Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Publication Title
Sport in Society
Abstract
In recent years, major American sports teams and leagues have responded increasingly to players’ off-field, off-court wrongdoing by imposing extra-legal punishments (ELPs) on offending athletes. This paper focuses on an unexplored ethical concern raised by ELPs: teams’ and leagues’ economic incentive for racial bias in the imposed sanctions. In an experimental study, Black and White participants read a series of vignettes about fictional professional athletes who received ELPs for various off-field transgressions. Black participants evaluating punishments imposed on Black athletes found the ELPs inappropriate and overly punitive relative to punishments imposed on White or racially neutral athletes. Conversely, Whites assessing ELPs imposed on Whites found them too harsh. These findings suggest that the race of both perceiver and target influence lay persons’ judgements about ELPs, which raises questions about the ability and willingness of teams and leagues to impose such punishments fairly and consistently, given their business interests
Recommended Citation
Bruton, Samuel V.; Sacco, Donald F.; Spurgin, Earl W.; and Armstrong, Kori N., "Race and the extra-legal punishment of professional athletes" (2018). 2018 Faculty Bibliography. 75.
https://collected.jcu.edu/fac_bib_2018/75
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.