Is there any reason why racial diversity in pro sports wouldn't be a good thing?

Great Debates
1

We already have a thread on this topic, but I felt it would be meaningful to look at the issue from another angle - namely, the benefits of diversity in the 4 American pro sports leagues (NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB):

MLB is already actually pretty diverse, so I won’t address it too much. Let’s look primarily at the other leagues.
Asians and Hispanics are quite underrepresented in the NBA and NFL. I would like to argue a moment for the benefits of featuring more Asian and Hispanic players:

The presence of players in a particular race in a sports league can serve as a valuable role model for youth of that racial group - Jeremy Lin, for instance, is an inspiration to many Asian-American youth, as well as Asian youth abroad.

Having a player like Lin in the NBA has also had a good business effect; it has further increased the popularity and attention of the NBA abroad in places like China, Taiwan, and other parts of Asia. But Lin is just one player, and there’s only so much he could do to inspire Asians in America and elsewhere. Having, say, 20 or 30 Asian players in the NBA like Jeremy Lin could only further boost that business image abroad and do even more to inspire Asian youth. Surely Asian-Americans need good role models in pro sports just like every other racial group?

What I just posted above could apply almost as well to Hispanics in the NBA as well. Players like J.J. Barea, Anderson Varejao, Nene, Luis Scola and others highlight what is a comparatively tiny minority in the NBA, considering that the Hispanic population is roughly comparable to the African-American population in America in terms of population size.

I could mention the same of the NFL; there are extremely few Asians in the sport, aside from players like Dat Nguyen (Vietnamese-American linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys; already retired a long time ago.) There is a conspicuous lack of role models for the Asian-American community in this sport; there’s not even an NFL equivalent of a Jeremy Lin. Hispanics have made somewhat more inroads into this league; players like Tony Romo, Tony Gonzalez, Aaron Hernandez, etc., are pretty well known.
So, all in all, what is not to like about having increased diversity in the pro sports leagues? There is business benefit. There is ethnic role-model benefit. And, as has often been argued, isn’t diversity, by its very nature, inherently a good thing?

2

I think it’s important for the discussion to set apart cultural diversity from physical diversity.

3

Sports should be a meritocracy. The best players make the team. The best of the best are starters. Race should be utterly irrelevant.

4

Only because he was a good player. The first Asian-American player to play in the NBA happened the same year Jackie Robinson integrated MLB (1947). No one cared because he stunk. In a zero sum situation like a sports league, just seeing more Asian or Hispanic faces on a bench will do nothing to inspire young kids.

Ultimately, sports are an entertainment product that largely has credibility based on the premise that you are generally watching the best people in the world compete. This is why the Olympics are more popular than the Junior Olympics, the NFL is more popular than the CLF or AFL, and the NBA is more popular than the D-League. Watering down standards for the sake of diversity would probably benefit the players as employees, but not as the commodities they are marketed as.

More importantly, encouraging kids to actively pursue a career in sports is generally a terrible idea. It’s a huge gamble with real, demonstrably downsides; doubly so for football. Athletes can be role models without encouraging kids to follow in their footsteps, but that’s often not what happens. We are talking about roughly 2100 jobs, and only a few dozen of the people in those jobs are highly visible. There are so many better ways to encourage kids that would have pay better dividends than encouraging more of them to play competitive sports more often.

True. Which is why the NBA has affirmative action programs to reach out to Asians. They include things like their Basketball Without Borders program among other things. I think the NBA in particular is very desirous to diversify and expose the game to people of all backgrounds and colors. The NBA is about 23% foreign born players now, up from about 0% only a few decades ago. Basketball is truly an international game, and the NBA has been proactive in embracing that.

They also do outreach in Latin America among other places.

Three things are happening in the NFL that make diversity tough:

  1. It’s a generally poorly run organization despite it’s economic success
  2. It’s a very American game
  3. Immigrant groups have generally not embraced the game as far as participation

The NFL probably wouldn’t mind having more diversity, but it’s much harder to market individual football players than it is basketball players, so the upside is not really as apparent.

Well, diversity is inherently a good thing IMO, but active pursuit of that goal at the expense of other groups should typically occur when there are significant barriers to entry for under-represented groups, discrimination or bias, or a compelling societal need. I don’t think there are too many reasons Asian and Hispanic people aren’t playing those sports more often other than desire, culture, or environment.

5

It’s just a matter of time. Thanks to the influence of Yao Ming, savvy marketing by the NBA, and the accessibility of the game, 300 million Chinese people now play basketball. Within that cohort will be a non-zero number of players who will make the NBA. There’s already a system of youth academies that feed players into the Chinese Basketball Association. We’ll see a flood of East Asian players into the NBA, similar to the flood of European and African players we saw from the mid '90s to today.

This will be more challenging, but there are some Latin countries with strong basketball leagues, and the NBA is reaching out to Hispanics with Latin Night and ene be a.

6

Sure, it’s a good thing. But that doesn’t mean that government making decisions about how teams choose players (and players choose teams) would necessarily be a good thing.

7

Yao Ming played for the Houston Rockets; I remember Chinese-American co-workers getting interested in the game because of him. Team owners like to win new groups of fans–they keep looking for diverse, skillful athletes. But you can’t force kids to go into sports when they have better careers in mind.

When we got a Major League Soccer team, the first name suggested was 1836–the year of Sam Houston’s victory over Santa Anna. After discussion it was changed to the more neutral Dynamo–to attract the really large number of Hispanic futbol fans.

Yes, diversity is good–and it’s good business. But nobody will be picked for a team solely on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

8

There is more than one kind of diversity. You won’t find many black or brown faces on an NHL roster (though there are a few) but the league is far more diverse today than it was in the days when it consisted almost entirely of Canadians, with a light sprinkling of Americans.

Interestingly the NHL currently has a program to help fund youth hockey programs in inner city areas. Its unclear whether this will have any significant long term impact, but they seem to be trying. I’ve heard that even NASCAR has toyed with the idea of trying to attract more minority fans. As with any kind of business, it only makes sense to broaden your customer base.

9

Which comes with its own set of unfortunate connotations.

All else being equal, 1836 as the year that Texas declared its independence and the year that Houston was founded seems less odious to me.

10

Not to me. For all its history, “Dynamo” doesn’t carry the baggage in the US that it would in Europe. We see it as just a word, connoting dynamism and perhaps technological subtleties–but not the Stasi. But I totally get where you’re coming from.

/hijack

11

We don’t have that many East German refugees in Houston. But we’ve got plenty of Mexicans & Mexican-Americans.

If I want to commemorate Houston’s founding, I’ll drink 1836…

12

I’ve posted my take on this in a previous similar thread, but can’t remember/be arsed to find out where, so I’ll just recap here:

The importance given to ethnic/cultural/etc. diversity and inclusiveness in any competitive pursuit should be inversely proportional to the level of elite selectivity.

For instance:

A) Neighborhood kiddie soccer clubs should include all kids who want to play and give them all equal playing time.
B) High school teams should have tryouts to pick the best players for the varsity (and in most cases should be gender-segregated), but should also have JV/intramural teams to provide playing opportunities for weaker players.
C) World Cup national teams should be made up of only the strongest competitors available. Questions of inclusiveness and diversity based on anything other than proven skill levels should be entirely irrelevant.

A) Elementary school music classes should encourage all kids to participate, with special outreach to further encourage kids whose skills are affected by, e.g., financial, cultural or disability issues.
B) Community musical organizations such as choral groups, etc., can audition participants for basic skills but in general are typically more welcoming/inclusive than exclusive/competitive.
C) Professional orchestras, chorales, etc., should select their members on the basis of musical skill and performance alone (via blind auditions wherever possible).

A) Preschool math lessons should include all kids in the same age group, with remedial help for less advanced kids.
B) High school math classes can be taught in separate tracks with advanced classes/topics for gifted students, but less skilled students should still get remedial help for a solid basic level of math achievement.
C) International Math Olympiad teams should be competitively selected purely on the basis of demonstrated math ability and knowledge; inclusiveness and diversity should be irrelevant.
This principle rules out diversity-promotion policies at the level of pro sports. I’m all in favor of diversity and inclusiveness, but they should not be considered at all in the highest levels of elite competition.

13

Sure, and they’re HERE. Why in the world should it even be an issue for us to commemorate our state’s independence and our city’s founding, just because some people from the original country don’t like that something happened 180 years ago? It’s about as stupid as if British expats in NYC got irritated with anything having to do with 1776.

Regardless, 1836 would have been dumb; the typical use of a year in a soccer club’s name is to denote the founding year, so it should have been Houston 2005, or something like that.

I’m really not at all for the MLS trend of aping European soccer names; what’s the point of “Real Salt Lake”? How is it royal in any way whatsoever?

At least the old MLS names were their own, not cargo-cult style mimicry of existing prestigious clubs like some of the atrocious names we have today.

14

A small suggestion for more diversity in the NBA – Raise the basket a foot or three. That would help do away with the freaks that seem to populate the league. They would still have an advantage in arm reach however. It would allow more “normal” sized players of high skill like Bob Couzy (sp).

15

Yeah, I’m not getting why you think that raising the basket would put the taller players (which I presume is what you mean by “freaks”) at a greater disadvantage relative to shorter players than they are now.

16

Well obviously they couldn’t reach over the top of the basket with their feet on the floor or an easy hop. They wouldn’t be as valuable in the immediate vicinity of the basket. You could also make a score from outside a certain distance worth 3 or 4 times what a close shot is worth and get back to some real basketball not slam dunk contests. Haven’t watched a complete game in 40yrs but I remember it being quite different - much more open and alot less elbowing under the basket.

17

I am surprised you haven’t watched a complete game in 40 years given your astonishing ignorance about the sport.

18

I get the argument that raising the basket would make scoring somewhat less easy for the taller players.

What I don’t get is why you think that raising the basket would somehow reduce the relative advantage that taller players have over shorter players. Yes, a higher basket is more difficult for a tall player to reach, but it’s even more difficult for a short player to reach.

Raise the basket by a foot, and a tall player who previously could dunk the ball now has to throw the ball a foot in the air. But the short player who previously had to throw the ball a foot in the air now has to throw the ball two feet up. I’m not seeing why you think this reduces the shorter player’s disadvantage.

19

why just sports

why shouldn’t everything be like this

20

I dont think it would hurt. Tiger Woods did alot for golf. I dont remember where I heard it but a black NBA coach said maybe having more white players would boost attendance. Tennis needs another Arthur Ashe.

Lets face it, people like watching people who look like them. We are not watching robots. I remember a discussion once about boxer Tommy Morrison where a black colleague said that while he had no bad feelings towards Morrison, he knew he was going to be cheering for the black opponent just because he was black.