My Findings
My three main findings were that the fans of the NHL had the most disdain with sports violence rather than the typical findings of enjoyment that previous research had shown, the NBA and NFL fans were very emotionally tied to the sports violence, and fans relation to and views of sports violence in general often centered around the leagues officials rather than the violence itself.
NHL article showed most disdain with violence.
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Contrary to my initial thoughts, the article on the NHL, the league which often gets a bad reputation for promoting excessive violence, showed the most unified view towards believing the act of violence was excessive and unnecessary and felt that the league should take actions to curb the occurrence of violence in the league. Additionally, they not only found the violence unnecessary but offered about substantial discussion on a plan one user offered to solving the violence problems. The user commented “The “code” as they say, is not alive and well out there on the ice. Maybe more 3-5 game suspensions will help bring it back. Or, make the player who injured the other sit out as many games as the guy he put out? Too much? Just a thought…”
NBA and NFL articles showed emotional fans.
- Discussion within the NBA and NFL articles often became very emotional resulting in personal attacks and expletives. Discussion about violence seemed to promote violence among the users, something that previous researched has never addressed. Many of the users where fans of the player who initiated violence or the player who received violence and rarely did fans fail to support their player regardless of which end of the violence he was on. One user on the NBA article commented with extreme emotion stating “I was at the game and Garnett and his band of brothers are not the darlings anymore! First of all Garnett is a classless ####! He wins the Championship and the first thing he can think of saying on NATIONAL TV is Mother F***ER! Yeah I’m sooo glad you one now you can act a fool, cuss and bable on and on with more cuss words. He swung at Bogut, period! He should be suspended, period! The Celtics are now the Bulls of the 80′s and can do no wrong, push everyone around and get away with murder. Stern is in on the fix and Garentt will get nothing. Just watch a Celtics game and watch Garnett cuss EVERYTIME he gets fouled, makes a good play etc. Everything is MF, he’s an idiot and it’s a disgrace to the NBA!” This level of emotion was absent in the NHL article where the general consensus was against violence.
All articles showed criticism of league.
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Criticism of violence often did not fall on the players but on the league and league officials. In all the articles, many users thought the violence was a product of the league not caring about the violence and safety of players, being inconsistent in punishment, or not being overly protective of the players and taking out the natural aggression of the sport. Several users referenced the league officials specifically. For example, one user stated “I’d bet money no suspension will happen. It would mean that Stern is rational and we know that isn’t the case.” In this comment, there is no reference to the violence but just a strong displeasure with the NBA’s league officials.
Other Significant Findings from Research:
During the interviews, I discovered that while I had decided not to address gender, there are deeper implications involving gender within sports violence. Previous research showed a basic belief that men enjoyed and were drawn to violent sports, while women were drawn to sports with less contact and had less of a positive reaction from violent sports (Depalma & Raney, 2003). In the interviews, the respondents referred to sports in which both males and females participate in but only referred to them in their masculine form while the rules, regulations, and contact are the same regardless of gender. I felt this possibly hinted at a thought that men sports were more violent than women sports.
In terms of emotion during the article discussion, the more emotional the discussion, the shorter and more aggressive the comments became. Additionally, emotion seemed to increase with the number of comments in the article.
The level of discussion had no relation to the excessive nature of the violence. The NBA article had more discussion than the NHL article even though the NBA article resulted in no injury and the NHL article resulted in serious injury. The NFL and the NHL articles had similar levels of violence; however the level of discussion differed by over 200 comments in favor of the NFL article. The discussion of violence seemed to be tied to the popularity of the sport rather than the intensity of the violence.
One thing I found interesting was that when users did not view an act as excessively violent, they often viewed it as passion. It seemed like they were tying extra aggression with extra passion and viewing the violence as a positive rather than simply not an issue. One user in the NFL article stated “That was an awesome hit, I love watching Hines take out Linebackers who out weigh him by 50 or more lbs. The Bart Scott hit was the best though. They guy who said he would change if he got lit up has never watched Hines play, he gets lit up more then anyone when he crosses the middle and someone gets a free shot at him which they always take. Also he plays to the whistle like you are taught to do from the beginning. If you get lit up it is your fault for not keeping your eyes peeled. Hines is the by far the toughest Wide Out in the league and hits like that are why he is my favorite player.”
