Social Classes in Sports Today (ANSWERED)

QUESTION

In the Woods Chapter on Social Class and Sport we know that in the 1920’s the leaders of the Olympic movement were typically white males from well to do backgrounds. In addition, the participants in the games reflected this pattern. While the makeup of the of modern Olympic athletes is a little more diverse, we know that social class still has a lot to do with the sports people play. In a two paragraph, double spaced response, please explain how social class can still determine the sports people play today.

Social Class and Olympic Sport Case Study

Olympic sports were historically dominated by the upper classes, and many sports in the modern Olympic Games (both Summer and Winter) reflect that pattern. The leaders of the Olympic movement were typically males from well-to-do backgrounds. They promoted the sports indigenous to their social class and for years limited participation to amateurs. By excluding professionals, they restricted participation to athletes from their social class, since athletes with limited resources couldn’t afford to train as amateurs. In fact, early definitions of amateur were based on social class, and athletes from lower economic classes were categorized as non-amateurs.

If nothing else, the problem with limiting the Olympics to amateurs was simply that doing so excluded some of the best athletes. Furthermore, extensive reports indicated that some athletes violated the rules and secretly accepted money to cover training expenses. Some countries established free training schools that prepared their young athletes for the Olympics, in effect turning their athletes into professionals. Discussion about these Olympic restrictions came to a head in the 1980s, and after the 1988 Games, the International Olympic Committee voted to allow professional athletes in each sport to compete in future Games pending approval of that sport’s international sport federation (Amateur Athletic Foundation Olympic Primer 2005). (Only a handful of federations did not approve professional athletes in their sport.)

In the wake of these changes, most of the recent Olympic athletes in the United States have come from working-class or middle-class families who sacrificed to support their child’s Olympic quest. Olympian David Hemery (1986) studied 63 of the recent top performers, including athletes from 22 sports and 12 countries. His sample, which was relatively small and focused on the best of the best, fell into the following class distribution:

Poor 22%

Working class 26%

Lower-middle class 3%

Middle class 44%

Upper-middle class 3%

Upper class 0%

Athletes who aspire to compete in certain sports at the Olympic Games run into special problems. Many Olympic sports are not emphasized or even offered at high schools or colleges. High-performance athletes must pursue their athletic dreams through private academies and competitions that are expensive and time-consuming. Olympic sports that require specialized training include gymnastics, swimming, judo, weightlifting, boxing, and almost all winter sports (though a limited number of schools and colleges offer varsity programs in winter sports). Families must often move to allow their kids to train with a top coach living in another part of the country. Athletes of modest means may seek employment to help them afford competition, travel, and coaching. Some corporate sponsors help provide jobs for prospective Olympians.

Another option for prospective Olympians is to train at one of the U.S. Olympic training centers. Of course, athletes have to qualify for these programs, but if they do, the costs of training are generally borne by the U.S. Olympic Committee or the national governing body of the given sport. In many countries, the expense of training future Olympians is borne by the government and administered by the minister of sports. In the United States, government funding for training has been debated for many years.

Cost of High-Performance Sport

Many people are unaware of the financial investment it takes to compete at the highest levels, whether in the Olympics or in professional sport. This is where parents of talented kids can put whatever social and cultural capital they possess to good use in order to cushion the financial impact of elite training. Perhaps the most expensive sports are the equestrian events. Owning and caring for a competition horse can cost upwards of $100,000 per year. In addition, unlike other athletes who travel, equestrians must also ship their horses in order to compete nationally and internationally at the highest levels (United States Equestrian Team Foundation 2010).

For another example, let’s look now at the yearly expenses of a tennis player. If the player attends 12 national tournaments a year at a cost of $1,500 to travel to and compete in each, then he or she must budget $18,000 just for starters. If a parent or coach travels with the player, then the expenses increase, especially if the athlete pays the coach for his or her time. In addition, weekly lessons (some group based and some individual) cost an average of $250 each, and athletes living in a cold climate pay more so they can practice on an indoor court. The player must also cover the expense of tennis rackets, shoes, clothing, and other incidental equipment, which can easily total up to more than $2,500 per year unless the player gets an endorsement deal with a clothing or racket company.

Many young athletes also use the services of a fitness gym or physical trainer and perhaps a sport nutritionist or sport psychologist. These fees can easily add several thousand dollars per year in expenses. All in all, the cost will probably exceed $25,000 a year for frugal athletes and may reach $50,000 if money is not a concern.

Families with no financial worries may send their sport prodigy to a live-in academy in a warm climate where they can play tennis (or soccer, golf, or basketball) half the day and attend a private school the other half. Expenses at such a facility are likely to exceed $60,000 for the school year alone, which means there will be additional costs if the athlete continues to train or compete during the summer months.

You can see how children of most families face limited opportunities in certain sports. As noted earlier, the median income for all U.S. households in 2012 was just over $50,000. In contrast, families whose combined annual income exceeds $100,000 rank in the top 5 percent to 10 percent of all U.S. families. The average family, with that total income of $50,000, can’t begin to afford sports like high-performance competitive tennis. Indeed, even wage earners making a six-figure salary can’t afford to spend a quarter or half of the family’s income on sport training for one child.

This prohibitive expense is why team sports are the most popular options for most kids. The costs are reasonable, and most families can finance sport participation if they are creative and frugal. Of course, many families have figured out that team sports are more affordable, so the competition is keen. As a result, children whose families are well off financially might find it better to develop their skills in a more exclusive sport and compete for a national championship against fewer opponents.

Class Mobility in Sport

Part of the American dream has always been the ability to enhance one’s social or economic

status in life through hard work and discipline. A popular corollary holds that those who do not improve their status must not have the motivation or discipline to do so. Sport provides an opportunity, however challenging it may be, to improve one’s social and economic status through success on the playing field. Once again, the conventional wisdom holds that hard work is even more important than talent in reaching the ultimate prize in a given sport.

The typical example illustrating social mobility through sport is that of a football or basketball player, or perhaps a boxer, who comes from a low-income family and makes his way to the professional ranks, where he commands a huge contract. By earning millions of dollars, the athlete automatically joins the upper class—a society he may find it difficult to fit into.

There are multiple possible dimensions to rising in class status through sport. The most obvious is the education that comes along with continuing a career in sport—even if a professional sport career is not realistic. Most lower-class kids who passionately latch onto sport realize that maintaining their academic eligibility allows them to pursue their sport. If they keep up their grades, they may also earn an athletic scholarship that opens up the possibility for higher education that their parents never had. The knowledge and friends gained through their college education then sets them up for employment opportunities beyond their social and economic class even if they never make it as a professional athlete.

Athletes who participate in college sport seem to have more opportunities than nonathletes do. The reason for their success may be the sport experience, which teaches discipline, teamwork, and leadership. Of course, they may also possess innate capabilities that allow them to succeed in sport, and athletic participation may enhance those abilities. Sport participation may also help them build their own social and cultural capital. Surely, their education, personal expectations, and social networks help them in the business world. In fact, numerous research studies have documented both male and female business leaders who participated in sport and attribute their business success at least in part to the lessons they learned in sport (Acosta and Carpenter 2014; Carlson and Scott 2005).

In every sport, certain athletes stand out because they appear hungry to succeed. When these athletes come from lower-socioeconomic families, people usually conclude that they are striving to escape a life of poverty. Indeed, a number of elite athletes on the world stage have emerged from poor countries to become international celebrities who are wealthy as compared with their countrymen.

French sociologist Loïc Wacquant, who authored Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (2004) based on his three years of study at a boxing gym in Chicago, quotes from some of the men he encountered there who express the love–hate feelings they have for their sport and profession. Here is what one boxer said: “I wish I had been born taller, to a rich family. I wish I was smart and had the brains to go to school an’ really become somebody important. For me, I can’t stand the sport, I hate the sport, but it’s carved inside of me so I can’t let it go.” More than 80 percent of the boxers Wacquant interviewed said they didn’t want their son to become a boxer. Said one, “No, no fighter wants his son to box. . . . [T]hat’s the reason you fight. . . . [I]t’s too hard, jus’ too damn hard” (Coakley 2004, 341).

How likely are young athletes to make it to the professional level? Evidence from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (2013e) indicates that only a small percentage of athletes make it from high school to college to professional sport. The odds of a high school athlete making a collegiate team are only about 5 percent, which means that 95 percent of athletes have no chance of a career in sport beyond their high school years. Furthermore, only 3 percent of college athletes make it to the pros. So, of all high school athletes, roughly 0.15 percent make it to a professional career. These are small odds indeed. In spite of many inspiring biographies of athletes who moved from poverty to the professional ranks, the percentages are stacked very high against such mobility.

When we track athletic success, the results may be affected by the sports involved. We have already seen that many sports—including golf, tennis, swimming, and gymnastics—tend to attract athletes from upper-middle-class families. Their records are often lumped in with large-scale research studies on class mobility, but their chances of achieving upward mobility are limited since they’re starting from a relatively high level. Similarly, female athletes have fewer sports through which to gain upward mobility due to the dearth of professional sports for women.

In another example, players in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) earned an average salary of $72,000 in 2012 versus an average of $5.5 million for men in the NBA. However, it is hardly fair to compare the men’s and women’s leagues, since the NBA has a history of 66 years and the WNBA only 16 years. The leagues also differ in that the men play 82 regular season games, whereas the women play only 34, thus limiting the revenue that the women’s game can generate. At this point, the two leagues use different business models based not on gender discrimination but on potential earnings. The minimum salary for WNBA players is around $35,000 while the minimum salary for NBA players is around $450,000. How do these numbers affect social class?

Understanding the limited chances for women to make it in professional sport reinforces the amazing success of Serena and Venus Williams. Coming from Compton, California—an economically depressed area rife with crime and poverty—they have risen to the top of the sporting world in a sport usually reserved for members of the upper classes. The result has been Grand Slam championships for both women and record-setting endorsements, which in Serena’s case are worth more than $50 million!

Similarly, LeBron James is likely the best basketball player in the world, but his early life involved frequent moves from one apartment to another with his 16-year-old mother. He’s now one of the richest athletes in the world (he earned $53 million in 2013) and has acquired the nickname “King James.” In December 2014 he met some real royalty when Prince William and Duchess Kate visited with him after the Cavaliers–Nets game in Brooklyn. LeBron was thrilled as he tweeted his good fortune to followers and paid tribute to what basketball has done for him (Rosenthal 2014).

The losers in the quest for upward mobility through sport are the thousands of children who hold an unrealistic view of their potential and misjudge the odds of realizing their dreams. Leaders in the African American community decry the tendency of young black males to put all their hopes into a possible professional contract. Those goals are unrealistic for all but a special few, and when lower-class families emphasize sport over academics, most are setting

Arthur Ashe Jr. shared his views on the importance of education in a New York Times op-ed titled “Open Letter to Black Parents” (Ashe 1977). Although the statistics cited by Ashe have changed, the sentiments he expressed remain poignant and relevant: Unfortunately, our most widely recognized role models are athletes and entertainers —“runnin’” and “jumpin’” and “singin’” and “dancin’.” While we are 60 percent of the NBA, we are less than 4 percent of the doctors and lawyers. While we are about 35 percent of Major League Baseball, we are less than 2 percent of the engineers. While we are about 40 percent of the NFL, we are less than 11 percent of construction workers, such as carpenters and bricklayers. Our greatest heroes have been athletes such as Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali. These were the ways out of the ghetto. We have been on the same road—sports and entertainment—too long. We need to pull over, fill up at the library, and speed away to Congress, the Supreme Court, the unions, and the business world. Yet the lessons learned through sport participation are also valuable for young athletes, even if a pro career is not in the cards. Hard work, determination, sacrifice, and teamwork can certainly be valuable assets in their future careers. Perhaps the optimistic view of social mobility through sport makes sense when considered in this light.

Woods, Ron (eds.) (2016). Social Issues in Sport (3^th ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. https://www.vitalsource.com/products/social-issues-in-sport-woods-ron-v9781492521068

ANSWER

How Social Class Can Still Determine the Sports People Play Today.

Without deep bias based on research, a social class is likely to reflect one’s sports participation. That is to infer that the higher the social class the greater the likeliness of one’s overall participation in sports. However, the difference in this argument is the type of sport leading to less likeliness for a person from a higher social class to get involved in ‘prole’ sports. For many, the argument on the likeliness of people in a higher social class taking part in sports has been affected by time and is no longer relevant as it did in the past. Nonetheless, economics continues to play a role in sports, and the division is clear today. Unlike when some missed participating in soccer because of their social class, it is now different, and people are joining other sporting activities labelled ‘fancy’. For instance, people in higher social classes prefer non-contact sports like golf. Although various organizations have tried to make golf accessible by lowering the cost, the cost of quality clubs is still high.

Social class strongly influences sports, although it is not manifesting like in the past. Still, it doesn’t make some sports activities impenetrable but just creates a gap between success and just being part of the team. Tiger Woods was born and raised in the middle class but broke through the stereotypical wall to be part of the golf-playing community. In the modern day, the influence of social class manifests through who is able to finance talented athletes. For instance, clubs finance deserving talent courtesy of the members and donations from corporations. In summary, social class can influence sports through the financial aspect, but there always has been a way to contribute to the success of deserving athletes.