In the Sports, Media & Society blog, Melanie Formentin writes about renowned sports writer Dave Zirin's article about the role politics play in sports. He states a few key points in this article:
1) Militarization of professional sports is a huge issue. Fans don't even think twice about the political displays they see at sporting events, or watching sporting events. (military fly-overs, gun salutes, military nights, etc)
2)Pat Tillman's death and the controversy revolving around it. The cover up was mean to preserve the aura of Tillman as a sports star combined with a military hero, yet actually he was strongly against the war by his death.
3)Commercialization was another big issue talked about. 1992's "Dream Team" gold metal ceremony sported Michael Jordan with an American flag draped over his right shoulder. Little did spectators know, that this was meant to hide the reebok symbol on his jersey.
These main points bring fort a lot of emotions in regards to social media and subliminal messaging in the sporting realm. Political messages are involved in every aspect of our lives, and it's safe to say the those messages are the best at hiding in other forms of our culture. It also involves a sort of branding. People sympathize with stories about heroes and their hardships. Billy Jean King was another example listed in the article. Not only does this relate to our lecture on women's basketball in connection with breaking gender barriers, but it shows that the power of sport is extremely profound in our culture, and is able to cause a vast amount of change in ideals, and promote/instill ideas in our culture's minds.
My question is if this sort of subliminal advertising/media branding was/has been used to promote agendas of Title IX, either for or against?
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