Thomas Dowd

Professor Zimdars

Blog #3

                                                Ballers: Stereotyping Athletes

            Ballers, a new HBO series that has surfaced, is about the lifestyle of pro athletes and the way they live their life and the obstacles they face being a pro athlete. The media certainly likes to take advantage of athletes when they get in trouble. Through out the show different athletes make some questionable decisions and what they have to do in order to resolve the problem. In an article examining pro athletes and their stereotypes it talks about how individuals portray African American athletes. “Studies have found that sports programs and sporting events show African American athletes in stereotypical roles more often then their White counterparts (Brillel 1989; Jackson 1989; Eastman & Billings, 2001; McCarthy & Jones 1997; Whannel, 1992).” The media loves to point out athlete’s mistakes that portray them as something that they aren’t. A lot of the time the media doesn’t give out the full story and only shows what the athlete did and usually their penalty. In researching this topic it is occasionally assumed that repeated exposure to certain minorities represented in particular ways leads to stereotyping formation.

            During episode one of the show Ballers, one of the leading characters, Rickie, is at a nightclub and gets into an altercation with a white male. The fan makes a very sly comment about Rickie to his face. Rickie then retaliates by striking the fan in the face. This leads to Rickie’s agent hauling him out of the nightclub. Ultimately leading to headlines of the next day’s paper. With that happening, the NFL team his with cuts him because of what he did. This example shows how much of a spotlight these professionals have on them and one little mistake and their whole career is in jeopardy. Ballers also shows how athletes can mismanage their financial funds and ultimately go bankrupt before even knowing it. Keep in mind the show strictly focuses on African American athletes. Vernon Littlefield is another character in the show that blows through his signing bonus and starts asking his agent for money because he needs to “feed his family and friends. “ However, he was making very illogical decisions and a photo was taken of him doing some inappropriate things. His agents do all they can to get the photo from leaking to the media. This is great example of how the media can destroy an athlete’s appearance. As soon as they get an opportunity to take advantage of an athlete, they do so.

            In a case similar to Vernon Littlefield’s, NBA star Jahlil Okafor, was out at a club in Boston when an altercation broke out and a video surfaced of him fighting an individual. When TMZ sports caught wind of it they offered seven grand to the person that filmed the fight. That goes to show what the media is willing to do to get their hands on footage such as that. African American athletes in a sense bring these stereotypes upon them. Not saying that White professional athletes are angels, but for the most part you see a lot of African American male athletes getting in trouble for childish acts when they are out socially. Ballers does a great job of showing that in the series. However, it gives you a perspective of how these athletes are just regular human beings that can mistakes just like us. Is it ironic that most of the athletes that get in trouble are African American? I think so because most of these professionals come from nothing. They come from real tough neighborhoods, that don’t have money. Once they get all this money they’re almost overwhelmed and start spending so much so fast. A lot of these guys have no guidance once they have all this money and they make these irrational decisions and to be honest it really screws them over. The main actor of series “Ballers” is former pro athlete who turns into a financial manager. His role is to keep his clients from spending all their money. Even with these financial manager’s these athletes still have a hard time with budgeting their money.

            A question that is often ignored however, is why humans have developed a tendency to stereotype? In other words, what benefits did humans achieve by stereotyping groups or individuals? There is no real answer to that however in terms of the media, they stereotype (athletes in particular) just so it stirs up conflict in the media world.  Once the media portrays something about an individual people that keep up with the sports world can give an image to that person, usually in a negative manner. Why bother stereotyping because I know that if I were to sign a big bonus for a sports contract, I would make some irrational decisions just because I have all that money. It would be real hard to not make bad decisions when you have all that money. “By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.” This quote is powerful because it shows how these athletes can gain this stereotype of a typical NFL player because more then half of them end up with all their money gone. The sports media likes to display these acts through documentaries streamed on popular sporting shows. Leading back to my argument, the media likes to portray professional athletes through their mistakes that take place in their social life. I think they need to be less harsh on these athletes (African American athletes in particular) because they are normal people just like us and we all make mistakes.

           

                                                        Works Cited:

Kate Aguilar. "To Got Game: American Dreams, Racial Nightmares, and HBO's Ballers." Sport in American History. N.p., 24 Sept. 2015. Web. 09 May 2016.

"Jahlil Okafor -- 2ND FIGHT IN BOSTON (Video)." Http://www.tmz.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2016.

Ballers: Episode 1.

Ballers: Episode 2.