Favorite blog post

My favorite blog post this last quarter :( is...Tokenism in Shows and Maybe sports. This whole year our class has related one thing to another and while I was listening to Mr. Bolos on American Studies day and during class I was thinking if this relates to sports. Being a huge sports fan I tried to relate something that I love to something we have done in class.
Throughout this year in AiS we have learned that everything is a cycle and a construction and that's the same way I view my blog along with everything else. I feel like I have grown as a blogger and have used this blog for many more things then just our once a week blog. Within this class we have done so many awesome things and blogging is on the top of that list for me.

Tokenism in Shows and Maybe Sports

During class the last couple days we have been talking about TV tokenism and how blacks and minorities in TV shows are just there to possibly make minorities feel better. Not only are minorities getting less screen time but they are also the "sidekicks" to white males. The examples that Mr. Bolos showed in class were really cool, and it was something that I did not notice before, and because of what Mr. Bolos did I can not watch a show without thinking about the race of the characters, and how minorities are ALWAYS treated worse and have less screen time. It is one of those things that you don't think about or notice before someone opens your mind to it, and it changes your TV watching experience FOREVER.

Now I'm going to try to make this relate to sports. I dont know if it does at all and is probably a huge stretch. First, lets look at hockey. About 97% of NHL players are white and teams with minorities don't play them much and they are usually not as good. For example Dustin Byfuglien of the Chicago Blackhawks is a great role player but they wanted to cut his ice time for the playoffs because they thought he would make a bigger impact with less ice time. Mr. Byfuglien has played great this post-season, and still not getting as many minutes. Other minority NHL players are not getting a lot of ice time not only due to the fact that there aren't a lot of them, but maybe because they are black.

Now lets look at the NBA. The NBA is an example of reverse tokenism. Minorities have taken over the sport of Basketball. There are so many more amazing African American players than White. Therefore the minorities are getting all of the playing time because they are so much better right? Even in the most black dominated sport teams still "have" to play white guys. So, maybe, teams are playing white guys for the same reason shows have black guys; to appeal to the audience. Yes, we all love watching LeBron, Kobe, and Durant, but we also love watching Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, and David Lee. Are these white guys that good? yes they are really good, but maybe we think of them as amazing because they are white, and not by their talent level. Maybe. The more white guys that are on the court the funnier it looks. I remember I watching a NBA game with a couple friends and we were amazed to see a total of 5 white guys on the court. 50% of the guys playing were white, that's almost un-heard-of. So, just maybe reverse tokenism is alive in the NBA.

These are just two of the major sports and there are many more sports out there and if you have example of tokenism in sports or shows of course please feel free to share.

Playoffs

This time of year is such a wonderful time for many reason, but for a sports fan there are three. First the weather is getting nice so the fresh air is for sure a plus. Its the only time of year with 2 playoffs going on at the same time. The NBA playoffs and NHL playoffs. Or you can say the Black mans game and the White mans game.

82% of the NBA is black making it the "blackest sport" in America

3.9% of active NHL players are black making it so white that hockey fans have trouble naming one good black player

Some of the best athletes are competing over the next couple weeks against athletes of the same color.

I was thinking what would be more impressive. A all white NBA team winning the NBA Finals or a Black man winning the NHL Stanley Cup MVP.

What do you think would be more impressive?

13 is the Magic Number

In early January all 120 FBS Division 1 football programs signed their coaches. Many long-tenured coaches left their respective programs. For example Bobby Bowden of FSU and Mike Leach of Texas Tech to just name a few.

This year in hiring was unlike anyother. In 2010, black coaches made a historic stride forward. Six African-American coaches were hired this year to bring the number up to 13 total. This year alone doubled the amount of coaches. And brought it from around 3% to 10%. This number 13 may be unlucky to some, but for African Americans this is the most amount of Division 1 football coaches ever.

13 the number of head African American Coaches
107 the number of non African American coaches (nearly all are white)

A few years ago there were only 4 black coaches and before that 1 and before that 0. The start of black coaches making an impact at the college level hasn't happened yet, but has in other sports. The NFL and NBA have about 25% of their coaches African-American. Could the college ratio ever be so close the the professional? 25% of the college coaches would mean just about 30 coaches would be African American. Doesnt seem far off but the amount of time it took to get 13, so it may be a long time untill a quater of the coaches are African American.

Rooney...

As I was researching my JT topic last night about African American Coaches, I came upon an article about this rule called the Rooney Rule. What is the Rooney Rule?  The Rooney Rule is named after Pittsburgh Steelers owner  Dan Rooney and was established in 2003. With a goal towards balance minority candidates with other hires, the rule mandates that all coaching searches interview at least one minority candidate. As of 2009, there are almost four times as many African American head coaches in the NFL than there were prior to the rule. This rule applies only when a team conducts a search for a head coach. If a team decides to hire internally, they do not have to consider minority candidates. One example might be an interim head coach being promoted to head coach. A real-life example was Mike Martz’s promotion to head coach of the St. Louis Rams, as he was already on Dick Vermeil’s staff as offensive co-ordinator.

Our Bears coach Lovie Smith was the first African American to coach in the Super Bowl, playing Dungy and the Colts. Technically, Smith was the first African American to coach in the Super Bowl, as the Bears defeated the Saints for the NFC Championship just hours before the Colts defeated the Patriots for the AFC Championship.

What? who does it serve? Doesn’t this “rule”  take away the accomplishments of black coaches? Doesn’t it make it appear as though they are being interviewed due to a "rule" by the NFL, and not due to the sacrifices they’ve made along the way that put them into positions to be hired in the first place?

There isn't a rule for this in College football...
There are so many more Division 1 football teams then the NFL (120) and yet there are about the same amount of coaches. Shouldn't a rule like this be placed in College too because colleges are the breading grounds for NFL players and coaches...

The Madness that is March

March Madness concluded on Monday night with one of the most exciting games ever. This game consisted of two opposite teams. One of the teams: Duke, a power house program that is in the top 10 almost every year and championships are routine. The other team Butler. Butler who???? exactly  a team that has never gone to the elite 8 before and certainly never a national championship.
Everyone isn't a Duke fan wanted Butler. You could say the Nation was pulling for Butler. But the Dream would end short of a Championship. On Monday night they lost to Duke with the score of 61-59. Butler missed two game winning shots, but everyone thought that it was an amazing game.
Duke who was basically up the entire game, every time they would pull ahead with a 6 or 8 point lead, the bulldogs of Butler would come right back with some quick baskets of their own.
If Butler would have won the game they would have been the first mid-major to win it since UNLV in 1990. But many would consider that team anything but midmajor. They were 35-5 and had three players go in the first round of the Daft. And I bet you didnt know this but that won 103-73 over Duke. And that game gives UNLV the largest margin of victory in a Championship game. And they were a midmajor.

But this year was more then Butler going to the finals it was about all the upsets that happened in March and early April there were 21 upsets (I think) which seems like a lot and is a lot. And not only were there upsets, but some were huge!! March and Early April is the best time in sports, You have the NCAA Tourny, The Masters on CBS, opening day, the near end of basketball and hockey regular season. Its the closest thing the sports has to perfect. So March and early bring more madness then any other time of the year

favorite blog post...

Over the past 3 quaters I have been blogging about a bunch of different topics. When we started to talk about advertising it really interested me because some family members work in the undustry and I am one of those people that is brain washed by advertising. It is also pretty cool to look into advertising and go behind the scenes. 
So may favorite blog post is Advertising, Advertising, Advertising... which is about advertising today, and hoe big of a role it plays in our society today. Also a possible Junior Theme topic...

Midmajors...

All Basketball fans know what the Big 6 is. It is the Six Major conferences in college basketball (and basically all sports too). The Six Majors are the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Pac-10, and the Big East.  The NCAA Mens Tournament is suppose to consist of the 64 best teams in the country, but it usually consists of all the Conference Winners along with most at-large bids going to the Big 6. This year the sweet sixteen consists of 11 different conferences and 5 teams who are considered mid-majors. The teams are Northern Iowa, Butler, Xavier, Cornell, and St. Mary's (California).
Many ESPN and CBS analysts give these teams the MidMajor label because history doesnt have them as big time teams. Last year the NCAA committee invited only 4 at large midmajor teams. This year the committee doubled that number to 8 and it has paid off with 5 going to the Sweet Sixteen.
If a teen from the Big 6 (power conferences) go a few games above .500 then they will most likely get a invitation to the Big Dance. For the MidMajors they have to win the Conference or get second or third at worst. And they even have a harder time impressing the Committee because they can't schedule great teams, because the power teams are afraid of losing to this "MidMajors" Many dislike the thought of having MidMajor teams that dont have large fan bases make it far in the dance, and others love the fact that their are some amazing upsets throughout March.
Some teams like Xavier who makes the tournament very often along with Butler shouldn't have the "Midmajor" label, but when asked, they don't mind it because they dont wanna be the team that everyone picks, and they want to be under the radar. But some other teams hate the MidMajor label and want people like us to stop using it to describe their players and conferences. They think that it is disrespectful of the league.
What do you think about the MidMajor label and what it brings to the table?

Advertising Slogan Quiz

 Advertising plays a huge role in our lives today. Everywhere we look there are advertisements. No matter what you do you cant avoid them.

Below are Slogans of Companies that are among the most well-known around the world today. 
Can you name the Brand / Company from their Slogan?Note: They Start of Easy (maybe) and get Harder the father you get (maybe). The answers are in the first Comment Below

1. Just Do it.
2.Taste The Rainbow
3. I'm Loving It!
4.That Was Easy
5.Can You Hear me Now? Good.
6.It Gives You Wings
7.Eat Fresh
8. Obey Your Thirst
9. Zoom Zoom
10.Priceless
11.We Try Harder
12.Melts in your Mouth not your hands
13. Impossible is Nothing
14.Possibilities 
15.Double Your Pleasure, Double your Fun
16.The Ultimate Driving Machine
17.Whats in your wallet?
18.Its in the Game
19.Think Outside the Bun
20.Come Hungry. Leave Happy
21. Buy it. Sell it. Love it.
22.Real. American. Jeans.
23.Let Your Fingers do the Walking
24.Stick Together
25. The Every Pain Reliever
26. Quality you can Taste.
27. Life if Full of surprises
28.Betcha Cant eat just one
29. Made from the best stuff on Earth
30.When you care enough to send the very best

If you can get all 30 of these I will be very impresses. Let me know your score, and be honest. If you do get all of them, either you've been taken over by advertising or, you've been taken over by advertising

Advertising, Advertising, Advertising...

On average you will see about 6000 marketing messages, or ads, today alone. That means you will see about 2,190,000 marketing messages a YEAR. Believe it or not your looking at a couple right now. Look away from you're computer screen and you see a couple more, a label on a bottle, logo on your t-shirt, and even a poster on the wall. So if you think advertising and marketing messages are not a huge part of your life, then your wrong and you better re-think that. Just do the math (its right above). Its something that is out of the consumers control.

Why do companies advertise? Companies advertise every possible place, because there are consumers that are looking to buy everywhere. The more and more you see the Nike swoosh and the Just Do It! slogan, the more likely you are to buy a Nike product. When companies advertise it makes us the consumer think about buying a product. Believe it or not, me and you fall under this umbrella too. The way the companies see it is that Out of Sight is Out of Mind if you don't see the ads, your not as likely to buy the specific product. They make accessories seem like necessities.
outsell Inc. recently published a report putting out some numbers. Estimated budget  for advertising and marketing in the USA 2008: $412,400,000,000 (yep, about 412 billion dollar). Thats a lot of money.

Is it really worth it to put forth 412 billion dollars for people to see  2.19 million messages a year?   I dont know, What do you think?