Reflections on Communication and Sport

Why Communication and Sport Matters

I am relieved that scholars in communication who study sport no longer have to spend more time justifying their research than scholars who study other topics. When I started writing about sport in the mid-1980s, professors and graduate students would often ask me at conferences why I was studying such a “frivolous” topic and when I was going to return to more “serious” research in organizational communication, the focus of my early scholarship. I found these questions to be unfair and absurd, unfair because I was being asked to defend my choice of research topics when others were not and absurd because I studied organizational communication and teams and franchises are in fact organizations.

I usually responded in a sarcastic manner back then, saying something like: “What’s more serious than sport? It’s a billion dollar industry and shapes cultural values in our country.” Then I would ask them why they were not studying something as serious and important as sport.

I was wrong. Sport is closer to a trillion dollar industry and shapes cultural values in most countries on the planet. Zygband and Collignon (2012) estimated that sport accounts for over 600 billion dollars in the world marketplace when you add up the value of properties, rights, events, and content. Scholars in sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, economics, kinesiology, and other disciplines have affirmed the study of sport for decades, and many of them have their own sport journals such as Sociology of Sport, Psychology of Sport, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, Journal of Sport History, and many others.

Although researchers in all areas of the communication discipline have studied sport, it has been far more common for scholars in mass communication and rhetorical criticism to do so, probably because it is such a mediated phenomenon (see Kassing et al., 2004, for a review). Hopefully with the publication of Communication & Sport, more communication scholars will offer their unique insights and perspectives to this serious area of study.

My Journey with Communication and Sport

I think most scholars have a personal connection to their scholarship. My connection to sport started when I was 6 years old and played baseball for the first time. I learned that I could throw a ball pretty much where I wanted, so I became a pitcher.

Although baseball is a team sport, I loved the one-on-one matchup: I have a ball, you have a stick, I am going to try to make you miss it, you are going to try to hit it. That me-versus-you element seemed to be the essence of sport, even primordial. I was hooked, especially when I developed a really nasty curveball that was very difficult to hit.

I played baseball for 15 years, in elementary school, in high school, and in college, and during every summer break except when I was 13 and had a knee disease called Osgood-Schlatters that kept me off the mound. I finished my athletic career as a pitcher for the University of Southern California (Class of ’77). I had hoped to go further and was frustrated and disappointed when it did not work out. Instead of pursuing a career as a minor league pitcher or a pitching coach, I gave up on baseball completely. It is a career decision that I still regret.

My relationship to the discipline of communication is far less emotional. I was one of relatively few jocks in high school that liked school, and so going to college was an assumption more than a choice. When I enrolled at University of Southern California, I was very undecided when it came to a major, but I assumed I would be playing minor and major league baseball anyway so I did not think my major was important. I seemed to gravitate toward the social sciences and took some psychology courses, but found them to be too clinical. I then took sociology courses and found the Chicago School of symbolic interactionism and qualitative methods to be very interesting, so I picked sociology as my major. It was not until my junior year that I stumbled upon communication, then called speech communication. I immediately loved my communication classes, with their focus on human interaction, but I had already taken too many sociology classes to change majors. When I learned I could double major without having to take extra units, I did so.

I still remember the day early in my senior year when I decided to become a professor. I was very upset that I was pitching well but not getting much playing time, and when I confronted the head coach about it he told me in a condescending voice: “Tiger, don’t have a bad attitude. You just need to be patient.”

I did have a bad attitude, and 21-year-old kids are not particularly patient. I remember walking to a place on campus for lunch the next day, in a huff and just plain pissed off at the world. I remember feeling like baseball had betrayed me and I wondered what I would do if I gave up baseball. I did not want to wear a suit and tie and work 9 to 5 every day.

Just then my favorite communication professor drove by. He was driving a convertible sports car, wearing white shorts and a white shirt, on his way to play tennis with the lovely coed sitting in the passenger seat. He honked, waved at me, and beamed a smile.

It was not only because of the coed. He was my favorite professor: smart, charismatic, and known in the field for his research. Because of him and a few other professors, I loved going to class and writing term papers. What jock says that?

My decision to pursue communication for graduate studies was confirmed when I consulted my favorite sociology professor. I told him I wanted to go to graduate school and become a professor, and he suggested that I pursue communication.

I thought he did not believe I was good enough for sociology, but he laughed and expressed his confidence that I would succeed in any field. He told me, very candidly, that the sociology discipline was in decline but communication was a growing field and I would have more job opportunities in communication. He suggested that I become a professor of communication but continue to do sociological research. I followed his advice, and made a career decision I have never regretted.

I also feel very fortunate to have done my PhD in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when communication scholars were starting to embrace qualitative (e.g., sociological) methods to study cultural aspects of communication. I emphasized organizational communication in my doctoral program at the University of Utah, and became one of the early organizational communication scholars to write about organizational culture and to study organizations ethnographically.

My first professor job was at Purdue University in a department with a rich tradition of scholarship in organizational communication. My colleagues were pleased to have a new professor who wrote about the “hot” topic of organizational culture, especially when I directed a team of graduate students to study the culture of a local hospital.

But I have always had eclectic interests as well, and while at Purdue I decided to return to baseball through my scholarship by coauthoring an analysis of media coverage of the Chicago Cubs (Trujillo & Ekdom, 1985). My department colleagues were happy about the publication, but they cautioned that I needed to develop a consistent program of research and to keep my focus on organizational culture. A couple of years later, I took a position at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and was able to keep that focus and study baseball.

On Ethnography and Sport Organizations

While at SMU I coauthored a book about how organizations are portrayed on television dramas and comedies. Upon finishing that project in 1988, I decided to conduct an ethnographic study of the local major league baseball team and their ballpark: The Texas Rangers and Arlington Stadium.

Kassing et al. (2004) note that there are very few studies, ethnographic or otherwise, of the inside of sports franchises, primarily because obtaining access in such organizations is very difficult. I knew it would not be easy to get permission to conduct a study of a major league franchise, especially if I wanted access to players, so I began my “study” by conducting an initial round of interviews in the off-season with managers in the front office. I first called the media relations manager and told him I was a professor at SMU who was teaching a class on “Media, Sport, and Society” and I wanted to conduct an informational interview with him about his job and the Rangers. Following the interview, I asked for referrals of others in the front office that I might interview, and he suggested a few people. Within a month I had conducted several interviews, including one with the then President Mike Stone, who had done doctoral work in business at the University of Michigan. In fact, when he asked about my research and I told him that I used interview and observational methods, he said, “You mean ethnography?” I took that as a very good omen.

I also attended public functions associated with the team, such as a winter carnival in which players and media relations personnel interact with fans. My plan was to be seen as much as possible in the franchise and with franchise personnel before the season began.

By the time the season began in April, I had developed contacts with dozens of front office executives and managers, and I asked if I could observe them and their workers during games. I knew the media relations manager would be very protective of the players on the team and the clubhouse, so I assured him that I was interested in the overall culture of the ballpark and would not need access to the clubhouse or players. I believed that if I continued to interview and observe various non-playing personnel, I would ultimately develop the credibility and trust needed to get access to players and clubhouse personnel.

The stadium manager was a key contact, and I spent many games observing and interviewing him as he toured the ballpark. I spent many hours in the “Command Post,” the place where the stadium manager and head of security kept watch over all areas of the park.

I continued to conduct interviews after the season, especially when the team was sold to an ownership group led by George W. Bush, the Managing General partner. I interviewed “G. W.,” as he was known at the park, on two occasions (Trujillo, 2000), and he gave his permission for me to continue my research.

In that off-season, the franchise also made the most important decision in their history—to sign Nolan Ryan, the legendary pitcher who would become the first player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as a Texas Ranger. (Ryan is now the President of the Rangers.) Soon after his signing, season-ticket sales increased dramatically, as did the number of applications for seasonal employment. His addition to the team prompted me to add an additional focus to my study and examine the meaning of Nolan Ryan to fans and members of the franchise.

Before the next season, I received an employee pass from the stadium manager, giving me access to every area of the ballpark. I also participated in employee orientation for several workers, including security, ticket takers, concessions, and other areas. My biggest regret is that I chose not to actually work in these areas as a security guard, peanut vendor, ticket taker, and other positions, because I believed such a choice would direct attention to me and away from franchise workers. In retrospect, I think having those experiences would have added richness to my research and writing, and it would have been a lot of fun.

By the time the season started, every manager and many workers knew me by name. As I had hoped, the media relations manager allowed me access to the clubhouse and even arranged for me to interview the then manager Bobby Valentine. I also received press passes on occasion that gave me access to the field itself, though I mostly used these passes for special games, such as when Nolan Ryan recorded his 5,000th strikeout.

I also was able to interview the secret service agent assigned to George W. Bush, because at the time G. W. was the son of a sitting president (George H. W. Bush). G. W. chose to sit in the stands with the rest of the spectators, which made the job of protecting him more challenging than if he sat in a private suite.

All in all, I spent 2½ years studying the Rangers franchise. I wrote a manuscript for a book about the study, titled “Working at the Ballpark.” Unfortunately, I tried to frame it as a scholarly book that would appeal to popular audiences, but editors for scholarly presses said it was too popular while editors for popular presses said it was too academic. I did, however, publish several journal articles and book chapters about the study, including one in a collection of essays presented at the Baseball and American Culture symposium at Cooperstown, New York (Trujillo, 1990), and another in a communication journal discussing the meanings of ballpark culture (Trujillo, 1992). A couple of years, later I published a book and an article about media coverage of Nolan Ryan’s career (Trujillo, 1994, 1991). The article published in Critical Studies in Mass Communication seemed to resonate the most with rhetorical critics, most likely because it discussed how hegemonic masculinity was reinforced through media coverage of Ryan and it was reprinted in a rhetorical criticism textbook as an exemplar of “feminist criticism” (Foss, 1996).

I moved to California to teach at Sacramento State University in 1990 and was fortunate to direct an ethnographic study of the arena where the Sacramento Kings play with a team of graduate students (Communication Studies 298, 2000). But I returned to Texas for the very last homestand at Arlington Stadium at the end of the 1993 season. I invited my friend and colleague Bob Krizek to join me, as he had studied the closing of Comiskey Park for his dissertation.

The stadium manager gave Bob and I complete access to the stadium for the last few games. I told the stadium manager and head of security about Bob’s research on ballpark closings, and he asked if Bob would brief his security team before the last game. Bob willingly did so, and he suggested that security guards allow fans to stay in the park longer than usual to say their goodbyes, advice the head of security implemented. Bob and I spent that last game interviewing dozens of fans and employees, most of whom absolutely loved the team and the park (Trujillo & Krizek, 1994).

As I reflect back on my research on the Texas Rangers, I learned several lessons that might be helpful to other scholars who study communication and sport. First, gaining access to sports organizations can be exceedingly difficult, especially professional franchises or major college teams. Had I gone into the Rangers’ front office and asked to conduct a 2½-year study of the team, I am certain I would have been denied. To gain access to a sports franchise, a researcher needs to spend time building relationships and earning the trust of executives, managers, workers, and players. The off-season is a particularly good time to develop those relationships.

Second, most people contacting a franchise want access to players, and so if you show interest in other areas of the organization, especially those that do not receive much attention, you are more likely to get a foot in the door. These less visible members of sports franchises also have interesting stories and perspectives to share, and we should listen to them too.

Third, ballparks and stadiums are very special places with unique cultural significance to fans and franchise members alike. Even though, Arlington Stadium was a dumpy minor league park that was modified piecemeal to accommodate a major league team, fans, and workers felt it was special, even sacred, ground. These people thought of their ballpark as “a cathedral,” “a place of worship,” “a home,” and other images reflecting the importance of that place in their lives. Many fans and workers also developed very close relationships there, some of which led to lifelong friendships and marriages. A few workers even got married in the ballpark. I know some workers feel their organizations are special, but I dont know many of them who get married in their offices.

Fourth, studying baseball has been a way for me to reconnect personally with a sport that gave meaning to my early life and shaped my identity. Conducting interviews and observations in the park was not as gratifying as pitching from the mound, but it was very fulfilling. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic study of a major league franchise and to do research on other aspects of baseball. I encourage communication scholars who have a personal connection to sport to conduct research that will add richness to their lives and to the lives of the people they study.

Looking Ahead for Communication and Sport Research

With the publication of Communication & Sport, communication scholars interested in sport now have the ultimate outlet to publish their work. I expect this journal to thrive and to encourage even more communication scholars to do research on sport. I also expect this journal will motivate scholars in other disciplines that study sport to consider the importance of communication in their research.

I believe the future of research about communication and sport is even brighter than when I wrote the paragraph that opens this essay, thanks to the continuing work of dedicated scholars and to all the people that made Communication & Sport a reality.