These sorts of stereotypes are some of the reason that we don’t have any black swimmers or Asian rugby players. These thoughts are contradicted by Phillips (1976) “who maintains that athletic ability is equally distributed in all racial groupings, that motivation to excel is equal across all races, but that unequal access to facilities, coaching, and organised athletic programs is the main cause of racial variations”. It is also down to the fact that the black superstars such as Linford Christie or John Barnes have been successful in there sport, but there has been no black superstar swimmers to talk about or read in the papers so then the younger black youth don’t take up swimming instead they play football or take up running like there idols.
Stereotyping is a major factor when you begin to look at the American sport and racial stereotyping is so vastly common. In the 1998 National Football Season (NFL) we see the way that the players are stacked into playing positions with the vast difference of one race or the other: quarterback (91% white), center (83% white), wide receiver (92% black), running back (87% black), cornerback (99% black) and safety (91% black) (Lapchick 1999a). For there to be so much stacking of playing positions there must be problems in the development of players at a younger level and placing them in one position due to there race.
When looking at race in sport we must look at the way that the people who are commenting on the game speak about the different ethnic groups that are playing. Commentators have a huge responsibility to make sure that they are not prejudiced against any race. This is why actions of a senior BBC radio presenter were so shocking when he thought it appropriate to complain during the broadcast about the names of the Sri Lankan team because they were strange and impossible for him to pronounce. The commentator also continued to ridicule the Sri Lankan team for there choice of tactics even though they had one the match quite convincingly (Long, 2000).
These actions are what need to be eradicated and the commentator in question did not even get into any trouble for his actions while on air. This is some of the reason why there may be a lack of different races joining the local clubs. There is also problem with the fact that performers are adversely applauded by the commentators, in that when it is a white player doing well he is congratulated in commentary for there hard work and effort put in. Where as the black players are congratulated but it is because of naturally ability and not there hard work. This can be racism as the commentator will not recognise there hard work (Eastman & Billings, 2005).
Another issue that needs to be dealt with in the inclusion of all races are the difference in pay that certain players are making. When talking about the amount people are paid it is not necessarily the superstars of the sport but the average players in the team. It was found that the white NBA player is being paid 18% more than his black counterpart (Leonhardt, 1997). There also being another suggestion that black NBA players are being paid $17,000 to $26,000 less than there white counterparts (Koch & VanderHill 1988).
The owners and managers of teams explain these high wages down to the fact that they believe that the white players are encouraging more people to come and watch there team (Washington & Karen, 2001). These issues are need to be sorted out as it has an impact on the whole game, it will make more players not want to play in the NBA because they don’t get the right pay as someone of a similar ability. There is a problem with the American system at the moment is that the higher positions in the organisations are run by predominantly white. This goes from the owners to coaches with a very low percentage of any managerial positions being taken up by a black person (Eitzen, 1999).
When people think of racism in sport they tend to believe that it is in the minority and it is not a big factor controlling sport. What they don’t realise is that although it is not shouting from the stands every match racism there still is the problem behind the scenes and in the minority of stands. To try and stop this racism and get more inclusion of the smaller minorities there has to be a change in attitudes of the elder statesmen at clubs as they are stuck in the past letting things slip and not trying to change there sport for the good. There are initiative coming through to try and promote sport for the best and get people involved in there cause. The English premiership has started with the Kick it out campaign which was worn on the shirt of every player during the premiership matches. So with more initiatives coming through it will only help to stamp out the racism in sport.