Imagine if an athlete is tattooed in Nazi symbols or tattooed with vulgar words or tattooed with pornographic drawings…or whatever. Can they be made to cover those at a given event?
I am curious if there are rules about this. It seems a difficult thing to manage (who gets to decide what needs covering…like a political message?).
If you are playing in an invitational event, I’m sure the host can place conditions on your participating. Similarly if you’re in a professional league, I would think there are rules (perhaps negotiated). For example, if you have a Nike tattoo and Reebock is a sponsor, I don’t think they’d like it too much. Public high school and public colleges might run into first amendment issues as those are government run. But I can’t see that anything not government run would have any issues about rules restricting tattoos apart from contractual issues.
Tattoos may be permanent, but they can be covered up with other tattoos if there was a financial incentive to do so. Some athletes have done so for personal reasons like not wanting an ex-wife’s name tattooed on their throat, it wouldn’t surprise me if an athlete covered up a tattoo in order to pick up an endorsement deal.
There was an interesting nationally televised boxing match back around 1990, plus or minus a few years. One boxer had a tattoo on his back of a couple engaged in a sexual act known with a numerical name. Due to the resolution and small screens of televisions back then the TV announcers called the image “distinctive rose” or some such. Unfortunately for that boxer the image was clear enough on a TV that the police were watching who recognized the tattoo and the boxer as a fugitive leading to his apprehension.
I know not everybody considers bodybuilding to be a sport, but in that activity judges can deduct points for tattoos because they aren’t a natural body feature.
For public schools, the general rule is that we can require any tats that are disruptive*, sexual in nature, promote drugs/alcohol, or are recognized gang signs to be covered up.
For the various professional team sports I suppose it’d be very poor form to get your team name tattooed on you. Then get traded next season to somebody else. Oops.
Although I suppose you could make a bit of a joke out of it by having the stack of team names run up your arm, starting with your high school down near your wrist and each being crossed out as you graduate or get traded. Sort of like the longevity service stripes on some US enlisted military uniforms. 
The NFL apparently banned its players from having tattoos which are visible during games, practices, and press conferences, beginning with the 2018 season.
That article has a print date of April 1, 2015.
Yes, but the article notes that, while the rule was adopted in 2015, it didn’t actually go into effect until the 2018 season.
The article is an April Fool’s joke.
Well, damn, I’ve been whooshed.
Some organizations, like the NBA and the PGA, have rules requiring a “professional” appearance. Tattoos are not explicitly prohibited but some could be banned.
Who bans them and when and how is murky. But the trend in sports is to allow more visible tattoos. Golf apparently has loosened strictures in recent years. Since these are organizational rules approved by the players associations, procedures and appeals must exist.
The Olympics doesn’t ban tattoos, but it also doesn’t mandate that they be allowed. If an individual country wants to ban them it can.
Because in Japan tattoos are very strongly associated with the yakuza and other criminal groups to a much greater extent than they are in the West, they basically aren’t allowed for professional sumo wrestlers (rikishi). The guy who eventually went to pro wrestling named “Earthquake” (John Tenta) had a tattoo when he joined the professional sumo organization (Ozumo) and had to cover it with a “bandage” in the few tournaments he competed in, where he went undefeated. Supposedly he was going to have to have it removed if he made it to one of the top two divisions (where you actually make real money), and that may have been part of the reason that he decided to retire from Ozumo after a few tournaments instead of continuing on.
In Germany, several nazi symbols are illegal to show in public (with exceptions of course, e. g. for artistic reasons). So an athlete with a (obviously nazi styled, not one from another culture) swastika or SS runes tattoo would have to cover it before performing publically.
In the 2004 Olympics, I think, a track-and-field athlete showed up with a Nike swoosh tattooed on his upper arm. They pulled him aside and made him cover it with a bandage.
When my son was in grade school I gave him a t-shirt advertising a friend’s tattoo shop. It was a cool shirt with an old-school dragon and the name of the shop. No profanity, no violence, no depictions of alcohol use.
When he wore the shirt to school his teacher made him turn it inside out. I went to school to discuss this with the teacher. She said that tattoos and tattoo shops were inappropriate for children and were “low class”. When she realized I had tattoos she was embarrassed. I went over her head to the principal, who agreed that the shirt did not violate their dress code.
There is also the rights of the tattoo artist to consider:
Typically, the tattoo artist will argue that they own the copyright in the tattoos they created and should therefore receive a share of the proceeds from commercialization of images featuring the tattoo. This can result in legal action against both the bearer of the tattoo (the athlete) and the third-party brand using the athlete’s image. This article examines recent American case law on the issue and the position under English law.
…and have not watched a single NFL game over the last 5 seasons.
Untrue, though I clearly don’t pay much attention to tattoos.
Wouldn’t some tattoos be protected as religious expression?
Having them, sure. Displaying them, probably not.