Browsing by Subject "Sports"

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Bayesian hierarchical parametric survival analysis for NBA career longevity
(2012-05) Lakin, Richard Thomas; Scott, James (Statistician); Powers, Daniel
In evaluating a prospective NBA player, one might consider past performance in the player’s previous years of competition. In doing so, a general manager may ask the following questions: Do certain characteristics of a player’s past statistics play a role in how long a player will last in the NBA? In this study, we examine the data from players who entered in the NBA in a five-‐year period (1997-‐1998 through 2001-‐2002 season) by looking at their attributes from their collegiate career to see if they have any effect on their career longevity. We will look at basic statistics take for each of these players, such as field goal percentage, points per game, rebounds per game and assists per game. We aim to use Bayesian survival methods to model these event times, while exploiting the hierarchical nature of the data. We will look at two types of models and perform model diagnostics to determine which of the two we prefer.
Benefits of advertising and marketing during televised sporting events
(2013-05) Osborn, John Claiborn; Wilcox, Gary B.
This reports main focus is to highlight the benefits of advertising during televised sporting events in an American market. In this report an overview of the current state of advertising and sports marketing is discussed along with historical and cultural analysis of both advertising and sports in the American culture. Among the arguments discussed, a major one will be how in this current media landscape sports is one of the best vehicles to reach a target markets directly without having to compete with many of the new technologies that are on the market today. The central backing for this argument comes from research conducted by interviewing experts in the fields of advertising, sports marketing, and analyzing articles and reports on the subject matter. With a shift in how media is consumed it is important for companies to understand what is the best way to reach an audiences and that some of the rules of advertising are shifting to meet with the changing landscape. Both real-world and academically evaluated examples are given to exhibit the potencies that Advertising during sports events has and how is the current market sports is becoming a more valued asset moving forward. Another issue that is discussed is possible area of further study which would focus on the evolution of mobile advertising and sports.
Children & sports : how parents and the environment parents create lead children to pursue athletic achievement
(2011-12) Clark-Mand, Jordan Ellen; Cicchirillo, Vincent J.; Atkinson, Lucinda J.
This study investigates parental influence on children's advancement to higher levels of competition (i.e. older age group intramural and club leagues, high school level, collegiate level, professional, etc.) in sport participation. Much past research has been conducted on parental influence, but this study furthered the research by more directly addressing television's role in parental influence among children in school grades four-six. Results indicate that a noticeable amount of parents, regardless of their personal knowledge of sport, often use TV as a teaching tool to help their children advance through their sport experiences.
Cognitive development's effects on development of loyalty in sports fans
(2013-12) Reifurth, Katherine Rose Nakamoto; Todd, Jan
Sport fans develop strong loyalties to their favorite teams, but there has been little research conducted on when this loyalty is formed. Previous research suggests that loyalty can form at very young ages, but it is difficult to classify young children based on age due to their rapid development over short periods of time. This is why it is necessary to use cognitive development stages to classify groups of young subjects in order to accurately group their predictive actions and abilities. Very little research has been done on sport loyalty development, especially using cognitive development as a categorizing tool. It is this report’s suggestion that more research must be done on this subject to truly understand the implications of this measurement tool and its effects on the development of loyalty.
Dispositional factors related to choking under pressure in sport
(2011-08) Melendres, Lauren Therese; McCarthy, Christopher J.; Bartholomew, John; Drum, David; Stark, Kevin; Whittaker, Tiffany
The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not significant relationships existed between dispositional factors (self-consciousness, anxiety, approach coping style) predictive of choking under pressure in competition with factors associated with healthy psychological functioning (dispositional mindfulness and dimensions of psychological well-being). Choking under pressure has been identified as a factor that not only negatively impacts an athlete’s level of success in competition, but also the athlete’s psychological well-being. Despite these negative effects, minimal interventions exist to address choking under pressure. Mindfulness is a construct that has received attention for its positive effect in the lives of individuals, both in daily living and symptom-relief for a host of issues. As such, the relationships between factors associated with choking-susceptibility, mindfulness, and psychological well-being were examined in the current study to determine if the development of a mindfulness intervention for athletes identified as “choking-susceptible” is appropriate. The sample for this study included 95 Division I athletes from large Southwestern and Western universities. The data were analyzed using univariate and multiple linear regressions and correlational analysis. The findings of this study revealed significant negative relationships between two out of the three dispositional choking-susceptibility factors (self-consciousness and anxiety), mindfulness, and psychological well-being. Given the significance of these findings, the development and evaluation of a mindfulness-based choking intervention is warranted.
A game within the game : an ethnographic study of culture and student-athlete recruitment at a Division I university
(2010-12) Stephens, James Edwin, 1977-; Maxwell, Madeline M.; McGlone, Matthew; Dailey, Rene; Browning, Blair; Pfiester, Abigail
The success of a college coach to develop winning teams and a winning culture in any sport largely depends on his/her ability to recruit and strengthen the skill levels of his/her student-athletes. The following ethnography of the Eastern Hawks baseball coaches seeks to describe the culture of this organization during two consecutive seasons including the recruitment of student-athletes and the management of the current players on the roster, and to also detail the coaches’ use of compliance gaining and aspects of communication in their interaction with the recruits and their families. To investigate these issues, an ethnographic study was performed with a Division I baseball team called Eastern University. Numerous individual interviews were conducted with the staff and later transcribed. Team functions, games, and events were also attended for data collection. Results indicate that the organizational culture of Eastern Hawks baseball was initially created through artifacts such as facility improvements, game rituals, and performance requirements. The observed culture is being negatively influenced by espoused values and basic assumptions that run contrary to stated and desired goals. Leader-member relationships were regarded as predominantly low during this study accentuated by unfulfilled expectations of performance. The coaches used various compliance-gaining methods in recruiting student athletes but were most successful when targeting prospects who valued education, had parents who also valued education, and who believed they would fit in with the culture present at Eastern. The coaches implemented strategies that were pro-social and also reduced excessive apprehension. When competing against the professional draft, the staff provided metaphorical statements to prospects and their families that which sought to highlight social identity. Coaches compared the negative effects of turning pro early as opposed to developing personally and athletically at Eastern.
The games behind the game : the process of democratic deepening and identity formation in Turkey as seen through football clubs
(2011-05) Blasing, John Konuk; Henry, Clement M., 1937-; Boone, Catherine
The history of football clubs in Turkey is entwined with the political and economic development of Turkey in the twentieth century. This thesis focuses on the history of soccer clubs and the close involvement of the sport with the formation of modern Turkish identity during the late Ottoman period, the early republican period, the multi-party period, and finally the Cold War era. As this study also argues, in addition to their role in identity formation, football clubs were the building blocks of associational life in Turkish democracy and thus represent a major force in the process of democratic deepening in the country. The thesis addresses both the complex political functions and uses of soccer clubs and their economic relationship to the development of Turkish business. Through the twentieth century, the politics behind soccer clubs evolved from an affirmation of national identity to a reassertion of local identity as a challenge to the centralized state system. Increased localization—as evidenced by the rising fortunes of soccer clubs and businesses from Central Anatolia, Turkey’s Muslim heartland—also indicates the increased Islamicization of Turkish society accompanying the advent of the AKP (Justice and Development Party). The changing character of Turkish society and the challenge to traditional secular elites by a rising class of Islamic businessmen from outside of the metropolitan areas—developing businesses concentrated mainly in Central Anatolia—are presented through an analysis of Parliamentary election results since 1962 along with the concurrent change in the geographical transformation of the landscape of Turkish soccer through this period. The study examines the complex, multifaceted interrelationships and lines of mutual determinations between the changing conceptions of Turkish identity, democratic deepening, Islamicization, and the economic development of modern Turkey. This thesis demonstrates how these forces that shape social, political, and economic life are played out on the soccer field.
If you grant it, they will play
(2017-06-23) Schnautz, Aaron Preston; Todd, Russell; Robbins, Kevin
Last fall, Fox debuted its baseball drama “Pitch,” which imagines a female baseball player for the San Diego Padres breaking Major League Baseball’s gender barrier. But the show’s cup of coffee lasted just 10 episodes, as network executives recently announced the show’s cancellation after one season. “Pitch” may have lacked a large audience, but are enough executives, coaches, players, fans, and most importantly, girls, ready to make this fantasy become fact?
Intersectando prácticas y representaciones: mujeres en el fútbol argentino
(2002-08) Conde, Mariana; Rodríguez, María Graciela
Major league sports teams as storytellers : a communication infrastructure perspective
(2019-05) Curry, Alexander L., 1979-; Stroud, Natalie Jomini; Ball-Rokeach, Sandra; Butterworth, Michael L; Hart, Roderick P; Jarvis Hardesty, Sharon
Scholars have argued that a major league sports team’s main benefit to a city is not the team’s economic impact, but the team’s ability to unify residents and affect how people feel about their city. Such intangible benefits, scholars have lamented, are nearly impossible to quantify. This dissertation, which quantifies a team’s intangible benefits, argues that major league teams act as the source and subject of stories that affect residents’ beliefs about and behaviors within their city. Using communication infrastructure theory, I test the supposition that major league sports teams act as city-wide (macro-level) storytelling organizations, and that their presence is tied to residents’ sense of belonging, collective efficacy, participation in civic activities, and connectedness to local storytelling networks. My investigation considers how residents are affected by (a) the presence or absence of teams in their city, (b) the strength of residents’ fandom, and (c) the success of the local team(s). Gender is also explored as a moderating variable in the relationships between residents and teams. A variety of data sets and methods were used. An original survey was administered to residents of 56 U.S. cities to test hypotheses related to the effects mentioned above. In addition, twelve years of data (2004 to 2015) from the U.S. Current Population Survey and from publicly available tax documents from local chapters of the United Way were analyzed to uncover relationships between team success and volunteerism/charitable giving. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine quantitative data, and a thematic content analysis was done to code residents’ open-ended survey responses. Results reveal that local fandom has positive relationships with sense of belonging, civic participation, and connectedness to the storytelling network, and team success has a positive association with collective efficacy. In some of these cases, however, gender is a significant moderator, and team success also was shown to have a negative association with volunteerism. Furthermore, results from the thematic content analysis suggest that major league teams play an important role in creating a sense of connectedness to others and place. The conclusion is that major league teams act as city-wide storytellers.
Parent identity and youth sport volunteerism
(2012-05) Griffiths, Randall Joseph; Green, B. Christine; Chalip, Laurence; Dixon, Marlene; Bartholomew, John; Harrison, Tracie
Youth sport relies on parents to volunteer for positions at all levels of the organization. Among these volunteer positions, the volunteer-coach is often responsible for the creation and delivery of most services in youth sport. The current scope of youth sport would be unattainable without parents’ continuous support; therefore, recruitment and retention of these parent-volunteer-coaches is a critical task for youth sport organizations. Parents, however, do not respond to volunteer service as would be predicted from current volunteer literature (Kim, Chelladurai, & Trail, 2007). Perhaps is the behavior of volunteers in the youth sport setting is due to their identities as parents. The presence of their children in a youth sport setting has always been assumed to be a primary motivator for parents to volunteer as youth sport coaches. This research used narrative analysis (Polkinghorne, 1995), identity theory (Stryker, 1968, 2000) and inductive coding to interpret the experiences of parent-volunteer-coaches in the youth sport setting. The inductive coding analysis yielded two groups of roles available within the youth sport setting: aspirational roles and avoided roles. The narrative analysis yielded seventeen parent stories by identifying the central plot that connected important events to role choices. Five groups of stories--History, Prior Arrangements, Crucible, Right Role, and System--resulted from an examination of the similarities among the plots. Ultimately, the role choices made in response to tension in each plot led to choosing the volunteer-coach role. These results suggest that the experience of youth sport volunteer coaching is not primarily based on a relationship with the organization. These volunteer stories rarely included the organization as the most important influence on their experience; instead, parent volunteer experiences were driven by identities that led to role choices within the parent-child relationship. Role choices were not static throughout the volunteer experience; several parents continued to shift the roles played in response to changes in perceptions of the context. Youth sport organizations that recognize the impact of the parent-child relationship can design volunteer recruitment and retention programs leading to greater satisfaction for parents while at the same time fulfilling the organizational need for dedicated volunteers.
Physical training and athletics : care of the body, playground games and equipment, athletic contests, organization of meets, leagues, etc.
(University of Texas, 1914-01-22)
Not available
Retrocession, partition and sporting communities in fractured societies : baseball in Taiwan and Gaelic games in Ireland, 1884-1968
(2011-12) Harney, John James; Li, Huaiyin; Chang, Yvonne; Hsu, Madeline Y.; Metzler, Mark; Oppenheim, Robert; Traphagan, John
This dissertation examines the roles of popular sports baseball and Gaelic Games in Taiwanese and Irish society respectively between the years 1884 and 1968. During this period, the spread of each sport in popularity and the subsequent increased profile in the public realm highlighted similar challenges faced by the societies of each territory as inhabitants of minor players in a global political system dominated by major powers. The development of Taiwanese baseball and its spread in popularity during the colonial period reveals the extent to which divisions between colonial Japanese and local Taiwanese blurred beyond the parameters of governmental efforts at coexistence and assimilation. Two teams in particular, the Nenggao team of 1924-25 and the KANO team of 1931, give evidence of a colonial Taiwanese sporting culture that featured strengthening connections with sporting culture in Japan. In both cases, baseball displayed potential as an integrating force in colonial Taiwanese society between social groups resident on the island rather than as a source for opposition to colonial rule. This is in direct contrast to Irish society, where the resurgence in popularity of Gaelic Games occurred within the political context of exclusivist nationalism. Gaelic Games existed as cultural markers of an Irish culture defined by a Gaelic ethnic identity and political commitment to an Irish nation state, choosing to ignore the realities of partition and the existence of a sizable Loyalist community in the north of the country. This viewpoint persisted until the late 1960s, when the eruption of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland irrevocably changed the terms of Irish political participation. At the same time, Taiwanese baseball transitioned from a shared cultural form between Taiwan and Japan to a potent avenue for emerging Taiwanese political voices in 1968 with the widely celebrated success of the Hongye schoolboy baseball team. Baseball’s popularity had persisted in the face of ambivalent attitudes among ruling Guomindang officials following retrocession, but the Hongye victory marked the introduction of specific political overtones to Taiwanese baseball, bringing an end to decades of the sport’s primary role as an act of public participation with limited political connotations.
Richard Lapchick and the fight for human rights in sport
(2021-12-06) Jones, Tanya Kathleen; Hunt, Thomas M.; Ozyurtcu, Tolga; Todd, Janice; Bartholomew, John; Sikes, Michelle
The United States went through a tumultuous time during the mid-twentieth century. The Civil Rights Movement dominated the 1960s making way for a new movement to form in the 1970s. The human rights movement in the U.S. focused on the indisputable rights of African American citizens and all marginalized groups across the globe. During the 1970s, many non-governmental organizations began in the United States to pursue social justice issues. One of these groups was the American Coordinating Committee for Equality in Sport and Society (ACCESS), created by human rights activist Richard Lapchick in 1976. Lapchick created ACCESS in alliance with the anti-Apartheid movement. He believed that using sport to fight against Apartheid would play a crucial role in South African politics. While Richard Lapchick’s early work focused on the campaign to end America’s sporting participation with South Africa, he blossomed into an influential and dynamic human rights activist. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he worked with multiple human rights organizations and anti-Apartheid associations to bring attention to injustices occurring in the U.S. and South Africa. These groups sought to use sport to alleviate the issues created by South Africa’s culture of racial segregation. As the end of South Africa’s Apartheid regime appeared, Lapchick started advocating for other marginalized groups like women, LGBTQ+ members, and student-athletes. Studying Lapchick’s career provides an original contribution to sport history by examining individual activism and exploring how sport can significantly impact politics and society. Richard Lapchick needs to be recognized and remembered for the work he has done and is still doing, both in the U.S. and abroad. His commitment to human rights and the anti-Apartheid movement adds new insights into the intersections of race, sports, politics, and social movements in the United States. Examining his life not only provides an understanding of how sport has created political and social changes in the past but how activists can continue to use sport for social justice.
Sex, drugs and Barbie : gender verification, drug testing, and the commodification of the black female athlete
(2012-08) Brown, Letisha Engracia Cardoso; Carrington, Ben, 1972-
Representations of black female sporting bodies, when taken as what Susan Bordo (1997) refers to as “texts of culture,” operate as sites for an interrogation of the production and maintenance of ideologies of race, gender, sexuality and deviance in the context of Western society. The purpose of this thesis was to interrogate these ideologies within the context of sport by focusing specifically on media representations of three black track and field athletes—Florence Griffith Joyner, Marion Jones, and Caster Semenya. Using an ethnographic approach to content analysis this thesis shows the ways in which the bodies of black female athletes function as commodities, as well as they ways in which they become representations of deviance in sport.
Sidelined : gender inequality in athletics
(2010-05) Hollingsworth, Brian Paul, 1973-; DeCesare, Donna; Burd, Gene
The essence of American women’s struggle to play sports at a competitive level is that for decades the power structure of American professional and scholastic athletics simply didn’t think they should be allowed to play. The various institutions governing athletics of all levels sought first to prevent women from participating in sports at all and later to keep women athletes segregated and barred from playing on men’s teams or competing against them. They have justified this discrimination by citing various outmoded ideas of women’s mental and physical abilities, their perceived frailty, and the erroneous belief that keeping women athletes segregated from men provides a more suitable and more enjoyable athletic experience for both sexes. This report and the accompanying video, Outlaws Rising, examine the legacy of gender inequality in sports and its impact on the Austin Outlaws, a women’s tackle football team.
Social Media in Sports: How Popularity Status Affects a Team’s Social Media Strategy.
(2021-05) Shih, Daniel (Cheng-Ying)
As the influence of social media continues to grow, professional sports teams have been paying more attention to their marketing strategies through their social media channels. However, a study with straightforward comparisons of sports-related social media content is uncommon. This thesis aims to add to the media studies literature by comparing and contrasting the Twitter accounts of three Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, the San Diego Padres, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the New York Yankees. Each team represents a popularity stature in the MLB. The study collects one month's worth of tweets posted by each of the three accounts. Each tweet is categorized based on whether it’s an in-game highlight or not. The form of the content embedded in the tweet is also recorded. Categories include text-only still-based graphics and motion-based graphics. Ultimately, the study analyzes the benefits and deficiencies of the social media strategy implemented by each team. Readers will also get an idea of the most common social media practices and what content fans tend to engage in.
Straight out the gait : the writing process of Mallwalkers
(2014-08) Reeves, Autumn Rebekah; McCreery, Cindy
"Straight out the Gait: The Writing Process of Mallwalkers" documents the writing process of Mallwalkers, a feature-length comedy script about competitive mall walking. The report connects the writer's personal life to the process of writing three drafts of the film.
Team Players: An examination of what makes good sports leaders good
(2020-05) Bechtol, Pete Rogers
Sports leadership is a topic about which many books and articles have been written. Many of those works examine traits or even habits of good sports leaders. This thesis examines sports leadership through three case-based studies: Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Christian Laettner. Each study examines the nature of the individual in question, their time with various sports teams, and the finding of qualities that either exhibited good leadership or not. While this thesis will create neither an exhaustive list of what good leadership looks like nor what good leaders should do, it will draw conclusions about how a good sports leader fits into a team dynamic, and what these three successful athletes have both done and not done that has helped them find success.
The digital dualism between real and digital bodies : how esports media & culture represent race, gender and class
(2020-08) Figueroa, Ever Josue; Bock, Mary Angela; Butterworth, Michael; Chen, Gina; Reese, Stephen; Jensen, Robert
In the past few years there has been a tremendous rise in the number of people who watch livestreamed video game content on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. One of the biggest consumers of livestreamed content are gamers watch live esports competition. This emerging type of content within the new media landscape opens up crucial questions about representations of race, gender and class in esports media. This two-part study uses ethnography and critical discourse analysis to study a major esports event, Evolution Championship Series 2019. Ethnographic participant-observation was used to study the lived-experience of attending EVO 2019, and critical discourse analysis was used to study how esports announcers report on-screen action mediated by digital bodies. The findings of this study contribute to a growing body of literature on gaming culture, sports culture, and critical theories of embodiment. The study points out how representations of race, gender and class are complicated by esports media and culture, and the implications this can have moving forward.