American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic

Acknowledgments - Andrew C. Billings/Lawrence A. Wenner/Marie Hardin: Introduction: Situating Communication and American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic - Erin Whiteside/Sam Winemiller: Reimagining the Role of Local Sports Media During the Pandemic Pause - Courtney M. Cox: Force Majeure: Pandemic Labor Insights within the Sports- Media Complex - Simon Licen: More Than Fun and Games: How the World Will Look at American Sports- and America- After COVID- 19 - Daniel A. Grano: "Year of the Bubble": The Black Athletic Body as Event, and the Politics of Subtraction - Abraham Iqbal Khan: Reading Against the Platform: Communicative Capitalism and the NBA Strike - Michael Serazio: Hegemonic Masculinity on the Sidelines: Workplace Dangers, Gendered Ideologies, and Athletic Participation in the Pandemic Era - Travis R. Bell/Christian Dotson- Pierson/Janelle Applequist: Big Risks, Big Rewards: Framing the NWSL Challenge Cup Amid a Pandemic - Katherine L. Lavelle: "The Team's Best Interest": COVID- 19, Mental Health, and Neoliberalism in College Football - Scott Parrott/Nathan A. Towery/Andrew C. Billings: Sports Figures as Public Health Prompts: The Broadening Role of Celebrity Athletes in Health Communication - Gregory A. Cranmer: Socialization and Team Management in Post- COVID- 19 Athletics - Michael L. Butterworth/Katie Lever: Coronavirus, College Football, and the Collapse of American Exceptionalism - Lauren Reichart Smith: The NCAA Response to the COVID- 19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Enjoyment - Karen L. Hartman: COVID- 19, the NCAA, and Title IX: A Time for Gender Equity - Walter Gantz: What Missing Sports Really Means: Mediated Sports Consumption in the Post- Pandemic World - Jimmy Sanderson: Managing the Unprecedented: How Sport Organizations' Social Media Strategy Adapted and Evolved in the Midst of a Global Pandemic - Ryan Rogers/Lee K. Farquhar: Esports: A Pandemic- Proof Alternative to Traditional Sports? - Tang Tang, L. Meghan Mahoney/Ashley Spiker: Olympics in

Andrew C. Billings (Ph.D., Indiana University) is the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Journalism & Creative Media at the University of Alabama. He has published over 220 journal articles and book chapters along with 22 book projects, the majority of which pertain to issues of media content and effects.Lawrence A. Wenner (Ph.D., University of Iowa) is Von der Ahe Professor of Communication and Ethics at Loyola Marymount University. Founding editor of the research journal Communication and Sport, his most recent book is the Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society.Marie Hardin (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is Dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Her scholarship has focused on issues of gender, diversity, and ethics in sports journalism.

"In American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic, prominent sports media scholars provide timely, insightful critiques of the sports industry's response and resilience in weathering the COVID- 19 pandemic. This important volume acknowledges how an unprecedented pause in live sport revealed key truths about the sports landscape and its structures, delineating the 'need to haves' (players, media contracts) from the 'nice to haves' (predefined game schedules, live fan involvement). This collection is required reading for sports media scholars to unpack the lessons gained from COVID- 19 and to reflect on how a year of disruption may prompt social, economic, political, and cultural ripples for years to come." - Natalie Brown- Devlin, University of Texas