Author ORCID Identifier

Hawkins https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4287-8730

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-21-2021

Publication Title

Journal of Sport and Social Issues

Volume

46

Issue

2

First Page

127

Last Page

155

Abstract

While there is a long tradition of activism within sport, a popular criticism of athlete protest is that it is a “distraction” that hinders on-field performance. The widespread demonstrations against racial injustice in 2017 among players in the National Football League (NFL) provided an opportunity to test this “distraction hypothesis.” Using data drawn from multiple sources, we first explored which factors predicted player protest, finding that Black players and those playing for underdogs were more likely to protest. Then, using a series of analyses at the player-game level (n = 19,051) and the team-game level (n = 512), we tested the assertion that protest is detrimental to individual or team performance, finding no evidence for a distraction effect. The results of this study allow us to better understand social factors that may affect athletic performance or constrain athlete activism.

Comments

Copyright is held by authors.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Sage in Journal of Sport & Social Issues on October 21, 2021, available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/01937235211043647

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