Page 187 - Sport Culture and the Media

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draw deeply for photographic material. Their 1999 wedding in an Irish castle,
for example, drew huge media coverage, with the wedding pictures sold
exclusively for £1 million to OK! magazine, whose wedding issue in turn sold
between 350 and 400 times more than usual (Cashmore 2002: 32–3). Then there
have been two children and numerous interviews and photo opportunities. Such
texts, with a stronger or weaker connection to sport, are diffused across the
media, with sport as the focus or as an ancillary aspect that helps to secure
interest by association. It is this associative function that is crucial to the
imagery of advertisements using sport as a key element in addressing potential
consumers. Sports myths, especially those of heroism, patriotism and team-
work, are readily available to corporate enterprises like banks, computer com-
panies and motor vehicle manufacturers. They have the capacity to stir the
blood of consumers and induce them to feel well disposed towards the product
or service because they already feel positive about a national team or champion
athlete. Often, the alluring image is of a black sportsperson (usually male) who
comes from a social group more commonly associated by the news media with
criminal activities, social dysfunctionality and economic dependence than with
spectacular feats in sport or in any other field of action.
The use in advertising and promotion of still images of black male athletes
was mentioned above as one of the most prevalent practices in contemporary
consumer persuasion. Flicking through newspapers and magazines, multiply
retired basketballer Michael Jordan (and, in another Nike advertisement,
unnamed Kenyan runners) can be seen endorsing ‘air’ athletic footwear; his
former colleague Scottie Pippen is selling ‘Ginsana Capsules and Tonic’; multi-
medal-winning athlete Carl Lewis is modelling the Nike ‘Apparel’ range; while
Tiger Woods appears to cover entire blocks of Madison Avenue shopfronts. To
vary the picture a little, Venus Willams can be seen bearing the Reebok logo.
It could be argued that such positive images of a minority group subject to
deeply entrenched racism and suspicion within dominant white culture are
welcome signs of social progress. Yet, as McKay (1995: 192) observes, the
attractive images of highly privileged black men pumping out slogans like ‘Just
do it’ (Nike), ‘There is no limit’ (Puma) and ‘Life is short. Play hard’ (Reebok)
help conceal the alienation and degradation of so many of their peers, and of
the exploited ‘people of colour’ in the Third and Fourth Worlds who work for
miserly wages (with no or highly circumscribed rights of labour organization)
to produce expensive leisure goods for more affluent consumers in other
countries (Miller et al. 2001). At the same time, important acts of black mili-
tancy are drained of their political punch, as occurred with the aforementioned
victory dais black power protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the
1968 Mexico Olympics, which was rendered a quarter of a century later as a