Today is Martin Luther King Day, and ESPN has already begun running stories looking at the progress, or lack thereof, of black athletes in sports (including management). Racial equality is a very important issue in the field of sports sociology, and ESPN is to be commended for making efforts to raise awareness of sport diversity issues and help minority athletes and front office personnel have the same opportunities as white people do.
While we as a society have made tremendous progress since the days of segregation, there is still much work to be done. The good news is that since Jackie Robinson first broke the color line in baseball, black athletes have continued to make positive progress in sports, as evidenced by their increased presence both on the field as well as in management. Of course, things are far from perfect today, but there is a very visible, positive trend since the 1950’s that shows much better efforts being made to ensure all people, regardless of skin color, have opportunities to compete on the field and eventually one day in the front office. Still, continued efforts in professional sports must happen if the ultimate goal is total equality.
As a research scientist, I enjoy analyzing empirical research studies so that I may evaluate objective data and better understand current situations, trends, and likely future events. One of the great things about examining scientific studies is the objectivity that is used when measuring things, like the attitudes people hold of certain issues. It is in this spirit that I actually have a major concern about how ESPN is currently using some data pertaining to race and attitudes in their current MLK programming.
In my opinion, the Hart Research Associates online survey that ESPN is currently referencing has a major, fatal flaw in research design that may have a dramatic effect when evaluating how sports fans will respond to their findings. I don’t have any problems with the demographic data they report (like the number of minority owners in sports), as those numbers are derived by simply counting how many times something occurs. Where I do have serious concerns, however, is how the study portrays the attitudes that whites and blacks hold toward various white and black athletes.
In one section of the survey results, dramatic differences were reported regarding how differently athletes were viewed between races. For example, Michael Vick reportedly had only a 25% favorable rating from white fans, but was liked by 65% of black fans. These figures were mirrored in other black-white athlete comparisons, with black athletes consistently ranked higher by black fans. Herein lies my issue with the current study.
Please keep in mind my following observations of this study have nothing to do with the actual participants, but are instead based on what I believe to be a critical flaw with how the data for this study was collected. In other words, you could substitute the terms “red and blue” or “x and y” for black and white — my hope is that readers will, for the moment, put aside all the qualities and characteristics that exist between whites and blacks, and instead look deeper at the issue that I have found with this study.
The ESPN study clearly shows that there are major differences between how white fans and black fans view white and black athletes. According to their statistics, white fans appear to have far less interest in cheering on black athletes than they do athletes of their own skin color – but is this assumption really accurate? One thing that jumped out to me when looking over this report was the fact that black fans didn’t dislike any black athletes, something that would certainly catch the attention of savvy researchers. In other words, the generalizability of this data may be terribly compromised if one set of subjects (i.e. black fans) do not show any disliking of athletes of their own skin color, but an over-interest in black athletes. What this could mean is the seemingly lower percentages of favorability white fans show toward black athletes may not be that dramatic, and that the over-identification and favoritism black fans show black athletes may be what is at play in making white fans look biased in their fan support. Interestingly, white fans polled in the survey showed both a liking to some white athletes (i.e. Tom Brady) and a dislike to others (i.e. Ben Roethlisberger), but the lowest ranked black athlete by black fans was Terrell Owens – and the difference between black fans and white fans was still quite dramatic!
Research findings must be closely analyzed before jumping to big conclusions, which is my fear when it comes to the current ESPN survey. To illustrate how easily research findings can be misunderstood and interpreted, take the following two examples:- What if you just read that 90% of American people did not believe in marriage? Would you have second thoughts about one day getting married? How about if you learned that the sample of people used for this study were all divorcees? Would you change your mind, and think maybe the people being surveyed had bad marriages, therefore prompting them to have strong negative feelings about marriage? This example shows how important it is to have unbiased samples.
Using a second example, how would you feel if you just read that 2 out of 3 dentists recommend a specific type of toothpaste to ward off cavities? Assuming those figures represent 66% of dentists, most would agree that the toothpaste they recommend must be really good to use, right? OK, but how would you feel if only 3 dentists were used in the study – would that lessen your trust of the results some? Studies that use a small sample size can throw off reality, as you can see in this example.
There is no doubt race equality is an incredibly important topic in America today, and people of all racial backgrounds should have equal opportunities to pursue employment. The ESPN study, while admirable in one sense in that it raises awareness, also concerns me deeply because of the sampling procedures used. I am concerned that some of these figures will actually fan a fire that may not be there, and actually exacerbate problems that may not exist. Their data would be much more believable if there were examples of black athletes that black fans disliked, which would offer more credibility and objectivity to the findings. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case — and because of this it is likely more Americans will see white fans as having prejudice toward black athletes, which may or may not exist (meaning the current study certainly doesn’t prove or disprove that assertion). Similarly, it’s hard to believe all black fans like all black athletes – instead, it is likely a knee-jerk reaction by the subjects polled to defend their own, which led to the unusual differences between groups.
Ironically, the statistics provided in the Hart study may actually reveal deeper, equally meaningful information. For example, if black fans really do favor all black athletes, is this a knee-jerk response to strong feelings held against white people? One way to interpret the data of the study is to assume white fans like black athletes a lot less than black fans do, while another way to examine the same data is to assume that black fans like black athletes at a disproportionate rate because of other, outside factors. Admittedly, this is a tough subject to broach with so many people having strong feelings about race relations, but it is still important that we do have these conversations. If the goal is to treat all people fairly, then we must continue this dialogue with the hopes of fixing the things that are broken, while at the same time being careful when interpreting data so that we dont add more problems that might not even be there in the first place.
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