Racial Bias in Football Commentary

[kenada_blue]

That's not exactly it. They took positive comments and negative comments and split them up first and then found what percentage went to players with lighter skin and darker skin. What they found was that something like 65% of comments praising players intelligence were directed at lighter skinned players while 65% of those critical were directed at darker skinned players.

It's a ridiculously flawed study to provoke something that isn't there.

Firstly you have to define negative and positive comments in context of the game as if it was put together by people who don't watch sports.

"Looking at the distribution of comments for each group allows us to look at how often commentators bring up a subject when talking about each group. For example, when talking about players with darker skin tone, they bring up form 18.65% of the time. When talking about players with lighter skin tone, they bring up leadership 12.05% of the time"

Yet has no basis on positions, captaincy, previous game history, quality level, which is where judgement is based.

Then certain aspects are massively skewed:

"This study comprises 643 unique players. 433 of these have been classified as “players with lighter skin tone” and 210 have been classified as “players with darker skin tone” based on the criteria listed in the methodology section at the bottom of the page."

That's not an equal study. You've got a smaller group Vs a larger group (almost double) then finding a percentage. So you'll be making adjustments and averages to compensate that.

Above all...there's zero to take from it

 

[TheBigIguana]

It's a ridiculously flawed study to provoke something that isn't there.

Firstly you have to define negative and positive comments in context of the game as if it was put together by people who don't watch sports.

"Looking at the distribution of comments for each group allows us to look at how often commentators bring up a subject when talking about each group. For example, when talking about players with darker skin tone, they bring up form 18.65% of the time. When talking about players with lighter skin tone, they bring up leadership 12.05% of the time"

Yet has no basis on positions, captaincy, previous game history, quality level, which is where judgement is based.

Then certain aspects are massively skewed:

"This study comprises 643 unique players. 433 of these have been classified as “players with lighter skin tone” and 210 have been classified as “players with darker skin tone” based on the criteria listed in the methodology section at the bottom of the page."

That's not an equal study. You've got a smaller group Vs a larger group (almost double) then finding a percentage. So you'll be making adjustments and averages to compensate that.

Above all...there's zero to take from it

I'm not sure how you're supposed to find a sample of players where the racial distribution is close enough to equal to actually study this sort of thing if you're making that a criteria. But beyond that I think those are small criticisms to basically say the whole thing is invalid.

 

[Catfish Blues]

Have a little look out for how Daniel levy is portrayed in the media.

Just listen to what gets said, how it gets said, and how it promotes a certain, problematic, stereotype.

Daniel Levy from Spurs ?

Possibly through ignorance, I've honestly never noticed anything said about him which portrayed a racial ( or religious ) bias, and it's only through looking at his wiki page just now that I became aware of his background.

I'll take your word for it mate, but the problem now is that if I go looking for it, I'm bound to find it, but, without reading or watching a decent sized random cross section I'll have no idea how common that bias might be.

I'm sure you could link me up with some examples, but again, how do I know how representative they are ? Plainly zero bias and stereotyping should be the aim though, or at least no more than for any other creed, colour etc anyway.

 

[kenada_blue]

I'm not sure how you're supposed to find a sample of players where the racial distribution is close enough to equal to actually study this sort of thing if you're making that a criteria. But beyond that I think those are small criticisms to basically say the whole thing is invalid.

Depends how serious you feel there is racial bias in commentary in the sport.

If it's that an important an issue then surely your evidence needs to be rock solid. Because this is a study where that will be used and judged against the people who's jobs it is to commentate.

To me it's just another in a long list of studies that people hang their coats on when if it actually went through any academic thesis it would get torn to shreds.

 

[Dymak]

The racism mate. Stop the racism. Whether it is intentional or just the result of a lifetime spent in a culture that constantly presents racial stereotypes, we should probably stop doing it when we see it happening.

But complimenting a player on an attribute such as speed isn’t racist, and if you think it is then you are mental. Again, it would be interesting to see how this absolute BS research would work with rugby.

This is absolute BS research that has found its way on to an online shop that sells sportswear. The author of the ‘research’ works for the online retailer. I don’t see it getting published in any peer-reviewed academic journal any time soon.

It’s just utter bollox!

 

[TheBigIguana]

Depends how serious you feel there is racial bias in commentary in the sport.

If it's that an important an issue then surely your evidence needs to be rock solid. Because this is a study where that will be used and judged against the people who's jobs it is to commentate.

To me it's just another in a long list of studies that people hang their coats on when if it actually went through any academic thesis it would get torn to shreds.

Personally I see it as an issue. Pretty anecdotal but go and check how many times the nevgative attitude of Kean and Iwobi got brought up last night vs everyone else in the player threads.

 

[Minimeister]

That's not exactly it. They took positive comments and negative comments and split them up first and then found what percentage went to players with lighter skin and darker skin. What they found was that something like 65% of comments praising players intelligence were directed at lighter skinned players while 65% of those critical were directed at darker skinned players.

You can come up with stats to prove anything, 40% of all people know that.

 

[Toast]

Imagine athletes being complemented for their athletic abilities like pace and power, it’s just downright disgusting, it must be stopped at once!

 

[TheBigIguana]

But complimenting a player on an attribute such as speed isn’t racist, and if you think it is then you are mental. Again, it would be interesting to see how this absolute BS research would work with rugby.

This is absolute BS research that has found its way on to an online shop that sells sportswear. The author of the ‘research’ works for the online retailer. I don’t see it getting published in any peer-reviewed academic journal any time soon.

It’s just utter bollox!

I can't speak for rugby so much but I can say that in American sports it's become a meme every time a commentator calls a white player a hard worker or cerebral or whatever. It happens all the time in the NBA and is an epidemic with NFL quarterbacks. So the "would this happen in other sports?" question to me is a yes.

 

[kenada_blue]

Personally I see it as an issue. Pretty anecdotal but go and check how many times the nevgative attitude of Kean and Iwobi got brought up last night vs everyone else in the player threads.

Which has nothing to do with skin colour.

And nowhere near the level of negativity towards Siggurdson and Gomes.

Again, context of the negativity is purely football focused and not racial.

 

[TheBigIguana]

You can come up with stats to prove anything, 40% of all people know that.

What you're essentially saying is you can lie about anything which is of course true.

 

[Toast]

I can't speak for rugby so much but I can say that in American sports it's become a meme every time a commentator calls a white player a hard worker or cerebral or whatever. It happens all the time in the NBA and is an epidemic with NFL quarterbacks. So the "would this happen in other sports?" question to me is a yes.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Tom Brady or Drew Brees called ‘hard workers’ ?

Not having a pop, just saying like.

 

[TheBigIguana]

Which has nothing to do with skin colour.

And nowhere near the level of negativity towards Siggurdson and Gomes.

Again, context of the negativity is purely football focused and not racial.

It's not about the negativity generally as to where it is focused. I'm not saying nor is the study saying that commentators disparage minority players in general. It's about how the coverage is perpetuating stereotypes.

 

[TheBigIguana]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Tom Brady or Drew Brees called ‘hard workers’ ?

Not having a pop, just saying like.

But you will here Lamar Jackson's ability to read coverages question even after winning the MVP.

And fwiw Brady got some receivers together for a practice and it was a day long story.

 

[Dymak]

I can't speak for rugby so much but I can say that in American sports it's become a meme every time a commentator calls a white player a hard worker or cerebral or whatever. It happens all the time in the NBA and is an epidemic with NFL quarterbacks. So the "would this happen in other sports?" question to me is a yes.

Well, I’m gona bypass the memes and wait for the academic research before I agree that complimenting a black athlete on their speed is racist.