Sports Management Analytical Paper
Rivas et al. (2021) study work-related stress on nursing staff in “Analysis of Burnout Syndrome and Resilience in Nurses throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study.” The authors are affiliated to Hospital Clínico Universitario Valladolid, Nursing Faculty, University of Valladolid, and CEIP Antonio Machado located in Spain. All of the authors have published a significant number of peer-reviewed articles contributing to healthcare. The article’s authors have played an important part in many studies that undoubtedly enhance their credentials. For instance, Maria Lopez, one of the article’s authors, has also participated in research that focused on non-smokers’ and smokers’ support for smoke-free legislation throughout 12 European countries.
Social media commenced in the early 2000s on an experimental basis. Sites like Hi5, Facebook, and others emerged as fun sites where people would share messages no different from sending an email. However, as social media grew into a web of interaction and became what Mark Zuckerberg described as an equivalent of a town square, social media has played a major role in shaping social, economic, and even political discourses worldwide. This essay examines the impacts of social media on sports and will cover the positive and negative aspects of social media’s impact on sports.
Historically, sporting events were broadcast on traditional television and radio (Bahrami & Kiani, 2021). However, the introduction of social media meant that people could exchange updates and their sentiments about sporting games among themselves over social media sites. On the positive side, this increased the reach of sporting events and activities. It is because sporting events could be spread over a wide array of media outlets over and above the past print, television, and radio media houses. This makes sporting events more popular around the world. As such, the economic value of sporting has increased exponentially since the advent of social media.
Secondly, social media has increased the quality of interaction between athletes and their fans. Athletes have official sites where they share information about themselves, which is much more intimate than in the past. Social media has moved communication from a broadcasting framework to narrowcasting, allowing fans and athletes to collaborate on a much stronger and richer level. It allows the effect and essence of sports to spread farther and deeper than in the past.
Sports marketing has benefited significantly from social media. It is because sports brands and products can be easily and conveniently promoted on social media sites in affordable ways and have a stronger and deeper reach. It has increased the revenues sports teams make and made sports more lucrative than in the past.
Social media has also increased the identity of sporting teams among its fans (Kim & Kim, 2019). In the past, supporters of teams were almost always restricted to a particular town or community. However, social media allows teams to gain a global reach. Thus, it is common to find fans of clubs in England spread to all corners of the world who are bonded through the power of social media. This increases the spread and reach of clubs and makes clubs wealthier than they were in the past.
One of the most fundamental elements of sport is to increase participation and reach. Social media removes all the barriers and limitations that stand in the way of a fan and their beloved club. Also, people from many different backgrounds can connect to a club irrespective of their ideology because of the power of social media.
Social media also increases interactivity, making online marketing more meaningful and effective (Nisar et al., 2018). Social media allows for the free flow of information and the presentation of data and ideas about things that allow for communication to be undertaken swiftly and effectively (Vale & Fernandes, 2018). Information, its generation, and consumption on social media are simultaneous, ensuring that social media is a superior tool for the world of sports.
The downside of social media in sports is the fact that social media allows for fraudulent communication to be undertaken easily. People could set up fake accounts for clubs and plan schemes that would lead to fraud in ways that were not known in the past.
Also, social media allows for certain negative actions like racism and bullying to happen in ways that can cause serious mental health issues to users. This is because a person can set up a faceless account and say some of the most outrageous things on social media without being held accountable. A case in point was when three black English players missed their penalties in the Euro 2020 finales. There was a tirade of racist abuse over social media that happened in ways that were serious and difficult to control.
There are also various forms of manipulation that social media can cause, and this includes the use of various forms of emotional manipulation in adverts (Wakefield & Wakefield, 2018). This includes the abuse of techniques like the fear of missing out (FOMO), which can cause people to spend a lot of money and enter emotional and psychological challenges. There is also the issue of sports gambling which uses social media to rip people off. Social media worsens this because vulnerable persons with gambling addiction problems can easily fall victim to major gambling scams via social media that can ruin their lives.
Social media also causes more emotional problems in adolescents, like depression which could be linked to sporting events (Heffer et al., 2019). In the past, a girl who encountered a defeat of her favorite team could get the support of her family. However, today, she might be actively in touch with friends on social media who could teach her problematic acts.
There are also threats sent to managers and referees via social media, which are simply wrong (Kolbinger & Knopp, 2020). Match officials’ privacy is breached and repeatedly treated harshly, thereby endangering the quality of officiating in games (Webb, 2020). This and many problems exist with using social media in sport and have not been given any real solutions or answers.
As such, social media has come with many good and benefits. However, it also comes with many problems and challenges. The positives are the improvement of qualifications, stronger connections between fans and players, better marketing, and increased participation in sport. The downsides of social media’s impact on sports include fraud, psychological problems, consumerism, and other threats to officials and sporting managers.
The article under review is titled “Black lives matter in the sports world” by TePoel & Nauright, published in 2021. The paper's thesis relates to how social media and videos of police brutality in the United States incited action to promote anti-racist positions in the sporting world.
Basically, filming the police shooting of unarmed black men in the United States ignited a lot of anger against racism in America and worldwide. The choking of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police who were supposed to arrest him and the subsequent lies told to cover up his murder caused a lot of riots in the United States. However, these riots raised questions about the concerns of authorities and officials in the sporting world to end race-related issues and problems in sports.
TePoel and Nauright identify that Republicans were always known to have opposed acts to prevent police brutality and end the killing of unarmed black men by the police. This raised a tirade of anger and frustration, which renewed old questions about race and racism everywhere.
Social media was a major convergence point where many people who supported immediate police action to end brutality were vehemently debated. Thus, like the #MeToo movement, everyone who supported action to end racism sought to use every means possible to demand fair and better treatment of blacks in all situations. Thus, the Black Lives Matter protests led to a major social media storm that mobilized protests and action against authorities in America.
Sporting stars came together to ask questions. There were protests on sporting teams with people refusing to stand during the American anthem during sporting games. Thus, the sporting leagues in America and around the world had to take action to demonstrate their solidarity with the African American population who were being murdered.
Sporting social activism was one of the strongest points that led to the mobilization of popular will against the Republicans in the US Congress, who refused to pass a bill to improve policing and end police brutality against African Americans (TePoel & Nauright, 2021). The writers go further to identify that sports are a major tool for the improvement of society. It is not all about the fun and entertainment but also about the best interests and desires of people within a community or society. Therefore, the swift and historical effort of the sporting teams against the lack of will to end police brutality was a major process that is admirable and consistent with the core values of sport in general.
Ultimately, the Pressure from sports stars and other sporting fans forced the parties to create a bipartisan bill that passed the two houses of Congress, which forced America’s legislators to end police brutality. The authors cite the fact that previous incidents went unheeded. They mentioned the George Zimmerman case where he murdered Trayvon Martin in 2012. The sporting world was not so firm in its demand. Only a few sporting stars made comments. However, the George Floyd incident led to a call for urgent action. The sporting world's strong show of unity and solidarity forced the authorities to take meaningful and reasonable action.
It is conclusive from the article that sports have a social function, and this was invoked at the point when police brutality in America got out of hand and needed a political will to end it decisively.
Many key pointers are essential in the different aspects of sports. Shafiee (2016) identifies the most significant pointers and competencies as follows:
These are skills that I have worked on since the beginning of this course. It has provided me with various guidelines on developing myself, measuring my progress over time, and improving.
Teamwork: In the past few years, I have understood the importance of working with teams and groups. It is all about serving – giving off your best in every role you are given to uplift the team. As long as each individual focuses on what they are supposed to do, the team improves and attains results. Attempts to stand out and be distinguished always lead to problems and challenges. In the past years, I have improved my ability to make these teamwork competencies important parts and aspects of my life, and it has culminated in many practical skills that apply beyond sports to real life. This has led me to believe that I always need to find my place in any group I join and focus on what I have to do for the group all the time without letting down the team members. This is an idea that I believe will be with me for a long time into the future as I will need to tell athletes to take it seriously and develop team members and abilities.
Leadership: This is the process of moving people from one point to another (Daft, 2018). It is about forming a vision, dreaming, seeing the future, and moving your followers to achieve that end. This is the biggest discovery I have made about leadership in recent times. In its application, I believe leadership is about working with others to actualize something that does not exist. Hence, it is about imaginativeness and the mobilization of will and support to achieve the desired goal or end that you subscribe to with your team members. I have learned how to forecast, plan, and communicate with people to inspire and challenge them to achieve their goals. This is about motivation and aspiration. In some cases, leadership will involve meeting specific tasks, and this is something I have come to understand and developed competencies to achieve in the future.
Time Management: This is one of the areas I have struggled with at some point in my life. However, I heard recently that there are two types of people – one group view time as fixed, and at any moment, there should be a specific activity a person engages in and finishes by the end of the time. And there is a group of people who view time as something that flows, so they do many things at different points as it becomes necessary. I have come to improve my ability to treat time as fixed. This helps a lot in my professional activities, including the ability to plan and execute tasks by specific deadlines. However, I realize that in various informal settings, the ability to allow things to happen spontaneously is much more exciting. This has its place in sports management, where there must be artistic integrations into specific situations and circumstances.
Competition and Sportsmanship: I have understood that competition is the essence of sport. It is all about doing your best and letting your best be better than those you compete with. Competition inspires us to do our best. However, in some cases, the best way to start is to get a person to compete against themselves. This involves a quest for continuous behavior. Sportsmanship involves many character-building potentials ranging from participation to accepting defeat. These are all things a sports professional must know to guide and encourage people whenever the circumstances require them to switch codes.
Handling Pressure: I have learned that Pressure is not a bad thing. Rather, it is something that changes with the tempo of any situation. I have learned that Pressure is best handled when an individual knows and understands the basics of any situation. Every pressure situation requires doing the ‘right’ thing but faster or more intensely. Therefore, pressure handling is sometimes the source of our success. Pressure in sports seems to be something a coach will need to teach athletes at all times. However, there are various psychological elements that I need to master to do this very well in the future.
Management and Responsibility: Responsibility refers to duties that we need to discharge. I have come to appreciate this better and more significantly over the years. Management is a version of leadership where tasks and duties must be honored according to specific standards and expectations placed on us. This comes with the ability to meet tasks with specific resources, and I have recently learned a lot about this through the project management lens. This has taught me how to work with people and apply resources to achieve the goals assigned to me.
Commitment: This is the duty to do something for something or a group of people. Commitment keeps us going, and I have learned that how an individual treats commitments determines their lives in many ways. I have learned about psychology that everything is based on how we condition our minds to discharge our obligations to people. Commitment is best handled when internalizing obligations and expectations upon them. Through this, they can rise to the occasion and work hard to achieve the goals and objectives of any situation. In reality, commitment seems to be driven by constantly doing things that help them achieve the ultimate goal they are committed to.
