Round his back, through the hoop, then you scream "Touchdown!"
David Nielsen's Memphis Commercial-Appeal article "Passion for sports varies by age, gender, race" (via the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University) lays out the stratified nature of some professional sports leagues' audiences.
Among the most polarized sports is the NBA, particularly among different racial and age groups.
Professional basketball is the most popular sport among African-Americans (67.4 percent) and is the third-most followed sport by those between 18 and 24 years old (59.4). But less than half as many whites (28.4 percent) and people 65-and-older (25.1 percent) follow the game.
"Sports Illustrated about four or five years ago pointed out that in certain parts of the north, several high schools, even when the majority of the students were white, parents would tell their sons don't even bother to try for basketball (because) you're not going to make it," said John Walter, professor of American Ethnic Studies and history at the University of Washington. "The impression was that as long as there are any black students around, the white students can't jump. And you know there is a film by that name which of course is nonsense.
"But the impression is that's what it is because there is a high percentage of black folks in basketball. There's also the underlying sense of racism which is still alive and well in our country."
Boxing's popularity is equally stratified. 41.7 percent of those 18-24 follow it, compared to only 9.5 percent of Americans 65-and-up. Similarly, 44.4 percent of blacks and 41.2 percent of Hispanics follow boxing, but just 17.8 percent of whites.
"Black people identify with (former heavyweight champion) Jack Johnson and then later on with Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, and all those who came after," said Walter. "For black folks then this was an affirmation that they were not inferior, because all this time they've been told then as now that black folks are inferior to white people.
"As far the Hispanics, you can see what's happening. They're small people, but they dominate the smaller classes after blacks left." [...]
Also relevant: Roger Phillips' Oakland Tribune article "Sociologist sees scant change in NFL"
posted in articles on December 18, 2003 6:22 AM | t (0)
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