Beer, Babes, and Balls explores the increasingly popular genre of sports talk radio and how it relates to contemporary ideas of masculinity. Popular culture plays a significant role in fashioning identities, and sports talk radio both reflects and inspires cultural shifts in masculinity. Through analysis of the content of sports talk radio as well as interviews with radio production staff and audience members, scholar and avid sports talk radio listener David Nylund sheds light on certain aspects of contemporary masculinity and recent shifts in gender and sexual politics. He finds that although sports talk radio reproduces many aspects of traditional masculinity, sexism, racism, and heterosexism, there are exceptions in these discourses. For instance, the most popular national host, Jim Rome, is against homophobia and racism in sport, which indicates that the medium may be a place for male sports fans to discuss gender, race, and sexuality in consequential ways. Nylund concludes that sports talk radio creates a male bonding community that has genuine moments of intimacy and connection, signifying the potential for new forms of masculinity to emerge, while simultaneously reproducing traditional forms of masculinity.

Beer, Babes, and Balls explores the increasingly popular genre of sports talk radio and how it relates to contemporary ideas of masculinity. Popular culture plays a significant role in fashioning identities, and sports talk radio both reflects and inspires cultural shifts in masculinity. Through analysis of the content of sports talk radio as well as interviews with radio production staff and audience members, scholar and avid sports talk radio listener David Nylund sheds light on certain aspects of contemporary masculinity and recent shifts in gender and sexual politics. He finds that although sports talk radio reproduces many aspects of traditional masculinity, sexism, racism, and heterosexism, there are exceptions in these discourses. For instance, the most popular national host, Jim Rome, is against homophobia and racism in sport, which indicates that the medium may be a place for male sports fans to discuss gender, race, and sexuality in consequential ways. Nylund concludes that sports talk radio creates a male bonding community that has genuine moments of intimacy and connection, signifying the potential for new forms of masculinity to emerge, while simultaneously reproducing traditional forms of masculinity.

Looks at contemporary sports talk radio and its relations to both traditional and newer forms of masculinity.

This volume is a collection of works from both expert and emerging scholars with an empirical focus on case studies and ‘real-world’ examples in the sociological study of sport and alcohol that would appeal to a global audience. Implications drawn from the chapters in the book will offer new insights and critiques on the sport-alcohol nexus.

Citizenship has become a widely significant and hotly contested academic concept. Though the term may seem obvious, citizenship carries a range of subtle social and political meanings. This volume explores citizenship as it relates to sport, on the micro and macro level of analysis and in a variety of geo-political contexts. Citizenship is a central organizing principle of international competition such as the Olympic Games. Furthermore, sport is used to teach, symbolize and perform citizenship. While related to national identity, citizenship pertains more precisely to how citizens are legally and politically recognized by the state and how citizens engage within the nation state. This volume traces the roots of discourses on citizenship before illustrating a variety of ways in which citizenship and sport impinge upon each other in contemporary contexts. This bookw as published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

A de facto American national holiday and phenomenon, the Super Bowl claims a spot as one of the most significant sporting events in the world and the most widely celebrated, feasted and feasting event of the year— with $14+ billion at stake, commercials costing $7 million for a 30-second spot, record-setting broadcast ratings, and 113+ million viewers. More avocados (105 million pounds) are consumed, and more beer is drunk (325 million gallons) on the single day of Superbowl Sunday. But there is much more at play than partying at our annual sports extravaganza, as this scholarly researched yet readable volume demonstrates: Here you will read a historical perspective that includes discussions of the meta-event’s economics (stakeholders, host cities, advertising, gambling, and media), fandom, ratings, halftime entertainment, the roles of mythic spectacle and religion, football’s sexist, militaristic language, gender issues like cheerleaders and sex trafficking, the Puppy Bowl, medical concerns like concussions and violence, tailgating and foodie ideas—all along with tidbits about your favorite team(s) and player(s). Touchdown!

In 2007, the Mitchell Report shocked traditionalists who were appalled that drugs had corrupted the "pure" game of baseball. Nathan Corzine rescues the story of baseball's relationship with drugs from the sepia-toned tyranny of such myths. In Team Chemistry , he reveals a game splashed with spilled whiskey and tobacco stains from the day the first pitch was thrown. Indeed, throughout the game's history, stars and scrubs alike partook of a pharmacopeia that helped them stay on the field and cope off of it: In 1889, Pud Galvin tried a testosterone-derived "elixir" to help him pile up some of his 646 complete games. Sandy Koufax needed Codeine and an anti-inflammatory used on horses to pitch through his late-career elbow woes. Players returning from World War II mainstreamed the use of the amphetamines they had used as servicemen. Vida Blue invited teammates to cocaine parties, Tim Raines used it to stay awake on the bench, and Will McEnaney snorted it between innings. Corzine also ventures outside the lines to show how authorities handled--or failed to handle--drug and alcohol problems, and how those problems both shaped and scarred the game. The result is an eye-opening look at what baseball's relationship with substances legal and otherwise tells us about culture, society, and masculinity in America.