The SportsThink Weekly Read highlights my favorite sport-related article of the week. On the last Friday of each month, I send out the Monthly Review, a longer digest of readings and other content of interest. Most articles are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read them within the past week (or the past month, in the case of the Monthly Review). Some are relevant to my day job as a professor teaching courses on the business, history, and philosophy of sports. Others are just plain interesting, relevant to my life-long obsession with the games we play. The newsletter is free, but comes with two requests. 1. I’m always open to suggestions, so send me the good stuff that you read! 2. If you enjoy the newsletter, please share it with other folks who might enjoy it as well. Finally, I try to focus on non-paywalled writing, but if you find yourself unable to access anything, just hit reply to the email and I’ll do my best to get you a copy. Thanks for reading!
The Weekly Read
Soccer Looks Different When You Can’t See Who’s Playing, by John Muller, via 538. Absolutely fascinating summary of a recent research study on unconscious bias in sports spectatorship. In short, researchers used computer modeling to strip visual markers of identity (i.e., race, gender) from clips of soccer games, then studied viewer reactions/impressions to those clips vs. the original footage of the same portions of the game where race and gender were visible. The results are not necessarily shocking, but important. A short read and very interesting, this one will be required in my classes starting next semester. And here’s a link to a presentation on the original study. Big thanks to Matt Bowers for sharing this with me.
As always, thanks for reading.
See you next week,
Tolga