Sports Ethics
There has always been an issue of
some kind when it comes to sports. For the most part it is usually the player,
but it can also be the sports institution itself. This blog will identify
specific examples of both on the college and professional levels. Concussions,
the BCS, player rights, fan aggression, and flopping will be the main topics
for discussion.
-Concussions in the NFL
When
watching a professional football game you are very likely to hear the word
injury thrown around quite a bit. The National Football League (NFL) is a very
violent place where a lot of unexpected things can happen. While it is
difficult to expect the unexpected, the NFL has been watching very carefully
and cooking up new rules to prevent players from getting hurt.
One
of the most notorious injuries in the NFL is concussions. A concussion occurs
when the head is moved or hit at a fast pace causing the brain to move and hit
against the inside of the skull. As you can imagine this poses a great danger
for the player’s health. Concussions are considered a traumatic brain injury
meaning it can cause great damage to the brain including differences in how
one’s mind works. Possibly one of the most terrifying things about a concussion
is that you can’t really know how bad it is until it is looked over by a
specialist.
The
NFL has noted the importance of concussion evaluation and has cracked down. It
is now mandatory for any player who suffers a blow to the head to be checked
out by an independent neurologist before returning to the field. While this is
the safest way to play it has left teams at a bit of a disadvantage. Valuable
players often have to sit on the bench for even the mildest of concussions.
When a concussion starts to bother a player with headaches or blurred vision
then there should be action taken but when a player gets a small knick to the
head he shouldn’t have to sit out until he is cleared for a concussion.
A
rule that has helped the NFL with concussions recently is the helmet to helmet
rule. The helmet rule implies that a defender cannot make head to head contact
with a player. This rule is enforced by a 15 yard penalty and in more severe
cases can be enforced by fines and even suspensions. This action taken by the
NFL was a healthy one and we have seen less helmet to helmet hits since.
While
it is still unclear which path is the best to take in preventing concussions,
there is definitely action that is being taken. Whether or not a player should
have to get a head evaluation for every hit he takes to the helmet is a matter
of opinion that is always going to be talked about. The NFL seems to be moving
in a healthy direction when it comes to concussions. While many people think
that the league is being too cautious about the ordeal it is a big problem that
the NFL is going to have to take a lot of small steps to fix.
-College BCS
College football for years has used
the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) as their form of postseason. The BCS came
into existence in 1998, to put the nation’s top two teams against each other
for the championship game. The BCS was a great success in its first years, it
generated a tremendous increase in revenue, attendance, and importance of every
game played. NCAA officials thought they had come up with the perfect system where
essentially, every team won in the end; or so they thought. Over the past
couple of years, it was obvious that there were flaws in the BCS system. The
BCS is composed of many statistical categories such as: total offense/defense,
strength of schedule, points scored, just to name a few. Starting around
mid-season the first rankings come out and proceed to come out every week until
the championship game is locked in place. The percentages would tend to favor
the bigger schools such Alabama, Texas, USC, and many more, meaning the smaller
schools would not always get the shot they deserved. In 2008, Boise State,
considered one of the smaller schools in the NCAA, fell just short of reaching
the title game. Instead they received an invitation to play in the Fiesta Bowl
against power house Oklahoma. Everyone predicted a blow out in OU’s favor. That
night Boise would shock the world and win the game proving to the football
world that they should’ve gotten their chance at the title. Boise State was
just one many teams that had felt the effects of the BCS system. In 2004, the
Auburn Tigers were one of four teams to finish the regular season undefeated.
Being in one of the toughest conferences in the United States (South Eastern
Conference) the Tigers were for sure favored to go to the championship game
that year. Auburn never got their chance to go to the championship game that
year because the BCS thought that there were better teams to play and shocked
the world by not giving them a chance. These two examples show just how flawed
the BCS system really was, not considering all the other years that can be
taken into account. College fans, players, alumni, any supporter of the sport
demanded change. The NFL has had a great playoff system in place since the very
beginning. Supporters want to make college football the same way. A playoff
system will open up opportunities for so many schools that have been looked
down on as “not good enough” and give them a chance to compete and show the
football world what their capable of. There is not much negative you can talk
about the playoff system in college, it gives teams the FAIREST opportunity to
play and win. A playoff system will make the college season so much more
thrilling than compared to the BCS. Teams would be scheduling tougher opponents
to help get them prepared for the playoffs if they should make it. With the
BCS, teams schedule weaker opponents so they may avoid a loss or blow them out
to improve their stats. A playoff in college football only makes sense to the
fans, players/coaches, and every college supporter. The BCS system should be
coming to end within the next couple of years and the long awaited
playoffs should start off with a bang. 
-College Athletes
In 1991 the
Michigan “Fab Five” took a hold over college basketball viewers. This all-star
team of freshman consisted of two kids from the inner city of Detroit being
Chris Webber and Jalen Rose. Both these kids were poor growing up and had
literally nothing and no money. Over the next two years they both helped to
lead the team to back-to-back appearances in the final four. Eventually they
went pro and in 2001 allegations were made that several players had been
involved in a money laundering scandal including star player Chris Weber had
received money in college.
Both had received money from a long
time friend and retired factory worker Ed Martin who bought them sneakers
growing up and provided them with some spending money for college. After being
found guilty for obtaining money and gifts illegally during their college time
period. As a result the University of Michigan striped themselves of the two
banners that were hung in the gym and the four players involved were suspended
from the NBA. Also the head coach was wrongly fired for not having anything to
do with the money the players had obtained. Because of what possible was 600
thousand dollars all the games played didn’t count in the 1991 and 1992 season.
The amount of money that was taken from Ed Martin was definitely wrong. The
only thing that can be said is that had the Michigan basketball players been
allowed some source of revenue for their playing and representing the school
huge scandals like this wouldn’t happen.
This year the Ohio
state football team has gone undefeated. Ohio State has had a long tradition of
a winning football team. Because of some players trading memorabilia for
tattoos and about 14000 dollars worth of cash, the NCAA has made Ohio State
ineligible for a bowl game this year and is unable to be ranked by the BCS.
Many think this penalty is too harsh because this was only caused by the
actions of a few. Their head coach Jim Tressel also was fired for withholding
some information. If these players had been able to make some kind of money
while playing in college this scandal would have never happened.
In 2010 star receiver A.J. Green
sold his Jersey from the Independence Bowl for 1000$. Green was suspended for
four games as a result. Ironically the University of Georgia was making money
off of him from their jersey sale using his name. Green was just trying to make
some money in
The
thing most people fail to understand is that college athletes have hardly any
free time. If colleges were able to provide them with some kind of allowance or
job many college scandals would not happen. Even if they did still happen the
punishments being enforced are not fair to the rest of the team. True many
athletes that are in school are on scholarships and don’t have to pay anything.
Athletes still have lives to live though and do other things outside of school
and need money for other things. I argue athletes are entitled to some
percentage of money made by them for the school.
-Attitudes in Sports
In professional sports today attitudes
are something that has become a big problem.
From football players yelling at each other or the referees to baseball
players getting in fights or getting ejected.
One of the most prominent of these has to be basketball players. With the way basketball works it is very easy
for a player to be arrogant and cause problems.
To further exasperate the problem fans help to encourage this behavior
cause it to permeate throughout the league.
With the way basketball is set up it
becomes like no other sport in terms of the players image. In football there are players that are more
important than the other but in the end the team is what is needed to be good.
Even in baseball no matter how good a player is they only get a minimal amount
of chances to show off or even gloat to the other team. Unlike both of those examples basketball
players get to show off their abilities and then rub it in the other teams
face. Superstars like Lebron James or
Kobe Bryant will play the vast majority of the game and touch the ball more
than anyone else. The chance for
gloating after a good place is also very big especially because referees don’t
pay much attention to it. Unlike other
sports it is very easy for superstars to get a big head. Since all of the teams in the NBA are built
around one or two main players they get all the attention and can get away with
a lot. In some cases this arrogance can transfer into violent acts because of
how much they are allowed to get away with.
One very obvious example would be Metta World Peace who on numerous occasions
has been fined and suspended after various offenses. Not all acts are as obvious as that
example. Some players will simply
flagrantly foul someone because they know they will only get a slap on the
wrist. Multiple examples of these were
seen in last year’s playoffs especially between the Celtics and the Heat.
Tracing the origins of this problem
may seem pretty straightforward but actually the problem is underlying
throughout the league. Fans often
encourage this behavior and therefore make it more ok when the players do some
of the things they do. When a player
dunks a ball over someone and then yells something in their face the whole
crowd goes crazy telling that player that what he did was ok. There is a reason that the videos of Ron
Artest getting into fights have 500,000 views and one even has a million
views. The entire United States has come
to idolize these players allowing them to get away with whatever they
want. This theory translates over to other
sports where players get away with things like DUI’s with only a slap on the
wrist. Often times they will not learn
their lesson because they see it as they can do something bad and get away with
it. That is the culture that we have
created in professional sports allowing players to be above normal people and
get a sense that they are untouchable.
To solve this problem there are a
couple things that need to be done by different groups. First off, and probably most importantly, the
leagues need to set down stricter rules and punishments to not allow for any of
this behavior to occur. This will tell
players from the very beginning that they are not allowed to do what they are
doing and if it continues they will be punished. That alone will not be enough as the fans
need to not encourage this behavior. By
cheering when something like that happens it only further makes the player feel
like what he is doing is ok. By
intervening with both the leagues and the fans players should start to feel
less like they are untouchable and therefore their attitudes will change. Overall it will take a lot of work to change
the culture that has grown in professional sports today.
-Instant Replay
There are two many
bad calls by referees that affect outcomes of games. One thing I like about
football is the ability for the coaches to challenge a play they think should
be overturned in their favor. In
basketball they have instant replay people can see but most of the time it’s
strictly for the fans entertainment and doesn’t have a whole lot of positive impact
with the play calling or overturning a play.
Baseball is another sport where it is easy for a ref to miss a call that
could have been crucial. Unlike
basketball, baseball has no such thing as instant replay. Once the ref has made his call, the call
stands.
When
playing competitive sports players often like to exaggerate their emotions in
order to get a free or cheap call. This
concept is called “flopping”. In basketball, flopping
is the art of a player intentionally falling after little or no physical
contact with an opposing player in order to draw a foul by an official against the opposing player. Because
the main purpose of flopping is to deceive the official, flopping is generally
considered to be unsportsmanlike. On November 21, 2012, Brooklyn
Nets forward Reggie Evans became the first
NBA player to be fined for flopping. During the regular season, the steps will be warning for
the first violation, $5,000 fine for the second, $10,000 fine for third,
$15,000 fine for the fourth and $30,000 fine for the fifth violation. I think this is a good rule to have, but I
also think coaches should have a little right to call out a referee on a
particular play. When a player decides
he wants to put on a fake acting show, I think the coaches should have the
ability to call him out or “challenge the play”. Having this option can help eliminate the
dramatic actions the players try to pull and to reduce the amount of wrong play
calling. A challenge in basketball would
pretty much be the same concept as in football.
The coach calls the ref out to take a second look at the play. I think this would be a good way to minimize
terrible game changing plays.
Baseball is a very popular sport
that millions of fans all over enjoy watching but the game could use some
improvements. Major League Baseball is the
only professional sport that has not adopted instant replay, and is the only
sport instantly paying for it. There have been many instances in sports history where a bad
call has cost a team a game, or an entire season. Within the past decade, the
National Football League, the National Hockey League, and the National
Basketball Association have adopted instant replay to avoid any altercations
that could arise from a mistaken call during play. When discussing instant
replay, there is the subject of which kind of replay baseball should have.
Football has emplaced instant replay rule, giving each team two challenges
against a call made on the field. If one head coach thinks that the referee has
made a mistake, he can challenge the play and have it reviewed. It’s not a hard or expensive change to the
sport, but a change that will solve arguments and unfair outcomes just by taking
a second closer look.
These
five topics are very controversial in the world of sports. Changes need to made
on all levels both in college and professional. Safety has always been key in
football and with the helmet to helmet rule there are steps being taken to make
the sport safer. The BCS playoff system is a more fair way now because it
allows teams with very similar records to have a chance to play in the
championship. Nothing has been done yet to help college players financially but
there definitely need to be some sort of income for them. Aggression in sports
is very serious because it causes injuries and often time’s players are merely
given a slap on the wrist. Finally flopping in sports is the most unethical way
to play a game and with an instant replay challenge flopping could change. Overall
there are changes being made in all aspects of sports but these five examples
argue there needs to be more change.
