American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic : Communicative Insights

Warren Buffett once opined that "only when the tide rolls out do you discover who's been swimming naked." In a similar vein, American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic focuses on how communication practices, structures, and principles change when a key locus--sport--has much of its cultural and political-economic power disrupted. How intertwined is the economic viability of an American collegiate institution to the communicative enactment of the regular staging of collegiate sports? What proportion of a sports media contract is for the competition itself, as opposed to the documentation of fans being "fanatic" as they witness contests live and in-person? Who and what is deemed most disposable, and how do such decisions play out for athletes of different genders, races, and abilities? Questions such as these form the core foci of this volume. As many have observed, out of crisis comes opportunity. In this instance, this volume provides an opportunity for leading scholars of communication and sport to consider which principles should be rethought or reconceptualized based on the effects of the pandemic on our culture, politics, and economy.

Andrew C. Billings (Ph.D., Indiana University) is the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Journalism & Creative Media at the University of Alabama. He has published over 220 journal articles and book chapters along with 22 book projects, the majority of which pertain to issues of media content and effects.

Lawrence A. Wenner (Ph.D., University of Iowa) is Von der Ahe Professor of Communication and Ethics at Loyola Marymount University. Founding editor of the research journal Communication and Sport, his most recent book is the Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society.

Marie Hardin (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is Dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Her scholarship has focused on issues of gender, diversity, and ethics in sports journalism.