American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic

Andrew C. Billings (Ph.D., Indiana University) is the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Journalism & Creative Media at the University of Alabama. He has published over 220 journal articles and book chapters along with 22 book projects, the majority of which pertain to issues of media content and effects.Lawrence A. Wenner (Ph.D., University of Iowa) is Von der Ahe Professor of Communication and Ethics at Loyola Marymount University. Founding editor of the research journal Communication and Sport, his most recent book is the Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society.Marie Hardin (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is Dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Her scholarship has focused on issues of gender, diversity, and ethics in sports journalism.

• Acknowledgments – Andrew C. Billings/Lawrence A. Wenner/Marie Hardin: Introduction: Situating Communication and American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic – Erin Whiteside/Sam Winemiller: Reimagining the Role of Local Sports Media During the Pandemic Pause – Courtney M. Cox: Force Majeure: Pandemic Labor Insights within the Sports- Media Complex – Simon Ličen: More Than Fun and Games: How the World Will Look at American Sports— and America— After COVID- 19 – Daniel A. Grano: "Year of the Bubble": The Black Athletic Body as Event, and the Politics of Subtraction – Abraham Iqbal Khan: Reading Against the Platform: Communicative Capitalism and the NBA Strike – Michael Serazio: Hegemonic Masculinity on the Sidelines: Workplace Dangers, Gendered Ideologies, and Athletic Participation in the Pandemic Era – Travis R. Bell/Christian Dotson- Pierson/Janelle Applequist: Big Risks, Big Rewards: Framing the NWSL Challenge Cup Amid a Pandemic – Katherine L. Lavelle: "The Team’s Best Interest": COVID- 19, Mental Health, and Neoliberalism in College Football – Scott Parrott/Nathan A. Towery/Andrew C. Billings: Sports Figures as Public Health Prompts: The Broadening Role of Celebrity Athletes in Health Communication – Gregory A. Cranmer: Socialization and Team Management in Post- COVID- 19 Athletics – Michael L. Butterworth/Katie Lever: Coronavirus, College Football, and the Collapse of American Exceptionalism – Lauren Reichart Smith: The NCAA Response to the COVID- 19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Enjoyment – Karen L. Hartman: COVID- 19, the NCAA, and Title IX: A Time for Gender Equity – Walter Gantz: What Missing Sports Really Means: Mediated Sports Consumption in the Post- Pandemic World – Jimmy Sanderson: Managing the Unprecedented: How Sport Organizations’ Social Media Strategy Adapted and Evolved in the Midst of a Global Pandemic – Ryan Rogers/Lee K. Farquhar: Esports: A Pandemic- Proof Alternative to Traditional Sports? – Tang Tang, L. Meghan Mahoney/Ashley Spiker: Olympics in the Shadow of a Pandemic: Communication, Empowerment, and Concern through Crisis – Dunja Antunovic: Keeping a Sense of Community: Women’s Sports Leagues and (Post- ) Pandemic Communication – Editors – Contributors – Index.

“When a global pandemic brought elite sport institutions mostly to a grinding halt, it created an opportunity to illuminate the industry’s underlying structures, and to imagine a different, more healthy and just future for athletes, fans, and workers in the sports- media complex. In seizing this opportunity, Billings, Wenner and Hardin gathered top scholars in the field, and the resultant volume offers a rare critical glimpse into the inner workings of sport’s emergent post- pandemic ‘new abnormal,’ and some glimmers of a vision for fresh paths forward.”— Michael A. Messner, University of Southern California