Fifty years after Frank Robinson became the first Black manager in Major League Baseball, the league is struggling with a significant decline in Black players and leaders

As Black History Month begins Feb. 1 and Major League Baseball celebrates the making his debut as the first Black manager, the sport is at a point of introspection with the lowest number of African Americans players in

The milestone is both a reminder of how far baseball came since segregation and how delicate inclusion efforts are in baseball and other institutions in the United States.

As the United States emerged from World War II, and continued to keep the country largely segregated. The war, however, was also a turning point for African Americans, who demonstrated that their service was of equal value to others who fought in the war.

One such soldier was Jackie Robinson, the first athlete to letter in . His teammates broke the color barrier in the NFL in 1946, while —seven years before determined that “separate but equal” thresholds for segregation were unconstitutional. Jackie Robinson’s last season as a player was 1956, the same season a young Frank Robinson debuted with the Cincinnati Reds.

In 1972, the Reds played the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. By that point, Frank Robinson had been traded twice and spent the season playing for Jackie Robinson’s former team, the Dodgers.

During Game 2 of the series in Cincinnati, . During his speech accepting the honor, , an opportunity he never got despite his expressed desire to manage a team. Jackie Robinson died nine days after his speech—Oct. 24, 1972—never seeing Frank Robinson hired as the first Black player-manager two years later.

during the 1974 season after openly campaigning for the manager position with the Dodgers. Cleveland was the first American League team to sign a , and broke ground again 28 years later by hiring Robinson. He was the first player to win MVP in both the National and American League, but had a rocky tenure with the team, often being pushed to play when he wanted to focus on managing and . He did lead the team to its first winning record in eight years in 1976, the last season he played, before being fired during the following season.

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Robinson went on to manage the San Francisco Giants and his former team, the Baltimore Orioles, winning manager of the year in 1989. He was fired from the Orioles during the 1991 season—the year Major League Baseball had the highest percentage of African American players in the league, 18% of all players. The following season, to win a World Series.

Robinson continued to work in the league office after his time with the Orioles, returning to the dugout after being tapped by , which the league owned at the time. The team moved to Washington D.C. in 2005 and his final season as manager was the first season for the newly founded Washington Nationals.

Declining youth participation

The dearth of opportunities for African Americans to coach and assume leadership positions in sports is not new; however, baseball has seen the most precipitous drop in participation, .

Contributing to this drop is the lack of African Americans in leadership positions, with only two African American managers, , and one ). In spite of these paltry numbers, three of the last five World Series winners have been

The numbers are even worse in college baseball, with ; of these 26 managers, 17 were from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The lack of visible leadership affects scouting, mentorship and even participation when players cannot see a career in the sport they love if they do not make it to the major leagues.

The low numbers of African American athletes in the college pipeline to the major leagues is only one of the reasons for the continued decline of African Americans in professional baseball. Like many sports, the privatization of youth sports is forcing many lower- and even middle-income families to reconsider their . Local governments and schools have slashed recreation and athletic budgets, leading to more expensive sports like baseball to be cut, which in turn leads to a higher reliance on private leagues.

Many families ultimately balk at the cost of playing baseball, steering their children into more accessible sports as . The relatively low number of Division I 13 maximum scholarships across This also leads some families to encourage their children to focus on other sports to earn a college scholarship.

Even if amateur baseball players get drafted and signed, minor league salaries are so low that the same issues can arise that exist in youth baseball: players who cannot afford to remain in the sport. Minimum salaries are between just under , when minor league players unionized and negotiated a raise from a minimum salary between $4,800 and $17,500.

Salary expectations have led many scouts to focus on international players, particularly from Latin America, where teams will make verbal agreements with children as in spite of the fact that teams . MLB turns a blind eye to these agreements that often push children as young as 10 from countries like the Dominican Republic to leave school to pursue baseball. These players may be given performance-enhancing drugs to make them look more mature and artificially improve their athleticism. These players are ripe for exploitation, including lower salaries since they are beholden to Major League clubs with which they make these “handshake” deals—while their families take out  loans based on future earnings, . 

Hope for long-term results

Economics and leadership are not the only factors in the decline of African Americans in professional baseball. The sport has declined as “America’s pastime” for decades, and for many is considered less “cool” than sports due to its slower pace—as well as kids’ alternative activities in the summer months—leading to a drop in viewership, .

African Americans have also been historically discouraged from playing certain positions, particularly the on-field leadership positions of catcher and pitcher, the latter of which is the most visible position in the sport. has historically impacted all sports, including basketball ( and football due to discriminatory and false assumptions that African American players were not intelligent enough to play those positions. Basketball and football have seen dramatic shifts at these positions while baseball still sees limitations for

As with viewership, some of the issues pushing African Americans from baseball are emblematic of the decline in baseball’s overall popularity. However, there are some glimmers of hope for the future of African Americans in the sport. The House v. NCAA settlement will allow schools to increase the number of student athlete scholarships up to the roster limit, which is 34 in Division I—

The opportunity to earn compensation directly from schools may also support continued involvement in the sport. Much like , however, revenue sharing will disproportionately go to the top-earning sports: .

Outside of the college ranks, MLB has been actively involved in a number of initiatives to try to increase participation among young players, including that was started in 1989 and is now sponsored by Nike. Players like Jimmy Rollins and recent Hall of Fame inductee C.C. Sabathia are both alumni of the program, but results have been less impactful in recent years with fewer alumni from the United States advancing to professional baseball. , a training academy focused on African American pitchers and catchers, in conjunction with USA Baseball during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. , named for the Hall of Fame player, is a round-robin tournament for HBCU baseball programs that runs every year at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Florida.

There is hope these efforts will yield long-term results and reverse the decline of African American players in baseball. The sport still needs to address its in the United States and the lack of African American mentors and leaders in the sport, but some of the structures are there to encourage a renaissance of great Black baseball figures 50 years after Frank Robinson broke the managerial glass ceiling.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

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The success of simulcasts means that fans can expect to see more creative takes on traditional sports, including SpongeBob SquarePants calling Saturday’s NFL Wild Card game

As the final seconds of Super Bowl LVIII ticked off, according to social media, the biggest star was not MVP Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce or even Taylor Swift; it was a sea sponge and his starfish best friend. l starring SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star as commentators was a huge hit, with on-field graphics and animations featuring Nickelodeon stars and, of course, slime.

This was not the first time a media conglomerate aired or streamed a simulcast as a companion to its main broadcast to attract more fans. ESPN’s first basic simulcast was in 1987 after the network gained partial rights to the NFL—the first cable network to air the NFL—agreeing to simulcast the game on . When ESPN2 launched in October 1993, it offered a second ESPN network to sports fans and within a year ran its first alternative broadcast, bringing in-car views to .

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

In 2006, the network created later renamed the Megacast, leveraging the popular basketball rivalry between Duke University and the University of North Carolina to offer local broadcasts and alternative camera views for the game. The previous year, ESPN had launched its college-focused ESPNU and ESPN360, its broadband broadcast service, and used these newer platforms along with its .

ESPN offered statistics and other data on its high-definition networks, which were still separate from the standard-definition networks, and even offered polling through ESPN mobile before social media exploded.

These simulcasts and “Megacasts” aimed to give dedicated fans a more in-depth look at the game or event that was being broadcast. At the same time, leagues and sports broadcasters were looking for different ways to attract young and casual fans who enjoyed sports but were not the obsessive fans at which these Megacasts were targeted.

Courting younger fans

For a long time, leagues took young fans for granted, In today's expanding media environment, young and casual fans have infinite options for entertainment, so leagues and their broadcasting partners have had to strategize new ways to attract new audiences.

One of these efforts debuted in 1973: Peter Puck, an anthropomorphic hockey puck created by NBC executive Donald Carswell and animated by Hanna Barbera. NBC had just obtained the rights to the NHL, which was struggling to grow its audience in the United States. Carswell thought Peter would be a great way to teach U.S. audiences the rules of professional hockey through three-minute shorts between periods. Although NBC stopped airing the NHL in 1975,

The 1980s brought a sea change for sports as cable and improved marketing began to create the enormous sports media environment we experience today. As networks competed for viewers, sports became a reliable form of entertainment to attract audiences who had more choices than ever. As football continued to dominate the sports landscape, buffered by the 1984 Supreme Court decision to allow college football broadcasting to , other leagues strategized to draw fans to television, stadiums and arenas.

Throughout the 1970s, teams had built larger stadiums and debuted mascots like the to entertain fans. The following decade, as the NBA struggled to find a broadcaster to air its championship games live, David Stern—who took over the league as commissioner in 1984— the NBA experience, making attending games more family friendly with more timeout and halftime entertainment.

It just so happened that same year that the most marketable athlete of all time came into the league. Michael Jordan was not only a boon for adult basketball fans, but also kids who wanted to In 1992, Jordan co-starred with Bugs Bunny in the Nike advertising campaign He retired the next year to play baseball before returning to the NBA in March 1995. The following summer, Bugs and Jordan reunited to film which grossed more than a quarter of a billion dollars after it premiered early into the NBA season in November 1996.

As a part of this effort to draw new fans, leagues also produced shows aimed at younger fans like which debuted in 1980 and featured MLB players and managers teaching baseball fundamentals. Ten years later, “premiered on NBC’s Saturday morning schedule, joining a growing sports media industry aimed at kids that included publications like Sports Illustrated for Kids and video games like the Madden, FIFA and NBA 2k series, among the most popular video game series of all time.

Primetime slimetime

The consolidation of the U.S. media system throughout the 1980s and 1990s led to massive media conglomerates. Unsurprisingly, NBC held the network broadcast rights for the NBA when “NBA Inside Stuff” aired. As broadcast and cable networks came under the same corporate umbrella as film and animation studios, new opportunities for cross promotion emerged. Disney bought ESPN and opened the , named after the anthology series that aired under one of their other subsidiaries, ABC, from 1961 until 1997     . Disney also founded an NHL team, , in 1993—named after the popular 1992 kids hockey movie—and in 1996 debuted “ on ABC, which featured anthropomorphic hockey playing superhero ducks.

The success of Space Jam and the continued media conglomeration strengthened the relationship between animation and sports. NASCAR rights holder FOX debuted an animated action series featuring NASCAR branding, a day before the 1999 race season finale. Cartoon Network aired the marathon in 2003, featuring interstitial interviews with NBA players in the lead-up to the All-Star Game, which aired the evening of the game on TNT (both networks were owned by Warner subsidiary Turner).

In 2016, appeared on the Cartoon Network series the same night as a TNT basketball doubleheader and a few days before the All-Star Game. Later, the of the 2023 NBA Slam Dunk Contest in the lead-up to the NBA All-Star Game airing on TNT.

Although these series and specials expanded the visibility of league branding and special events, the engagement with actual games was limited. When Viacom and CBS merged again in 2019, after splitting 14 years earlier, they began strengthening the relationship between former Viacom network . They began featuring Nickelodeon content on CBS All-Access, now Paramount+, and in 2021 Nickelodeon aired an between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints featuring Nickelodeon live-action and animated stars joining the real-time NFL broadcast with alternate announcers Nate Burleson and Noah Eagle. Current Denver Broncos coach , similar to the traditional Gatorade shower.

The following season, premiered on Nickelodeon, a highlight show hosted by Burleson that strengthened the relationship between the NFL and Nickelodeon. This relationship exploded during last years’ Super Bowl as the Nickelodeon simulcast on the cable network and Paramount+ was credited for a growth in game viewership, especially among younger and casual fans who appreciated the

A pineapple under the arena

As media conglomerates continue to leverage sports rights to attract audiences and increase subscriptions to their streaming services, they have also leaned into the popularity—and meme-making possibilities—of these simulcasts. Several months after the Nickelodeon simulcast of the Wild Card Playoff, Disney leveraged its Marvel Cinematic Universe to produce a simulcast, on ESPN2 and its streaming service, which was similar to the Wild Card game on Nickelodeon and featured special graphics and superhero-themed content related to the real-time NBA games between the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans. the company behind augmented games like the Arena of Heroes simulcast, extended their contract in the summer of 2024.

In 2023, Disney aired its own fully animated simulcasts with the NHL broadcast in March and the Toy Story-themed NFL game in September. Both regular-season games included a rendering of the real-time broadcasts featuring stars from its animated franchises. Disney followed this up in December 2024 with another featuring “The Simpsons” and the Christmas Day animated simulcast featuring classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. In between these two games, NBC’s Peacock service offered an alternate stream of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans featuring graphics from the

As SpongeBob and Patrick prepare to announce the Nickelodeon simulcast of the 2025 NFL Wild Card game between the Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers Saturday, fans should be prepared for more of these simulcasts as networks and streaming services try to market these games to young and casual fans, boosted by social media memes like   and .

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

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Fifty years after the famed ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ Muhammad Ali is remembered not only as the heavyweight champ, but as a champion of civil rights

It is hard to imagine, but coming off of his more than three-year exile from boxing, Muhammad Ali spent four years regaining his position as the top heavyweight in boxing. He lost everything by —not just his boxing career and his promotional business, but also derailing his budding advertising and media career.

Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky, winning the  before turning professional as a heavyweight. A myth emerged that he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River after returning to his home city as .

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

His experiences negotiating racism and segregation as an Olympic hero would inform his outspoken approach to civil rights and make him a hero to millions across generations.

Ali won his first 20 professional matches—and became heavyweight champion—at age 22, defending the championship across nine challenges before he was stripped of his championship and exiled from the sport in 1966. He appealed his draft reclassification, which happened in spite of his dyslexia and his position as a conscientious objector. Other athletes who were draft-eligible were placed with National Guard units or protected by their teams, , so it was particularly curious that the most popular athlete in the country was reclassified and drafted.

Conscientious objector

, the boxer then known as Cassius Clay changed his name first to Cassius X and then to Muhammad Ali. He had , but did not reveal his conversion until he was secure in his boxing career after winning the championship. He fell out with Malcolm X after the civil rights leader left the Nation following revelation that leader Elijah Muhammad had children out of wedlock; Malcolm assumed Ali would support him, 

In 1966, to promote his fights and oversee the closed-circuit broadcasting of his fights. The Nation of Islam held many of the shares in Main Bout Inc., including through Ali’s manager, Jabir Herbert Muhammad, third son of the Nation’s leader; other shareholders included football legend Jim Brown. To help forge relationships, boxing promoter Bob Arum was included and after the company folded due to Ali’s arrest, 

Ali’s religious conversion and his perspective that America should not be involved in the Vietnam War led to his refusal to be inducted. He was arrested and convicted of breaking Selective Service laws, and he continued to protest the war as he appealed. His conviction was , although he returned to boxing in late 1970 as sentiment against him softened and boxing commissions granted Ali licenses to fight again. He fought three matches before the Supreme Court ruled in his favor,

As Frazier and Ali worked toward a rematch, a young boxer rose up the ranks after winning the heavyweight gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. George Foreman entered the fight against Joe Frazier at 37-0, . Ali also lost his second match, this time against Ken Norton, but after Foreman beat Norton,

Defending world champion George Foreman goes down in the eighth round during his Oct. 30, 1974, bout against Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire. (Photo: Richard Drew/Associated Press)

King did not have the money on hand, and the huge monetary promise to both boxers led other promoters to avoid working with King to organize the event. King, who had been released from jail in 1972 after being convicted of second-degree murder, forged a relationship with Ali after promoting a charity fight, but was unable to come to agreement with any venue in the United States to stage the fight. As a result, he looked at other countries to stage it. Fred Weymar, who was an advisor to Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, convinced  support for his regime, . King also pulled in funding from , with Hemdale and Video Techniques Inc. as official co-promoters. Color commentators included Brown, Frazier and journalist David Frost.

Rumble in the Jungle

Promoted as the Rumble in the Jungle, the fight was an incredible spectacle, even by today’s sporting standards. Originally scheduled for Sept. 25, 1974 (it would have been broadcast Sept. 24 in the United States due to the time difference), it was pushed back to Oct. 30 due to a . A three-day music festival called , originally scheduled to precede the match, which included James Brown, Bill Withers, B.B. King, The Spinners and Celia Cruz alongside more than a dozen African artists.

Although Ali arrived in Zaire as a 4-1 betting underdog, he was the overwhelming favorite of the Zairean/Congolese people. , which was the dog breed used by the Belgian occupying forces against the Congolese people, further cementing his status as the villain. Foreman and Ali were polar opposites, with Ali seen by many as unpatriotic in America, but a hero in Africa. Foreman, on the other hand, represented Cold War nationalism after beating Soviet Jonas Čepulis in the 1968 Olympic gold medal match, leading to the famous image of the very large 

. Although the event itself did not go as planned—King assumed hundreds of high-profile boxing fans would travel to Zaire, but only a few dozen ended up making trip—the fight is seen as one of the greatest. The match  from closed-circuit broadcasts in U.S. theaters and other broadcasts rights globally, leading to an estimated audience of more than 500 million people worldwide.

The legendary status of the fight was cemented by Ali’s upset win against the younger and stronger Foreman. Ali and his trainers understood that he would be unable to outpunch Foreman, so they relied on Ali’s skill and speed. By the second, round Ali was leaning against the ropes, avoiding and absorbing blows with his arms and body, which did not earn Foreman points with the . Eventually, Foreman exhausted himself and Ali took advantage, knocking out the future grill entrepreneur in the eighth round.

In one of the most famous photos of Muhammad Ali ever taken, the boxer stands over Sonny Liston during a May 1965 bout in Lewiston, Maine. (Photo: John Rooney/Associated Press)

Approaching retirement

In his next bout, Ali fought Chuck Wepner and was knocked down in the ninth round, at least partially due to a light training schedule. Ali still won, and the fight would inspire Sylvester Stallone to write Rocky,

Ali retained the heavyweight title for more than three years, , the third match in the trilogy between Ali and Frazier that saw the champion employ the “rope-a-dope” again, as both fighters struggled in the heat of Quezon City, near the Philippine capital of Manila. Ali lost to Leon Spinks in February 1978 on a split decision, before beating 

Ali sent his letter of retirement to the World Boxing Association before returning to the ring to face his former sparring partner Larry Holmes for the vacant World Boxing Commission title, reportedly taking the fight . Before the fight, he was ordered to undergo examination at the Mayo Clinic because there was a concern as to whether he was fit to return to the ring—he had begun to .

The fight was so one-sided that Holmes went on to win after Ali’s long-time trainer finally stepped in to stop the fight. Stallone attended the fight in Las Vegas and compared it to  Ali fought one more time before ultimately retiring.

As time went on, Ali struggled with the impact that Parkinson’s had on his health—a condition related to taking an . He continued to make public appearances, including his inspiring lighting of the Olympic torch in the 1996 Atlanta Games. He continues to be a , considered the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

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Fernando Valenzuela, who died Tuesday, was more than just the first Mexican superstar in Major League Baseball; he helped soothe longstanding resentments in a displaced community

Wednesday that Fernando Valenzuela passed away late Tuesday night at the age of 63. The legendary pitcher debuted late in the 1980 season as a 19-year-old, but it would not be until his first full season when the rookie would initiate “,” fascinating not only Dodgers and baseball fans, but people throughout the United States and Latin America.

Valenzuela helped the , the last time the two teams met. At a time when the Dodgers struggled to soothe their relationship with Mexican American fans, Valenzuela was not only the balm, but also initiated a wave of players from Mexico that continues today.

The Dodgers’ relationship with the large Chicanx community in Los Angeles had long been fraught after the building of Dodger Stadium. Following passage of the Federal Housing Act in 1949, then-Mayor Norris Poulson chose Chavez Ravine, a shallow canyon in Los Angeles, as the location to build 10,000 housing units, promising the Mexican American community living there that they would have their first choice of housing.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

Yet after most of the neighborhood was razed, the project was delayed, and when the Dodgers decided to move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, . The broken promises led to decades of resentment between the team and the Mexican American community in the city, as the remaining residents were forced out of the neighborhood.

Selling out stadiums

Valenzuela was scouted by several teams, but when legendary Cuban-American scout in , he convinced the Dodgers to buy out Valenzuela’s contract in the summer of 1979, just beating out the Yankees. He worked his way up from the minor leagues, debuting with the Dodgers in September 1980 after learning what became his signature pitch, the screwball, which breaks the opposite direction of a curveball or slider.

He spent the final month of the season as a reliever, helping the team contend for the .

The following season, the 20-year-old Valenzuela was tapped to be the Dodgers’ opening-day starter after pitcher Jerry Reuss was injured the day before the game. This set off , as he went 8-0 with five shutouts and an earned run average of 0.50. in June, but when the season resumed in August, Valenzuela helped the team win the World Series, becoming the first pitcher to win both the National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards in the same season.

Valenzuela sold out stadiums both at home and away, becoming a phenomenon only a few years after first signing to the Mexican league from his small, rural hometown in Sonora. An international Horatio Alger story, Valenzuela’s rise is one of the most unbelievable in modern sports history.

Valenzuela spoke very little English and struggled to communicate with many of his teammates; however, team manager Tommy Lasorda spent time in the Caribbean winter leagues and helped Valenzuela’s transition to the major leagues, while Mike Scioscia learned enough Spanish to become the young pitcher’s personal catcher. Valenzuela would go on to make six straight All-Star games before derailed his career. He ultimately played 17 seasons and threw a no-hitter for the Dodgers in 1990, but his legacy goes far beyond his phenomenal rise.

The first Mexican superstar

Walter O’Malley had owned at least a minority stake in the Dodgers since 1944, accumulating a larger stake in the team and eventually becoming its president in 1950. He was part of the ownership group that signed O’Malley was tired of the Brooklyn Dodgers living in the Yankees’ shadow—their Ebbets Field had less than half the capacity of Yankee Stadium (32,000 vs. 67,000) and the Dodgers lost six of the seven World Series matchups with the Yankees in the 1940s and 1950s. O’Malley saw a business opportunity in moving to the West Coast and building his own stadium in spite of the displacement of the Mexican American community there.

Fernando Valenzuela, known for his signature 'screwball' pitch, winds up during the Dodgers' April 8, 1986, home opener. (Photo: Tony Barnard/Los Angeles Times)

Much like Robinson brought Black fans to the Dodgers, and baseball more generally, O’Malley who refused to watch the Dodgers not only because of resentment over the displacement, but also because the Dodgers were seen as a team for the white community in Los Angeles. Walter O’Malley died a month after the organization signed Valenzuela, so he never saw the impact of the first Mexican superstar in baseball.

Though famous, Valenzuela still faced many of the same issues other Mexican immigrants faced coming to America. The language barrier led to isolation early in his career, and after his historic rookie season, he was threatened with deportation as he held out for a It was said that partly due to meeting Valenzuela in 1981.

Despite the disappointment of being cut by the Dodgers during 1991 spring training, Valenzuela maintained his legendary status with the team, becoming their color commentator in 2003 and having his number, 34, retired in 2023.

His jersey is still one of the most popular, with Valenzuela jerseys seen throughout Dodgers stadium In spite of his status as the greatest player from Mexico to play in the Major Leagues, he has not been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, although many artifacts from Fernandomania sit in the museum in Cooperstown.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

Top image: Fernando Valenzuela pitches a two-hit, 4-0 victory over the Montreal Expos at Dodger Stadium May 21, 1986. (Photo: Marsha Traeger/Los Angeles Times)

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The recent death of Dikembe Mutombo and the start of the NBA regular season today highlight the fraught realities of building a talent pipeline between lower-income countries and the NBA

On Sept. 30, Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo passed away after a two-year battle with brain cancer. As a young NBA fan, I looked at Mutombo as someone both figuratively and literally larger than life.

Even as a fan of the Philadelphia 76ers, one of my favorite basketball memories was when Mutombo helped lead the Denver Nuggets to an upset of the No. 1-seed Seattle Supersonics, which featured an iconic highlight of Mutombo holding the final rebound as he celebrated on the ground. I later had the joy of watching him as a Sixer when the team made a run to the NBA Finals in 2001.

Mutombo’s legend went beyond his size, with an incredible backstory that might seem too unbelievable for a Hollywood script. academic scholarship at 21, originally . But after being recruited to play basketball, and knowing very little English, he majored in linguistics and diplomacy, earning internships with U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui and the World Bank.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

My sister attended Georgetown, and Mutombo stories were common—with his intelligence, gregarious nature and success on the court making him a legend at the university. He was drafted by the Nuggets on the day after his 25th birthday and played 18 years with several teams, including the Houston Rockets, where he was a mentor to another international player, Yao Ming.

During his playing career, Mutombo began , started his own foundation to support his native Congo and served as the He also began working with , a program started by the NBA to encourage friendship and tolerance through basketball camps run globally.

The program was first introduced in 2001 in the Balkan states after the Yugoslav Wars, before entering Africa in 2003. It has become a pipeline for future all-stars like Pascal Siakam and Joel Embiid to earn college scholarships and be drafted into the NBA.

In 2023, the NBA had a record 125 international players on team rosters, with 19 of those players from African nations. The last six MVP awards have been won by three international players, two of whom, (born in Greece to Nigerian parents) have deep ties to Africa. Mutombo followed as a part of the first wave of African players to enter the NBA. There was a dramatic increase of international players entering the NBA that began with the fall of the Soviet Union and accelerated after the

Still-rare success

The success of players like Olajuwon, Mutombo and Embiid is still fairly rare in spite of the internationalization of basketball. 72% were from Canada or Europe, representative of the strong basketball pipeline within the Global North and evidence of the developmental resources maintained by these Western nations with strong youth programs and professional leagues.

Players who emerge from outside of these pipelines are often exceptional in , overcoming a lack of developmental support. Recent evidence of the wide gap in resources was the relative success of the , which challenged top teams in spite of there being no in the nation. , whose family escaped the war-torn country and settled in Great Britain before Deng enrolled at Duke for a year, becoming a two-time All-Star during his 15-year NBA career.

For every Deng, Antetokounmpo or Mutombo who make it to the NBA or other professional leagues around the world, like the , there are thousands of others who don’t. It is a lottery that creates competition domestically among lower-income groups, including members of the African diaspora in the United States, where social mobility only seems accessible.

The now-iconic image of then-Denver Nugget Dikembe Mutombo celebrating an overtime win against the Seattle Supersonics May 7, 1994. (Photo: Bill Chan/Associated Press)

The desire to leverage sports to achieve social mobility is not new, but it has become increasingly international as domestic sports leagues continue to globalize, driven by access through

Earlier efforts to globalize were focused on wealthier nations in Europe and Asia, with the NBA and NFL holding exhibitions in countries like . Since the 1970s, the NFL has attempted to expand beyond the United States, which officially launched in 1991. After NFL Europe folded in 2007, the league looked toward expanding beyond U.S. borders—self-tasked with expanding not only the NFL brand but American football in general.

The NBA, on the other hand, has focused on expanding as the top basketball league in the world, leveraging the international popularity of the sport. This growth was supported by the fall of the Iron Curtain and growth of professional basketball globally, driven both by television and the popularity of players like Michael Jordan. to allow their professionals into the Olympics led to the 1992 Dream Team, which only accelerated this growth.

Big in China

Understanding of how international players can expand the game, and brand, was further evidenced by the success of Yao Ming in popularizing the NBA in China. that can arise, considering the Chinese government’s requirement that Yao hand over half his earnings to the government, and later conflicts ignited when

The growth of basketball in Europe and has opened opportunities for American players to continue their professional basketball careers outside the United States and for top European athletes to play in the NBA. The stability of this pipeline, and the success of players like Olajuwon and Mutombo, led to Basketball without Borders. The NFL has run several international development and scouting programs since 2007, leading to the current . Dozens of international NFL players have entered the NFL through this program, creating a strong pipeline in countries like Nigeria, and supported by Osi Umenyiora, a Nigerian-British former NFL All-Pro.

However, the high cost of entry and potential for injury has limited this growth, leading the which will make its Olympic debut in the Summer 2028 Games in Los Angeles. NFL officials have mentioned hopes that it will have the same impact as the Dream Team had for NBA basketball. In a similar vein, FIBA has also been working to leverage 3x3 basketball to expand

Several NBA players participated in the 2017 NBA Africa Game, including then-Dallas Maverick Dirk Nowitzki, center. (Photo: )

This growth is not without complications. Along with walking a fine line between free speech, politics and growth—as evidenced by the conflict between the over Daryl Morey’s tweet in support of Hong Kong protesters, as well as 2024 —there are also claims of cultural and economic imperialism as leagues and their sponsorship partners leverage the sport and operate in other nations.

One of the clearest examples of this imperialism and cultural disconnect is represented in the , which is overseen by NBA Africa and FIBA. Early investors included Mutombo, with . These corporations are looking to leverage the league to expand their brand recognition, which furthers criticism regarding exploitation of labor and resources, .

There is clearly a disconnect between expectations and realities on the African continent, with and European leagues. Unsurprisingly, the BAL and NBA Africa are headquartered in South Africa, in the shadow of apartheid and colonialism.

Ethically fraught global expansion

In spite of these issues, NBA Africa is reportedly valued at over $1 billion, and similar to NBA China, much of the value, and investment, is based on access to potential consumers on the continent, whose population is nearing 1.4 billion. Also, similar to NBA China, there have been issues with the relationships formed to create these subsidiaries. Leaders in nations like Rwanda, Russia and Saudi Arabia have been accused of investing in sport to distract from human rights violations and improve their reputation on the world stage.

The NBA and NFL are far from the only corporations engaging in ethically fraught global expansion; however, the long Western history of exploiting of groups of color, particularly African Americans, only exacerbates concerns regarding globalization of North American sports leagues. Programs like Basketball without Borders present themselves as philanthropic but are actually investments to help expand corporate footprints and open pipelines to talent that removes players from their communities—mirroring similar pipelines between lower-income communities in the United States and major college athletics programs.

Mutombo’s passing reminds us of the positive and negative potential of global sports: the opportunity for social mobility, philanthropy and community, and the risk of widespread exploitation.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

Top image: Men play basketball in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Photo: )

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In just a few decades, Fox went from being ‘the fourth network’ airing The Simpsons and baseball to being a leading voice in U.S. politics

Every four years, Americans oscillate between sports and coverage of the presidential election, and outside of trash talk between competitors, many overlook the commonalities between the two.

The media corporations responsible for covering both sports and politics are the same, and as we experience increasing polarization, it’s important to highlight the direct link between the partisan media and sports media rights—which has existed for 30 years, since for the broadcast rights. That winning bid helped legitimize the nascent broadcast network and establish the partisan cable news environment we are familiar with today.

Fox owner Rupert Murdoch is now known for overseeing one of the largest media empires in the world, but through the early 1980s he was known as a publisher of newspapers, specifically tabloids. He inherited a news publication after his father’s death in 1952, .

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

He expanded his news empire to New Zealand and the United Kingdom through the ‘50s and ‘60s. Although he became known for his ownership of tabloids, his corporation also oversaw more traditional broadsheet newspapers,

By the 1980s, Murdoch had set his eyes on electronic media, particularly television. He struggled to break into the British broadcast market, so he focused his energy on pay TV, buying a controlling stake in . After being excluded from the consortium overseeing British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), he launched his own satellite-based service, circumventing British ownership laws by using the Astra satellite operating in Luxembourg.

Sky launched in 1989, 13 months before BSB’s launch in March 1990.  The two competed for the rights to the FA Premier League, with Sky’s bid, nearly double that of any competitor, seen as overpaying. However, Murdoch saw sports as a , helping to attract viewers who might otherwise balk at spending money for scripted shows and news.

During this time, Murdoch and News Corporation set their sights on the United States, purchasing after Rich became a fugitive for tax evasion and selling oil to Iran during the hostage crisis. He bought the stake from oil magnate and investor Marvin Davis, and 20th Century Fox was considering buying Metromedia, which owned broadcast stations. Davis opposed the purchase while Murdoch and executive Barry Diller pushed to expand the media reach of the troubled studio. Davis sold his stake in 20th Century Fox in 1985, incorporating Davis Petroleum in Denver the next year. Murdoch gained American citizenship, since legally he could not own a broadcast network as a foreign citizen, and in fall of 1986 the Fox Broadcasting Company launched with

The six original stations purchased from Metromedia were in major markets including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Fox Broadcasting Company, or FBC, was renamed , and it officially launched on April 5, 1987.

The fourth network

Fox was considered the fourth network, if people had access to its programming at all. Network programmers purposely scheduled just below the minimum number of hours required for network status to avoid federal regulatory restrictions, including .

As it built its affiliate base, Fox took lessons from ABC to boost its visibility, building a young audience through its programming, prime-time teenage and young adult soaps like and reality television, . However, following the precedent of BSkyB leveraging sports to accelerate growth, Fox made a bid for after ABC hesitated in renewing its contract with the NFL. Fox met the NFL’s asking price, but ABC came back and matched, due to ABC’s more extensive reach. The NFL renewed with ABC.

In November 1995, Fox obtained a partial contract for Major League Baseball. (Photo: Ryosuke Yagi/)

At the end of the 1993 season, however, both the NFC and AFC contracts were up for renegotiation, and Fox ultimately outbid . As a result, Fox executives made a major push to gain affiliates with stronger broadcast signals in major markets, since the network was still using lower-quality UHF frequencies in many markets. This led to a major realignment of affiliations, with stations in markets like Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix, Detroit and Cleveland switching from CBS to Fox.

In November 1995, Fox obtained a partial contract for Major League Baseball, airing 16 Saturday games as well as the By the end of the decade, Fox would also agree to air the Cotton Bowl and NASCAR.

Taking risks

Sports and risk-taking in its entertainment programming boosted Fox’s profile, and the network entered the cable market with as an interactive network embracing the then-emerging Internet. FX rebranded in 1997 as the network dedicated to Fox’s largest demographic, men 18-49, while also serving as a platform for its expanding sport portfolio and a place to rerun popular Fox series.

Throughout Fox’s early years, several other segments of the media were also quickly expanding. CNN had launched as the first 24-hour news network in 1980, but coverage of the helped Fox grow into a major news source on par with other national outlets. In 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was officially repealed, leading to an explosion of conservative radio personalities like . Lastly, the continued deregulation of the media—which was further formalized through the —consolidated the radio market, allowing for more nationally syndicated shows like Limbaugh’s and motivating the major media corporations to further expand, including into cable.

In 1994, NBC spun the news network America’s Talking off from CNBC; it was created by former Republican strategist Roger Ailes, who was . Ailes left America’s Talking under controversy, after allegedly making antisemitic comments to NBC executive David Zaslav, who is now the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Fox News launched Oct. 7, 1996, and has become a significant voice in U.S. politics. (Photo: Steve Bott/)

Ailes was hired by News Corp as founding CEO of Fox News, which launched on Oct. 7, 1996. Three months earlier, NBC had replaced a collaboration between NBC and technology company Microsoft. MSNBC sought its approach through programming with several conservative commentators, including Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson. MSNBC would not find its identity until after Microsoft divested, becoming the left-leaning alternative to Fox News and abandoning the balance it previously tried to find along the political spectrum.

Unsurprisingly, Murdoch and News Corporation took a more heavy-handed approach, paying cable companies to carry the network. Three days after Fox News launched, Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting, which owned CNN. Because of an antitrust consent decree (in which the government sues a company and the defendant agrees to stop alleged illegal conduct), Time Warner Cable was forced to carry a second news station and selected MSNBC, with News Corp claiming that this broke an agreement to carry Fox News.

Citing the fact that its U.S. headquarters were in New York, and leveraging connections, News Corp convinced Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral administration to pressure . Although Time Warner ultimately won the initial battle, Fox News won the war when Time Warner began carrying Fox News. The ordeal displayed Murdoch’s willingness to leverage his close relationships with the Republican Party to support his media empire.

This relationship is at the core of the seemingly real-life , as Murdoch attempts to rewrite his trust to ensure his more conservative son Lochlan takes over Fox Corporation upon his death and maintains the network’s current place on the political spectrum. Even as the media giant sold off some of its assets in the sale of , Murdoch retained Fox’s national sports and news entities—including Fox News, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, along with its cable and broadcast networks—as he continues to leverage sports as a battering ram to protect his international media empire.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

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Fifteen years after Ed O’Bannon’s groundbreaking lawsuit, college athletes continue to benefit from greater control of their name, image and likeness

As an elder Millennial, I remember waiting each year for the announcement of the cover athlete for EA Sports’ collection of college sports video games. As inclusion on this year’s cover, it’s a good time to look back at the fight for student-athlete compensation that led to the reintroduction of the NCAA College Football video game series.

On July 19, thousands of video game players fired up their consoles and, for the first time in 11 years, could build a dynasty as their favorite college football program. However, the lawsuit that led EA Sports and other video game developers to to avoid further lawsuits helped college athletes gain control of their name, image and likeness (NIL) and further compensation, altering the financial power structure in college sports.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor and director of the Critical Sports Studies Program in the Department of Ethnic Studies.

In 2009, Ed, O’Bannon—a former UCLA standout named Most Outstanding Player in the 1995 NCAA basketball tournament, which UCLA won—was playing EA Sports’ NCAA Basketball 09 when had his same attributes, looks and number, even though he was not named in the game. It was common for sports video games to mirror classic teams—including, in this instance, the 1995 UCLA Bruins.

Sonny Vaccaro, a legendary basketball marketer, t alongside 19 other former college basketball players, including athlete labor and civil rights advocates Oscar Robertson and Bill Russell. In 1970, Robertson, then-president of the NBA players’ association, filed an antitrust suit against the NBA to bring free agency to the NBA, while Russell led a boycott during a 1961 preseason game after several teammates were . Both Hall of Famers were part of the boycott of the that led to the NBA recognizing the player’s union.

Along with signing Michael Jordan to Nike, and being played by Matt Damon in the film Air, Vaccaro has long been an advocate for amateur athletes. O’Bannon was an ideal lead plaintiff given that the image in the game was undeniably him, not only matching his height, weight, shaved head and skin tone, but also his left-handedness. O’Bannon was no longer in basketball, so he didn’t risk the retribution that Curt Flood, and helped bring free agency to professional sports, both faced.

The case went to trial in June 2014, and on Aug. 8, Judge Claudia Ann Wilken of the Northern District of California ruled that withholding compensation to student athletes was a violation of antitrust laws. She cited , which ended the NCAA’s exclusive control of college football television rights 30 years earlier. Immediately before the trial, , while the NCAA was ordered to pay more than $42 million before appeal—but more importantly, this set the stage for a radical change in college athlete compensation and the structure of college athletics.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals , but amateurism was an important concept to uphold and all compensation needed to be educationally related. As O’Bannon and the other plaintiffs waited for the trial, decision and results of the NCAA appeal, a number of other current and former student athletes also filed suit. Eventually, those lawsuits were combined into a class action suit, , with Judge Wilken ruling against the NCAA and confirming that the organization placed an unfair restraint on compensation.

In 2019, California passed the first state law that permitted athletes to be compensated for NIL; the NCAA began allowing such compensation in 2021, although

Ed O'Bannon as a UCLA player (left) and in video game likeness in EA Sports' NCAA Basketball 09. (Photos: Al Bello/Getty Images, left, and EA Sports, right)

In 2021, the Alston case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, whose majority decision stated that blocking compensation beyond educational benefits was an antitrust violation, ultimately ending the O’Bannon case seven years after Wilken’s original decision. Wilken also heard the recent case , in which the defendants—including the power conferences ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and Pac 12—agreed to a settlement allowing revenue sharing between schools, conferences and student athletes. The House case also ended scholarship limits, instead instituting roster caps and

Several cases are still undecided, including the Dartmouth College Basketball players’ lawsuit, , which is another effort for college athletes to be recognized as employees of the school, which is supported by the National Labor Relations Board. There is another lawsuit that was filed by former University of Kansas guard immediately after the House settlement. Chalmers and his co-claimants allege that the NCAA and media partners utilize the images of former athletes without permission to market college sports and March Madness.

No single lawsuit can untangle the web of NCAA control that schools and athletes have been challenging for nearly half a century. It is also important to note much of this has been driven by the growth of media money, first through television rights and now branding and expanded access through digital media, which includes video games, streaming and social media platforms.

The NCAA still remains one of the most influential sporting organizations in the world, as evidenced by the , in which hundreds of athletes earned medals in Paris after training at NCAA-affiliated universities. As these successful athletes bring attention—and money—to their schools, they deserve a fair share of the revenue. It is important not to forget Ed O’Bannon’s role in facilitating a more equitable compensation system for student-athletes.

Top image: The cover of EA Sports' College Football 25, featuring Travis Hunter in the center. (Photo: EA Sports)

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As the 2024 Olympics begin in Paris, CU Boulder scholar Jared Bahir Browsh considers how nationalism can inform and influence the games

During the long jump medal ceremony of the 1906 Olympics in Athens, Greece, second-place finisher , an Irish athlete unhappy with having to accept his medal under the flag of Great Britain, climbed the 20-foot flagpole and waved a large green flag proclaiming “Erin Go Bragh (Ireland Forever).” Two of his Irish teammates stood at the base of the flagpole to fend off members of the Greek military.

O’Connor’s flag waving was seen not just as a political protest in support of Irish Home Rule, but a statement of nationalism.

Since the Olympic Games were revived in 1896—and perhaps even in the ancient games when male athletes from various city-states competed—the Olympics have been touted, per the , as placing “sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

“Sports can be a symbol and a surrogate for what’s happening politically, socially and economically in a country and between one country and another," says Jared Bahir Browsh, a CU Boulder assistant teaching professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and incoming director of the Critical Sports Studies program.

However, when the 2024 Olympic Games open in Paris Friday, they are just as likely to be noteworthy for national anthems and national flags, for fans’ faces painted in homage to their countries and for national rivalries that can range from good-natured to tense and geopolitically fraught.

“At the international level of the Olympics, it can be really difficult to separate sports from nationalism,” says Jared Bahir Browsh, a University of Colorado Boulder assistant teaching professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and incoming director of the Critical Sports Studies program. “Sports can be a symbol and a surrogate for what’s happening politically, socially and economically in a country and between one country and another.

“So, any time we have these big, international events—the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, the Cricket World Cup—you can see these interactions between nations, and see these issues bubbling up, in a way that might not happen on the floor of the United Nations.”

Modern Olympic origins

Despite what author George Orwell —that they are “war minus the shooting”—when Baron Pierre de Coubertin proposed reviving the ancient Olympic Games, he is generally credited with proposing them in good, if myopic and culturally appropriating, faith.

“Wars break out because nations misunderstand each other,” . “We shall not have peace until the prejudices that now separate the different races are outlived. To attain this end, what better means is there than to bring the youth of all countries periodically together for amicable trials of muscular strength and agility?”

However, Browsh says, the notion that all are equal on the playing fields of sport ignores centuries of economic disparities and social inequity between nations. “The infrastructure and systems that countries have to train athletes vary widely. High-income nations a lot of times are who you see represented on the medal stand because they’re able to spend huge amounts of money on getting their athletes there.

“So, that might reinforce this capitalist idea that wealthy nations are somehow more deserving of gold medals, which perpetuates inequity and the narrative of dominance.”

The Olympics also, perhaps inevitably, are shaped by world events happening at the time the games take place, Browsh adds, citing the infamous water polo match between Hungary and the USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The match happened a few weeks after Soviet forces violently quashed the Hungarian Revolution, and from the starting whistle it devolved into punching and kicking before referees halted the match early and named Hungary the winner.

And since the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Taiwan—officially known as the Republic of China—has competed as Chinese Taipei as a result of the and International Olympic Committee concessions to the People’s Republic of China.

Thinking about the Olympics

The Olympic rings illuminated in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (Photo: Stéphane Kempinaire/Paris 2024)

The Paris Olympics are happening at an interesting and fraught time around the world, Browsh says, with nationalism continuing to grow not just in the United States, but throughout Europe, Central and South America, Asia and Africa.

“In a way, we might see sports as helping define who we are as a nation,” Browsh says. “We might see our athletes as symbols of our national strength, and when they’re successful, that might get translated into a sense of rightness or even superiority.”

While by the Norwegian School of Sport Science found that educational attainment and income correlate with levels of sports nationalism—in general, the higher both are, the lower the sense of sports nationalism—the Olympic Games are unique “because suddenly, as a spectator, you’re really invested in a sport that you may never even think about the rest of the time,” Browsh says. “For these 16 days, you’re watching this sport and really cheering for your country.”

In a , scholar David Clay Large observed of the Olympics, “In part, it’s the beauty of supreme athleticism and the sizzle of carefully choreographed spectacle. But, more fundamentally, it’s the games’ capacity to dip repeatedly into a deep well of communal passion harbored by competitors and spectators alike. Whatever the organizational inadequacies and logistical screw-ups, these purported celebrations of one-world togetherness succeed because they indulge precisely what they claim to transcend: the world’s basest instinct for tribalism.”

However, Browsh says, “these are going to be incredible games. I’ll be watching and celebrating these athletes.”

Perhaps more than any other international athletic competition, the Olympics have given rise to incandescent moments of achievement and perseverance, to athletes transcending their various nations’ politics and coming together in genuine fellowship, to fans at home pausing their desire to beat the commies and happily cheering for the athletes from another country.

As spectators, Browsh says, whether it’s a matter of compartmentalizing concerns about corruption in the IOC or fears of toxic nationalism or negotiating how to celebrate athletes’ hard work while not unquestioningly accepting nation building, “love of sport is a factor in that negotiation. We ignore some of the corruptions of the media, for example, to enjoy our favorite TV show. We negotiate these spaces in order to get some joy out of life.

“Like with a lot of things, I think there needs to be a level of criticality when we consider the Olympics. I’m not saying we should stop watching or stop enjoying them—that’s not something I’d ever want to do—but I am saying we should think about them and how we can do them better.”

Top image: Robert Laberge/Getty Images

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Sports gambling creates a windfall, but raises questions of integrity, says CU Boulder researcher Jared Bahir Browsh

Sports betting is having a big moment across the United States. While gambling on sports has been legal for decades in countries such as the U.K., it wasn’t until 2018 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that . Before then, sports betting had been permitted only in Nevada.

After the Supreme Court decision, the floodgates opened. Many states were happy to legalize sports gambling, enticed by the opportunity for more . As of May 2024, sports gambling is  and Washington, D.C. Americans wagered  on sports in 2023 alone.

Until , sports leagues in North America were apprehensive about—if not totally against—. The long history of  led many to worry that legalizing sports betting would tarnish their sports’ credibility and image. The NCAA was one of many governing bodies that .

Jared Bahir Browsh, a CU Boulder assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies, argues that the suddenness of states adopting sports betting has led to a windfall of profit for gambling companies and tax revenue for the states, but it may also endanger the integrity of sports.

But now that the Supreme Court has blessed it, sports leagues have embraced gambling, forming partnerships with brands like . The sportsbooks and platforms have integrity monitors to track . Still, a number of scandals involving athletes and the people around them have emerged .

As a professor of critical sports studies, I teach students about the history of sports betting scandals. And I think they offer lessons for the present day.

Disgruntled players and pay disputes lead to temptation

The Black Sox Scandal of 1919 helped to further organize baseball, leading to the creation of the position of commissioner of baseball, which was first assumed by former judge  Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Along with maintaining the color line, arguably his most notable action was banning, for life, the players on the .

Early professional baseball regulations , but the money was too tempting for many players to ignore—and that included members of the . The players hated the team’s owner, Charles Comiskey, and felt that they were underpaid. But they were unable to change teams due to the  in their contracts, which gave owners exclusive rights to their players in perpetuity.

A faction of the team agreed to . Those players were ultimately indicted by a grand jury and . They were acquitted of criminal charges, but Landis suspended all of the players connected to the fix—including superstar “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who admitted taking money from a teammate but maintained he was innocent of game fixing.

This was the the most notable of several attempts to fix baseball games early in the 20th century, as the game grew in popularity and a number of people associated with baseball, including players, managers and even umpires, .

Addiction isn’t limited to substances

Athlete salaries have . However, this money hasn’t shielded players and others involved in sports from the grips of gambling addiction.

There are no rules banning athletes from  or . Numerous players have wagered millions of dollars, with some athletes building up .

These debts can lead to such desperation that athletes decide to risk their careers. Baseball legend and  Pete Rose continues to sit outside the .

The most substantial gambling scandal in modern sports came in the NBA during the 2000s, involving referee Tim Donaghy. He admitted to providing information on NBA games, including those he officiated, . Donaghy served time in prison as a result. So it isn’t just players who get in trouble.

Unpaid student-athletes are especially vulnerable to improprieties–and harassment

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy on the court during a 2000 game between the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks. (Photo: Ronald Martinez /Allsport via Getty Images)

There have been  in college basketball history, most famously at the  and at —the latter of which involved , the subject of the blockbuster film “Goodfellas.”

The increasing use of prop, or proposition, bets, which  rather than the overall result, has created a new point of vulnerability for student-athletes. While influencing an entire team is hard, history shows that individual players are more susceptible to pressure. A point guard or quarterback can slow down the game and reduce the margin of victory.

And while today’s unpaid student-athletes have the same financial incentives to cheat as earlier generations did, they face a new pressure: They’re often surrounded by gamblers on campus and on social media.  not only at large universities but at smaller schools, too. According to NCAA surveys, 1 in 3 student-athletes have faced harassment from gamblers, .

New regulations and oversight measures could help

The sportsbooks have very little incentive to address potential violations, so it’s up to organizations that oversee sports to ensure the integrity of their games.

NCAA President Charlie Baker’s suggestion to  is a good first step: The more individual players and gameplay are isolated, the easier it is for improprieties to occur.

Providing more guidance for players—and different types of punishments for different transgressions—. Gambling violations that don’t affect competition outcomes should be treated differently from ones that do. The NCAA already does this by meting out lighter penalties for  as opposed to their own.

Providing treatment for players and others suffering from gambling addiction would be helpful as well, and there’s some evidence that open discussions of  have had a positive impact.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has suggested implementing federal oversight to  of state-by-state regulations. Although scandals are still likely to occur, gambling commissions like the one in the U.K. can provide a .

The suddenness of states adopting sports betting has led to a windfall of profit for gambling companies and tax revenue for the states. But it may also endanger the integrity of sports. As policymakers mull how to address the issue, they might be wise to learn from history.

Top image: CCNY basketball players arrested for bribery in 1951. (Photo: Bettmann Archive via Getty Images)

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

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Fifty years after Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, CU Boulder scholar reflects on the legacy of an athlete who began his career in a segregated league

In the fourth inning of the Atlanta Braves’ fourth game of the 1974 Major League Baseball season, Hank Aaron approached home plate, facing Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing.

Aaron had walked on his first at-bat in the second inning, and the first pitch of his second at-bat was low—ball one. A sell-out home crowd of 53,775 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium stood, waiting for the second pitch.

Calling the game for Atlanta, , “He’s sittin’ on 714. Here’s the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There’s a drive into left center field, that ball is gonna beeeee… outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time and it’s Henry Aaron!”

Jared Bahir Browsh, a CU boulder assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies, notes that Hank Aaron represented greatness despite facing racism throughout his baseball career.

As the stadium roared and fireworks illuminated the night sky, Aaron rounded the bases and longtime Dodgers announcer , “What a marvelous moment for baseball, what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia, what a marvelous moment for the country and the world! A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol, and it is a great moment for all of us and particularly for Henry Aaron!”

Fifty years ago today, Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record of 714, which Ruth set with his last career home run on May 25, 1935. For 39 years, many said it was a record that couldn’t be broken. But at age 40, and as one of the last active players who began their baseball careers in the when the sport was segregated, Aaron did what for decades had seemed impossible.

In the months leading up to that April evening, Aaron received more than ; he even received a “most mail” award from the U.S. Postal Service. However, a significant number of those letters weren’t expressing admiration, but hate.

In the lead-up to , Aaron faced death threats, kidnapping threats to his family and racist vitriol, and racism was a constant throughout his career. For generations of athletes that followed him, Aaron, who died in 2021, has been an example of not only persevering, but excelling, even as some still try to put asterisks by his records.

“We see that first wave of athletes like Jackie Robinson, who entered these newly desegregated leagues in their mid- to late-20s, if not older, and then the next generation of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and that’s when we can fully recognize the talent that was left behind,” says Jared Bahir Browsh, a University of Colorado Boulder assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies.

“They had absolutely incredible careers, but they also played their earliest games in the Jim Crow South, they lived through the ‘50s and ‘60s, and yet they represented some of the most visible achievement in American culture by African Americans. We kind of dilute the obstacles that they faced getting to that point, but what Hank Aaron accomplished is just as incredible today as it was 50 years ago.”

Early obstacles

Aaron, who was one of eight children, grew up in a poor Black community in Mobile, Alabama. He loved baseball from an early age and would play for hours, recalling in , "When I was growing up in Mobile, Alabama, on a little dirt street, I remember my mother about 6 or 7 o'clock in the afternoon. You could hardly see and I'd be trying to throw a baseball and she'd say, 'Come here, come here!' And I'd say, 'For what?' She said, 'Get under the bed.’”

As he and his family hid, he said, "the KKK would march by, burn a cross and go on about their business and then she would say, 'You can come out now.' Can you imagine what this would do to the average person? Here I am, a little boy, not doing anything, just catching a baseball with a friend of mine and my mother telling me, 'Go under the bed.'"

, he decided he wanted to be a major league baseball player like Jackie Robinson, his hero and the player who integrated Major League Baseball. Aaron played for a semi-pro team while still in high school and at age 18, played for the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro Baseball League. In 1952, he joined the Boston Braves organization on a farm team in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and played his first major league game in 1954 with the Milwaukee Braves.

Hank Aaron watches whether his second-pitch hit during his second at-bat in the April 8, 1974, game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers would become career home run No. 715. (Photo: Harry Harris/Associated Press)

Through his farm league experiences and as he entered the major leagues, Aaron and the few other Black athletes with whom he played were aware of the burden on their shoulders. Aaron noted, “We had to clear the way for other black players. … The Braves knew, and we knew, that we not only had to play well, but if we ever lost our cool or caused an incident, it might set the whole program back five or 10 years. When the pitchers threw at us, we had to get up and swing at the next pitch. When somebody called us a n, we had to pretend as if we didn’t hear it.”

“We forget how young players like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were when they started playing, and we expect them to be instant civil rights leaders,” Browsh says. “Both Mays and Aaron entered the league at 20 and started playing professionally as teenagers. The pressure was always there. They were constantly being held up to a magnifying glass in terms of ‘We’re waiting for you to fail, waiting to tear you down.’ Just walking that line is exhausting, let alone speaking out against racism.”

MVP-level every year

Throughout his 23-season professional career, "Hammerin' Hank" Aaron was one of the most consistent and powerful players in the major leagues. Between 1955 and 1973, he hit at least 24 home runs every season; in 15 of those seasons, he hit 30 or more. He for most runs batted in, extra base hits and total bases. Though he never hit 50 home runs in a season, as some players have, “if you look at his season-by-season stats, he is the example of consistency, but his consistency was MVP-level every single year,” Browsh says.

However, because of his low-key demeanor and workman’s approach to his job, Aaron didn’t garner a lot of widespread national attention until he began approaching Ruth’s home run record in the 1973 season.

“We lose sight of how big baseball was at that time,” Browsh explains. “Baseball’s now floating around being the third most popular sport in the U.S., but it was still America’s pastime when Hank Aaron was playing. When he broke the record, it was an early season game, which normally wouldn’t have been on national television, so for that to happen shows how much the country was watching.

“(He) ended the ‘73 season at 714 and you could tell he really wanted to break the record, but he came to be fearful for his life over a record in sports. So, he was living with that, but at the same time there was a knowledge that so much Black achievement has been erased from U.S. history, but there’s no erasing being No. 1 in the most storied record in sports. He had an awareness of, ‘There’s no removing my name if I do this.’”

Approaching Ruth’s vaunted 714 not only brought Aaron an avalanche of racist vitriol, but hate for surpassing an American icon, Browsh says: “The idolization of Babe Ruth came, in part, from the fact that—much like how we look at the ‘50s and ‘60s now—there was this nostalgia that he represented a better time, a more pure time.

Hank Aaron (No. 44) celebrates with his Atlanta Braves teammates after crossing home plate following his 715th career home run. (Photo: Associated Press)

“The talent levels and knowledge of the game and the athleticism was much different when Hank Aaron was playing than when Babe Ruth was. But in many people’s minds, he was a white player who came from being an orphan, and he kind of represented this pure, white supremacy of the American dream. Meanwhile, Hank Aaron—who worked his way up through racism, playing in the segregated South where he couldn’t even eat with his teammates—somehow that wasn’t considered equal to the rise of Babe Ruth.”

‘Still he represented greatness’

In the five decades since Aaron broke Ruth’s record and closed his career with 755 total home runs, a record that stood until Barry Bonds broke it in 2007, some have tried to put asterisks by Aaron’s records—framing their arguments around Aaron playing more games and more seasons than the players whose records he broke, especially Ruth’s.

There’s also still resistance to Black athletes speaking out about social and structural inequities, “this idea of ‘you should just be happy to be here,’” Browsh says.

“The white supremacy in sports is being challenged, and we need to remember not to make the same mistakes. There are athletes reaching these incredible heights in sports—and it’s happening in athletics around the world—where we’re seeing more diverse representation and excellence in these sports and it’s not being met with welcoming arms. There’s a portion of the population that not only is uncomfortable with it, but undermine it by saying it’s affirmative action, or they’re ‘natural athletes’ so they have an unfair advantage, that their achievements are lesser because of whatever reason.”

There’s a prevalent myth that Black athletes are privileged over white athletes, Browsh says, “and all these myths are not only untrue, but they ignore how much hard work underlies these achievements.”

An important aspect of Aaron’s legacy, Browsh says, is that he excelled even when so much around him did not make it easy for him to do it. As he crossed home plate after hitting No. 715, his parents met him on the field and his mother hugged him fiercely, not letting go because, as she later mentioned in an interview, she didn’t think anyone would shoot him if she was holding on.

“We can’t imagine those kinds of burdens,” Browsh says, “and still he represented greatness.”

Top image: Hank Aaron hits home run No. 715 on April 8, 1974. (Photo: Joe Holloway Jr./Associated Press)

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