It started with money, as it so often does in a world of college athletics. For decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) raked in billions from television contracts, sponsorships, and merchandise built on the backs of student-athletes, who were banned from profiting from their own names, images, and likenesses (NIL). In 2019, California lawmakers […]
Tag: sports
The A’s Leave Oakland Ending an Important Era
Robert Baker tells Oakland voices, “When I think about Oakland, I think about community pride and activism. I see people who really care and are protective of Oakland and its culture and reputation.” There was a period of Oakland’s history where this valuable culture could be observed in the Raiders jerseys, Warriors hats, and Oakland […]
Care About Soccer—It Ends Wars and Starts Rebellions.
In 2005, the world was not sure whether Cote d’Ivoire could continue to exist. Home to over three million Ivorians of about 60 different ethnic groups, the coastal African nation was torn by a three-year-long civil war. Despite attempts by both France and the United Nations to de-escalate, tensions were reigniting between the Ivorian government […]
Stop Treating Marijuana Use Like Doping
In June last year, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson won the women’s 100-meter race at the U.S. track and field finals, earning a trip to the Olympics as a gold medal favorite. That is, until her Olympic dream crumbled: Richardson tested positive for marijuana, a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the […]
Bigger than Baseball: An Endless Lockout, The Labor Movement, and America’s National Pastime
On December 2nd, 2021, something strange happened. Major League Baseball scrubbed player faces, highlight reels and other media from its website. Where videos of iconic Yankees once stood, the only thing visible now was a letter from the commissioner of the MLB, Rob Manfred. The reason? The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the owners of […]
Oh, Aaron Rodgers Is Most Definitely Immune
The man who wears number 12 for the Green Bay Packers is many things. Super Bowl champion. Reigning NFL MVP. Three-time first-team All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowler. By far the greatest quarterback UC Berkeley has ever produced. We now know, by way of his testing positive for COVID-19 last Wednesday, that he is also unvaccinated. […]
No Seats at the Table: What the Dearth of Black Head Coaches in the NFL Tells Us About America
At the conclusion of the NFL’s season in 2020, there was hope that this hiring cycle for head coaches would be different. At the time, of the 32 teams in the country’s most popular sports league, only 3 had black head coaches; a startling number for a league whose players are overwhelmingly black. Following the […]
Double Standards in the Olympics and Beyond
Marginalized groups are running an entirely different race Utilizing Caster Semenya as an entryway into the discussion, this article aims to understand the correlation between the treatment of marginalized groups in national and international sports and their treatment in the United States. Semenya, a women’s track competitor, has been embroiled in a legal battle against […]
The Political Side of Fútbol
The FIFA World Cup is the most watched event in the world, and this summer, it will be played in Russia. There are 32 teams competing for the title, with powerhouses such as Germany, France, Brazil, and Spain considered to be the favorites to win it all. Unfortunately, the United States will not be represented […]
Playing Fair with Stadiums
Last July, Inglewood residents received flyers in the mail from an organization known as IRATE Inglewood – Inglewood Residents Against Takings and Evictions. These mailings, as one might guess, were opposed to a new neighborhood development –– the potential construction of a new basketball arena. It was decidedly doom-and-gloom. People would lose their homes to […]