This is this is the second interview with a female sport professional. Jacqueline McDowell is an assistant professor of Sport Management at the University of Illinois. At the University of Illinois Sports Management is in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism. Mrs. McDowell generally focuses on diversity research in the sport industry with extra focus on diversity initiative in collegiate athletics.
She defines social class as categorizing people based on income, wealth, power or position. She says that the African American definition of class is different. African Americans categorization is influenced more by a person’s attitude about life or their behavior. In talking about class stratification she states there are 3 major classifications Upper, Middle, and Lower or working class. She further states that the middle class can be broken down into three subcategories. Some define middle class by education level. She says that even if a person earns less that thirty five thousand a year but has a college education; they may view themselves as middle class. In speaking of classes influence on sports, she says that there is an issue with access to facilities for lower income people. Many of these people have added property taxes that pay for the facilities but they can still not afford the entrance fee. Many working class young males view sports particularly football and basketball as a way to escape the “ghetto.” This can be very problematic because only five percent of high school athletes attend college for sports and of those only three percent every make it to the professional leagues. She talks about how class effects peoples work experiences.
While she says that class has an effect, she states that class cannot be separated from other issues. The effect of class is actually compounded by other issues such as gender and education level. Benjamin Bowser exemplifies this. He is a high class African American, but he is the equivalent of a middle class white. Another example that she gives is an African American female Athletic Director being asked by a male Athletic Director to go get him or her a glass of water. As to say she was only there to assist like a secretary would be. In reducing class related barriers, she states that organizations need to enhance and develop programs that assess the accessibility issues. Instead of taking a capitalistic approach organizations need to take a humanistic approach and think about the needs of the people that they are serving.
McDowell made a comment about how even though a female may be in a power position she is still viewed as lesser than males whom have the same power status. I feel like this is very true throughout society. An example of this is Elsa Murano. When Murano was hired to be the President of Texas A&M, she was not viewed to have the power that came with the position. Many feel like she was hired to be a spokesperson only. When she began asserting the power that comes with the position, she came under criticism. She subsequently resigned under intense pressure.
While hiring of females to power position follows the laws that are in place to prevent discrimination, it can be very problematic if they are only a “token” hire. A token hire would be a female being hired by the organization just to show that they are meeting the laws and or public viewpoint. The reason this is so problematic is that others could get the impression that she was only hired because she is a female. So if she was hired over somebody else then an animosity develops towards the idea of hiring females. It also could reinforce the idea women not being able to do the tasks associated with power positions.
I completely agree with what McDowell believes on how sport organizations should think about the community that they are serving. So many facilities and professional teams receive subsidies from property taxes. One thing that I think every professional team that accepts money to build or renovate stadium should do, is offer reduced ticket prices for the people who pay extra property taxes for the facility. It would be one small way for the professional team to help ease the bad image associated with tax subsidized stadiums, while also providing access to those lower income people.
This is very relevant to the sport industry. Current professional sports teams sell most of their season tickets to businesses. This is so that the businesses can write it off as an expense. The professional teams have priced events so that even most middle class families cannot afford to attend. With the current decline in the economy you see many businesses cutting their spending, and usually one of the first spending cuts is sports tickets. As we can see with teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars, attendance is dropping and there is no market for middle or lower class families to get tickets because of the high cost. Also many sports organizations are under pressure to match female administrator ratio to the level of participation by females. This pressure could lead to token hires, which could lead to a multitude of problems. In my opinion a token hire is worse than no hire at all.
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