Sports

Masculinity and Organized Sports

Before the mid–nineteenth century, most white Americans defined manhood through work and spirituality, rather than through leisure activity and physical prowess, and mainstream American society generally considered game-playing incompatible with true manhood. Sports existed in recognizable forms, but they were not highly organized.

During the late nineteenth century, however, organized sports grew in America amid an increasing cultural emphasis on the physical aspects of manhood. As Darwinian theory encouraged Americans to equate life with physical struggle, and as industrialization and urbanization prompted concerns that the work of American men (particularly middle-class men) had become insufficiently vigorous, cultural spokespersons began emphasizing the importance of athletics to the moral and physical dimensions of healthy manhood. Advocates of “muscular Christianity” urged organized sports programs for American males, and proponents of a “strenuous life” ideal likewise encouraged men to pursue challenging outdoor activity. These impulses prompted the incorporation of sports into the activities and facilities of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA); the formation of sports programs for men in the nation's colleges and elite high schools; the promotion of sports and outdoor activity by such boys' organizations as the Boy Scouts of America (established in 1910); and, especially in cities, a national proliferation of professional sports teams.

Although many Americans hoped that sports would foster the physical vigor and moral virtue they considered essential to ideal middle-class manhood, many professional athletes themselves demonstrated a model of sports-related masculinity more akin to urban working-class models grounded in boisterousness. John L. Sullivan, for instance, a descendant of Irish immigrants and the most famous bareknuckle boxing champion of the late nineteenth century, was renowned as much for his prodigious drinking as for his exploits in the ring. To the delight of middle-class sport advocates, Sullivan began advocating temperance after his boxing career, warning boys that alcohol undermined, rather than demonstrated, manliness.

Early-twentieth-century developments encouraged growing numbers of American men to participate in sports. Reduced working hours, a growing alienation from factory and office work, and a burgeoning consumer culture encouraged them to define their masculinity through leisure activities and consumption rather than through work, while corporate culture increasingly touted the virtues of team spirit and loyalty as markers of manhood. Many American men expressed their manhood through direct engagement in sports, while many others, particularly in and near the nation's cities, also participated as spectators. This consumer activity promoted male camaraderie and friendships grounded in admiration of athletes' physical prowess, in shared loyalty to a local team, and often in the consumption of alcohol. The connections among masculinity, organized sports, consumerism, and corporate culture became increasingly strong during the twentieth century, as demonstrated by the promotion of “masculine” products (e.g., sports equipment, automobiles, beer) in sports stadiums and during televised sports events (which excluded women's athletics for most of the century), as well as by the naming of sports stadiums for large corporations.

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