygate

• Although Coach Belichick denied these claims,
  certain circumstantial evidence suggested it
  might be true
• His personality -- which is notoriously
  conflictual, conspiratorial, secretive, and
  paranoid
• The fact that the heart of the allegation
  concerned the championship game of 2002 -- where
  his team defeated the heavily favored St. Louis
  Rams
• And the existence of videotape which proved the
  point
• One influential member of the U.S. Congress,
  Senator Arlen Specter (R - Pennsylvania) was so
  incensed as to demand Congressional Hearings into
  this affair
• Although this seems also to stem from the fact
  that his home team had lost in playoffs to the
  Patriots in recent years

48
The Cases Considered V Spygate

• Ultimately the NFL conducted its own internal
  investigation and then imposed what could be
  viewed as pre-emptive sanctions
• Fining Coach Belichick (U.S.) 500,000
• Fining the Patriots (U.S.) 250,000
• And taking the Patriots 2008 First-round draft
  pick away
• Though not as severe as some might have wished,
  these were certainly not cosmetic penalties
• The medias general reaction, though, was the
  Patriots are so talented they didnt need that
  draft pick anyway and Belichick is so financially
  well off, even if his team doesnt pick up the
  tab, he can afford the fine
• Moreover, this sort of contest perfectly matched
  the sort of crotchety Ill play the game on my
  terms demeanor of the man and his New England
  team
• In short, it was a good story full of the kind of
  conflict that the audience likes

49
The Cases Considered VI Don Imus

• On Thursday, April 5, 2007, shock jock Don Imus
  uttered words on his CBS morning radio show that
  ultimately led to his dismissal

50
The Cases Considered VI Don Imus

• He referred to the NCAA championship women's
  basketball team on, as "some rough girls from
  Rutgers. They got tattoos. Then he went on to
  call them "some nappy-headed hos.
• Comparing them to the Tennessee team they beat
  for the Women College basketball title, Imus
  termed the teams as, respectively, "the jigaboos
  versus the wannabes."

51
The Cases Considered VI Don Imus

• Imus, was once voted one of Americas 25 Most
  Influential People in America by Time magazine
  and is a member of the National Broadcaster Hall
  of Fame.
• Nonetheless, the firestorm of criticism --
  particularly from minority groups and led by
  African American Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse
  Jackson -- led to Imuss immediate ouster by CBS
  radio.
• Within 8 months, however, Imus had returned to
  the airwaves on ABC Radio.

52
The Cases Considered VII Michael Vick

• Michael Vick was a prototypical new generation
  quarterback in American football player a player
  with foot speed, physical toughness, balance,
  acrobatic ability, and a powerful, accurate
  throwing arm

53
The Cases Considered VII Michael Vick

• On April 25, 2007 the media reported that
  evidence had been gathered by law enforcement
  agents about illegal dog-fighting on one of
  Vicks rural properties.
• Vick was indicted on federal dog fighting charges
  and pled guilty to one count of running an
  interstate dog fighting ring. He admitted
• to providing most of the financing for the
  operation
• sharing in the proceeds from these dog fights
  and
• that he knew his colleagues killed several dogs
  who didn't perform well enough.
• In 2007 he was sentenced to 23 months in Federal
  Prison.
• State trial awaits his release from Federal prison

54
The Cases Considered VIIITim Donaghy

• Tim Donaghy was a basketball referee who worked
  in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for
  13 seasons (1994 to 2007)
• He officiated 772 regular-season games and 20
  playoff games

55
The Cases Considered VIIITim Donaghy

• Donaghy resigned from the league on July 9, 2007
  just before it was announced that the Federal
  Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating
  allegations that he bet on games that he
  officiated between 2005 and 2007.
• It was also claimed that Donaghy made calls that
  affecting the point spread in those games.
• On August 15, 2007, Donaghy pleaded guilty to two
  federal charges related to the investigation.
• He was sentenced on July 14, 2008.

56
The Cases Considered VIIITim Donaghy

• On June 12, 2008, during the NBA Finals, Donaghy
  further stirred the pot by alleging in a brief to
  the sentencing judge that league referees
  affected the outcomes of two playoff series in
  the past decade.
• 2002 Los Angeles Lakers - Sacramento Kings
  Conference Finals
• 2005 Dallas Mavericks - Houston Rockets playoff
  series

57
The Cases Considered VIIITim Donaghy

• The reason, Donaghy alleged, was to boost league
  revenue and television ratings.
• The implication was that these improprieties were
  sanctioned -- even suggested -- by the league
  hierarchy.

58
The Cases Considered VIIITim Donaghy

• One effect of the allegations was to deflect
  attention from the NBA Finals.
• Game fixing became the focus of basketball talk.
• Rather than celebrating the renewal of the
  storied rivalry between Boston and Los Angeles
• the two cities which had won 1/2 of all NBA
  titles in league history

59
The Cases Considered IX Asashoryu

• Asashoryu is the bad boy of sumo
• The first Mongolian to ever achieve Yokuzuna,
  sumos highest rank
• He was the first man in the sports history to
  win all 6 official tournaments in a single year
• He has won 22 tournament championships to date

60
The Cases Considered IX Asashoryu

• Asashoryu is sumos bad boy because he
  constantly flaunts its traditions and thumbs hs
  nose at the strict codes of behavior which
  regulate activity outside the ring
• An avid K-1 fan, he has often spoken of quitting
  sumo for the more celebritized world of martial
  combat
• He stunned the sumo world in 2007 when, while
  taking time off from sumo to recuperate from
  (alleged) injuries, he was found playing in a
  charity soccer match back in Mongolia
• The media frenzy that followed led to his
  suspension from sumo for 2 tournaments.

61
The Cases Considered XDaiki Kameda

• The Kamedas are an entire presentation in
  themselves.
• A family of three boys, trained (and managed) by
  their father
• They are gruff, uncouth, follow their own unique
  training regimen, and play by their own rules
• They also fancy themselves celebrities

62
The Cases Considered XDaiki Kameda

• Their rise to prominence in boxings lighter
  weigh classes has been supported and packaged by
  Japanese television broadcaster TBS
• Thus, numerous evening specials and morning show
  segments feature the fighting family from Osaka

63
The Cases Considered XDaiki Kameda

• Daiki, who is only 18, is known for his cool
  demeanor, his ever-present sunglasses, his tinted
  hair, poor manners, and his penchant for singing
  songs over the PA after his victorious bouts
• In October 2007, however, he was suspended for
  one year for his behavior during a WBC flyweight
  title match

64
The Cases Considered XDaiki Kameda

• During the match his father and brother advised
  him to gouge his opponents eyes and hit below
  the belt
• And as it was clear he was losing to his 33
  year-old opponent, he tried to lift and throw
  him, rather than box.

65
The Cases Considered XDaiki Kameda

• In an editorial, the newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun
  declared that the Kamedas have helped taint the
  "simple, stoical" sport of boxing with "elements
  of entertainment" that dont differ much from pro
  wrestling.
• Daikis elder brother later met the media and
  issued an apology on behalf of the entire family

66
The Cases Considered XI Luis Gonzalez

• On April 30, 2008, Luis Gonzalez of the venerated
  Yomiuri Giants, was handed a one-year suspension
  for failing a drug test
• Gonzalez is a Venezuelan native
• Hed played for the Colorado Rockies from
  2004-2006,
• His positive test was for clobenzorex,
  amphetamine, and p-hydro-xyamphetamine

67
The Cases Considered XI Luis Gonzalez

• Gonzalez was immediately released by the Giants,
  whose executives held a press conference to, in
  part, publicly apologize for the disgrace they
  had visited (through their player) on Japaense
  professional baseball
• The executives performed a ritual, collective,
  synchronized bow for photographers and reporters
• This was the second suspension for illegal
  substances in Japanese professional baseball
  history
• The first was in 2007 when pitcher Rick
  Guttormson of the Softbank Hawks testing positive
  for Finasteride, a hairgrowing agent
• Guttormson was suspended for 20 days

68
The Cases Considered XII Daniel Rios

• One month later, a third illegal performance
  enhancement case led to another suspension and
  firing
• Tokyo Yakult Swallows right-hander Daniel Rios
  was suspended for one year by the Nippon
  Professional Baseball Association following a
  failed drug test
• He actually was tested twice (in late May and
  late June)
• His positive test was for hydroxystanozolol, a
  metabolite of the anabolic steroid stanozolol
• Although Rios denied and wrong-doing, Yakult
  immediately released him

69
The Cases Considered XII Daniel Rios

• Rios is a native of Spain
• He played briefly with the New York Yankees in
  1997 and the Kansas City Royals in 1998
• He then pitched in South Korea for 6 seasons

70
The Cases Considered XIII Tomohiro Nioka

• On July 6, 2008, Tokyo Giants baseball player,
  Tomohiro Nioka was seen in a love hotel with Mona
  Yamamoto, a popular TV announcer of mixed
  Norwegian/Japanese heritage.

71
The Cases Considered XIII Tomohiro Nioka

• For Yamamoto this was the second brush with
  scandal. She had been fired from her earlier job
  as anchor on TBSs late night news program (NEWS
  23) when it was learned that she was having an
  affair with a married politician.
• In the case of Nioka, who is also married, with a
  1 year-old child, Yamamoto took the brunt of
  criticism.
• Just back in her own show after a 2 year exile,
  she was promptly suspended.

72
The Cases Considered XIII Tomohiro Nioka

• For the most part this has been tabloid fodder.
• Niokas teams response
• His behavior was very senseless. We apologize to
  our fans. He is sorry for his own actions now.
  Since he is one of our key players, we decided to
  let him off with just a verbal warning this time.

73
Making Sense of the Cases
74
Making Sense of the Cases

• Individually, these cases are all fascinating
• However, collectively, they cohere in some
  telling ways
• Above all, within their own societal contexts
  (i.e. the United States and Japan), these cases
  tell us much about the nature and perception of
  contest in the respective societies

75
Making Sense of the Cases

• In America, off-field contest is manifested in
  rational terms via legal and administrative
  processes, rules, interpretations and resolutions
• In Japan, off-field contest exist no less yet
  they are manifested in emotional terms via
  recourse to moral claims, to discussion of
  national and cultural integrity and the adherence
  to codes of practice and history

76
Making Sense of the Cases

• These cultural systems are mirrored and
  buttressed by their media systems
• Which convey communications and processes that
  pass through, respectively, rational and
  emotional (cultural) filters
• But whose writers and reporters, themselves, are
  primed to think and respond, to shape and bend,
  the stories in these particular directions

77
Making Sense of the Cases

• Thus is it that Japanese sporting discourse can
  easily give way to national/ist dialogue about
  what it means for a traditionally insular society
  to accommodate itself (for better and worse) to
  the influx of foreign elements
• Games, players, practices, ways of orienting
  oneself in the world

78
Making Sense of the Cases

• Just as American sporting discourse can easily
  become hijacked by rival political programs
• The liberal discourse of increased governmental
  and administrative regulation to eliminate
  cheating
• The conservative discourse of increasing moral
  education in order to eliminate an endemic
  culture of self-aggrandizement at any (often
  illegal) cost

79
Making Sense of the Cases

• The cultural systems are not completely hermetic,
  of course
• Forces of globalization not only bring players
  and sporting cultures into contact with one
  another
• So, too, are institutional values and practices
  brought into dialogue, and co-mingled
• Thus were the legal-rational anti-drug policies
  of the American and European golf associations
  adopted this year by the Japanese professional
  golf association
• So, too, are these perspectives now under
  consideration for adoption in Japans most
  traditional, most national sport Sumo

80
Making Sense of the Cases

• The cultural systems are also not completely
  distinct from each other
• Driven increasingly by commercial media, sports
  in both countries have become
• Mainstreamed and society-centered entertainment
• Increasingly vehicles for info-tainment
• A domain nurturing the cult of celebrity
• A site for commercialization of its key figures
• A vehicle for the manufacture of heroism both
  artificial and mundane
• One would wonder if this is not also occuring in
  other societies/cultures, as well

81
The Causes of Endless Contestation
82
The Causes of Endless Contestation

• The cases cited above provide details, above all,
  of how people associated with sports have screwed
  up
• This is no surprise as there are clear incentives
  for cheating in sports.
• For instance, Strulik (2008) has explained the
  rise of doping cultures through socio-economic
  modeling
• It postulates that the doping decision of
  professional athletes is both a costs/benefits
  calculus (in terms of potential rank improvement)
  but also the approval by fellow athletes

83
The Causes of Endless Contestation

• In short, reputation is a major factor.
• We know that fame and economic incentive are also
  elements that influence decisions to cheat to
  act in excess.
• Which, in turn, leads to regulation (by
  government) and attention by news media
• And, if one of commercial medias major dictums
  is that sex sells, well, so, too, is that true
  of conflict
• Contest is akin to the publishing dictum If it
  bleeds, it leads

84
The Causes of Endless Contestation

• Certainly, media has to play a role
• The watchdog role that the media has
  traditionally played
• which can be seen in the Bonds/Game of Shadows
  case
• Weighed against the ability to capitalize on
  athletes marketability (their salesworthiness)
  which can drive paper purchase and viewership (on
  TV) and, hence, derivatively, advertising sales
• which is a part of the Kameda and Nioka stories

85
The Causes of Endless Contestation

• The media has a major role to play for the simple
  reason that conflict off the field may be even
  more compelling than conflict on it.
• It conforms to the 24-7 news cycle of cable
  television, talk radio, and the Internet

86
The Effects of Endless Contestation
87
The Effects of Endless Contestation

• Missing, though, from my discussion this far is
  larger attention to the reaction of fans
• Although, on this count, some evidence suggests
  that the effect of scandals in any one sport are
  not fatal to the sport.
• Paul Swangard, managing director of the
  University of Oregons Warsaw Sports Marketing
  Center, has said, for instance, that the Donaghy
  scandal does not much influence the mainstream
  fan and, thus, the future growth of a sports
  league like the NBA.

88
The Effects of Endless Contestation

• In a Los Angeles Times article, Swangard said
  For the mainstream fan, the integrity of the
  game is probably less important than the
  entertainment value
• . . . Its a(n) issue that they are aware of,
  but dont care about. Similar to the steroids
  controversy in baseball.

89
The Effects of Endless Contestation

• And the recently completed NBA Finals can serve
  as some guide in this regard
• Amidst the talk of match-fixing, these finals,
  pitting the two most storied NBA franchises
  playing in the finals against one another for the
  first time in 24 years, led to enormous TV
  ratings
• Far exceeding the previous years totals (between
  50 of households and 60 of viewers
• The largest ratings for NBA Finals in 8 years
• And this, despite the fact that one of the
  officials implicated in Donaghys allegations of
  2002 match fixing worked one of the 2008 Final
  games

90
The Effects of Endless Contestation

• Of greater concern might be the cumulative
  effects
• The kind that have been theorized, for instance,
  by Noelle-Neumann in her spiral of silence
  model
• Relative to sports scandals, or endless
  contestation, what is developed among media-sport
  consumers may be an understanding that, rather
  than the privileged realm of play, sport is the
  zone of struggle, of rules-breaking, of trying to
  exploit neutral, presumably objectified systems
  for personal benefit and aggrandizement.

91
Media Role/Media Effect

• In all of these cases, we can see (to varying
  degrees) the presence of media
• A committee chairman is also a board executive of
  a major media empire
• The enhanced performance that drugs allows leads
  to
• endorsement contracts (in the case of Marion
  Jones)
• The flowering of third-party media exposure (in
  the case of Jones and Roger Clemens)
• Intentional marketing of the athlete and sport by
  broadcasters (in the case of Kameda), thereby
  growing the sport and (with the sport) the
  athlete
• The circulation of societal-wide racial discourse
  via the racist commentary of the media (the Imus
  case)

92
Media Role/Media Effect?

• But in asking about the efficacy of the media
  role, I would point to this example
• In 1992, MLB Player of the Year, Ken Caminiti,
  confessed in Sports Illustrated that he used
  anabolic steroids
• He estimated that roughly fifty percent of the
  players in the league were using them also.
• His story had a major impact on the media and its
  attention to drugs in sports.
• The following chart shows U.S. media attention to
  steroids in sports in 1992.

93
Media Role/Media Effect?

• Week 14 is when the Sports Illustrated article
  was published about Caminiti.
• Prior to that, only ten pieces were published in
  the mainstream media.
• In the following 14 weeks, over 250 articles were
  published about steroids and sports.

94
Media Role/Media Effect?

• Source http//www.steroid.com/steroids-in-sports.
  php (year 2002)

95
Media Role/Media Effect?

• The SI Story had a kind of monkey see, monkey
  do effect (in the media)
• However, it was more than a decade later than any
  tangible influence -- in the form of substance
  use policies in sports, Congressional hearings,
  the Mitchell Report, and Grand Jury indictments
  -- could actually be seen
• So, while there is a media role for and an
  positive political/social outcome from endless
  contestation, it exists on a decided temporal lag

96
Conclusion

• The Devolution of Advanced Society?

97
Conclusion

• It is always good to remember the aphorism be
  careful what one wishes for . . . Because it
  might come true.
• In those inspired moments just prior to the
  tolling of the submission deadline I dashed off
  the fateful words the devolution of advanced .
  . .etcetera and so forth.
• How stupid can a sole be?
• because here I am now having to explain and
  (more) defend those words

98
Conclusion

• Well, clearly, we have yet to experience the
  demise of modern civilization because of endless
  contest
• So, what could I possibly have been thinking of,
  right?

99
Conclusion

• My basic thesis is that
• Above all, when it comes to contemporary mediated
  sports, we are in the midst of a framed reality
  of continuous contestation
• This imposes a rhetoric of divide -- of division
  on us
• Second, as convenient as endless contest may be
  for the media, and as compelling as it may be for
  the fan, the results in terms of stability for
  the larger society may not be positive at all.

100
Conclusions

• These cases clearly demonstrate that contestation
  exists in advanced commercial sporting cultures
  like the U.S. and Japan
• Although the data is not longitudinal, I would
  venture that contestation, as a rhetorical
  sporting form and as a mode of discourse, is
  accelerating
• This is due, I would assert, because of economic
  and political interests are engaged by
  questionable aggrandizing, self-centered, even
  illegal -- acts of athletes, coaches, and
  governing authorities
• So, too, because of the intentional action of
  media
• For which endless contest is a favorable
  communication tool

101
Conclusions

• Why this should precipitate a decline in these
  advanced societies should not require too much
  justification
• The notion that everyone cheats or everyone is
  out to get theirs is bad enough
• But what it results in is one of two responses
• right, Im going to get mine, as well or else
• wed better intervene to make sure that doesnt
  happen, or else
• wed better knock this _at_ down a rung

102
Conclusions

• Hold on, let me get mine as opposed to Not so
  fast, let me check your urine
• The culture that advanced media sports has bred
  is that the purity of fair play has been
  expunged.
• Mistrust attends every new athletic feat
• Thus heroism is now suspect
• A world lacking in heroes may not be completely
  bad
• But a world of perpetual suspicion, of endless
  challenge of human achievement and motivation is.