On ESPN Deportes: Latinos,Sport Media,and the Cultural Politics of Visibilities

Abstract

This article explores the ways Latinos—as audience, market, media—reshape the boundaries of sport media coverage. Its central focus examines the ways ESPN responds to the “browning of America” and its changing demographics. To this end, the essay examines the emergence and development of ESPN Deportes, and provides a textual analysis of “One Nación” (September 2015-August 2016), a podcast hosted by Max Bretos (Cuban American) and Marly Rivera (Puerto Rican). Offering a textual and content analysis, I suggest that One Nación provides a benchmark to assess the cultural politics of diversifying sport media content, coverage, and context. Moreover, I argue that One Nación, while unable to escape the dominant features of late racial/gendered capitalism, produces a counterhegemonic discursive practice capable of challenging mediated circulations of Latino Americans.

Keywords

ESPN deportes Latinos/Latinas sport media biculturalism

Introduction: The Latino Turn in American Sport Media

At the turn of the 20th century, historian and professor Jorge Mariscal observed a shift in sport media. Fascinated by “The Jungle,” one of the premier sports talk radio shows to emanate during the 1990s, Mariscal (1999) describes host Jim Rome’s on-air personality, at least initially, as a liberal one, “premised to a large extent on the construction of a faux-hip hop persona—generous borrowings from Black English, a gangster rap attitude, and an explicit dislike of rednecks” (p. 112). A native to one of Los Angeles’s suburbs, Rome’s on-air branding of sports talk radio ushered an increase of African American audience participation, also becoming the “first host to call upon African American sportscasters . . . to substitute for him in his absence” (Mariscal, 1999, p. 112). Despite Rome’s ability to navigate the Black/White color line, ultimately his branding of sports talk radio proved divisive. Mariscal (1999) proposed that “as corporate money and syndication carried [Rome] into dozens of new markets across the country” (pp. 112-113), his liberal persona and politics became shook.

Rome’s “The Jungle,” in the end, proved incapable of going “beyond race” (Mariscal, 1999, p. 114) as evidenced in its on-air circulated mistreatment of Latinos. In one example, amid the June 1996 “Ultimately Glory” boxing match between Julio Cesar Chavez, a Mexican native, and Oscar de la Hoya, a Mexican American, Rome speculated how Mexicans could ever “support the ‘washed-up’ Chavez,” further asking “What’s up with the Mexican community in L.A.? Why don’t they support Oscar?” (Mariscal, 1999, p. 114). Whereas Rome curated an on-air personality that displayed “a sincere interest in African American culture and opinion,” the inability to gauge the heterogeneity of the Latino community proved dismal. In addition, Mariscal notes that “The Jungle” passively called (Latino) soccer fans “stupid” and went as far as aggressively condoning anti-Mexican stereotypes via linguistic mockery, or what Jane Hill (1995) has described as Junk Spanish, “a narrow, constipated little register of insults that doesn’t really offer much potential for play or originality” (p. 205, Note 14). Accordingly, Mariscal’s critique of Rome’s “The Jungle” reveals the contradictions of liberal racial politics predicated on post–civil rights colorblindness.

Arguably, Rome’s lack of knowledge or desire to acquire such knowledge at the height of the Chavez/de la Hoya boxing fight reflects a broader dynamic whereby anti-Latino stereotypes on the air possibly did not carry as much weight as anti-Black racial coverage. This surely remains worrisome, yet suggests a consistent theme across contemporary sport media. One need only recall the 2005 firing of talk-show host Larry Krueger after racially-charged comments about the San Francisco Giants and then manager Felipe Alou, or more recently the 2015 Colin Cowherd diatribe against Dominican-born baseball players, whose only negligence, apparently, was whether they will have mastered English fluently prior to signing a major league contract (Koner, 2005; ESPN.com news services, 2015). This is telling considering the ways that U.S. racial ideology, national origins, and ethnic monoculturalism all shape understandings about latinidad, minoritized athletes, and Latinos in general. Put differently, Rome’s early 1990s coverage on Latino athletes (and fans) in “The Jungle,” whether scoffed off as racial incompetency or cultural ignorance, is emblematic of a deeper long-standing issue across 21st century U.S. media: How does mainstream American imaginations about Latinos/Latinas get circulated, reproduced, and disrupted across popular culture and sport media? Given advancements in satellite communication, social media, and the globalization of media networks, the question of how to cover Latinos (and latinidad) across mainstream sport media must surely make various board meeting agendas at Bristol and elsewhere.

Indeed, “The Jungle’s” early coverage on the “Latino question” in U.S. sport media proves significant two decades later. In an age where Latinos comprise a substantial portion of professional athletes, sport fans, and the U.S. population, I suggest that media must also expunge racist and xenophobic ideologies from its coverage. As Mariscal (1999) concludes, “From radio studios to the corridors of corporate power to the plenary sessions of academic conferences, Chicanos and Mexicans are either dissed or dismissed, spoken about but not allowed to speak for themselves” (p. 115). How this has changed into the 21st century is my central concern below.

Consequently, the explosion of sport media in the new millennia provides invaluable opportunity to further gauge the ways Latino Americans in the United States “are either dissed or dismissed,” but also how they themselves are representing, reimagining, and reshaping national conversations on inclusion, belonging, and discrimination. Thus, sport and sport media have become invaluable tools. In the past two decades, many academics joined Mariscal to examine the historic impact particular Latina/o athletes have had on U.S. mediascapes.¹ Equally, vivid scholarship has also recently examined the rise of sport media empires (Vogan, 2015) and others have documented the significant nexus between Latinos and U.S. media (Chávez, 2015; Dávila, 2014). To date, however, scholars have yet to explain how American sport networks, like ESPN, have grappled with the popularized idea that America is “browning” (Sundstrom, 2008). Below, I explore the ways Latinos—as audience, market, and media—reshape the boundaries of the “worldwide leader in sports.” Its major focus examines the ways ESPN responds to the “browning of America,” particularly the changing cultural, demographic, and linguistic boundaries. To this end, I examine the emergence of ESPN Deportes, a subsidiary of ESPN Inc., and chart its development in alignment with external forces shaping both English and Spanish-language media markets. My discussion specifies “One Nación,” simultaneously a social media initiative and a podcast hosted by Cuban American Max Bretos and Puerto Rican Marly Rivera. While One Nación, as social media platform continues, the podcast—“One Nación con Max y Marly”—lasted from September 2015 through August 2016. As such, I provide a content and textual analysis (Valdivia, 2010) to the series’ 26 episodes to assess ongoing issues and trends in diversifying sport media content, coverage, and context. Eventually, I argue that Max y Marly, while unable to escape the dominant features of late racial/gendered capitalism, nonetheless produces a counterhegemonic media politics capable of dismantling dominant and misinformed perceptions of Latinos.

Literature Review: Spanish-Language Media and Constructing “Hispanic Audience”

The first European language spoken in what would become the United States: Spanish. (Ruiz, 2013)

Hispanic media has not come easy. In fact, what might be considered the bilingual turn across U.S. mediascapes² has been a slow, arduous process. As the rich works produced by communication and media scholars alike reveal (Beltrán, 2009; Berg, 2002; Chávez, 2015; A. Rodriguez, 1999; C. E. Rodriguez, 1997; Valdivia, 2010), the contentious relationship between English- and Spanish-language media mirrors the racialized social order between White Americans and Latino Americans. Whereas English-language and the push for monolingualism came to define certain geographic regions of the United States, particularly those confined to the ideology of Whiteness and White suburbia, the fluidity of the Spanish-language remained.

From the U.S. Southwest to Little Havana, whether in the U.S. “New Latino South” or in Spanish Harlem, concentrated pockets of the United States are anything but English-only. In other words, North America has always been, and will remain, unequivocally bicultural and multilingual. In fact, as América Rodriguez (1999) documents, Spanish-language newspapers circulated in the U.S. Southwest as early as the 19th century. The 1808 publication of El Misisipí, the “first dedicated Spanish language publication” in New Orleans, initiated Hispanic print-media (Chávez, 2015, p. 29). And prior to the Great Depression, Spanish-language radio program such as Pedro González’s Los Madrugadores “mixed live performances by Mexican musicians with information about jobs and community services” (A. Rodriguez, 1999, p. 29). Scholars have long explained Latinos’ relationship with U.S. media, particularly film and television, as one of momentary surges, with the first “Latina/o boom in popular culture” occurring as early as the 1920s (Valdivia, 2010, p. 4).

Moreover, film scholar Charles Berg (2002) notes that Mexican and Puerto Rican actors navigated a contested linguistic terrain brought on by a rising U.S. film industry. Early representations of Latinos in U.S. cinema reveal “a pageant of six basic stereotypes: el bandido, the harlot, the male buffoon, the female clown, the Latin lover, and the dark lady” (Berg, 2002, p. 66). However, with the advent of television and sound in the 1930s, markers of ethnic difference took on new form. The increase of television systems across the United States exaggerated the ways White Americans would view their Latino American counterpart. According to Berg (2002),

The silence of cinema allowed actors like Del Río, Vélez, Roland, Novarro, and Moreno to play characters of various nationalities as easily as they switched costumes. But sound created a new set of conventions for verisimilitude and necessitated that actors speak English clearly. For the most part, those with accents (except for a few, like Greta Garbo) were relegated to various ethnic parts or lost their film careers entirely. (p. 266)

Clearly, by the 1930s, a noteworthy separation between English-speaking and Spanish-native-bilingual speakers existed. Technological advances, then, fused onto a budding anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, anti-Spanish-speaking zeitgeist. Despite their capacities to speak, read, and act en Inglés, Latina and Latino actors’ visibility was subjugated, if not policed, by the sociocultural investments in Euro-American Whiteness. By the 1950s, the initial “Latina/Latino boom” onto U.S. mediascapes had declined, but the development of a “Hispanic Audience” was only starting.

Like many societal phenomena, the “Hispanic audience” is a socially constructed category. Cultural industry producers, advertisers, and businesspersons create it for different purposes and to different ends (A. Rodriguez, 1999, p. 26). Rightly so, it changes over time pending broader contexts at play. The history of Spanish-language media³ is one comprised of key entrepreneurs, federal communications act, and the strategic usage of identity markers of difference. Guillermo Gibens, in “Univision and Telemundo: Spanish Language Leaders in the United States,” notes three corresponding factors that led to the proliferation of Spanish-language television media. First, Gibens (2009) notes that with the rise of identity came the sense that being bicultural, binational, and bilingual was an asset, not a hindrance. Second, an increase in pride generated apathy toward mainstream networks, which often recycled cultural, linguistic stereotypes. Third, a lack of representation also meant a lack of information regarding home countries in Central and South America.

The competing nature of Spanish-language media, nonetheless, must contend with the boundaries of “mainstream” networks. Rating systems like Arbitron (Inés Casillas, 2014) and the unrelenting dubbing of Spanish-language media as merely niche market has historically impacted its broader recognition and advertisement investments. As case and point, president of the Spanish Broadcasting System Raúl Alarcón succinctly stated, “I’ve got the No.1 station in L.A., but I’m not getting anywhere near the revenue” as English-based media industries receive (Quoted in Casillas, 2014, p. 219). On the contrary, the institutional backing by “mainstream” companies seems to be offsetting this phenomenon:

It may be that the brand recognition of some of the new networks’ parent companies influenced other programmers and advertisers to test the waters. The debut of CNN en Español, FOX Sports en Español and Discovery en Español from 1996 to 1998 likely signaled to other programmers that Spanish language television was a safe move, that it had been officially embraced and validated by leaders in the multichannel industry. (Coffey, 2009, p. 208)

To be sure, with 55.3 million Latino Americans in the United States, making up 17.3% of the U.S. population (Stepler & Brown, 2016), media remains a bastion for representation, visibility, and cultural identity.

In Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer: Language, Ideology, and Practice, Christopher Chávez captures the ways that Hispanic media has changed into the 21st century. Noting the significance of 20th-century Spanish-language media, Chávez (2015) writes,

In a society in which there is an intense gravitation pull toward English monolingualism, Spanish-language media has inadvertently become one of the few institutions dedicated to preserving the Spanish language, however, the entry of bilingual and English-only Latino networks suggests that the stronghold of Spanish in Hispanic media is being contested. (p. 8)

Akin to other analysis on media networks across the Americas,⁴ Chávez (2015) interrogates the history of Spanish-language television in relation to “general market” media industries, “which has become industry shorthand for white” (p. 18). Reinventing explores how changes in demographics and media networks construct “the new Latino.”

According to industry analysts, “the new Latino” is comprised of a bicultural, young generation technologically savvy and proficient in both English and Spanish (Chávez, 2015, p. 48). That “a growing share of Latino adults are consuming news in English from television, print, radio and Internet outlets, and a declining share are doing so in Spanish” (Lopez & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2013, p. 6) further boosts institutional efforts to target “the new Latino.” A vital strategy used by media industry to appeal to the “new Latino” is through professional sports.

Indeed, for all the works that sport media and communication scholars alike have conducted regarding the importance of race, language, and ethnicity in North American mediascapes, far little attention has considered the placement of sport cultures and media programming for Latinos. Such inquiries might address how do Spanish-speaking sport media outlets fit onto broader conversations within North American sport media, and what patterns arise from closely examining the circulated, produced, and distributed content of these channels? In an effort to instigate these conversations, I turn attention to ESPN Deportes. I illustrate that ESPN Deportes, through its programming, media initiatives, and “Latino cultural producers” (Chávez, 2015) responds to the “browning” of North America in productive, albeit problematic ways.

On ESPN and ESPN Deportes

Sport never sleeps. Money never sleeps. ESPN never sleeps (24-hour news). Wall Street never sleeps. Sport is greed. Sport is greedy. Sport is a commodity. The sporting body wants it all: to win, not lose. The losing body always comes back for more. (Norman Denzin, 2012, p. 294)

U.S. sport media is a powerful industry. With varying political, economic, and cultural dimensions, sport media remains one of the most important social phenomena in the 21st century. Mass spectator sport, with its entrenched media/advertisement contracts, the perpetual need to sell out crowds and merchandise, and its never-ending desire to expand and create new sporting markets, insatiably protects global corporate consumerism. As Denzin astutely notes above, the nature of American sport, win or lose, ensures a fanbase that can instantly connect, communicate, and consume all things sport.

Sut Jhally (1984) historicizes the convergence between professional sport and media, which by the mid-20th century were mutually motivated by the logics of capitalist accumulation. The emergence of advertisement in newspaper sport columns, radio broadcasting, and later live-television programming illustrates the crossroads of sport media and commercialism. The need to enclose audiences’ “watching power” (Jhally, 1984, p. 47) became central to the proliferation of sport consumerism. Indeed, since the 1890s, the sport media complex (Jhally, 1984, 1989), or the sport media cultural complex (Rowe, 2004), is a powerful cultural institution that taps into emerging technologies to achieve maximum viewing power and secure a consumer base. ESPN,⁵ the self-acclaimed “worldwide leader in sports,” embodies this considerable social institution.

In ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire, Travis Vogan (2015) charts the cultural significance of the world’s first dedicated 24-hr sport network. Vogan examines ESPN’s history, noting the trials and obstacles the nascent brand confronted throughout the late 20th century, but namely, “a non-stop effort to negotiate program rights with NCAA; to secure interim and long term financing; to assemble a staff; and to complete production facilities in times for its September 1979 launch” (ESPN Founder.com, n.d.). In particular, Vogan analyzes ESPN original programming content such as SportsCenter, its trademark television series, and also documents the purpose of the film series 30 for 30, noting its import for the curating of master sport historical narratives that both educate and entertain. Moreover, ESPN reveals the contested nature of creating, operating, and distributing nonstop sport television. To this end, Vogan (2015) illustrates that “we live in an ESPN culture” (p. 3). Noting demographic currents, the sport media hegemon sought a seat in the Spanish-language market.

By 2002, realizing the browning of North America, ESPN announced its intention to create and distribute a “Spanish-language sports channel” (B. King, 2014). A year later, Lino Garcia, a former general manager of Canal Sony, became the General Manager of ESPN Deportes, responsible for its “day-to-day basis in all areas of operation, including programming, production, affiliate sales and marketing” (Bloomberg, n.d.). With Garcia at the helm, ESPN Deportes located the Spanish-language production of “SportsCenter” in Mexico City, a decision that “has allowed it to produce quality news and studio shows” (B. King, 2014). In 2004, ESPN launched its Spanish affiliate: ESPN Deportes, a 24-hr sport programming and entertainment medium pitched for the U.S. Latino market (ESPN Increases Spanish Coverage, 2005). ESPN Deportes’ mission is to produce a “Spanish-language sports brand dedicated to providing the widest variety of sports to the U.S. Hispanic sports fan via television, radio, online, print, and wireless” (ESPN, n.d.-a).

With more than 2,500 live and/or recorded sports programs, ESPN Deportes dominates the transmission of sport entertainment media. Their primary market targets Latino sporting audience that stretches across the Western hemisphere (Central and South America) and includes both immigrant and U.S. born populations (in North America). In the past, notable programs included the Spanish-equivalent to SportsCenter which offers “culturally relevant in-depth reports on breaking news, creative highlights, features and in-depth analysis” and Fútbol Picante, “the leading Mexican soccer news and information program on Spanish-language television” cohosted by José Ramón Fernández and former player Rafael Puente. Additional program content includes Jorge Ramos y Su Banda (a soccer talk show), Cronómetro (a major sport headline program), Béisbol Esta Noche (cohosted by former Major Leaguer Candy Maldonado and ESPN Deportes baseball expert Carolina Guillén), and Golpe a Golpe (a boxing program cohosted by legendary boxer Juan Manuel Marquez). Moreover, in 2011, ESPN (n.d.-a) launched Nación ESPN, “the network’s first studio show to be produced from ESPN’s facility in Los Angeles.” Overall, ESPN Deportes is “the big tent for Latino sports fans” (Jacobson, 2010, p. 8). Its expansion of sport coverage advances the 21st century “Latina/Latino media boom” (Valdivia, 2010) and ensures the logics of late capitalist accumulation (Jhally, 1984).

Although ESPN Deportes is a dominant contender in the world of sport media, it is by no means isolated from market competition.⁶ However, ESPN Deportes is noteworthy for being “the first that planned to make news and information a cornerstone, creating an operation meant to mirror the broader philosophy of ESPN, which had a strong rights lineup but distinguished itself through ‘SportsCenter’ and its studio shows” (B. King, 2014). To this end, ESPN is a transnational sport media corporation, comprised of a vast network of employees, studios, offices, and satellite programming located throughout the Americas. By 2015, its content reached 20 million Hispanics on a weekly basis across all U.S.-based platforms. In fact, as a recent 2015 ESPN Deportes Poll reveals, there is an estimated 37 million Hispanic sport fans in the United States, with 34% being “avid sport fans” and 80% of Hispanic sport fans being bilingual. ESPN analyst Heather Coghill notes that Latinos “are bigger sport fans and they are following more sports or leagues . . . the average Hispanic who is speaking English and Spanish is an avid fan of 4.4 different sports or leagues” (ESPN, n.d.-b). Collectively, ESPN Deportes affords a timely moment to examine the ways the Latino sport fans connect to and consume U.S. sport media. Moreover, the emerging U.S. bilingual mediascape allows for an opportunity to critically consider the ways that the evolution of a global sport media empire navigates a transnational ethnoracialized economy, marked by differences in nationality, cultural aesthetic, colonialism, and linguistic variations.

As Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer detailed, media networks are running toward the “new Latino.” Unsurprisingly, ESPN Deportes reflects these industry dynamics. Whereas the early 2000’s programming content reflected a binary linguistic terrain (Spanish vs. English), recent programming represents an explicit turn to an English-dominate bilingual audience. ESPN and ESPN Deportes, then, employ media workers capable of branding the network with a bit of U.S. Latino authenticity. “With Spanish no longer the primary defining characteristics of Hispanic television, programming relies more heavily on the aesthetic characteristics of Latino culture. Thus, the current cohort of Latino cultural producers merely needs to possess the requisite ‘subcultural capital.’” (Chávez, 2015, p. 125). This is evident with the 2011 launching of programs such as Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable, re-branded as simply ¿Highly Questionable? (¿HQ?) only 3 years later. Instead of a “talk-show set in a 1950s-inspired kitchen that looks, sounds, and feels like it came from a Cuban family sitcom” (I. Rojas, 2012) in Haleiwa, Florida, it is now filmed at The Clevelander Hotel, on Ocean Drive. ¿HQ? was made popular by way of Miami-native Dan Le Batard, ESPN radio host Bomani Jones, and Gonzalo “Papi” Le Batard, Dan’s father and a senior Cuban exile. Together, the ethnoracially diverse trio provided an entertaining half hour filled with witty banter, prerecorded comedy sketches, and the “innate Miami and Cuban-American flavor” (ESPN, 2011) to all major U.S. sport highlights and debates.

Despite following the all-too-common television formula that combines sport commentary with panel debates and playful competition, made mainstream by Fox Sports Net’s The Best Damn Sports Show Period (2001-2009) and ESPN’s Around the Horn (2002-present), ¿HQ? differentiates on account of its Latino aesthetic. Seamlessly, ¿HQ? switches from English to Spanish, all while appealing to audiences everywhere in between. For example, prior to Bomani Jones exiting the series in early 2017, the show would kick off with Dan saying “Dale, Papi” (Go ahead, Dad) and usually end with Jones signing off with saying something akin to “Gracias, see you mañana” (Thank you, see you tomorrow).

In this regard, ¿HQ? is a primary example of the mainstreaming of a U.S. bilingual market. By breaking beyond the monolingual market and tapping into what advertisers and markets call the “total-market sponsor,” U.S. sport media navigates linguistic variations and capitalizes upon those cultural differences. Subsequently, the ESPN Deportes mantra is a basic one: Create and distribute programming that attracts, captures, and ensures the “watching power” of a minority audience worth 1.3 trillion dollars. Indeed, as the latest iteration for the “unholy trinity of sport media” (Rowe, 2004), the expansion of Spanish-language and bilingual mediascapes provides a cyclical opportunity to market “all languages [across] all media” (Lino Garcia quoted in Jacobson, 2010, p. 8). To showcase these dynamics, I focus on ESPN’s One Nación Latina/o cultural producers.

One Nación (With Max y Marly)

It matters little if one is a bilingual millennial excited to find out which sports personalities share a common heritage, or someone looking for score updates or just someone who wants their sports perspective served up with a side of spicy salsa. One Nación is full of the stories, sights and sounds of all the “buena gente.” (ESPN, 2015)

In early 2015, ESPN launched the One Nación Digital initiative, “a bilingual online destination that integrates ESPN content relevant to the U.S. Hispanic sports fan” (Nuñez, 2015). It operates as the designated medium whereby “stories that are of interest to a bilingual and bicultural audience” can be retrieved with “easy access to the content, regardless of language” (Nuñez, 2015). The inaugural press release, titled “¡Welcome, Amigos!” (ESPN, 2015), captures the bicultural and bilingual essence of One Nación:

One Nacion [sic] offers something unique on the sports scene—a rich mix of information and entertainment centered on the Latino sporting experience. Whether it’s exclusive interviews with athletes speaking in their mother tongue or Spanglish pop-cultural references, it’s a window into a world with vibrant personalities, passionate rivalries and fans that live for their teams . . .

Most of all, One Nación is a place where not just Hispanic fans are welcome, but an inclusive environment is offered to everyone via subtitles and intertwining of English and Spanish language elements. It’s a reflection of the diversity of our world today and a bridge between the cultures that intermix and influence each other on a daily basis. It’s a reflection of the diversity of our world today and a bridge between the cultures that intermix and influence each other on a daily basis. It’s a reminder that people can celebrate and respect differences while remember that we are One Nación.

With about 3 years under its digital belt, One Nación seamlessly blends English and Spanish. As the “digital home for the bilingual U.S. Hispanic sports fan,” the initiative builds from once-solitary exposés on Latino athletes,⁷ and provides up-to-date coverage on a daily basis.

ESPN’s senior director of multicultural content, Hugo Balta, states the goals of One Nación are to “provide a voice that’s inclusive and reflective of the entire U.S. Hispanic experience; their achievements and challenges,” further adding the initiative “is a great collaboration between several entities across ESPN and ESPN Deportes” (quoted in Nuñez, 2015). As part of the ESPN One Nación initiative targeting “the new Latino” (Chávez, 2015) sport fan, ESPN Radio launched a podcast originally titled One Nación with Max y Marly, later renamed to simply Max y Marly halfway into the series. For consistency, below, I reference the One Nación podcast as simply Max y Marly.

Max y Marly is the first bilingual podcast created and sponsored by ESPN. Hosted by Cuban American Max Bretos and Puerto Rican Marly Rivera, the podcast ran from the first of September 2015 and un-officially concluded the following year on August 18. Both Bretos and Rivera have long tenures with sport media and journalism. Bretos, a soccer aficionado and alumni of Florida State University, worked for a decade at Fox Soccer Channel/Fox Sports World, eventually hired by ESPN in January 2010 (Bretos, n.d.). Alongside Jonathan Coachman, Bretos is a casual coanchor for SportsCenter. Alternatively, Marly Rivera began working for ESPN in 2004 as a New York–based columnist. A baseball expert and fan of the New York Jets, Rivera (n.d.) writes for ESPN Deportes.com covering the New York Yankees and New York Mets, contributes to ESPN Deportes Nueva York 1050 AM, and in September 2016, became a cohost to ESPN Nación on ESPN2.

Max y Marly lasted just under a year. Its goal was simple: “present a bilingual show for everyone who loves to consume sports in English and en español.” According to the first two episodes, the podcast’s mission was to explore the “social, cultural topics that affect all Latinos, and not just athletes” (Max y Marly, September 15, 2015). On the podcast’s inaugural episode, Balta (2015) wrote, “The new bilingual podcast focuses on the achievements and challenges of Latino athletes on and off the field. The program also seeks to engage audiences about the social and cultural issues which affect athletes and fans alike.” As a show conceived by “Latino cultural producers” (Chávez, 2015), Bretos and Rivera provided about 800 minutes of bilingual content averaging just over a half hour per its 26 episodes.

In sum, the podcast managed to raise intriguing topics central to the Latina and Latino sporting experience. By inviting relevant experts in the fields of communication, marketing, and sport media, as well as retired and active Latina/o athletes, Max y Marly took up significant conversations “with a side of spicy salsa.” By blending 75% English and 25% Spanish per broadcast (Deitsch, 2015), it actively illustrated the spirit of what author Ed Morales (2002) called “living in Spanglish.” The podcast analyzed a variety of sports and sporting events and offered provocative social-cultural commentary on a number of issues. Topical episodes included Hispanic identity, language, the 2016 Olympics, racism, fandom, marketing, hiring practices, sport diffusion, hall of fame induction, media discrimination, and domestic violence, among other topics (see Table 1 below).

Table 1.

One Nación With Max y Marly Episode Guide.

Episode	Date	Topic/title	Duration	Official Episode Description
1	September 1, 2015	Translation Please	28:19	On the first One Nacion with Max y Marly, Max Bretos and Marly Rivera discuss the lack translators being made available to Hispanic athletes.
2	September 15	Hispanic Heritage Month	28:06	In this special Hispanic Heritage Month edition of One Nacion with Max y Marly Tito and Al Horford talk about the NBA and Dominican pride. Plus, why the NFL is winning the hearts of Hispanic sports fans.
3	October 1	The Pride of Puerto Rico	28:48	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera talk with MLB pelotero Carlos Correa. Plus, the identity crisis faced by Afro-Latinos.
4	October 15	Football Vs. Fútbol	23:21	Which is the better sport, football or futbol? NFL Great Damien Woody and MLS champ Alejandro Moreno debate on this edition of One Nacion with Max y Marly.
5	November 2	Carlos Morales	28:27	Max y Marly are joined by ESPN NBA analyst Carlos Morales to discuss basketball’s move to become the Caribbean’s sport of choice.
6	November 16	All in the Familia	21:50	Al Horford, Carlos Correa and Marlen Esparza share how their family inspires pride in their heritage. Also, Charlie Villanueva on the challenges of Afro-Latinos.
7	November 18	Canelo Contra Cotto	30:06	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera preview the massive Canelo Alvarez/Miguel Coto fight with Bernardo Osuna and Claudia Trejos.
8	November 23	Las Panteras Stay Perfect	31:34	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera talk about the Panthers continuing their winning streak with head coach Ron Rivera and Carolina Spanish PXP analyst Luis F. Moreno.
9	December 2	Saludos a Kobe	30:02	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera give their thoughts on the long farewell of Kobe Bryant and speak with Beto Duran about Kobe’s impact on Latinos. Plus, the NBA returns to Mexico!
10	December 9	Tazon de Estrellas	27:49	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera cover the Tázon de Estrellas, an event that allows the top NCAA Division III football stars to play a tournament in Mexico. Plus, they talk with Universidad de las Americas Puebla coach Eric Fisher and Global Football president Patrick Steenberge.
11	December 22	Marly va a Cuba	37:43	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera discuss the MLB Goodwill Tour. Plus, Marly shares her experience in Cuba, talks about Yasiel Puig, Joe Torre and more.
12	January 13, 2016	MLB Hall of Fame	41:57	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera discuss the MLB Hall of Fame voting with Alex Cora and who should and shouldn’t be in.
13	January 27	Super Bowl de Oro	37:10	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera talk to the ESPN Deportes voice of Super Bowl 50 Alvaro Martin and the first Hispanic coach to win the Super Bowl Tom Flores.
14	February 4	Super Semana Comes to a Close	40:41	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera chat about Super Bowl predictions and listen to Marly’s conversation with Ron Rivera and Ryan Khalil.
15	February 22	MMA Para La Gente	30:18	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera speak with UFC Senior VP Jaime Pollack about diversifying to Hispanics and Gilbert Melendez about how MMA is growing with Hispanics.
16	February 29	Marketing Hispanic Athletes	35:36	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera speak with Carlos Correa’s marketing manager Frankie Higginbotham and ESPN sports business guru Darren “Diego” Rovell on how things have changed.
17	March 9	El Estado of MLS	30:51	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera look at how MLS is luring Hispanic fans and talk to the director of player personnel for the league, Alfonso Mondelo.
18	March 17	Vamos a Cuba with MLB	37:54	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera preview the MLB’s trip to Cuba and chat with Rays pitcher Chris Archer as well as his Cuban teammate Dayron Varona. Plus, Tigers GM Al Avila joins the show.
19	April 22	Usar Las Manos for Good	32:30	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera talk about domestic violence amongst Hispanic athletes, what’s in a name and celebrate 26 years of Mellow Man Ace.
20	April 28	El NFL Draft	23	The NFL Draft is upon us and Max and Marly speak with former NFL player Roberto Garza about what that day is like and how to get more Hispanics involved in football.
21	May 3	Ready for Alvarez y Khan	15:38	Ahead of the Canelo Alvarez – Amir Khan fight, Max y Marly speak with Claudia Trejos and Bernardo Osuna. Plus, they give us the real deal on Cinco de Mayo.
22	May 12	Getting Real Con La Lengua	38:11	Max y Marly respond to Brian T. Smith’s quoting of Carlos Gomez in the Houston Chronicle. Gomez shares his side of things with Marly and writer Britni de la Cretaz.
23	May 20	Punetazo Contra Los Managers	47:01	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera go through the Odor-Bautista fight with reaction from players. Plus, they chat with minor league manager Joey Cora on the lack of Hispanic managers in MLB.
24	July 8	Tito Talks Free Agency	43:21	Max and Marly are back! They talk to former NBA player and Dominican legend Tito Horford, father of Al Horford, about his son’s signing in Boston and NBA free agency.
25	July 21	Soccer in the USA	25:02	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera share their thoughts on soccer fans in the United States, Lou Holtz’s controversial comments about the sport and more.
26	August 18	Puig y Manos de Piedra	32:31	Max Bretos and Marly Rivera are joined by Puerto Rican gold medalist Monica Puig and “Hands of Stone” producer Jay Weisleder.

From its onset, Max y Marly powerfully disrupted the Whiteness of American sport media. As part of its goals and mission, “to provide a much needed vehicle that welcomes discussion and debate about issues most relevant to U.S. Hispanics,” Bretos and Rivera mobilized the sport-based podcast to address issues often not typically covered by mainstream-ESPN. To showcase, I divide the analysis into three themes: (a) Latino heterogeneity and tearing down stereotypes, (b) institutional obstacles within sport federation practices, and (c) celebrating pioneers, archiving contested terrains. I conclude by considering how the hypervisibilities of Latino sport media, while a much-needed corrective given the unabashed return of White (toxic) masculinities into 2020, also encapsulates the worst of sporting culture, namely anti-Indian racism, blatant commercialism, and unbridled globalization.

Latino Heterogeneity and Tearing Down Stereotypes

In “Translation Please,” Max y Marly introduces itself by situating their Latina/o identities. Bretos, whose parents are Cuban-exiles, grew up in a dominant English-speaking household. Conversely, Rivera grew up in Puerto Rico, moved to the mainland at the age of 16, and situates her own fandom with sports by following Puerto Rican baseball and “identifying with the Latino player.” By introducing the podcast, alongside their own diasporic roots, Bretos and Rivera reveal the richness of the panethnic term “Latino.” This approach to language is noteworthy as it provides a critical shift from the overt conflation and stereotype that all Latinos are recent immigrants from Mexico.

Using sport as its anchor, Bretos and Rivera deconstruct ongoing Latino stereotypes. For example, in discussing the then-upcoming boxing match between Canelo Álvarez and Amir Khan, Max y Marly deconstructs the myth of Cinco de Mayo as akin to “America’s” Fourth of July. Bretos, aware of the corporate logistics, mentions,

[It’s] a money grab in a way. We shouldn’t really say that because [ESPN is] in partnerships with many of the beer companies that make a huge amount of money on the Cinco de Mayo. The issue we have is we see some of us and the perception by the non-Latino markets, and the stereotypes come out, the stereotypes of drinking. (Max y Marly, May 3 2015)

Noting that, historically, marketers schedule boxing events on May 5, Bretos and Rivera educate both White and non-White audiences that Cinco de Mayo is in fact an artificial holiday that serves the mis-education of Mexican history, perpetuates anti-Latino prejudice, and ultimately serves the corporate interests of America (Alamillo, 2009a).

Similarly, Max y Marly deconstructs racial stereotypes in relation to what Latinas/os “look like.” In Episodes 2 and 6, Bretos and Rivera examine the ways Latino-ness/latinidad transcends skin color, nationality, and geography. These episodes feature an overview to the diversity of Latina/o athletes. From athletes like Tony Romo (a light-skinned Mexican American football player), to Al Horford (a Black Dominican basketball player), to Marlen Esparza (a light-Brown boxer and 2012 Olympian from Houston, Texas), to Charlie Villanueva (an Afro-Latino basketball player hailing from the Dominican Republic), Max y Marly recognized the heterogeneity behind Latina/Latino labels. In addition, the series’ depth of sporting cultures shatters prevailing myths that Latinas/os are only fans of soccer and boxing. In all, Max y Marly showcases the diversity of latinidad while simultaneously educating on anti-Latino stereotypes.

Latinos in U.S. Sport and External/Internal Violences

One of the strengths of Max y Marly lies in its poignant assessment of how discrimination takes on external and internal form. Particularly, how sport policies continue to exclude U.S. Latinos. From delving into the Rooney Rule—the NFL’s diversity policy to recruit more minority coaches (Episodes 3, 8, 14, and 18)—to exploring the disproportionate ratio between professional major league peloteros of Latin American descent and the lack of general managers in baseball franchises (Episode 23); whether noting the lack of major league baseball translators provided to players of both Oceanic and Latino descent (Episode 1), to addressing the lack of a substantive-effort by pro men’s league to address issues of domestic violence (Episode 19), or simply noting the continued neglect of voting Latino sport pioneers into their respective hall of fames (Episodes 12 and 13), Max y Marly did not shy away from pressing social issues affecting the representation, reception, and legacies of Latina/o athletes.

For example, in the premier episode, Max y Marly interrogates the politics of whether Major League Baseball could do a better job of offering translation for players of Latin American descent. They discuss the example of Dominican pitcher Michael Pineda, who in 2014 was ejected from a Yankees-Red Sox game after being found to have pine tar (Associated Press, 2014). Interestingly, Pineda addressed the media without a translator, reasoning that by solely addressing the English-language media, he would seem less guilty. It is at this moment that Marly Rivera offers a distressing critique of the majors:

Michael Pineda should have accepted a translator. Lo deberia tener porque es un tema dificil, es un tema delicado. Y entonces, te voy a dar el ejemplo perfecto. Ichiro Suzuki, who speaks perfect English, perfect English. Cuando el esta dando entrevistas, he goes to the translator. Why? And everyone has asked him: Why do you go to the Translator? “Because I believe you really want to hear what I think about something and I think in Japanese.” (Max y Marly, September 1, 2015)

Embedded in this linguistic turn, is an insightful analysis of major league baseball’s long-standing position to neglect the ability of its international players to communicate properly on and off the field.

Similarly, Bretos and Rivera take aim against the lack of Latinos in positions of power within U.S. sport industries. Notably, Rivera preempts the naysayers and claims, “we’re not crying race”; rather, Max y Marly expose the tokenism behind pro sport federation policies like the NFL’s Rooney Rule, or the MLB’s Selig Rule. Both rules require franchises to interview at least one minority candidate prior to hiring their final candidate. And as baseball historian, Adrian Burgos Jr. (2015) noted going into the 2015 MLB season:

MLB has backslidden on the issue of diversity of its team managers over the past five seasons. This has occurred even though players continue to be nearly 30 percent Latino and just over 8 percent African-American. When one includes Asian and Asian-American players, team rosters are about 40 percent non-white.

Interestingly, Bretos extends this critique to the world of sport media: “We don’t have Hispanic leadership at the top level at ESPN” (Max y Marly, May 20, 2016). By centering Latino American-ness, Max y Marly “talk back” to the Whiteness of American sport federations and media.

Another example deals with the ways Latina/o names are pronounced by mainstream sport media. In the second half of Episode 5, Rivera asks, “What’s in a Name, Max?” Bretos brings up Vanessa Ruiz, an Arizona newscaster who received complaints from audience members due to the fact that Ruiz “rolls her Rs when pronouncing Spanish words” (Santos & Hauser, 2015). Upon applauding Ruiz’s stance, Bretos shares that the NFL’s Tennessee Titans franchise, on behalf of their Quarterback Marcus Mariota (Samoan descent), sent an email to ESPN to discontinue the mispronunciation of Mariota’s name. Marly elaborates: “if it’s important to the athlete . . . that the name is pronounced to the T correctly, then you should do it . . . It should be part of the effort of the American sports media to make a point to say it correctly” (Max y Marly, November 2, 2015). In addition to discussing how contemporary major leaguers like Félix Hernández (Venezuelan, pitcher), Adrián González (Chicano, first baseman), Alfredo Simón (Dominican, pitcher), and Robinson Canó (Dominican, second baseman) alter the pronunciation of their names, Rivera references pelotero Vidal Nuño (Latino American, pitcher) and states, “put the ñ where it belongs.”⁸ Through these examples, it becomes evident that by tackling issues of hybridity, identity, and language, Max y Marly enriched the shortcomings of monolingual sport media coverage, and simultaneously provides visibility to Latina/o marginalization.

Max y Marly did not simply critique the injustices brought on by external forces. In addition to the inadequacies of pro sport resources for players, hiring policies, and linguistic politics, Max y Marly unpacked the way discrimination within the Latino community takes place. They looked inward. In “Usar Las Manos for Good,” Bretos and Rivera center the ways patriarchy, domestic violence, and toxic masculinity permeate Latino male athletes. Given the recent surge of Latino male athletes under scrutiny for domestic violence (i.e., Cuban Yasiel Puig, Dominican José Reyes, and Cuban American Aroldis Chapman), Rivera states, “I’m not saying that domestic violence is not a part of Hispanic culture. Let’s be very clear. It is something that is engrained in the machismo in the men are superior to women kind of ways and that kind of stuff. So I get it. But also we have to be very clear that it is happening in the NFL, that it is happening in many places and it has taken us a very very long time to even deal with it.” Akin to how they position their subjective diasporic subjectivities, Bretos and Rivera do not shy away from situating how their familial upbringing shaped their personal, romantic, and working relationships. Here, they evidence the need for a critical Latino fandom; one that applies an intersectional framework and that grapples with the ways hypermasculinity and patriarchal values in “Hispanic culture” are learned cultural attitudes, not rooted in biology or genetics.

Celebrating Pioneers, Archiving Contested Terrain

The creation of One Nación with Max y Marly in specific, and ESPN Deportes in general, implies the institutional need to recognize the contributions of Latinas/os in American sport and society. To that end, one major facet of Max y Marly is its ability to recognize the cultural imprint of Latinos and taking pride in the diversity of this hemispheric people. For example, in Episode 13, Max y Marly discussed the ways sport media and journalists fall short when it comes to voting the next round of Hall of Famers. Joined by the legendary Thomas “Tom” Flores, who in his heyday was described by the late Frank de Olmos as “the most publicized and talked about Chicanos in the world,” Max y Marly provided a platform that considers the limitations of hall of fame inductions, particularly the National Football League (NFL):

Marly Rivera:

Coach, when you think, I know this is a little bit of a delicate subject but I’ll bring it out there because I would vote for you, I know I don’t have a vote for the [NFL] hall of fame, but is there a point when one still thinks—I’m kind of done with Anthony Muñoz being the only one you know one out there with a Hispanic sounding last name—do you still have hope that it could happen for you?

Tom Flores:

Yeah, I still have hope . . . I’m still mentioned every once in a while. I’ve been nominated but I never made it to the final group. And, I’d be lying if I say I didn’t wish I was there or I didn’t get there someday. When I look at the so many people who have gone there or are getting this far, after what I have done, it’s mind boggling sometimes. But then you have to be realistic about some things; the voting system I think is flawed. I don’t think they realize how some guys who were pretty good, some guys who accomplished a lot, they seem [more concerned] about who did it five years ago when these guys retire, and the rest of us are neglected.

In closing, Rivera extols the media, “Por favor, take a look at Tom Flores’ career” (Max y Marly, January 27, 2016). Similarly, when the 2016 baseball hall of fame candidates were announced, Max y Marly tackled on the politics of baseball hall of fame candidacy. Rivera, as a baseball writer, raised a firsthand critique of how the current system is implicitly discriminating against Latino athletes. Rivera, as a bilingual Latina, humanizes the hall of fame process and reveals how any journalists’ own biases might shape which players become nominated, and which remain neglected.

In addition to bringing awareness to Latino sport pioneers’ long-overdue hall of fame inauguration, Max y Marly celebrated contemporary athletic feats that occurred during the 2015-2016 sport seasons. Noteworthy were the historic game between Cuba’s national team versus the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Olympic Gold Medal victory by professional tennis player Monica Puig of Puerto Rico.

On March 22, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Cuban National Team 4-1. The game took place in Havana, Cuba, and was attended by President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Cuban President Raúl Castro. Also in attendance was Marly Rivera. In Episode 18, Rivera previewed the MLB trip to Cuba and interviewed Cuban-born Dayron Varona, outfielder for Tampa Bay Rays, who became the first Cuban to play in Cuba since 1959; Cuban-born Al Avila, General Manager for Detroit Tigers, who commented on the changing political scene in Cuba, and Luis Tiant, a major league pitcher from 1964-1982. In this 36-min conversation, the episode centered the meaning of Cuban nationality, the Cuban American immigrant experience, and the generational shifts occurring within Cuban diaspora.

Finally, in their un-official final episode, Max y Marly provide audiences a discussion over the 2016 Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They chart the significance of this global sporting event with special guest Monica Puig. “The 22-year-old from San Juan is the first person, male or female, to win an Olympic gold medal representing Puerto Rico. She stared down Kerber, the reigning Australian Open champion, in a powerful finals performance, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1” (Garber, 2016). In an interview after the medal ceremony, Puig noted,

This is for [Puerto Rico] . . . They’re going through some tough times right now and they needed this, and I needed this . . . I think I just united a nation, and I love where I come from. (quoted in Vargas, 2016) . . .”]

In their interview with Puig, Max y Marly conceptualize the significance of hearing “La Borinqueña,” Puerto Rico’s national anthem, on an international stage. In addition, they educate audiences that Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. territory does not defer its ability to compete as an independent sovereign name in the Olympics. Like the Cuban-Rays baseball game, Puig’s homage to Puerto Rico reveals the effect of the Latina/o sporting experience, across national, ethnoracial, and linguistic differences.

However, because sport remains “contested racial terrain” (Hartmann, 2000), Max y Marly also function as a repository for documenting anti-Latino prejudice within the world of sports. Two “particular sporting incidents and celebrities” (McDonald & Birrell, 1999, p. 295) proved that just as many steps forward have been initiated, the desire to step backward is also present. In the first case, Max y Marly provided a riveting conversation regarding the politics of representation in baseball media when it came to Dominican professional ballplayer Carlos Gómez, who in an article by Brian Smith was quoted verbatim and broken English. Reminiscent to the days when pioneer Latino peloteros like Minnie Miñoso and Roberto Clemente were mis-quoted using “broken English,” Smith reminds us of the pervasive Whiteness of American sport media.

The response to Smith’s article came from fans, media, and Carlos Gómez himself. Naturally, Max y Marly also took on this issue, and dedicated an entire 36 min to this topic. In addition to inviting special guest Britni de la Cretaz, whose article, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Sports Journalism: The Houston Chronicle’s Blunder is Reflective Of A Larger Problem,” helped publicize the story, Rivera provides an insider’s critique to Smith’s article, from one baseball journalists to another:

Marly Rivera:

But I assume that Brian [Smith] as a baseball writer is a card carrying member of the BBWAA, and I can tell you that many times I have heard not as bad as this one and obviously there are a lot of mistakes in the tenses, many mistakes grammatical mistakes from English speaking athletes that I have corrected. So let’s just be very very very clear that there is some unspoken rule that if a player speaks in a tense that is just incorrect, and you know you’re not changing the spirit of what the player said, you’re not changing their quote, but if the tense is incorrect I have no problem changing it because it doesn’t change the quote.

Ultimately, Rivera charges Smith with “cultural insensitivity” and asks, “Why would you do that? Give me one reason. Because you want to quote exactly what a player said? That’s not what we do.” By verifying the “unspoken rules” of baseball writing, Max y Marly further disrupted the pervasiveness of White American sport media, and reminds listeners of the need for bilingualism in US sport media.

A few months after the Carlos Gómez issue, another scandal arose with direct implications for Latinos. On July 19, 2016, former coach for the Notre Dame Fight Irish college football team, Lou Holtz, attending a Republic National Coalition for Life event, regarded U.S. demographic shifts as an “invasion” and claimed the need for new immigrants to “assimilate better” (Samuel, 2016). Moreover, the ex-ESPN commentator explained, “I don’t want to become you. I don’t want to speak your language. I don’t want to celebrate your holidays. I sure as hell don’t want to cheer for your soccer team!” Here, Holtz conflates the demographic changes in the United States with the game of soccer.

Therefore, in their second to final episode, Max y Marly discuss the way soccer in the United States is also a window into the continued strife between U.S. ethnoracial groups:

Marly Rivera:

You said something very clear Max which is these are very divisive times for America. It’s very difficult to sometimes to not, fit in, and to whatever it is. And we do try our best. I have tried my best. And it’s so discouraging. And I do feel sorry, he belongs to an older generation. I do think these are views shared by an older generation and I think we have gotten a little better now, hopefully.

Max Bretos:

In this time, in this country, and so many divisions, if we could just blur the lines or just eliminate them altogether it would make such a huge difference. And getting the right message across could make all the difference. And that’s why it was very dissapointing for me to read that part, as again, uneducated about the holiday line, and the soccer team, look Mexican immigrants love NFL they come here and they watch.

Rivera:

Absolutely, they’re going to play NFL games in Mexico this year…we’re just fans . . . we’re not different from any other people.

Bretos:

Why should being a fan of anything be something that is a negative?

Rivera:

[And/or something] that is tied to your culture too.

In this regard, Rivera and Bretos turn to one of the more significant elements of sport culture: unity in fandom. By being fans of any league, franchise and/or athlete, sport is an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983) that can cut across racial, nationalist, and gendered lines. Ultimately, these two episodes capture the need for platforms like Max y Marly. Not only do sonic productions make and produce visibilities into Latino American identity, it does so by providing alternative perspectives (i.e., non-White readings) into how sporting cultures permeates contested terrains of belonging, identity, and language.⁹

Inevitable Re-Productions, Radical Possibilities

Without a doubt, One Nación social media initiative provides a welcoming intervention into the worlds of sports journalism and media. However, One Nación with Max y Marly was not without its limitations. As a product of American late capitalism, Max y Marly navigated the logics, values, and practices of the commercial realities of sport media. Thus, Max y Marly reveals the boundaries for “radical sport journalism” (King, 2008, p. 334), particularly as it applies to cultural politics of visibility, representation, and identity. In fact, for all its usefulness as a cultural text that responds to a set of sociohistorical issues rooted in discrimination, mainstream nativism, and sexism, the podcast also inevitably reproduces problematic ideals of racial capitalism.

For example, in the opening remarks to Episode 10, Max y Marly reflects on the growing interest of American football in Latin America. Prior to announcing their special guests, Global Football President Patrick Steenberge and Coach of the Universidad de las Américas Puebla Eric Fisher, the bilingual cohosts remark on the strong possibility that the National Football League will be drafting more Latinos like Mark Sanchez and Tony Romo in the near future. In reflecting on her own fandom with American football, Marly Rivera shares how she started rooting for the USC Trojans, and now for The Ohio State Buckeyes. In an awkward transition for the listener, the following conversation ensues:

Marly Rivera:

I’m sorry [inaudible] here we go. I’m doing it ’cause this is the magic of radio. Doing a little motion . . .[laughter]

Max Bretos:

Is that a . . . that’s a terrible tomahawk chop. You ’gotta keep your elbow in one place, you can’t move it like you’re concinando menudo (cooking menudo) or whatever I don’t know what it is.

Rivera:

I do that [cooking menudo] better than the tomahawk chop.

Bretos:

Yes, my dad, he hates sports and he tried to do the tomahawk chop and I go “Dad you’re crushing it, it’s not good but thanks.” And, um . . .

Rivera:

Hablame de Los Seminoles.

Growing up in Miami, Bretos notes that the Florida State Seminoles made “a big part” of the collegiate sporting experience for Latinos growing up in the Southeastern coast of Florida. The story circles around Breto’s memories with his father and his inability to distinguish between Florida and Florida State.

In rationalizing the tomahawk chop (Zirin, 2014) and humoring themselves with “playing Indian” (Deloria, 1999, p. 34), Max y Marly reproduce hegemonic discourses central to the project of racialization:

Native American sports mascots draw on clichéd images of Native Americans that are rooted in the imperial imagination. They play up or play off a set of cultural features that are too often wrongly associated with the indigenous peoples of North America: the feathered headdress, face paint, buckskin paints, warfare, dance and the tomahawk (chop) . . . Whatever the précis image or reference (real or imagined), mascots trap native nations within the many overlapping tropes of savagery. (C. R. King, 2006, pp. 316-317)

This is further noted considering that the podcast does not take a critical stance to the everyday language of anti-Indianness. For example, while interviewing Latino Head Coach Ron Rivera of the Carolina Panthers in Episode 8, Bretos names the DC football franchise team as the “Washington Reds*ins” (C. R. King, 2016). While some sport journalists in the English-mainstream have gone so far to abandon such a racist moniker, it is important to ask, where will Latino sport media and Latino cultural producers stand in relation to anti-Indian racism and settler-colonialism? Only in the contemporary moment, with its guiding logics of “post-racial colorblindness” (Bonilla-Silva, 2009, p. 211) and “new racisms” (Collins, 2004; Leonard & King, 2011; Littlefield, 2008) can these impossibilities of sport media occur: A podcast that challenges the politics of language and ethnoracial belonging while simultaneously conforming to harmful slurs and exclusionary racial projects.

Conclusion

Indisputably, Latinos are at the forefront of 21st century North American sport mediascapes. This paradigm shift attracts institutional interest and resources from both Spanish-language and “mainstream” media. As noted above, in its mission to “reach new audiences, deepen established customers’ relationship to its brand, and promote its other material” (Vogan, 2015, p. 96), ESPN reveals how this crossover can take place. No longer in the periphery of executive and media pundits alike, Latinos have ensured U.S. sport mediascapes comprise a bicultural, binational, and bilingual ethos. With the uncertainty of the contemporary political climate across the “Western” world, in addition to the hundreds of layoffs/firings ESPN has conducted in the past few years, sport media remains a significant gauge to address social and cultural inequality beyond Black/White lines in 21st North America.

However, visibility for the sake of visibility is not without its set of problems. Take for example Sergio Dipp, an ESPN Deportes reporter. On September 11, in a night filled with many firsts, such as the debut of Beth Mowins, “the first woman in 30 years to do play-by-play for an NFL regular season game” as well as the head coaching debuts of Vance Joseph and Anthony Lynn, both Black Americans, Dipp too introduced himself as a Monday Night Football (MNF) sideline reporter. Dipp’s MNF debut, emblematic of stage fright, was characterized as “memorably awkward” (Bieler & Boren, 2017). In his brief (and only) first quarter commentary, Dipp’s “report was filled with unnecessary pauses, unusual phrasing and was punctuated by this over-emphatic statement about Joseph: ‘And here he is, having the time of his life’” (Schilken, 2017). Naturally, Dipp became an instant Internet social media sensation.

Born in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, Dipp personifies the bicultural, bilingual moment. In a post-game Twitter video, Dipp apologized for his wobbly coverage: “Growing up in the American environment as a minority, a minority like head coaches Vance Joseph and Anthony Lynn. So what I wanted to do was show some respect, making my debut as a minority on American national TV, the biggest show out there, on the most heartfelt day in this great country made up by immigrants and [from] some people’s perspective, it all went wrong,” further adding that “I truly meant no disrespect. Because all I wanted to do was to show some love to these two historical head coaches. Hopefully I’ll have another chance and be sure I make the most out of it.” (in Schilken, 2017) Interestingly, Dipp’s visibility onto the sport media mainstream, an action sponsored and institutionalized by ESPN, reveals the complexities of ethnic and cultural inclusion. That is, while ESPN and ESPN Deportes create a platform to provide coverage on sport and society from a Latina/Latino perspective, the subtext to these institutional maneuvers is its reception with “mainstream” audiences. In apologizing, Dipp acknowledges how his reporting might have offended “some people’s perspective” and therefore potentially disrespected “Americans” and “America.” However, by centering his minority status in the post-game apology, it further reveals the tenuous placement of Latino media in American sport. Surely, while certainly no longer invisible, Latino cultural producers, circulated in the “mainstream,” will either reverberate, clash, disrupt, or conform to long-held ideologies and politics rooted in White American exceptionalism.

The focus on ESPN Deportes alludes to this new reality. From an irregular, biweekly podcast, Max y Marly in-formally concluded on August 18, 2016. The next month, the “sport media empire” launched Nación ESPN on ESPN2, “an interactive talk show dedicated to covering the most relevant sports news and information tailed to young, bilingual U.S. Hispanic sports fans.” Alongside Latino media workers Jorge Sedano and Bernardo Osuna, Marly Rivera helped launch the weekly live-recorded talk show sponsored by Toyota, All-State, Gillette, and Corona, among others. On many occasions, Max Bretos has appeared as guest coanchor. In the transfer from Max y Marly to ESPN Nación, two things became evident: not only a substitution of anchors but also an overt rise in corporate sponsorship. Furthermore, when one considers the corporate sponsorship for a television talk show (versus a podcast series) dedicated to Latina/o athletes, concerns, and viewpoints, broader questions of which voices, what topics, and whose imaginary receives recognition must not be lost in translation.

As some of the first representatives of a U.S. bicultural–bilingual sport market, One Nación with Max Bretos y Marly Rivera offered a worthy platform to reflect, if not reconsider, the role of sport media into the 21st century. Considering that the “browning of America” has generated the development of multiple marketing agencies whose sole interest lies in attracting a Latino American consumer, the potential for using SportsCenter in Mexico, ESPN Deportes, and its One Nación social media initiative to discuss those capitalist–consumerist–individualist incentives are that much more important. To this end, Latino media, journalists, and cultural producers remain in a crucial position that can address some of the issues that stem from mass spectator sport and its affiliated sport media empires. Sport studies, then, should also pay heed to the growing Latino influence on U.S. media and society. It reveals new directions in the study of sport media and its role in society. It personifies the ways Latinos are shaping the contemporary sporting mediascape. Moreover, it situates the importance of biculturalism, revealing new ways to theorize racial/ethnic inclusion and exclusion, the finely marked points of entry, bounded social commentary, and the disruption of whiteness in sport media.

Akin to the 1920s, the present moment reveals another Latina/Latino “boom” in U.S. mainstream media. Sport media brilliantly captures these growing trends, opportunities, and complexities. One need only reflect upon the quantity of Latino baseball peloteros, the various sport marketing campaigns targeting Latinos, and most recently, the re-creation of Nación ESPN, the first bilingual sport talk show dedicated toward cultivating an audience “living in Spanglish” (Morales, 2002). Finally, in an age where anti-Latino sentiment helped to nominate and elect a presidential candidate against immigration reform, biculturalism, and the protection of American Latinos, one thing is certain: Bilingual sport media is powerful as it is necessary.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my doctoral committee for providing this essay’s initial constructive comments. A special thank you to C. Richard King, to Travis Vogan, and to annonymous reader for generous feedback.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Jorge E. Moraga, a graduate of the American studies program at Washington State University, is now an assistant professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies program at California State University Bakersfield. His research interests include critical sport studies, popular culture and media, comparative race and ethnicity, and social movements across the Americas. His current research project examines how U.S Latinos/Latinas use sporting spaces as vehicles for cultural belonging, empowerment, and representation, while simultaneously highlighting the structural tensions that arise from race, gender, and global capitalism.

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