The Commercialization of Basketball
The game of basketball is changing, but not willingly or by it own doing. Corporate America has been poking around in the petri dish containing American sports for years now, steering its path of evolution wherever desired. The effects can easily be seen on and around the basketball court in the form of corporate logos engrained on the floor, product advertisements everywhere from the rafters to the programs to the scorers table, and company labels stitched into players uniforms and shoes. Basketball, and sport in general, has become one of the most effective commercial vehicles and marketing tools, but at what price? How has sport, both the actual competition and the viewing experience, suffered from this virtual corporate takeover?
I quickly became aware of the corporate influence over sport on Tuesday, when I had my first experience navigating Minneapolis on foot. My destination was the Target Center, but long before reaching the Timberwolves basketball arena, I became aware of the omnipresent corporate influence that Target has on the city. I parked about 12 blocks away from the arena and around every turn was a sign directing me to the Target Center. I still managed to get lost both before and after the game, walking all the way to St. Paul for all I know, but that can be credited to my inability to follow directions rather than a lack of “advertising” for the Target Center.
Timberwolves basketball has become an excellent commercial vehicle for Target. Not only is the corporate name analogous with the team, it is associated with the city as well. Of course, although Target does have its name in lights all over the building, it isn’t the only corporatio...
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...ntrol over commercial media, in the end it is still commercialization that has the power to change the game.
Works Cited
Media Text 1 – Newspaper articles:
Hruby, Patrick. “Commercialization threatens the magic of street basketball.” The
Washington Times 18 October 2002, final ed.: C01.
Kilgannon, Corey and Vincent M. Mallozzi. “Basketball With Pizazz In a Changing Harlem; Stars and Marketers Join a Playground Crowd.” The New York Times 2 August 2002, late ed.: B1.
Media Text 2 – “2002-2003 Minnesota Timberwolves Yearbook.”
Media Text 3 – My experience at the Target Center and my observations of what fans valued as entertainment.
Class Text References – Textbooks:
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1985.
Lull, James. Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Walter LeFeber's book serves as a cornerstone of reference for its content as it relates to race, black business and the expansion of global capitalism since the late 20th century. With regard to race, it shows how race effected middle-class Michael Jordan at a young age and how he grew in the star he became, yet still could not es...
.... Players are also factors in fighting against dystopian way because it inhibits them to freely be themselves while they are playing and working in a association they worked on their whole life to get into. In other words, its bizarre to see players who are the main value in sports such as basketball, however are still able to be confined due to the authoritative power of the basketball association. Overall, since people depend heavily on social media and television, associations use their power such as imposing dress codes to present their players on television so that viewers can be aware and interested in why the NBA is trying to sell such as tickets to stadiums, clothing, and certain messages. IN result, this has lead society to fall under a dystopia, where everything is controlled by higher authority restricting thus the rights us people were first entitled too.
Starting with black holes, Khalili describes the creation of one. I found that a black hole is what remains when a massive star dies. Because stars are so massive and made out of gas, there is an intense gravitational field that is always trying to collapse the star. As the star dies, the nuclear fusion reactions stop because the fuel for these reactions gets burned up. At the same time, the star's gravity pulls material inward and compresses the core. As the core compresses, it heats up and eventually creates a supernova explosion in which the material and radiation blasts out into space. What remains is the highly compressed and extremely massive core. The core's gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. This object is now a black hole and literally cannot be seen because of the absence of light. Because the core's gravity is so strong, the core sinks through the fabric of space-time, creating a hole in space-time. The core becomes the central part of the black hole called the singularity. The opening of the hole is called the event horizon. Khalili describes that there are two different kinds of black holes:
In the collegiate world of sports, basketball has become an increasingly recognized sport among African Americans, predominantly males. The hope of any young basketball player is that one day a scout will come and recruit them into stardom The question that presents itself as a problem to the lucky few who are chosen to go professional, is whether or not an education is more important than a million dollar shoe deal, “The NCAA's (1998) annual six-year study reported that only 33% of Black male basketball players graduated, (Chronicle of Higher Education, 1999). Individually, basketball reported the lowest graduation rate in all divisions,” (Robinson, 2004:1). Basketball players have become so idolized in the eyes of young Black male basketball athletes, that the value of education appear to be less important in the development of these young men, “According to Sailes (1997), there is an over-representation of Black males in particular sports and an under-representation in other segments of American society. He provides the example of percentages of Black males competing in the NBA (77%), NFL (65%), MLB (15%), and MLS (16%) in comparison to the fact that fewer than 2% of doctors, lawyers, architects, college professors, or business executives are Black males.”, (Robinson, 2004:1). The idea of the attainment of a professional basketball player’s salary in the NBA, without even having to go to school for the time it takes to earn a degree is very appealing to some players. Those with a wealthy, or even upper-middle class upbringing may not view material assets as a priority. In the Black community, we have theorized that money and success play a more important role than education in most households. Although these two seem to go together, one resulting from the other, this does not apply in the sports world. Our research will examine the role that the family value system plays in influencing Black vs. White male athletes to turn professional, as opposed to obtaining a college degree before turning professional.
Silk, Michael. (2005, Nov 2). Week 9 Fall 2005: Star Spangled Sport: Nation, Culture & American Exceptionalism. Presented at a KNES 293 lecture at the University of
Black holes are points in space where there are extreme gravitational pulls that prevent anything, including light, from escaping. The reason for such a strong gravitational pull is due to vast amounts of matter being contained in a small amount of space. Stellar black holes form from stars with a mass greater than 20 solar masses and can be a result of gravitational collapse. Gravitational collapse is a result of the star’s internal pressure not being able to resist the stars own gravity. When the star is exhausted of its nuclear fuel such that it cannot maintain a high enough temperature it will begin to collapse under its own weight (Seidel 2011). As the star collapses it causes a supernova which blasts the outer layers of the star into space while the core completely collapses under its own weight. If the remnant core left behind exceeds 3 solar masses there are no known forces that can prevent the core from completely collapsing into a black hole (p. 568 Bennett et al. 2013)
Zimbalist, Andrew S. Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism And Conflict In Big-Time College Sports. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Status and prowess that inherently came from playing competitive sports and recreation also came out of convenience. As sports and recreation became integral in American everyday life, there was a problem in the north. It became too cold to play baseball and football outside, but it was wasn’t possible to play these sports inside as it just resulted in injuries to players and the facilities where they attempted to play them. Therefore, basketball was invented as a game where you couldn’t run with the ball and scoring was upright in hopes to decrease the amount of violence but also provide men with recreation in the winter. Soon, basketball just like cycling, football, prize fighting and baseball became a competitive sport and turned into a business where status and prowess become the significant. There were handbooks written to guide people to play and watch basketball and prove its status as a serious sport; “physical judgment is required and cultivated in handling the ball, receiving it from one of your own side, and eluding an opponents” (Naismith 5). Basketball, just like other sports required prowess, physical fitness and understanding of the game in order to defeat the
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Black holes are incredible processes that happen in space that are capable of crushing anything unlucky enough cross paths with them. Black holes have caught the attention of millions of people around the world because of their incredible strength and the fact that so much is unknown about them. The theories of possible outcomes resulting in traveling into a black hole has been used in many science fiction stories, but what we think is science fiction could actually exist. With black holes being out of our reach, and even difficult for our greatest minds to understand, what happens within them may just stay science fiction. The more we learn about black holes the more questions we ask.
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