Jay and Jeff discuss where the idea for podcast came from and how professors can use it as a companion to the textbook Sports in Society, including suggestions for assignments. We also discuss the role of the many ancillaries available to professors who assign Sports in Society in their classes, and how to maximize the value of the ancillaries to enrich your class and save you time.

We begin this episode discussing why talking about violence in sports can be challenging for some people, especially sports fans. We then address if human nature is inherently violent or drawn to violence. That opens up a debate between us on the ritual nature of violence in sports and how a "quest for excitement" operates in modern societies. Through a discussion of the Oklahoma Drill in American football, we begin to distinguish violence from abuse. We also address the gendering of sports violence. We return to a discussion of abuse with a focus on sexual abuse in sports. Finally we conclude with a discussion of sports spectator violence and terrorism at sporting events.

This episode focuses on how all of us can collectively work together to great a sports future that we want to see. In sociology, we do not try to predict the future, but based on studies of trends in social worlds, we try to understand emergent trends and possibilities so that we can create a world that is more democratic, inclusive, and humane. We do that in this episode by looking at two sports models: power and performance sports and pleasure and participation sports. We discuss the meanings of these models and their implications. We show how commercialization privileges power and performance sports, but we also look at how people can work to transform their sports worlds and what pleasure and participation sports offer. We conclude by focusing on ways that people can engage in creating the world that they want to see.

Whether religious or secular, people often shy away from discussions of religion since they worry it will be uncomfortable or confrontational. We address that question and argue the connection between sports and religion is important and needs to be analyzed sociologically. We also discuss how sociology gives tools for analysis of sports and religion. Through a discussion of "muscular Christianity" in the British Empire, we show how religion sanctified white supremacy. We then discuss Christians unique relationship with sports and address key stereotypes Muslims face broadly and in sports specifically through a discussion of Orientalism. We then conclude with Jeffrey Scholes' typology of religious expressions during sports events to see how theology operates in everyday life and reproduces racial relations.

We situate this episode in the classic framework of structure and agency and show how changes in the organization of school sports impacts athletes’ ability to make meaningful decisions over their own lives as well as leadership skills they can develop. We then move into complexities around elite collegiate sports, including the relationship between sport and education, economic changes at the top, and the role of media. We then discuss how community-based research can alter our perception of school sports. We wrap up with discussions of ongoing issues in school-based sports: gender equity and sports that risk head trauma.

We begin by discussing NFL players’ protests during the US national anthem against police violence in Black communities, and many white people’s negative reactions. This leads into a discussion of people’s belief sports and politics should be kept separate. We challenge that idea by discussing obvious ways in which sports are politicized. We then discuss how larger social context can cause people to interpret the same protest actions differently since context changes people’s personal relationship to the issue protested. We also discuss socially conscious marketing or when corporations use politics and values to sell commodities. We then address the current debates about “sportswashing”. We move away from protests to focus on the myriad mundane ways in which states at the municipal and regional levels as well as national level engage sports through public health and urban planning. We conclude by moving to politics at the international scale.

This episode focuses on chapter 12, "Sports and the Media: Could They Survive Without Each Other?" We begin the episode by situating sport media within neoliberal capitalism, which leads into a discussion of media deregulation. We further develop a discussion on how digital media technologies impact the experience of consuming sports. We also discuss how digital media allows athletes and fans to be both media producers and media consumers (aka "prosumers"). We then discuss the "sport-media complex" and how it creates tensions between athletes as sport workers with sport owners and the media. We conclude with discussions of women's sports and racial representation in sport media.

This episode begins by contrasting people’s motivations to participate in and watch sports as well as the motivations people who stage local sporting events to the motivations of businesspeople that stage commercial sporting events. This leads into a discussion of neoliberal capitalism and its major characteristics. We follow up that abstract discussion with a list of concrete examples of neoliberal sports spectacles and some of the overarching patterns in neoliberalism. This leads into a discussion of what Antonio Gramsci’s calls forming ideological outposts in people’s minds. After recognizing the excitement and passion people have for sports spectacles, we then explore some of the darker aspects of the spectacles, including providing public money for private profits in stadium building and workers learning to identify with the interests of their bosses. We then talk about ownership models other than the current private ownership model that often runs counter to what most of us love

In this episode, we begin our discussion focusing on ableist ideology and how we can avoid stigmatizing others. We then discuss how sports participation can counter ableist notions of aging as a process of decline, why ability is challenging to define, and we recognize limits of what sport can accomplish. This opens up a discussion about how life developments both facilitate and restrict the choices we can make about physical activity. We then compare the medical model of disability to the social model of disability. Next we discuss how the politics of the "norm-other binary" and how ability intersects with identities. Finally, we conclude by addressing how disability sports can lessen exclusions and impact "the empire of the normal".

We begin our discussion of social class in sports by addressing class ideology and the American Dream. We then focus on how the unequal distribution of resources in society leas to an unequal playing field in sports. We push that discussion to address inequalities in the built environment, and how that creates different access to health resources and fun. This leads us to address how wealthier people can create their own sport and fitness context in country club sports, and how that reality advantages the wealthy when it comes to college scholarships. We then discuss unequal power relations through discussions of stadium building, the cost of participating in elite sports, and unequal salaries between men and women sportspeople.