Poster Session: Room 1
From Sports Games to the Gaming of Sports: How Video Games Are Transforming Sports
Poster/Exhibit Session David Keck, Helena Hansson
Sports video games have been around since the 1970s, but only within this century have they begun to transform the sports themselves. For many fans and athletes, their experience of sports is now interwoven with video game franchises. Marketing arrangements integrate weekly events in sports with changing game play. Coaches program playbooks into Madden NFL so Pop Warner and college players can learn complex plays. Gamer-fans enjoy both watching and “making” Steph Curry hit a 3. Gaming-inspired analytics are changing the way college and professional teams prepare for real contests. Various e-sports agencies are seeking inclusion in the Olympics, and studies of the physiology of e-gamers are redefining the question of whether video games are indeed sports. Playing games like FIFA are creating first-time fans of the professional leagues. A combination technological advances in entertainment and data-analytical capacities, the financial synergy of the billion-dollar gaming and sports industries, and the reality of athletes growing up playing games have led to striking transformations of sports for fans and athletes alike. This poster session examines these dramatic changes through a focused presentation of select sports games (with demos); a critical synthesis of existing literature; and a survey of collegiate athletes.
Playing in Exile: An Analytical Framework for Studying Sports Programs for Refugees
Poster/Exhibit Session Helena Hansson, David Keck
Political and economic crises have forced over 60 million refugees, most of whom are under 18, out of their homes. Diverse entities have turned to sports to address this global crisis. International organizations such as the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee; national sports agencies; individual professional teams; religious institutions (including the Vatican); and even local police departments have all promoted sports programs or are forming new partnerships with a wide array of goals. Some programs simply seek to provide some normalcy in terrible camp conditions. Others include educational opportunities, such as learning local languages. Still others seek to use sports’ social power to integrate peoples of different cultures into new, quite unfamiliar worlds. Some presuppose long-term needs; others address only short-term requirements. This poster session examines this diverse array of sports programs through reviewing their public materials (including their marketing and fundraising activities), interviews with organizational leaders, and synthesizing extant scholarly reviews of specific programs (as well as assessments commissioned by various agencies). By developing a model for investigating and categorizing how sports associations evolve to meet new human needs, it provides a necessary initial step for assessing the impact of sports on the lives of millions.
Effects of Caffeine Consumption on Endurance Exercise: A Systematic Review
Poster/Exhibit Session Kayla Albrecht, Jeanette Andrade
Articles were extracted from PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO databases. Searches were limited to the time range of January 1, 2011 to January 1, 2017. An 8-point inclusion criteria was applied to titles and abstracts of extracted articles, and the quality of articles was assessed using the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Evidence Analysis Manual. A total of 169 articles were found and 15 were examined after applying inclusion criteria. Seven articles were included in the study based on quality assessment. The common outcome measures to evaluate endurance performance of the participants included Ratings of Perceived Exertion (RPE), pleasure ratings, feelings of fatigue, and exercise performance. All studies reported improvement in at least one measure of endurance exercise when caffeine was consumed. Though further research is needed, the evidence supports caffeine consumption prior to exercise as an effective strategy to improve several aspects of endurance performance.
Physical Literacy and Physical Activity of Pre-Service Teachers
Poster/Exhibit Session Jon Aoki
In the United States, there is a rise in obesity and its related metabolic diseases. These health issues are now ubiquitous around the world. One of the contributing factors is the decline in physical activity. As a result, there has been a concerted global effort to offset a sedentary lifestyle through physical literacy programs. Regular physical activity may produce long-term benefits such as weight management, lower risks of heart disease and diabetes, and an increase in general well-being. However, physical literacy encompasses the individual’s capacity to engage in a physically active lifestyle. A discussion on physical literacy must include motivation, confidence, and knowledge. This study described the physical literacy and physical activity of pre-service teachers. The findings from this study provide practitioners and researchers a greater understanding of the physical literacy tenets held by pre-service teachers and a glimpse of the healthy lifestyles practiced by these individuals. This knowledge may be translated into the construction of physical literacy programs to battle childhood obesity and metabolic disease.
Identity Construction and Fandom in Sports and Politics
Poster/Exhibit Session Michael Delayo
People's passion for their favorite sports teams has long influenced the construction of both personal and cultural identity. Fans of different teams from different places make meaning in ways unique to their environment, a process also practiced by politically engaged Americans. The similarities between these passions have been explored to an extent, but the relationship's effect has been the subject of limited scrutiny. The rapid rise to prominence of social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have coincided with advancements in audio and video streaming to revolutionize the way fans interact with and consume their passions of choice. The 2015 rape allegations against former Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston and the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States provide a perfect platform for an analysis of the intersection between fandoms in these two spheres, which this paper investigates. Classifications typically used to measure levels of fan identification with sports teams are successfully applied to American politics. The role of increased volume of and accessibility to new media content in this application is discussed. Donald Trump’s unique relationship to politics is also explored through analyses of the Trump Organization brand and Trump’s individual performance of fandom as a politician. Finally, the reaction to rape allegations against Jameis Winston highlight the implications of the similarities between fandom in sports and politics. Fandom in sports and politics is not cultural fodder, but a tool that can be used to understand who the American people are and why.
Community Based Learning and Sport Management Undergraduates: Exploring Tolerance for Ambiguity
Poster/Exhibit Session Kristi Sweeney, Megan Schramm Schramm-Possinger
This study assesses sport management students’ tolerance for ambiguity (TA), as well as their perceived learning gains, after completing an upper-level, community based learning course. As part of the class, sport management students were responsible for creating, implementing, executing, and evaluating a resource development plan for a local non-profit organization. All are important competencies – requiring the kind of adaptability often reported to be under cultivated in sport management graduates – subsumed within multiple program-specific student learning outcomes. Results indicate that those who had a lower tolerance for ambiguity reached a higher percentage of their goal. Additionally, qualitative analyses of self-reported learning gains indicate students’ perceived ability to effectively fundraise, negotiate the challenges of group work, and gain real-world experience. Other reported benefits include cultivating professional skills (i.e. critical thinking and leadership), personal growth, and vocational exploration. These data also make clear the salience of determining what skills and dispositions are associated with student success, collecting both qualitative and numeric/categorical assessment data, and the importance of considering variables, such as TA, when designing curriculum and assessment measures. Our findings provide a more nuanced picture of students’ TA and suggest that students’ ability to adapt to emergent, real-world situations is not equivalent to feeling comfortable taking on projects in the absence of clear goals. Lastly, our findings fill a gap in the literature regarding how to foster student preparedness for “real world” experiences, and serve as model of how faculty and administrators can successfully integrate CBL in experiential sport management coursework.
