Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics (East Asian Popular Culture) 303097779X, 9783030977795

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EAST ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics Edited by Steve Bien-Aimé · Cynthia Wang

East Asian Popular Culture Series Editors

Yasue Kuwahara Department of Communication Northern Kentucky University Highland Heights, KY, USA John A. Lent International Journal of Comic Art Drexel Hill, PA, USA

This series focuses on the study of popular culture in East Asia (referring to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan) in order to meet a growing interest in the subject among students as well as scholars of various disciplines. The series examines cultural ­production in East Asian countries, both individually and collectively, as its popularity extends beyond the region. It continues the scholarly ­discourse on the recent prominence of East Asian popular culture as well as the give and take between Eastern and Western cultures.

Steve Bien-Aimé  •  Cynthia Wang Editors

Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics

Editors Steve Bien-Aimé Department of Communication Northern Kentucky University Highland Heights, KY, USA

Cynthia Wang Department of Communication Studies California State University Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA, USA

ISSN 2634-5935     ISSN 2634-5943 (electronic) East Asian Popular Culture ISBN 978-3-030-97779-5    ISBN 978-3-030-97780-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: DANNY HU / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface/Introduction

On March 16, 2021, eight individuals, six of whom were Asian women, were shot and killed in Atlanta, Georgia, sparking much needed discourse around the perpetual marginalization of people of Asian descent in North America, as well as the erasure of the violence done to these groups in mainstream media and consciousness. This event happened on the heels of increased anti-Asian rhetoric and sentiment surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic pushed by the highest levels of the U.S. government administration. The deeper story here unveils a history in which people of Asian descent in North America constantly negotiate their identity and sense of belonging while navigating the dynamics of migration, diaspora, transnational discourse, media representation, stereotypes, and constructed narratives. In this book, we explore these themes through the lens of sports, focusing on athletes of Asian descent and how their stories, careers, and experiences have been characterized and situated within broader social dynamics that frame how we understand race, gender, representation, success, and belonging. It has been well documented that Asian and Asian Americans have often been overlooked, stereotyped, and misrepresented in mainstream media (Hamamoto, 1994; Shim, 1998; Ono & Pham, 2019). The portrayals of certain bodies in mainstream media, as Stuart Hall (2007) would argue, encode certain values that dictate which kinds of bodies are socially legitimate. The problematic representation of Asian bodies as different, foreign, and exoticized reinforces and perpetuates what Edward Said (1979) famously coined “Orientalism,” by which the Orient (non-West) is set in contrast to the Occident (West), creating “fundamentally a v

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political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West” (Said, 1979, p. 204). Indeed, depictions of Asians as the model minority and the perpetual foreigner only serve to distance these Asian bodies and faces from Western spaces and narratives. We see this playing out currently with the attention given to COVID-19, with anti-­ Asian sentiment on the rise worldwide. While the tensions around media representations of individuals of Asian descent are well documented, less scholarship has been devoted to the representation of Asian bodies in sports. There is an extensive and well-­ documented history of marginalization of athletes of Asian descent, with media often positioning them as outside of American culture and, indeed, denying their Asian American identities. Examples of this include American figure skater Michelle Kwan’s silver medal win during the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, losing out to fellow American teammate Tara Lipinski. MSNBC’s headline proclaimed “America beats out Kwan,” ironically putting Kwan in the position of foreigner (Oh, 2019). In 2012, during the rise of the popularity of National Basketball Association (NBA) player Jeremy Lin, ESPN headlined an article with “Chink in the Armor,” using the derogatory term to highlight Lin’s race (Chap. 9). Lin was born in Torrance, California. Athletes are increasingly taking advantage of a shift in mass media gatekeeping to directly engage with their publics (Sanderson & Kassing, 2016), and when it comes to COVID-19, athletes are not staying silent. On April 13, 2020, Jeremy Lin penned a piece in The Players’ Tribune speaking of his conflicted position as both Asian and American and of how he exists in this liminal space of constantly negotiated identity while calling for unity and compassion during the COVID-19 crisis. Lin’s column stands in direct contrast to the concept of sports being apolitical (e.g., Segrave, 2000), addressing the rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 and the subsequent anti-Asian sentiment and actions that have arisen around it. One cannot ignore mass media’s ability to stigmatize or negatively label various groups in society (e.g., Johnson & Hong, 2017; Kendellen & Camiré, 2015), exacerbated during COVID-19 by such phrasing as the “Chinese virus” coming from the Trump administration, and in March 2020, leading U.S. journalism advocacy organizations issued a joint statement “urging news outlets to refrain from images and language that fuel xenophobia and racism” (Asian American Journalists Association, 2020). In describing the dangers of COVID-19, Banerjee (2020) writes, “Pandemics like this, are not just a medical phenomenon; they tend to

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affect quality of life in an individual and as a whole, causing social dysfunction. Stigma, xenophobia, mass hysteria and panic are the common offshoots” (p. 1). As for Lin, he found this period ripe for examination of the negotiations of identity and race through the lens of this crisis (Chap. 12). Additionally, he isn’t the only athlete to speak out on social issues. Naomi Osaka has used her platform to bring awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement and other issues related to social justice (Chap. 5). Thus, sports and its various athletes play significant roles in shaping cultures (e.g., Sanderson & Kassing, 2016; Schwartz & Vogan, 2017; Segrave, 2000), especially when considering COVID-19’s impact on shutting down sports leagues and an annual global sports market worth almost $500 billion (Ahmed et al., 2020). Sports continues to be a leading cultural influencer because of its presence in media, education, finance, and other areas. In the leadup to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, media outlets reported that China’s push to host the Olympics was largely in part to demonstrate China’s status as a global superpower, showing the close relationship between sports and sociopolitics. Though numerous articles have been written and much research conducted on sports itself in the fields of critical, cultural, and communication/ media studies, these largely reflect a decidedly Western perspective. However, East Asian and Asian American athletes, particularly women, have experienced tremendous success in Western sports, such as tennis, soccer, golf, and figure skating. Although success has not always translated into international name recognition, in the United States, more recent success of Asian American athletes has occurred concurrently with the rising profile of Asian Americans/Canadians in other leading U.S. sectors, such as education, business, politics, and entertainment. In fact, Asian Americans have been making notable achievements in predominantly male sports, such as basketball and football. The high-profile accomplishments of Asian American athletes work to broaden or shatter stereotypes of Asian Americans in the United States, particularly the model minority “nerd” who lacks any physical prowess. These examples demonstrate the influence that sports has on societal dynamics of race and power. This project highlights some of the inconsistencies within the field of sports scholarship and provides an opportunity to open up and extend conversations around the intersection of sports media and race—particularly in connection with athletes of Asian descent. Despite the growing influence of East Asian and Asian American athletes, they are still

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underrepresented in Western media and in scholarship. This anthology makes a much-needed addition to the literature on sports, popular culture, East Asian studies, and Asian American studies. Sports’ prominence in global popular culture makes the intersections explored in this collection a crucial addition to existing conversations around both sports and East Asian/Asian American studies. As a collection of chapters on Asian and Asian American athletes and how they are perceived and represented in mainstream society, this volume and its authors approach these questions around the presence and media representation of Asian and Asian Americans/Canadians in sports from various perspectives, with attention to critical race, colonialist dynamics, and global attitudes. The authors in this collection grapple with questions that address how Asian and Asian American/Canadian athletes navigate their identities. Some potential themes include how they are represented in the media, how they negotiate their racial identities in their sports of choice, the institutional power dynamics inherent in playing sports, stereotypes of Asian and Asian American/Canadian athletes, the impact of global markets and diasporic networks on athletes of Asian descent, and others. This volume’s thirteen chapters fall under four themes, which we have organized into sections. The first part is “The Power of ‘Chinese’ in Global Sports Culture,” which examines the intersection between Chinese culture’s rise in global power and its relationship to its sports and athletes. In Chap. 1, Oliver J. C. Rick and Longxi Li examine the impact of Chinese tennis superstar Li Na on tennis and international sports, particularly in light of China’s economic and political transformation into a global superpower. Chapter 2 details Nick Bowman, Yen-Hui Alex Hsu, and Lindsey Jean Resignato’s analysis of news media’s depictions, as well as potential shortterm and long-term impacts, of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, which attracted increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic and Taiwan’s skillful handling of it, as it was the only active professional baseball league for several months. Part I of the volume concludes with Chap. 3, in which M. Olguta Vilceanu and Julia Richmond describe the fallout the National Basketball Association experienced when one team’s executive issued a controversial pro-democracy tweet about Hong Kong, leading to restrictions of NBA content and merchandise in China, highlighting the power of the ever-growing influence of China’s government. The book’s second part is titled “Sports Media Portrayals of East Asian Athletes and Leagues.” In Chap. 4, Dung Q.  Tran explains how star

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racecar driver Takuma Sato of Japan utilized the servant-leadership model to overcome the “bad Asian drivers” stereotype. Through a framework of gender and race situated and understood in Japan, Steve Bien-Aimé and Yasue Kuwahara consider how Japanese media depicted the “Japaneseness” of tennis stars Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori in Chap. 5, giving particular attention to how the media seemingly elevated Nishikori’s accomplishments to Osaka’s level, even though Osaka is clearly the superior player. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on how North American sports media broadcast and report on the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). Daniel Yu-Kuei Sun, in Chap. 6, tackles this through a framework of media representation and media portrayal of Asian American men, revealing an uneven dynamic between the KBO and Major League Baseball through the larger context of racial hierarchies in North America. In Chap. 7, Travis R. Bell and Taeyeon Oh look at KBO’s portrayal in the media within a globalization and transnational framework and explore how the broadcast practices of and discourses on ESPN shifted given the U.S.-based audience and the increased airtime given to KBO games during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The third part of this book, “Sports Media Portrayals of North American Athletes of Asian Descent,” focuses on Asian American/ Canadian athletes and raises questions of what it means to be seen as a perpetual foreigner in the sports media spotlight. Discussion of the topic begins with Chen Chen’s historical look in Chap. 8 at the news media’s treatment of Larry and Norman Kwong of the National Hockey League and Canadian Football League, respectively, and how their stories as some of the earlier Asian Canadian athletes are told and remembered. In Chap. 9, Bill Cassidy compares how NBA player Jeremy Lin was portrayed in U.S.-based news media versus in news media in Chinese-speaking nations during and after Lin’s rapid rise to global stardom. Paul J. MacArthur and Lauren Reichart Smith’s analysis of NBC’s broadcast of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics is the subject of Chap. 10, which explores NBC’s coverage of East Asian athletes, considering factors like how prevalent the model minority myth or perceived athletic inferiority presented within the media narrative. Because of globalization and immigration, people of East Asian descent can be found throughout North America, which frames the book’s final part, “Finding Oneself among Multiple Identities.” In Chap. 11, Seonah Kim details South Korean news media’s coverage of U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim through a lens of diasporic transnational migration and

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intersectional identities. Chapter 12 returns to Jeremy Lin, with Stephen Cho Suh, Alex Manning, and Kyle Green exploring the shift regarding how he engages race and ethnicity from Linsanity through a burgeoning antiracism movement. Finally, Shearon Roberts, in Chap. 13, analyzes how Naomi Osaka navigates Black femininity and a biracial identity in tennis, particularly how race is leveraged and negotiated in the representation of women of color in sports. Highland Heights, KY, USA Los Angeles, CA, USA 

Steve Bien-Aimé Cynthia Wang

References Ahmed, M., Di Stefano, M., & Nicolaou, A. (2020, April 5). Can the sports industry survive the coronavirus shutdown? Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/ content/fd7e58ec-­7438-­11ea-­95fe-­fcd274e920ca Asian American Journalists Association. (2020, March 19). Joint statement denouncing anti-Asian racism during coronavirus outbreak. https://www.aaja. org/aaja_denounces_anti-­asian_racism_coronavirus Banerjee, D. (2020). The COVID-19 outbreak: Crucial role the psychiatrists can play. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 50, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ajp.2020.102014. Hall, S. (2007). Encoding, decoding. In S.  During (Ed.), The cultural studies reader (pp. 90–103). Routledge Hamamoto, D. Y. (1994). Monitored peril: Asian Americans and the politics of TV representation. University of Minnesota Press. Hiremath, P., Suhas Kowshik, C. S., Manjunath, M., & Shettar, M. (2020). COVID 19: Impact of lock-down on mental health and tips to overcome. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 51, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102088. Johnson, E.  K., & Hong, S. (2017). Exposing the American dilemma: How aversive racism plays a part in homicide news reception. Howard Journal of Communications, 28(3), 297–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/1064617 5.2017.1286274 Kendellen, K. & Camiré, M. (2015). Visual framing, stigmatization, race, and obesity: Examining television news presentation of stories about obesity and stories about health. Communication Studies, 67(5), 509–529. https://doi. org/10.1080/10510974.2016.1236348

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Lin, J. (2020, April 13). The darkness has not overcome it. The Players’ Tribune. https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-­us/articles/jeremy-­lin-­darkness-­has­not-­overcome-­it. Oh, C. (2019). The heroic white man and the fragile Asian Girl: Racialized and gendered orientalism in Olympic figure skating. International Journal of the History of Sport, 36 (7/8), 714–730. https://doi.org/10.1080/0952336 7.2019.1657840 Ono, K. A., & Pham, V. N. (2019). Asian Americans and the Media: Media and Minorities. Wiley. https://books.google.com/books?id=EBLGDwAAQBAJ Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. Random House. Sanderson, J., & Kassing, J.  W. (2016). New media and the evolution of fan-­ athlete interaction: In A. C. Billings & M. Hardin (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sport and New Media (pp. 247–258). Routledge. Schwartz, D., & Vogan, T. (2017). The players’ tribune: Self-branding and boundary work in digital sports media. Journal of Sports Media, 12 (1), 45–63. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsm.2017.0002 Segrave, J. O. (2000). Sport as escape. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 24(1), 61–77. Shim, D. (1998). From yellow peril through model minority to renewed yellow peril. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 22(4), 385–409. https://doi. org/10.1177/0196859998022004004

Contents

Part I The Power of “Chinese” in Global Sports Culture   1 1 “Big  Does Not Even Begin to Describe Her Enduring Impact”: The Career of Li Na, Global Sports Development, and China as Sporting Superpower  3 Oliver J. C. Rick and Longxi Li 2 “Good  Morning, Good Afternoon, and Good Evening”: U.S. Views on the Chinese Professional Baseball League in the Wake of COVID-19 23 Nick Bowman, Yen-Hui Alex Hsu, and Lindsey Jean Resignato 3 Country-of-Origin  Bias in Portrayal of East Asian and Asian American Athletes: The NBA-Hong Kong Episode 53 M. Olguta Vilceanu and Julia Richmond Part II Sports Media Portrayals of East Asian Athletes and Leagues  79 4 “No  Attack, No Chance”: Takuma Sato’s Servant-Led Race Against the Trope of “Bad Asian Drivers” 81 Dung Q. Tran xiii

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5 Intersecting  Race, Gender, and Sports: How Japanese News Media Depict Tennis Stars Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori105 Steve Bien-Aimé and Yasue Kuwahara 6 Making  Sense of Korean Baseball: Articulating Race, Gender, and Cultural Hegemony in the North American Media Coverage of Korea Baseball Organization During2020 Baseball Season129 Daniel Yu-Kuei Sun 7 “Framing  KBO: ESPN, Media Discourse, and the Cultural Identity of Korean Baseball”151 Travis R. Bell and Taeyeon Oh Part III Sports Media Portrayals of North American Athletes of Asian Descent 173 8 Professional  Sport, Settler Multiculturalism, and Exalted Chinese Arrivants: Re-Remembering the “China Clippers”175 Chen Chen 9 Linsanity  and its Aftermath: Sports Journalism Framing of Jeremy Lin199 William P. Cassidy 10 Portrayals  of East Asian Athletes Within NBC’s Primetime Broadcast of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics225 Paul J. MacArthur and Lauren Reichart Smith Part IV Finding Oneself among Multiple Identities 255 11 What  Makes Chloe Kim’s Return Glorious? Korean News Coverage of Chloe Kim During PyeongChang Winter Olympics257 Seonah Kim

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12 Contesting  “Lin”inality: The Evolution of Jeremy Lin’s Racial Subjectivity291 Stephen Cho Suh, Alex Manning, and Kyle Green 13 Naomi  Osaka, Racial Hybridity, and Black Femininity in Tennis319 Shearon Roberts Index343

Notes on Contributors

Travis R. Bell, PhD  is an Assistant Professor of Digital and Sports Media at the University of South Florida. Steve  Bien-Aimé, PhD is an assistant professor in Northern Kentucky University’s Department of Communication. His research interests include race and gender portrayals in sports and news media. His work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, International Journal of Sport Communication, and Journal of Information Policy. Prior to receiving his doctorate, Bien-Aimé worked as a copy editor at The News Journal in Delaware and The Baltimore Sun and served in a variety of functions at FOXSports.com in Los Angeles, departing as deputy NFL editor. Nick  Bowman, (Ph.D., Michigan State University)  is an Associate Professor in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His research considers the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demands of interactive media. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts on media psychology and related issues, and is the incoming editor for Journal of Media Psychology. He was recently named Fulbright Wu Jing-Jyi Arts and Culture Fellow at the National Chengchi University in Taipei. William P. Cassidy, PhD  is Professor and journalism area coordinator in the Department of Communication and a faculty associate of the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Northern Illinois University. His research in recent years has concentrated on sports xvii

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journalism, focusing on the representation of gay and lesbian athletes. He is the author of two books, Sports Journalism and Coming Out Stories: Jason Collins and Michael Sam (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and Sports Journalism and Women Athletes: Coverage of Coming Out Stories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). His scholarship has appeared in venues such as Communication & Sport, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, International Journal of Communication, and Journal of Sports Media. Cassidy is the incoming vice president of Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honor society in journalism and mass communication, and was named the society’s 2020 William H. Taft Outstanding Adviser. He was also recently selected as recipient of the Dorothy Bowles Public Service Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Before entering academia, Cassidy worked for more than a decade as a correspondent and columnist for Daily Racing Form, the leading publication in the thoroughbred horse racing industry. Chen Chen, PhD  is an Assistant Professor of Sport Management, Neag School of Education, at the University of Connecticut. He describes himself as a grateful visitor from China to the land known as Connecticut (originated from the Algonquin word Quinnehtukqut which means “beside the long tidal river”). Chen takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the intersection of sport with colonialism as well as social, racial, and environmental justice. He is particularly interested in how non-dominant epistemologies can mobilize sport, education, and movement spaces to be more just and equitable, facilitating more meaningful communitybuilding towards decolonization and collective liberation. Kyle  Green  is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at The College at Brockport, State University of New York. Green researches storytelling, intimacy, and the body with a particular emphasis on how groups construct meaning through shared physical practice. Kyle’s work has appeared in journals such as Sociological Theory, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Social & Cultural Geography, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Qualitative Sociology, and International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Green is also the producer and host of the Give Theory a Chance and Give Methods a Chance podcasts. Yen-Hui  Alex  Hsu  is the ex-deputy secretary general of the Chinese Professional Baseball League and is a PhD student at the College of

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Communication, National ChengChi University, Taiwan. His research expertise is in sport communications and the political economy of communications. Seonah Kim  is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle. Yasue Kuwahara, PhD  is professor of Communication and Director of Popular Culture Studies at Northern Kentucky University, where she teaches a variety of courses on American and Asian popular culture. Her scholarly interest has expanded in recent years from the U.S. influence on postwar Japan to popular culture in East Asia. She is the author/editor of The Korean Wave: Korean Popular Culture in Global Context. Longxi Li  also known as Jack in the USA, is a second-year Ph.D. student studying physical education, concentrating in teaching and administration at Springfield College. Longxi is sensitive to cultural differences because of his bicultural background. He has worked as a national-­level tennis official since 2014. Through years of professional tennis experience, his research interests lie at the intersection of international sports, tennis in China, and urban physical activity culture. Prior to Springfield, Longxi graduated with Master’s degrees in Exercise Science and Sports Management. Paul  J.  MacArthur is Professor of Public Relations and Journalism at Utica University and coauthor of Olympic Television: Broadcasting the Biggest Show on Earth. His research interests include the Olympics, mediated sport, cable television, media law, media history, sports history, winter sports, and professional wrestling. A veteran of the cable television and radio industries and an accomplished freelance writer, MacArthur’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including Smithsonian.com, DownBeat, The Houston Press, VERMONT Magazine, Northwest Airlines WorldTraveler, and Skiing Heritage: Journal of the International Skiing History Association. He is a coauthor of The Speech: A Guide to Effective Speaking, published in 1993, has contributed more than forty entries to MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide, published in 1998, and is the cofounder of Wrestling Perspective. He has also coauthored more than a dozen refereed articles focusing on television presentation of the Olympic Games. Alex  Manning is a research scholar and lecturer in the Sociology Department at Yale University. He teaches courses on racism, sports, and families. His research explores the dynamic collisions among race/racism, families, youth, sport, and culture. He earned his Ph.D. in 2019 from the

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University of Minnesota and is currently developing his dissertation, “Beyond Orange Slices: The Contested Terrain of Youth Soccer Culture in the United States”, into a book manuscript. In this project, he uses ethnography and interviewing to interrogate how race, class, gender, and cultural norms of parenting and youth development are experienced and embedded in the field of youth sport. His scholarship and writing have also been featured in journals and edited volumes such as the Du Bois Review, the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Sociological Inquiry, Sociology Compass, European Journal of Sport and Society, and Child’s Play: Sport in Kids’ Worlds. Taeyeon Oh, PhD,   is an assistant professor at Seoul School of Integrated Sciences and Technologies, Seoul, South Korea. Lindsey  Resignato  holds a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from Texas Tech University and serves as a communications specialist for the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, a biomedical/life science research, innovation, and engineering nonprofit organization. Julia  Richmond is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Relations and Advertising at Rowan University. Her research focuses on the intersection of critical studies, sports communication, and public relations. Oliver  J.  C.  Rick  is currently assistant professor in the Department of Sport Management and Recreation at Springfield College. He graduated with PhD and Master’s degrees in Kinesiology, specializing in Physical Cultural Studies. Since graduating from the University of Maryland with his doctoral degree, he has developed a research agenda with three main strands: critical analyses of sports media and communication, globalization processes in sport, and urban physical activity cultures. His publication record most recently includes the piece “Physically Active in the Flattened City,” published in the edited volume Sport, Physical Culture, and the Moving Body: Materialisms, Technologies, Ecologies. Shearon Roberts, PhD  is Assistant Professor of Mass Communication and a faculty member in African American and Diaspora Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. She researches representations of race and gender in entertainment and popular culture and has published on representations of Haiti and the role of media in Haiti. She is editor of Recasting the Disney Princess in an Era of New Media and Social Movements.

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She is coeditor of HBO’s Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis: The Mediated Rebirth of New Orleans and coauthor of Oil and Water: Media Lessons from Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster. Her forthcoming book Media Discourse in Haiti examines the last decade in Haiti through the lens of Haiti media as the country recovered from the 2010 earthquake. She studies the impact of digital media across the Caribbean and representations of the region. She has worked as a reporter in Latin America and the Caribbean and holds a PhD in Latin American Studies from Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies. Lauren Reichart Smith, PhD  is Associate Professor of Sports Media in the Media School at Indiana University. Her research interests focus on issues of gender, race, and national identity within sport, particularly with respect to how they are portrayed in the media as well as their effects on fans. Her research has been published in Media Psychology, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Communication Research Reports, Electronic News, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Sociology of Sport Journal, Sport in Society, Journal of Sports Media, International Journal of Sport Communication, and Communication & Sport. She coauthored, with Mike Milford, the book Communication and Contradiction in the NCAA: An Unlevel Playing Field, published in 2020. Stephen Cho Suh  is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at San Diego State University. His scholarly interests lie at the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, migration, and culture, especially in relation to Asian Americans and the Korean diaspora. His current book project examines the culinary entrepreneurship of 1.5 and 2nd-generation Korean Americans in the U.S. and South Korea. He has works published in outlets such as Ethnicities, Ethnic & Racial Studies, the European Journal for Sport and Society, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Men & Masculinities, and the Journal of Asian American Studies. He is coeditor of Koreatowns: Exploring the Economics, Politics, and Identities of Korean Spatial Formation, published by Lexington Press. Daniel Yu-Kuei Sun, PhD  is a Lecturer in the Department of Kinesiology at Towson University in Towson, Maryland. Dung Q. Tran, PhD  is an Assistant Professor in the School of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University.

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M.  Olguta  Vilceanu  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Relations and Advertising at Rowan University. Her research employs framing, semantic network analysis, text mining, and data mining to explore critical developments in contemporary crises and issues. Cynthia  Wang, PhD  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. She is interested in the impact of digital communication technologies and social media on social relations, cultural practices, and power dynamics, particularly framed in perspectives of time and temporality. Her work can be found in such journals as Social Media + Society and Time & Society, and she is an author and coeditor of the books Indie Games in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury) and Communicating Across Difference: Negotiating Identity, Privilege, and Marginalization in the 21st Century (Cognella). She is also the founder of The arqive, a digital LGBTQ storytelling map.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3

Fig. 2.4

Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2

Timeline of important dates in management of COVID-19 during 2020 CPBL season 27 Photos of simulated crowds in Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium via @GOCPBL, the home field of the Rakuten Monkeys. (Source URL: https://twitter.com/GOCPBL/ status/1247475445437575169)29 COVID-19 protocols at an early-season Fubon Guardians game. (Before fans were allowed to attend games, an early-­ season Fubon Guardians game was held without live fans, and in their place were various signs cheering on the players. A face mask–wearing mascot and team cheerleaders are still present at games, to give players and coaching staff some sense of normalcy while playing to an empty stadium. Image courtesy of Yen-Hui Alex Hsu) 31 Sample tweets from milestone moments in 2020 CPBL season. (Source URLs: https://twitter.com/GOCPBL/ status/1251867666672836608; https://twitter.com/CPBL/ status/1249292327119544320)35 Photo of Norman Kwong featured in Edmonton Journal, November 25, 1949 (p. 31) 182 Photo of Larry Kwong featured in Edmonton Bulletin, November 21, 1946 (p. 7) 184

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List of Figures

Fig. 13.1 Mark Knight Twitter Post of his September 2018 cartoon of Serena Williams at U.S. Open Fig. 13.2 Timothy Clay’s Agence France-Presse postmatch photo of Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams in 2018 at the U.S. Open women’s finals Fig. 13.3 Nike’s 2021 social justice campaign featuring Naomi Osaka, titled “The Naomi Effect”

320 321 336

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3 Table 10.4 Table 10.5 Table 10.6 Table 10.7

Cable television ratings of CPBL games, organized by home market35 Data set composition: number of stories, chronological 61 Teams in KBO 155 Selected ESPN broadcasts in 2020 160 Space frame dimension coverage of Jeremy Lin in U.S. and Asian newspapers 211 Mean tone of stories about Jeremy Lin in U.S. and Asian newspapers213 Distribution of mentions of athletes by name on NBC’s 2018 Primetime Olympics Broadcast 236 Distribution of mentions of East Asian/East Asian descent athletes by name on NBC’s 2018 Primetime Olympics Broadcast237 Top 30 most mentioned athletes in 2018 Olympics on NBC’s 2018 Primetime Olympics Broadcast 238 Distribution of mentions of athletes by sport on NBC’s 2018 Primetime Olympics Broadcast 239 Most mentioned athlete by sport on NBC’s 2018 Primetime Olympics Broadcast 240 Descriptive analysis of success/failure of EA/EAD athletes vs. other athletes on NBC’s PyeongChang Primetime Broadcast240 Descriptive analysis of success/failure of non-American EA/ EAD athletes vs. East Asian American athletes on NBC’s PyeongChang Primetime Broadcast 241

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Table 10.8 Table 10.9 Table 12.1 Table 13.1 Table 13.2

Descriptive analysis of personality/physicality descriptors of EA/EAD athletes vs. other athletes on NBC’s PyeongChang Primetime Broadcast Descriptive analysis of personality/physicality descriptors of non-­American EA/EAD athletes vs. East Asian American athletes on NBC’s PyeongChang Primetime Broadcast List of primary sources in chronological order Branding Naomi Osaka in Deals/Endorsements, 2011–2015 Branding Naomi Osaka in Deals/Endorsements, 2016–2018

241 242 311 333 335

PART I

The Power of “Chinese” in Global Sports Culture

CHAPTER 1

“Big Does Not Even Begin to Describe Her Enduring Impact”: The Career of Li Na, Global Sports Development, and China as Sporting Superpower Oliver J. C. Rick and Longxi Li

Introduction The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has engaged sport as a significant part of its governing and its approach to international political relations since its rise to power in 1949, following the conclusion of the country’s civil war (Brownell, 1995). This investment in sport has grown and evolved since the country became a more open part of the global system

Quote from: Waldstein, D. (2019). For Li Na, Another First in Tennis. New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/sports/ tennis/li-­na-­hall-­of-­fame.html

O. J. C. Rick (*) • L. Li Springfield College, Springfield, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_1

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following reform in 1978 (Gu et al., 2015). Since that time, the government has adopted several different approaches to integrating sport into its function. Certainly, “Sporting success has been both a means and a barometer of domestic modernisation and changing international status” (Tan & Houlihan, 2012, p. 134) for the country in several formats. The ways in which sport has been utilized can be broadly identified as the initial internationalization of Chinese sport in the 1980s, a period of proto-professionalization of sport internally that took place through the 1990s, an intense investment in Olympic success in the first decade of the twenty-first century that centered around hosting the Beijing Summer Games in 2008, and, most recently, the inter-Olympic period from 2008 to 2022. The inter-Olympic period has been one where “professional team sports and sport participation were identified as fruitful areas of a services-oriented growth policy” and the “package of measures described by the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Sports Industry included the deregulation of professional sports to involve more market orientation and less governmental control” (Ma & Kurscheidt, 2019, p.  5). It is a time defined by a strategic marketization and targeted government retrenchment for which international tennis star Li Na is an emblematic success story. Li was born in 1982, so her life and career have spanned much of the time since reform. However, it is under a dynamic globalizing context for China in the inter-Olympic period that Li’s career has blazed a trail and had a remarkable impact on Chinese sport and the country more broadly. Her presence and visibility have brought to the surface a tension that continues to exist in China today, both pushing boundaries for the liberalization of the nation and serving as a model for global prominence achieved through the model for governing that the CCP has promoted. It is a tension that Pan (2008) describes where “A momentous struggle is under way for the soul of the world’s most populous nation” (p. xv). It is the struggle of a globally competent superpower seeking to defend a system of governance that finds itself under constant threat from the liberalizing forces of Western capitalism (Economy, 2018). Li Na personifies the image of a new China. Externally she led the tennis world for many years. She did not merely compete to catch up with her Western contemporaries; in many ways, she defined the realm of international competition at the height of her playing abilities (Waldstein, 2019). Internally she represented a story of growth. Having come from workingclass roots in China’s less developed inland provinces, Li had come to

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model a new urban, global, and expanding upper-middle class. Additionally, she has engaged the potentially more socially liberal views of this group in Chinese society (Osnos, 2014). In many aspects of her career and personal life, Li Na consistently challenges social norms and gender expectations where “Currently, most Chinese people still adhere to the dominant ideologies that ‘men dominate over women,’ ‘men are strong and women are weak,’ and ‘men are bread makers and women are homemakers’” (Li et al., 2020, p. 525). She is the antithesis of a traditional narrative of the Chinese woman. As a professional athlete, she is the primary breadwinner for her family as her husband, Jiang Shan, became her full-time team member, helping Li Na achieve her goal of making the world top 10. She is outspoken against the government sport system, and at the 2012 BNP Paribas Open, Li told the media, “I’m just a tennis player, and I’m not here to play for my country. If in the past I’ve had to lie, I want to say that I actually haven’t been comfortable doing it” (Chang, 2012). Significantly, she is also among the first generation of athletes able to “fly solo” by not taking direction from the Chinese sports ministry, blazing a path for a new system and structure of relations between professional sports and the Chinese government. The life and career of Li Na have followed a pattern of Chinese sporting development that has made her a uniquely positioned role model for the success of the Chinese government and its approach to governance. She has been a representative for China’s growth internationally and has personally reflected the formation of an urban, globally oriented, and socially modern middle and upper class within China. A product of the nationally controlled sports system, she has come to symbolize its apparent willingness to reform. In this way, she has also modeled the ways in which the CCP has created a global superpower, both maintaining the ideological framings of Maoism and leading the nation to the top of a twenty-first-­ century global society. Li has embodied and expressed this struggle, serving as a model for Chinese exceptionalism and international power while at the same time challenging the conservatism and authoritarian tendencies that have been renewed under the current Xi administration (Economy, 2018). This chapter explores Li as a role model for this contemporary China in tension, with particular attention paid to the ways in which she embodies the gendered contrasts of a contemporary China. The nation is a global superpower navigating a complex approach to governance not seen elsewhere in the world, continuing a legacy of Mao in a moment of

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renewed social conservatism, and navigating the liberalizing effects of being part of the global context of the day (Chun, 2006).

Global Sports and State Policy since Beijing 2008 Chinese state policy and funding were oriented almost exclusively toward developing an Olympic program in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Ma & Kurscheidt, 2019; Brownell, 2008; Zheng et al., 2018). The belief that the success of the Chinese Olympic team would represent the development of the nation drove interest in investments by the national government (Tan & Houlihan, 2012). The Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008 would be the biggest global sports event China had ever hosted and as such was the perfect platform to project an image of the nation internationally and domestically (Manzenreiter, 2010). As Xu (2006) suggested, the government of the People’s Republic of China was looking to structure “this sporting mega-event into the celebration of a Chinese renaissance and the harmonization of world civilizations” (p. 90). China had experienced a decade of rapid economic growth and political expansion that was unprecedented (Fan, Fan, & Lu, 2010). Gilli and Li (2013) suggested that “Over the last 30 years, the Chinese central government has been extremely successful in promoting economic development, especially in comparison to other autocratic governments and to the Mao Zedong era” (p. 452). The Olympics in 2008 would be a capstone on this growth and project the emergence of China as a superpower, a country now sitting at the center of economics and politics in the Indo-Pacific region (Mastro, 2019). The pageantry of the opening ceremonies, the physical signifiers of the games in an iconic stadium, and the achievements of Chinese athletes all expressed a unified message of dominance. To the rest of the world, the event proclaimed forcefully that China should be taken seriously, and internally it signaled to the Chinese people that the CCP represents the best political leadership they could hope for. Both to the rest of the world and to the people of China, “economic growth performance legitimizes state power” (Schweinberger, 2014, p.  172). Hosting what at the time was the most expensive Olympic Games ever was an effective projection of economic performance and, therefore, the power of the Chinese state. Since this high point of the Olympics in 2008 and the stabilizing of the economy, the trajectory of the nation has been shifting. As the second decade of the twenty-first century arrived, the narrative of rapid growth

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had declined (Goodman, 2014). Instead, China, now increasingly at the center of politics and economic systems around the world, was projecting a sense of self-assured importance (Schuman, 2020). Externally, Chinese companies saw successes that seemed impossible in the West as the Great Recession set in. The country’s influence stretched further around the world as the national government invested in development projects across central Asia and Africa (Friedman, 2009). Additionally, this influence was felt as the military exerted its influence throughout the region with encroachments into sovereign waters throughout the South China Sea (Yilmaz & Liu, 2019). Internally, the country also saw the results of this economic acceleration with the establishment of a broad middle class. With it came a process of rapid urbanization and the expansion of a consumerist lifestyle that matched the desires of an urban, globally oriented, middle- and upper-middle-class social class group (Davis, 2005). As these changes took hold within the nation, the sporting interests and policies of the national government shifted. Indeed, Ma and Kurscheidt (2019) suggest, “It is no exaggeration to characterise this fundamental shift in the elite sport policy of the PRC as a revolution in Chinese sport governance” (p. 5). China was entering a post-Olympic period where its redefinition of sporting policy would shift to match the broader shifts within the nation. A core number of global sports that have become the focus of Chinese state policy and investment in the last decade—soccer, golf, basketball, volleyball, cycling, marathon running, and other so-called ultra sports—have been the beneficiaries of large-scale investment and undergone dramatic development (Ma & Kurscheidt, 2019; Pearce-­ Higgins, 2018; Landreth, 2011; Zheng et  al., 2018). These sports collectively spoke to the interests of a large new middle class in physical activity, but they also became the platform for the expression of Chinese centrality to international sports. This was a shift the previous Chinese premier, Hu Jin-Tao, described as a shift “from a major sports country to a world sports power” (Hu quoted in Tan et al., 2016). Chinese athletes experienced new levels of success in many of these sports, but China also became an important site for hosting a range of sporting events. The importance of the Chinese Superleague to global soccer was now clear (Yu et al., 2019), the PGA and WPGA tours developed more events in China, and mass participation sports events such as marathons and triathlons were now becoming regularly held in the country (Ford, 2018). Each of these sports enjoys significant global recognition, with a certain level of popularity across several regions, and many are open to investment.

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Indeed, the possibility for hosting events in China attracted particular attention to any sport that adhered to a tour model. As such, the sport that is of particular relevance to this chapter and important to this new national so-called sporting strategy is tennis (Fan et al., 2010). After the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a string of high-profile successes on the court— including Li Na’s winning two grand slam titles and Zheng Jie and Yan Zi’s winning the Wimbledon doubles championship and the Australian Open doubles title—helped raise the profile of tennis in China (Xu et al., 2017). In 2011, Li Na won the French Open, which became a milestone in the history of tennis in China. The event was reported by Xinhua News Agency as follows: “No matter how you evaluate Li Na the achievements of this champion  cannot be overemphasized” (Sun, 2013). Indeed, the role of Li and women’s tennis in a Chinese context cannot be overstated. In contrast, Chinese men’s tennis is almost “invisible” to the public. A Chinese man has never ranked among the top 100 players in the world (Besnier et al., 2020). According to the Association of Tennis Professionals (2021), the current highest ranking Chinese male tennis player is Zhang Zhizhen, who ranks 178  in the world, and the highest ranking male in Chinese tennis history was Wu Di, who reached 144  in ATP rankings. China is still searching for its first male tennis superstar. In contrast to many other popular sports in China, without the successes of its women players, tennis would likely continue to attract little attention at home among the Chinese people. Li’s achievements have been essential to engaging the Chinese public more broadly and gradually spreading the word about the sport to a wider audience. Affectionately referred to as “Big Sister Na,” Li has aided in the growth of the popularity of the sport in China. Rossingh (2016) discussed Li as spurring the popular interest that has grown around the sport in the last decade. The sport’s favor in the country, built on the back of Li’s achievements and popularity, has put it alongside other national sports (Xu et al., 2017). Li reflected in her autobiography: In 2008, there were two professional women’s tennis tournaments in China. Today, there are 10, one of them in Wuhan, my hometown. That to me is extraordinary! Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, and Venus Williams— with thirty Grand Slam singles titles among them—are coming to my hometown to play tennis for the fans of China! Just as I didn’t think I could ever be a Grand Slam champion, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine

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that some of the best female athletes in the world could play tennis in Wuhan, in my backyard. (Li, 2014)

As one of the so-called Premier Five events in Doha, Rome, Wuhan, Cincinnati, and Toronto/Montreal with prize money of USD 2 million, the Wuhan Open has become one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world, keeping pace with the Shanghai Masters and China Open (WTA, 2020). Indeed, as a series of events, the Chinese calendar has come to rival any other region and cemented the country as a pivotal location in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tournament system. The development of tennis in China, with the support of the government, demonstrates how it fits into a contemporary global sport model, in several ways. First, tennis has a well-developed global tournament system. While the sport has traditional roots in Western Europe, and the Grand Slam events that are central to the tour system are all hosted in Western countries, event expansion has happened rapidly in several other global regions. North America, East Asia, and nations on or around the Arabian Peninsula have hosted growing numbers of ATP, WTA, and International Tennis Federation (ITF) tour events in the last 10 to 20 years (Chappelet, 2008). The model of the professional tour event developed by the ATP and WTA have both allowed for significant investment in event development in China in the last decade, building on initial investments made in the 2000s where “Professional tennis is another good example” of an ongoing process of the commercialization of sport in China (Fan et al., 2010, p. 2393). Recently, this investment has been anchored around the premier China Open tournament, the Shanghai Masters, and the Wuhan Open, with a range of other professional tour events being established in mega cities along the coastal region and, later, in China’s inland urban centers, such as Chengdu and Kunming (Xu et al., 2017). Tennis is an example of the sports investments typical of what followed Olympic-heavy investments prior to 2008. Sports that offer investment opportunities convey Chinese success within sports that have a global reach and provide engagement with growing middle-class interests that have become a focus for government investment. This “global sports” era has brought an end to a singularly Olympic focus and an overemphasis on needing to prove global relevance. Therefore, even as the nation prepares to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, the new policy model consists not only

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in focusing on Olympic sports but also blending investment in those sports with the range of global sports interests (Li & Nauright, 2018)

From Wuhan to Beijing: A New Star Is Emerging Within the System As investment in global sports became the focus for the Chinese national government, transitioning from an overly singular focus on Olympic success, one athlete very much reflected this shift—Li Na. While playing a role in Chinese accomplishments at the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, coming in fourth in the women’s singles competition, it would be her career achievements in subsequent years that would ensure her place in the tennis hall of fame. Building on her Olympic performance, she would experience modest success until her breakout season in 2011, when she reached her first two major finals and subsequently won her first major Grand Slam title (Li, 2013). Li’s victory attracted significant attention worldwide but even more so in her homeland. According to China Central Television (CCTV) reports, a record-breaking 116 million Chinese people watched Li Na win the French Open on television, making her defeat of Francesca Schiavone the most-watched sporting event in China in that year (Larmer, 2013). In the following years, Li Na would continue to achieve high levels of success at a variety of WTA tournaments. In 2013, Li reached her third major final and hit a career-high ranking of No. 3 in the world (Zhang & Caple, 2021). The core of Li Na’s on-court career achievements revolved around this period, but it is important to recognize that her role in the Chinese sports system and her ability to shape it has deep roots. Larmer (2013) suggests that Li was forcibly pushed into a career in sports at a young age, like many Chinese children who are not “material for study” (Larmer, 2013, p. 38). The Chinese national sports system, ti zhi nei, has come in for heavy criticism over the years for its treatment of young athletes who are funneled into the sports school system to fight for national glory. Li Na was pushed through this system, originally slated to play badminton, but was told that her body was not well suited for that sport (Li, 2013). A coach then persuaded her parents to redirect her into tennis. When asked about this transition, Li said that “they all agreed that I should play tennis … but nobody bothered to ask me” (Larmer, 2013). Following her father’s death, Li’s family started having financial troubles, and even

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more pressure was put on Li to win tournaments to keep her family from falling into debt (Larmer, 2013). Despite all the hardship Li faced within the system, she kept making progress in tennis. By the age of 20, she was the No. 1 ranked player in China and rising worldwide. However, Li would again go through a challenging period in her career. She experienced burnout from excessive training, and her coach tried to squelch her romance with a male teammate named Jiang Shan, her future husband. At this point, Li considered early retirement from the sport. The couple moved to Wuhan, returning to Li’s place of birth, to attend Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), where Li would study journalism (Li, 2013). Li was well on her way to creating a new life when she was approached by Sun Jinfang, the new head of the Chinese tennis organization, who urged her to start playing professional tennis again (Sun, 2013). After negotiations, Li accepted to rejoin the team in an experimental program that would allow players to control their own career paths, which would be referred to as the “fly solo” policy (Rauch, 2011). Under this new policy, Li assumed control over her career as an independent professional athlete. As Li recalled in her autobiography: There are many behind-the-scenes facts about the sports community that remain unspoken. There are conflicts between players, coaches, and leaders, and it’s not something that can be explained easily. Before the previous National Games in 2001, the coaches basically had final say in everything, and the athletes essentially had no right to speak. Some of the leaders believed that eighty percent or more of the credit for any success went to the coach, without taking into consideration the personal effort on the part of each athlete, so they continued to issue high-handed policies that would elevate the position of the coaches. When I went solo years later, I found that coaches in the West had a more service-oriented approach, as opposed to the domineering style I was used to. Thus, in the West, the athlete’s hard work is valued more. (Li, 2013, Chapter 10)

Li Na’s struggle for greater autonomy in her tennis career led to improved conditions in the lives of many of her fellow Chinese athletes. Not only within tennis, but across the sports system a new path for the development of elite athletes was considered. This model benefitted many athletes, but it has also functioned to support the government’s pursuit of developing “global sports” in the post-Olympic period (China Real Time Blog, 2015). Li’s ability to pursue a more independent path allowed her

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to more effectively cross over into Western sports contexts, facilitated by a more visible presence in Western sports media and an ability to relocate abroad for training and tournaments. Her partially regulated position aided in representing Chinese identity and sensibilities in the West through her presence and spoke to a domestic appetite for forms of retrenchment of government intervention in social and cultural oversight. The path Li created would be a critical issue for the government as it pursued this new era of sport policy. While her success in flying solo would help promote a vision for China internationally and domestically that conveyed a broader image of the nation pursued under the new Xi administration, her relative autonomy challenged the government (Larmer, 2013). Embedded in the positive potential for this new independence that was given to Li in pursuit of her sports career was a lack of control on the part of the government and the Party. Indeed, Li would prove to be a challenging figure for the Xi administration, a provocative and disruptive role model that she continues to be today (Pu et al., 2019). The tension that exists between Li Na and the authoritarian tendencies of the government in China connects to this broader tension within the country. While the economic liberalism of the 1990s and 2000s resulted in a period of rapid development in the country, fears of a loss of core Chinese values and characteristics has been an ever-present element in national governance. This is highlighted in the approach to creating Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to contain and control foreign investment and influence (Chun, 2006). While the rapid economic expansion of China in the last 20–30 years has spurred great wealth in the country, the government continues to be wary of the power this has put in the hands of certain corporations and individuals. Support for innovation is a central tenet of the new Chinese economy, but this model for development must exist within the strictures of a governance system in which “Xi Jinping has increasingly constrained the avenues and opportunities by which foreign ideas, culture, and, in some cases, capital can enter the country by building a virtual wall of regulatory, legal, and technological impediments” (Economy, 2018, p.  11). While the post-Mao economic reforms were necessary for growth, the social and political freedom it has entailed has caused consternation within the CCP leadership. As with Li Na and so many other areas of society, negotiating this tension between control and independence has been the hallmark of governance in China since Mao’s death and the reform process that was set in motion.

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Challenge the Policy and Push the Boundaries Li began rebelling against the system from a young age. At age 11 she refused to continue training for one day’s practice, and the punishment was to stand motionless in one spot during practices until she repented (Larmer, 2013). However, it wasn’t until after her return to the game under the fly solo approach that Li started playing a significant role in changing Chinese sports and impacting Chinese society more broadly. Through her successes in this new independence from government control and in partnership with her husband, Li embodied significant deviations from established traditions. Within sports Li Na demonstrated that intense government control and oversight was not the only way to ensure success; in fact the opposite could be true. Beyond sports Li Na rejected traditional concepts of gender roles. Her speech, actions on the court, and the nature of her marriage to Jiang Shan all pushed back against widely held notions of gender performance and gendered relations in the country. Indeed, the central importance of the gendered nature of what Li Na came to represent within Chinese culture is something we will expand upon again later in the chapter. Sport Policy and Flying Solo In September 2008, after the Olympic Games had ended, the Chinese Tennis Association (CTA) announced that four players, including Zheng Jie, Peng Shuai, Yan Zi, and Li Na, could all choose to “go solo.” The former director of CTA, Sun Jinfang, was quoted as saying (Besnier et al., 2020): We took many risks with this reform. When we let them “fly,” we did not know if they would succeed. That they have now succeeded means our reform was correct. This reform will serve as a good example for reforms in other sports. (p. 124)

Introducing the fly solo program in tennis served as the impetus for large-scale fundamental changes to CTA polices, bringing in international tennis events and domestic tournament development in the last decade, such as newly established CTA tours in cities across mainland China. Li (2013) commented that the fly solo news was something she had long waited to hear. It was a groundbreaking “restructuring” that marked a

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new era in Chinese tennis (Pu et al., 2019). As part of the first group of athletes to be given this opportunity Li (2013) recalled: I’m especially grateful to Sun Jinfang. I know she must have put a lot of effort into making this happen. I don’t know how Sun Jinfang convinced the General Tennis Administration to allow Chinese tennis to reform, but upon hearing the news, I was ecstatic and went immediately to sign my contract.

The Chinese sports ministry had built its system in the run-up to the Olympics in 2008 with the aim of establishing a highly controlled and integrated system. To work toward success in Beijing, the government pooled resources around those sports that would be part of the Olympic program, and any athlete that experienced financial success would be expected to reinvest that money back into the system (Zhang & Caple, 2021). The approach allowed very little room for individual athletes to pursue their own desired outcomes or chart their own way through their career. In contrast, the fly solo agreement stipulated that, beginning in 2009, individual athletes would be entitled to autonomy in managing their own coaches, bonuses, participation schedules, and income, with a required revenue of 8 percent and a match bonus of 12 percent to be paid to the state (Rauch, 2011). The agreement included a stipulation that when athletes’ personal arrangements for tournaments and training conflicted with the Olympics, confederation cups, or other similar events, they needed to abide by the CTA’s arrangements and shoulder the responsibility of playing for the relevant provincial team (Larmer, 2013). As such, the new system did not signify a complete overhaul of the Chinese approach into a Western model, but it did give new freedoms to athletes, a model for professional athletes that opened new possibilities while still maintaining Chinese characteristics. Li Na accepted all of these terms. She said it meant fundamental changes in her training and life, really sending her fully into the professional arena (Li, 2013). Playing under the auspices of the national team could protect a young player’s interests and open up more opportunities, a good example of the so-called big rice bowl concept that is well known in China, where everyone eats from one big bowl, sharing resources within the system (Won, 2004). But when it came to helping more mature players compete at a higher level, the arrangement proved less successful. What the state

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system could not accomplish at the highest levels, the private model appeared to do quite well. This reform approach faced resistance from some within the sports system in China, but Li’s on-court successes after its implementation certainly lent credence to the changes (Rauch, 2011). Her success and ensuing popularity at home and abroad reflected positively on the Chinese government. The Xi government would benefit from the positive media attention the approach to handling Li’s career would bring. It demonstrated a reform capability from the new administration, one that would ensure further prosperity for the nation and at the same time signal to the Chinese people that they could pursue a comparably modern middle-class life unencumbered by government oversight, while maintaining Chinese characteristics. Li was ideally positioned to change the nature of sports administration in China, but she would also impact the structure of Chinese governance and culture more broadly. Confronting Traditions and Norms The Chinese state has long struggled with negotiating the balance between maintaining a unique set of Chinese characteristics that form the national identity while engaging increasingly with the global system since reform. Most violently and prominently this was highlighted by the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. As economic growth has taken place on the back of increased international trade and investment, this has created pathways for ideas and ideologies from outside of China to ingress into the country. Today the creation of a massive middle class has also driven increased desires for consumerism and engagement with cultural products from around the world. Young and wealthy people in China’s major urban centers are consuming Western media and goods and traveling the world. This internationally oriented lifestyle has included sports, to which the government has looked to draw in the international sporting world to mainland China while also developing domestic leagues, events, and participation experiences. While the government realized the controlled process of reform that they piloted in sports with Li Na and others would be necessary going forward, the challenges this change entailed was of concern. As the globally oriented and urban middle class grew in China, a demand for relative cultural autonomy and social modernization would grow as well (Goodman, 2014). This is not to suggest that the assumption of a Western

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lifestyle in its entirety was what people in China were pursuing, but a social context that balanced certain dimensions of a global consumerist identity with the traditions of a Chinese approach was important. Ever since the “decade of the 1990s urban residents experienced a consumer revolution at multiple levels” (Davis, 2005, p. 692) in China, but one that has existed under a series of government policies and directives implemented to moderate this process. In addition, these class-based advancements and reforms also brought with them new expectations around other long-held traditions in the country. Gender relations were challenged as more women earned independent wealth and with it expected changes in status (Fincher, 2016). Again, Li Na was a role model for these changes across the nation, even down to the battles she faced in attempting to challenge gendered norms; as Fincher (2016) suggests, though liberation from restrictive gendered hierarchies were sought by Chinese women through the process of reform, government policy and the perpetuation of the “leftover women” narrative in the country have reinforced expected gendered roles. Attempts to shift gendered norms in China continue, but Fincher (2016) went on to suggest that these efforts face resurgent systems of inequality. Evidence of change has emerged in sports. The work of Li et al. (2020) on women’s ice hockey shows that women’s participation in that sport might serve to reconstruct the public’s perceptions of women’s sports and female athletes. Yet at the same time, these advances still exist within a context in which traditional gender norms that integrate Confucian ideas based on gender, such as male superiority and the notion that “inability constitutes the very virtue of a woman” exert an influence (Li et al., 2020; Judge, 2001). According to Confucian concepts, the role and expectation of women are defined by their counterparts, men, and the idea of family is at the center of understanding their societal position. A strong belief in the idea of family lineage is of key importance within Chinese culture as “individuals are no more than temporary carriers who perpetuate familial male lines, with ancestors assuming spiritual roles” (Xie, 2013, p. 3). The significance of the family and a duty to the honor of family has traditionally positioned the needs or desires of an individual as secondary; this has been the case specifically for Chinese women (Baker, 2015). Starting from the core ideals of family historically, women in Chinese society have always been seen as subservient and having less value (Baker, 2015). Thus, though the effects of a long-term one-child policy have left the country significantly gender imbalanced, women are still seen

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as less valuable and hold less power in negotiating the marriage system (Settles et al., 2013). Yet, because more women are starting to achieve higher levels of education, signs have started to emerge that some are seeking to change these culturally embedded and government-endorsed ideas on gender (Xie, 2013). Women started to receive more rights over successive changes in regimes, and economic revolution required more women to enter the workforce and leave their status as just a housewife and caretaker (Fincher, 2016). Indeed, Li reflected these important changes on and off the court. Though her economic advancement aligned with messaging from the government about broader development goals in the country, her image as an individual who rejected certain normalized ideas around gender relations ran counter to the messaging of the state (Fincher, 2016). Li’s marriage and the birth of her child conformed to images being promoted by the government that tied a new period of economic production to the regulation of human reproduction (Wasserstrom & Brownell, 2002). Yet simultaneously her rejection of a marriage that placed financial power in the hands of her husband conveyed potentially radical ideas for women in the country, rejecting commonly held processes of wealth transfer that women have been excluded from routinely (Fincher, 2016). Li Na’s outspoken personality was an uncommon characteristic for cultural figures, one that challenged assumptions about Chinese women. It is a trait that has often been expressed through her witty and humorous interviews. Throughout her career, Li became quite popular for her ability to win over crowds and newscasters in these postmatch interviews (Larmer, 2013). While the interviews would usually start out with questions about Li’s match or tactics, she would often incorporate humorous examples from her personal life (Zhang & Caple, 2021). Though the stories she told would delight Western audiences and younger Chinese citizens, she often angered the Chinese government and media. Li wrote, “Standing on the podium after the match, there were many things I wanted to say to Jiang Shan. I always feel awkward saying things like, ‘Thank you to my country and our leaders’. Only when I talk to Jiang Shan do I feel natural and relaxed (Li, 2013, Chapter 28).” She offered the following criticism: “What we, as athletes, want is not treatment, but respect” (Li, 2013). But for the country’s leaders (be they national, athletic, or media), this poses a fundamental challenge to the way the CCP has rallied its subjects for 64 years (Larmer, 2013).

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Conclusion—A Role Model for a New China Since the heyday of Li’s success, the Chinese government has sought to expand tennis domestically and build on her international impact. At the forefront of an “international strategy” for Chinese tennis, Li Na “flying solo” had demonstrated the potential of this model for elite players. In the middle of 2014, Li would ultimately retire due to injuries, but her mark on the court was significant and her impact on the sport was not over. In the wake of this pioneering career, the sports ministry has realized the need to build a more robust system that can develop talent that could replicate Li’s achievements. This broader strategic approach to building out the tennis system in China has included working on a domestic tennis tournament system, as well as increasing China’s voice in professional tennis internationally (Huang, 2020). Sitting in the heart of this evolution of tennis is China, and Li Na has been named ambassador of the CTA Tour. She wrote on her blog that “I am honored to be the ambassador of China Tennis Tour … also glad to see that China can hold a high-level national tennis event of its own. I hope this event will open a new era of tennis in China and further promote the development of tennis in China” (Tencent News, 2020). Yet Li’s position as role model for tennis in China continues to be a challenging one for the government to navigate. Li is by far the most recognizable tennis star in Chinese history and one of the country’s most important sports stars. She embodies the successes of the nation on the court and off it, too. Her story is about more than just success in sports; her ascent from a working-class background to significant wealth reflects the image of a growing China the government is interested in promoting. Born just four years after the death of Mao and the start of the reform process, her life and career have traced the changes the country has seen more broadly. In this way, not only does Li represent the successes the CCP is proud to showcase to the world, but she is also very emblematic of the struggles the government navigates as it enters the third decade of the twenty-first century. Li Na is a symbol of a new globally oriented approach to sports for the CCP and China. She represents a centering of China on the global stage as a newly ascendant superpower, bringing unprecedented and unexpected success to the country (Waldstein, 2019). Domestically, she is a role model for the economically advancing, global, urban, and progressive direction for the country. However, she also represents the challenge the Xi

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administration would face broadly for this period in the country’s development. To please a more educated and economically advanced mass of the Chinese population, the government will have to relinquish its tight hold over the country, which may bring with it challenges to the political system that are potentially dangerous. In fact, this conundrum has been at the heart of the government’s approach for the last decade at least. It is a problem that the Xi administration has responded to with a mix of intensifying government control is certain areas and retrenchment in others. As the Chinese state looks ahead for a model of development, balancing global integration, international influence, domestic reform, and forms of cultural liberalization with the maintenance of state control, the continuation of Chinese characteristics, and the reestablishment of conservative ideologies, certain figures can represent and mediate these tensions. Li Na has been a model for this difficult balance of ideas, and even as she has moved into a different role off the court, she continues to symbolize the challenges the government faces as it looks to the country’s future.

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Osnos, E. (2014). Age of ambition: Chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China (First). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Pan, P.  P. (2008). Out of Mao’s shadow: The struggle for the soul of a new China. Picador. Pearce-Higgins, A. (2018). Chinese burn: How the People’s Republic has become an endurance-running superpower. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/lifeandstyle/the-­r unning-­blog/2018/mar/22/chinese-­burn-­how-­the-­ peoples-­republic-­has-­become-­an-­endurance-­running-­superpower Pu, H., Newman, J.  I., & Giardina, M.  D. (2019). Flying solo: Globalization, neoliberal individualism, and the contested celebrity of Li Na. Communication & Sport, 7(1), 23–45. Rauch, M. (2011). After Li Na’s French open win, will more Chinese athletes ‘Fly Alone’? Asia Society. https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/interview-­after-­li-­nas-­ french-­open-­win-­will-­more-­chinese-­athletes-­fly-­alone Rossingh, D. (2016). How Li Na and the $225 million Wuhan Open took on the world. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/22/sport/li-­na-­wuhan-­ open-­china-­tennis/index.html Schuman, M. (2020). What happens when China leads the world. The Atlantic. h t t p s : / / w w w. t h e a t l a n t i c . c o m / i n t e r n a t i o n a l / a r c h i v e / 2 0 2 0 / 1 0 / what-­kind-­superpower-­will-­china-­be/616580/ Schweinberger, A. (2014). State capitalism, entrepreneurship, and networks: China’s rise to a superpower. Journal of Economic Issues, 48(1), 169–180. Settles, B. H., Sheng, X., Zang, Y., & Zhao, J. (2013). The one-child policy and its impact on Chinese families. In International handbook of Chinese families (pp. 627–646). Springer. Sun, J. F. (2013). Retrospect, challenge and prospect of China’s tennis: The keynote report in the 2012 National Tennis Training Conference. Journal of Beijing Sport University, 1, 113–122. Tan, T. C., & Houlihan, B. (2012). Chinese Olympic sport policy: Managing the impact of globalisation. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(2), 131–152. Tan, T. C., Huang, H. C., Bairner, A., & Chen, Y. W. (2016). Xi Jin-Ping’s world cup dreams: From a major sports country to a world sports power. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 33(12), 1449–1465. Tencent News. (2020). Li Na was named as the ambassador of the CTA Tour. Tencent News. https://new.qq.com/omn/20200731/20200731A0FIKR00.html Waldstein, D. (2019). For Li Na, another first in tennis. The New  York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/spor ts/tennis/li-­n a-­h all-­ of-­fame.html Wasserstrom, J. N., & Brownell, S. (2002). Afterword: Putting gender at the center. In S.  Brownell & J.  N. Wasserstrom (Eds.), Chinese femininities Chinese masculinities (pp. 435–447). University of California Press.

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CHAPTER 2

“Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and Good Evening”: U.S. Views on the Chinese Professional Baseball League in the Wake of COVID-19 Nick Bowman, Yen-Hui Alex Hsu, and Lindsey Jean Resignato

In Taiwan, the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) is the highest level of professional baseball. The sport maintains a healthy fanbase and media presence, and early successes of Taiwanese baseball players have sustained the sport over the last century or more—with many claiming

N. Bowman (*) Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] Y.-H. A. Hsu National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan Chinese Professional Baseball League, Taipei, Taiwan © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_2

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baseball to be the “national sport” of Taiwan (Yeh, 2008). Historically, CPBL has not been very well known beyond those playing and enjoying the sport domestically. Yet just as the global COVID-19 pandemic brought enduring international attention and praise to Taiwan, for global baseball fans the CPBL enjoyed several months of newfound popularity as the only professional baseball (and possibly only professional sport) being played. Our chapter provides an overview on the history of CPBL as a way of contextualizing the short-term and potential longer-term impacts of the increased (albeit temporary) international interest in the league in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Baseball, Taiwan, and the CPBL Baseball was introduced to Taiwan during the Japanese occupation from the period 1895 to 1945 (Yu, 2007; Yu & Gordon, 2006). In the early days of colonization, teams consisted almost entirely of Japanese players (for example, players form Japanese high schools in Taipei). Over time, these attitudes shifted in part owing to the early successes of Taiwanese traveling teams, including teams of native Taiwanese players in 1924 (Nenggao) and 1931 (Jianong). The Jianong team was successful while touring through Japan—competing in the prestigious Koshien tournament (the Japanese high school baseball tournament) and losing only in the finals. Jianong consisted of both aboriginal Taiwanese and Han Chinese (as well as Japanese players) and marked a shift in cultural attitudes on several levels: Taiwanese nationals were enthusiastic about their success on an international stage (and especially in resistance to Japanese occupiers) and likewise, Japanese nationals were impressed by the skill of Taiwanese baseball players (Morris, 2010). Today, the highest competition for professional baseball in Taiwan is found in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). CPBL was founded on October 23, 1989, after nearly two years of campaigning. That campaign was started by Hung Teng-Sheng (洪騰勝), the owner of Taiwan-based Brother Hotel Inc., who founded the Professional Baseball Formation Committee as an exploratory committee to establish

L. J. Resignato Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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professional baseball in Taipei. It was chaired by then-president of the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association, Pan-Pan Tang (唐盼盼). Hung solicited Taiwanese businesses to consider sponsorship of teams and was successful in securing sponsorship for four teams: Brother Elephants (Hung’s team, now called Chinatrust Brother Elaphants), Uni-President Lions, Mercuries Tigers, and Wei Chuan Dragons. Famed manga artist Chung Meng-Shun provided commercial art for all four teams, including designing their logos (Wu & Chin, 2015). Tang was elected by the committee to serve as the first commissioner of the CPBL, while Hung became the secretary-general of the league. For the 2020 season, the CPBL commissioner was Chih-Yang “John” Wu (吳志揚, a former magistrate of Taoyuan County). On December 19, 2020, Tsai Chi-Chang (蔡其昌), a former member of the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan, was named commissioner of the CPBL for the 2021 season. The number and location of teams in the CPBL has been fluctuated over the years, in part due to the 2003 merging of two leagues—the CPBL and the rival (and now-defunct) Taiwan Major League (TML). As of 2020, the CPBL featured five professional clubs: CTBC Brothers, Uni-President Lions, Wei Chuan Dragons, Fubon Guardians, and Rakuten Monkeys (currently owned by Japanese Rakuten Group). The most successful franchise in CPBL history is the UniPresident Lions, who won the 2020 CPBL season—their 10th overall title. As of 2020—the focal period of our chapter—CPBL and P.League+ (a basketball league) were the only two professional sports leagues in Taiwan (both men’s leagues). Despite the popularity of other sports, such as basketball (Long et al., 2021), baseball is commonly considered the national sport of Taiwan (Yeh, 2008). In 2019, total league attendance was nearly 1.4 million fans attending a total of 240 games, with an average of 5826— up nearly 7% from 2018 and nearing 2016’s attendance figures. The 2019 Taiwan Series drew over 85,000 fans for five games (Liu, 2019). Even during the COVID-plagued 2020 season, as average attendance numbers dipped to 3573, a late-­season contest between Brothers and Guardians drew over 10,000 fans (on July 11, 2020) (Liu, 2020b). The CPBL has broadcasting agreements with sports broadcaster ELTA TV (an Internet broadcaster, https://eltaott.tv/) and cable networks Videoland Television Network (www.vl.com.tw), Eleven Sports TV ­(https://www.tw-­elevensports.com/), and Momo TV (https://www. momotv.tw/)—the latter three networks hold broadcasting rights to several different global sports brands (ELTA TV broadcasts several European soccer matches, and Videoland broadcasts NBA games). CPBL formerly

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partnered with Fox Sports Asia, which was headquartered in Taiwan until being shuttered on January 1, 2021 (Focus Taiwan, 2020). CPBL also operates its own online live-streaming service (https://www.cpbltv.com/) and, thus, can broadcast domestically and internationally (in Mandarin Chinese).

COVID-19 and the CPBL 2020 Season Early into the 2020 calendar year, it was clear that the novel coronavirus COVID-19 would potentially disrupt CPBL operations. Travel for the Lunar New Year had already been restricted (Huang, 2020), and a late January possible COVID-19 exposure from the Diamond Princess cruise ship (Zhuang, 2020) put in place self-management measures (including the first author of this chapter) (Bowman, 2020). These were only a few of the incidents that set in motion the Taiwan Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC, established by the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control) to begin recommending policies and procedures aimed at protecting Taiwan from a COVID-19 outbreak happening in China (and eventually, globally; see Fig. 2.1 for a timeline of key events). By early February, CPBL officials delayed the opening of the season by one month, capitalizing on the fact that the 2020 season start had already been pushed forward to accommodate the final qualifying baseball tournament of the 2020 Summer Olympics (scheduled to be played in Taichung in June; it was eventually cancelled). League officials moved the start of the season back to late March and finally to April 11 so that they could focus on meeting with team leaders, player representatives, pandemic experts, and both city and state health officials on whether or not it could be safe to play baseball. The league hosted a pandemic prevention conference involving the CPBL commissioner and secretary-general, deputy secretary-general, the general managers of five baseball clubs, and epidemic prevention experts. Their task was to determine if baseball could be played safely and, thus, whether games could be reasonably open to the public. After a second conference with representatives from CPBL cities and the Taiwanese CDC, the determination was made that baseball could be played safely, but games would be closed to the public; they could be broadcast, but no fans would be allowed to attend in person. Exhibition games were scheduled by March 13 to test these policies, and all players, coaches, and CPBL staff were carefully monitored for COVID-19

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Fig. 2.1  Timeline of important dates in management of COVID-19 during 2020 CPBL season

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symptoms. An ill-timed rainout cancelled the April 11 Opening Day, but games were held the next day, and with that, the CPBL season started. As the season progressed, clubs were “mostly concerned with when and how the stadium doors could be open to fans” (Hsu, personal communication, March 31, 2021)—games had been played to closed stadiums with simulated crowds and crowd noises. On April 20, the league had already announced a strict COVID-19 policy in which all games would be immediately suspended if even one CPBL associate tested positive for COVID-19; fortunately, this policy never had to be enforced. From this success and looking to address player and club concerns, CPBL and Taiwanese CDC officials met on May 6 and decided to allow a limited number of fans to attend games. Later in the season, fans were allowed to purchase prepackaged meals and even remove face masks while seated, as long as they adhered to social distancing guidelines. By July 2020, league attendance as normalizing, and by late October, all 240 scheduled games had been played. Although the CPBL All-Star Game was cancelled, the season concluded on November 8 with the Uni-President Lions—a founding member of the league—winning the championship, defeating the CTBC Brothers (another founding member) in seven games of the Taiwan Series. A season that started with nearly no promise for “normal” baseball ended in a more or less “normal” way, and to date there are no reported cases of COVID-19 transmission in or around CPBL players, staff, or any fans having attended games during the 2020 season. In fact, attendance for the 2020 Taiwan Series was just over 85,000 fans, mostly on par with the 2019 Taiwan Series, although played in seven games (compared to five games for the previous year’s championship).

Sports Communication, COVID-19, and the CPBL Many of the CPBL’s decisions mentioned in the preceding section can be understood through the lens of extant sports communication and media psychology scholarship. In what follows, we analyze how these decisions impacted players, fans, and the media. In doing so, we seek to address the following broad research questions (RQs):

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RQ1:  How were players impacted by CPBL’s response to COVID-19?  RQ2:  How were fans impacted by CPBL’s response to COVID-19?  RQ3: How were media outlets impacted by CPBL’s response to COVID-19?  

The Player Experience

One of the more prominent and perceptible changes made in adjusting to COVID-19 was the presence of simulated audiences in the various CPBL venues. These simulations included everything from cardboard fans to simulated crowd noises—the Rakuten Monkeys made use of around 500 robot mannequins to watch the team’s home games (via @GOCPBL) (Fig. 2.2). From league sources, the decision to include simulated crowds was more an attempt at levity, “to have some fun with [the situation]” in a way that still complied with Taiwanese CDC guidelines (Liu, according to Mennella, 2020), and perhaps “It’s honestly not a bad idea to try and make the atmosphere a little bit more normal” (Bengal, 2020, para. 4). Across various media outlets in the United States, so-called “fake fans” were criticized for being “weird novelties,” and there was doubt as to whether or not “having pseudo-fans in attendance makes watching games any more enjoyable” (Lyons, 2020, para. 13). Many of these criticisms were focused on the fan experience, but perhaps a more relevant

Fig. 2.2  Photos of simulated crowds in Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium via @GOCPBL, the home field of the Rakuten Monkeys. (Source URL: https:// twitter.com/GOCPBL/status/1247475445437575169)

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conversation about simulated crowds should focus on how the practice impacted the players on the field. For example, one perspective of sports training and practices involves the use of imagery in preparation for competition (Holmes & Collins, 2001), and at least one dimension of this model is the direct manipulation of the environment for competition, which can include simulations of crowd noise. Williams (2020) argues for a broader perceptual-cognitive model of sports training, which can include the use of simulated crowds to help athletes become acclimated to competition, for example, by creating virtual reality simulations of infamously loud and intimidating stadium environments (McCaskill, 2020). For the player experience, the presence of raucous crowds and the noise they bring to the experience is an expected and integral aspect of professional competition. Jamieson (2010) demonstrated via meta-analysis of 82 different studies (and 10 sports) a consistent “home field advantage” by which teams hosting competitions were more likely to win. Most critically with respect to crowd noises, the strongest size effects for home field advantage were found in studies on soccer, and this was attributed to the prevalent role that fandom plays in soccer games, for example, “fans at European soccer games often cheer vehemently for the home team and against the visiting team or a specific player on that team” (Jamieson, 2010; these findings replicated prior results (Courneya & Carron, 1992). The presence of simulated crowds, especially crowds wearing home team colors and logos, likely helped athletes complete the mental imagery for their games. From talking with players, Hsu (personal communication, April 9, 2021) noted that, though the cardboard and robotic fans did not really seem to help make the games feel normal, the simulated crowd noise and the cheerleaders’ songs made games feel much more usual and were helpful during game play. While commentators and fans might have scratched their heads at the sight of cheerleaders for games without fans for which to lead in cheer, all CPBL clubs, like the Fubon Guardians (Fig. 2.3), retained their cheerleading and rooting staff for home games. The general sentiment of the CPBL players was that these efforts and the expenses they entailed were appreciated. One reason that home field effects impact performance is that players perceive their home environs as more familiar and so they are more relaxed when playing at home (Otten, 2020), independently of a home crowd— or any crowd at all. However, there is a robust and reciprocal relationship between audiences and athletes, with the former implicitly influencing the performance of the latter (Wann & Hackathorn, 2019). For example,

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Fig. 2.3  COVID-19 protocols at an early-season Fubon Guardians game. (Before fans were allowed to attend games, an early-­season Fubon Guardians game was held without live fans, and in their place were various signs cheering on the players. A face mask–wearing mascot and team cheerleaders are still present at games, to give players and coaching staff some sense of normalcy while playing to an empty stadium. Image courtesy of Yen-Hui Alex Hsu)

existing psychology research suggests that the mere presence of social others can significantly impact athletic performance. Zajonc (1965) proposed social facilitation to explain how the presence of others influences our own efforts toward any given task, and these efforts facilitate performance for skilled individuals but hinder performance for unskilled individuals. Although these effects are small (explaining no more than 3 percent of variance) (Bond & Titus, 1983), they can be enough for athletes to feel a perceptible boost in their own efforts when playing, with effects even stronger for extroverted people (Graydon & Murphy, 1995). The Fandom Experience Sports fandom is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that manifests in numerous ways. For example, sports fandom can be understood as identification with specific teams or entities (Wann & Branscombe, 1993), but it can also be construed as a broader social identity (Hirschon, 2020). DeSarbo and Madrigal (2011) developed a measure of fan avidity to assess sports fandom in terms of four key behaviors: on-field

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participation (playing sports), passive following (e.g., through media coverage), purchasing behaviors (e.g., buying merchandise), and social engagement (discussing sports, hosting parties, and attending events). While it is unlikely that Western audiences felt strong affinities for specific CPBL teams and organizations, there are a few areas of compelling mediated connection between international fans and the 2020 CPBL experience. One such experience could be international players signed to CPBL teams, in which baseball fans might have followed these players, for example, Major League Baseball (MLB) stars playing in the CPBL who were featured in media reports. For example, former Los Angeles Dodger and New  York Met Chin-Ling Hu scored his 1000th career hit in a CPBL contest—the fastest player to do so in league history. Hu saluted the empty stands to commemorate the moment (Yeh, 2020), and the career milestone was covered on several Dodgers fan blogs, such as Dodgers Way and Call to the Pen, and was posted to the r/baseball subreddit, among other places. Former Houston Astros pitcher Henry Sosa was involved in the first bench-clearing brawl of 2020 that was widely covered in U.S. sports media (such as Bleacher Report) (Goldberg, 2020). Butler (2020c) covered several former MLB players in the CPBL as of the 2020 season who were enjoying considerably more coverage as a result of the league’s ongoing and exclusive season, including Ariel Miranda (formerly of the Seattle Mariners), Lisalverto Bonilla (Cincinnati Reds), Ryan Carpenter (Detroit Tigers), Elih Villanueva (Miami Marlins), Esmil Rogers (New York Yankees), and both Josh Roenicke and Ryan Feierabend (Minnesota Twins). However, a more nuanced approach to fandom and the CPBL might be glimpsed if viewed through the lens of uses and gratifications theory (U & G) (Katz et al., 1973). Broadly speaking, U & G explains the social and psychological origins of needs, many of which can be met by active media selection. Media consumption is a core fan avidity behavior—sports fans engage with their favorite sports (DeSarbo & Madrigal, 2011), so watching any form of baseball could be viewed as an expression of sports fandom. Media coverage is both functional and expressive for sports fans (Earnheardt & Haridakis, 2008), and baseball fans likely saw CPBL coverage as a way to expand their knowledge of the sport while also enjoying the aesthetics of baseball broadly (Raney, 2006). Thus for Western audiences, CPBL coverage provided a way to stay close to the game of baseball, even if many of the teams and players were unfamiliar. For some fans, watching the (comparatively) novel CPBL could help fuel a sense of “Schwabism” (Ruihley & Runyan, 2010) by which fans seek out broad

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and deep knowledge of the nuances of sports (often associated with trivia content). For example, sports fans engage with social media to learn more about and show loyalty to their favorite soccer club (Vale & Fernandes, 2016) and to gain insights into the perceived “behind-the-scenes” goingson of their favorite sports and athletes (Bowman & Cranmer, 2014; applied to Snapchat in Spinda & Puckette, 2017). Fans engage with athletes on Twitter to express fandom as well as learn more about athlete and their sports, in addition to, they hope, interacting with the athletes (Clavio & Kian, 2010). To some extent, we can also see the use of fan-sponsored fans as more evidence of fandom effects. For example, the Rakuten Monkeys club invited fans to print their faces on the in-stadium cardboard fans—generating a source of revenue while also allowing fans to show their loyalty to their favorite teams. These early efforts by the CPBL, as well as the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), in using cardboard fans encouraged other sports leagues around the world to adopt the practice (Mathewson, 2020). In one prominent example, the 2021 Super Bowl generated USD 3 million from the sale of 30,000 cardboard fan prints to accompany the 25,000 live fans in attendance (Gaines, 2021). According to Deputy SecretaryGeneral Hsu, Taiwanese baseball fans took great pride in seeing their league’s innovations adopted around the world, and to some extent, this was another contributing factor in the CPBL’s successes in having “aroused nationalism in Taiwan” (personal communication, April 10, 2021). The Media Experience With respect to coverage, CPBL attracted worldwide attention when they filled the media void of canceled baseball seasons—and even more, canceled entire professional sports seasons—worldwide. On April 11, 2020, English-­ language broadcaster Eleven Sports Network (ESN) Taiwan (@ElevenSportsTW) conducted two pilot tests of live English commentary broadcasts for the first two games of the Rakuten Monkeys (Liu, 2020a). Later, the network expanded to five live broadcasts, which drew over five million global views (Li, 2020). The flood of views garnered in a single week prompted ESN to hire Taiwanese natives who grew up watching baseball and were fluent in English to provide live commentary for the rest of the season via live Twitter streams (Li, 2020). Though an unofficial account, an English-language Twitter account (@GOCPBL) also saw a marked increase in traffic during the 2020 CBPL

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season. Following about two years’ worth of modest gains ranging between 50 and 100 monthly followers, the account spiked in the March– May 2020 period, gaining nearly 4000 followers in April 2020 alone (coinciding with the delayed start of the 2020 CPBL season). Likewise, the main @CPBL account (the league’s official Twitter account) gained nearly 10,000 followers during this same time. The account @GOCPBL currently has over 7600 fans, many of which continue to follow the league following the COVID-19 season. Likewise, the account maintains an English-language blog (http://cpblstats.com/) and reports that traffic there is “definitely more than pre-pandemic” only a few days into 2021 season, with as much traffic as would normally occur over three months of a season, prepandemic (Rob Liu, personal communication, March 29, 2021). In April 2020, the blog received nearly 228,000 unique visits, represented over 1400% growth over the previous peak of 15,000 visits in April 2019; May 2020 traffic was 96,900. While traffic did decline from the initial surge, every subsequent month since has seen more monthly visits than any month prior to the COVID-19 season of 2020. @GOCPBL and @CPBL (the leauge’s official Twitter account) reported that several tweets had been picked up by and embedded in U.S.based sports media coverage and even media coverage broadly, including by ESPN, CNN, NBC, CBS, and several others. The aforementioned fight involving Henry Sosa was retweeted 401 times, with another 241 retweets involving quotes, and likewise, Ka-Weng “Kevin” Cheng’s “first homerun of the world in 2020” was picked up by several U.S.-based networks and broadly shared over 300 times  as of the time of our analysis (Fig. 2.4). The aforementioned accounts were focused league-wide, but several other social media accounts emerged, such an English-language account for the Wei Chuan Dragons (@WeiChuanUSA), a fan-driven account that also collects and discusses news on Taiwanese Americans and others playing in the U.S. minor and major leagues. Broadly speaking, CPBL ratings surged dramatically both domestically and internationally, and this surge in interest from English-speaking markets prompted the official and unofficial accounts to boost their English-language offerings to satisfy growing interest in the league. Although Liu notes that Twitter is less popular in Taiwan, and so most of his followers at @GOCPBL have always been English-speaking fans, traffic to his pages has grown since the 2020 season and, though not as high in 2021 as it was during the height of CPBL’s global popularity, is still much higher than it was in prior years (personal communication, April 8, 2021).

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Fig. 2.4  Sample tweets from milestone moments in 2020 CPBL season. (Source URLs: https://twitter.com/GOCPBL/status/1251867666672836608; https://twitter.com/CPBL/status/1249292327119544320) Table 2.1  Cable television ratings of CPBL games, organized by home market April

May

June

July

2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 Rakuten (Taoyuan City) CTBC Brothers (Taichung City) Uni-Lions ESN (Tainan) Uni-Lions MOMO (Tainan) Fubon (New Taipei City)

.41 .49 .51 n/a .18

.49 .62 .51 n/a .39

.41 .41 .45 .08 .12

.56 .59 .47 .38 .40

.28 .34 .33 .11 .19

.42 .56 .33 .28 .29

.24 .33 .25 .16 .15

.52 .61 .67 .24 .27

Note: The Uni-President Lions have two broadcasting partners that each shared 30 of the team’s 60 total games for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, respectively

In terms of CPBL television broadcasts, domestic TV ratings from the 2019 season (the season directly preceding the COVID-19 pandemic) ranged from cable shares in the range of .12 to .19 for Fubon Guardians, .24 to .80 for the Rakuten Monkeys and CTBC Brothers. The UniPresident Lions broadcast on two different channels (ESN and MOMO) drawing similar numbers. For the 2020 season—focal to our analysis— month-­to-month ratings were up in April to July for every club, in many cases as much as 100 percent (Table 2.1). Further analysis from proprietary data showed that the female audience for CPBL grew by between 5% and 15% depending on the television

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market. When looking at age groups, those in the 35–49 age group were the primary drivers of increased 2020 CPBL television ratings. Finally, with respect to occupation, retirees and the unemployed watched more CPBL on television, the latter likely an unfortunate interaction of COVID-19-related job loss and the need for diversion. In terms of international audiences, Hsu noted that there were no plans for the CPBL to sustain English-language broadcasting due to the expenses involved—in speaking with management staff at ESN, the general sentiment was that while the broadcasts were useful at promoting CPBL and Taiwan broadly on the world stage, they earned very low revenues overall and thus, “[any future] broadcasting in English depends on substantial government subsidies” (as cited by Hsu, personal communication, April 10, 2021).

Sports Communication and Coverage Frames When looking at the coverage of the CPBL by Western media sources such as U.S.-based sports media, we can better understand how the league’s exclusive play was being covered through external cultural lenses. One tool for understanding such trends is through the application of framing, or observations by which media outlets “select … some aspects of a perceived reality” when covering an event (Entman, 1993, p.  52). Frames provide audiences a cognitive shortcut by which to understand otherwise complex information (Goffman, 1974). Moreover, although some would criticize confounding topic variance with framing per se, we can interpret common frames of coverage as implicit (or even explicit) indicators of how media sources view a particular topic and, thus, pass that frame on to their viewers—for example, how sports magazines view the sexuality of male compared to female athletes (Cranmer et al., 2014a) or how sports writers view the athletic or academic abilities of college athletes based on their race (Cranmer et al., 2014b). For this analysis, we examined a sample of N = 53 articles written in U.S.-based sports media regarding the CPBL. Articles were found through a basic search of “CPBL, Chinese Professional Baseball League, and Pandemic” via Google News and Lexis-Nexus. Articles were published April 9 and May 19, 2020, and we used an emergent theme analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to reduce the coverage to a set of common themes across articles. To reduce bias in the analysis, our third author conducted the initial theme analysis prior to having a full grasp of the focus of the manuscript (by contrast, the first two authors were rather involved in baseball

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broadly and CPBL specifically and, thus, might have looked for themes favoring certain positions). Generally, this process resulted in eight distinct themes of coverage belonging to four broad clusters of coverage: CPBL background information, CPBL live experience, seeking out live broadcasts of CPBL games, and broader implications of CPBL’s (and Taiwan’s) management of COVID-19 as a model for other professional sports leagues such as MLB (Table 2.1). Meta-theme

Theme

CPBLbackgroundinformation CPBL overview

Delayed or canceled games

CPBL live experience

Definition

Example

Explaining the structure of the CPBL to new fans (such as the teams composing the league)

“The four major league teams in Taiwan, namely the Rakuten Monkeys in Taoyuan, the UniPresident 7-Eleven Lions in Tainan, the Fubon Guardians in New Taipei, and the Chinatrust Brothers in Taichung City…” (Jing, 2020) “Taiwan’s Major League … the start of their season was delayed about a month this year because of the coronavirus” (Charlston, 2020)

Reference to Taiwan’s baseball league opening day taking place three weeks after its usual seasonal start date due to the pandemic “Fan” in the Discussions of stands the absence of fans or the use of cardboard or robot fans in stands; later the league did allow small crowds

“Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) has resumed its 2020 season without fans to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus” (Budryk, 2020); “The Rakuten Monkeys announced they are going to set up robot mannequins in the stands dressed up as fans” (Sterlingice, 2020) (continued)

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(continued) Meta-theme

Theme Only game on Earth

CPBL broadcast information

Definition

Mention of Taiwan’s professional baseball league being the only major league playing in the world (at the time) during the pandemic English Media coverage commentary of CPBL adding Englishlanguage broadcasts to their media offerings Media Discussions of scheduling where to find Englishlanguage broadcasts, including channel and programming schedules, and recognition of the time differences

Example “The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) opened its 2020 season … as the first professional baseball organization in the world to proceed with its season under the outbreak of COVID-19” (WSBC, 2020) “Eleven Sports Network is streaming home games for one Taiwanese team, the Rakuten Monkeys, live on Twitter with English commentary— for free” (Zennie, 2020) “Elsewhere in Asia, live games in Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan are being streamed on social media … The first game will stream at 6:35 a.m. EDT Tuesday on Twitter at Twitter.com/ ElevenSportsTW” (Butler, 2020b); “With a 12-hour time difference from the Bronx … ‘Let us welcome baseball fans from all different parts of the world by saying good morning, good afternoon and good evening” (Fleisher, 2020a) (continued)

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(continued) Meta-theme

Theme

Definition

Example

Taiwan and CPBL governance

Taiwanese preventive COVID-19 response

Mention of Taiwanese government’s prevention measures for combating the spread of COVID-19 Implications for how CPBL’s policies and procedures could serve as models for other professional leagues

“The CPBL has entered the global spotlight for its government’s quick and successful pandemic prevention measures” (Taiwan News, 2020)

Model for U.S. season

“It also provides a small sample size (very small) that other countries— including a region as large as the United States—can study when planning steps to start the baseball season” (Thosar, 2020)

CPBL Background Information In recognition of the fact that many fans were generally unfamiliar with CPBL, many newspapers offered summaries of the league’s history, teams, and other details of the league’s operations. Articles with titles such as “Everything you need to follow the Chinese Professional Baseball League” (Mackey, 2020) and “The world’s baseball fans are being kept entertained by [five] pro teams in Taiwan” (Steger, 2020; corrected) provided fans with a top-down overview of CPBL.  Other articles focused on specific players that U.S. fans might recognize. For example—though not caught in our initial search—Anderson (2020b) wrote for CBS Sports a primer for U.S.-based baseball fans: “10 players to know from KBO and CPBL, including potential future MLB stars and a Wade Boggs-like slugger.” In discussing the CPBL, some news outlets focused on MLB players looking toward the Taiwanese league to continue their careers, for example “Manny Ramirez, 47, looking to return to Chinese Professional Baseball League” (Gaydos, 2020) or, more broadly, “Ex-MLB players in spotlight as world turns to Asia for baseball” (Butler, 2020b). Although not in the headlines themselves, many of these articles explained further that the

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2020 CPBL season had been delayed from the scheduled March 14, 2020, start to the eventual April 12, 2020 opening day contest (earlier games on April 11, 2020 were delayed due to inclement weather). CPBL Live Experience In discussing CPBL play itself, two common themes emerged, one focusing on the novelty of the CPBL for 2020 as the “only game on Earth” and one looking more closely at the uniqueness of the gameplay itself (such as playing in front of empty stadiums), and often these two themes appeared together. Headlines such as “Baseball in full swing in TaiwanTaiwan, even in empty stadiums” (Associated Press, 2020a; a similar headline by Castillo, 2020) were common during the start of the season, as U.S.-based reporters marveled at the empty stadiums, just as other elements—stadium announcements, public address music, and even the presence of cheerleaders—remained unchanged. Coverage of specific games was rare, and often tethered to broader discussions with overviews of the CPBL, such as “Home run happy Uni-Lions beat Monkeys in Chinese professional baseball” (Butler, 2020a) offering a game story but framing it as “a slugfest as the two teams played in one of the only active live sports leagues in the world during the coronavirus pandemic” (para. 1). A similar headline, “Actual baseball highlights: Chinese Professional Baseball League becomes first to play ball in 2020” (Anderson, 2020a), was similarly focused more on the novelty of the league than the on-field baseball itself. Local coverage from a Washington, DC, radio station (WTOP) shared “With MLB dark, baseball in Taiwan suddenly draws eyes from around the world” (Johnson, 2020) and opened the article: “There are no peanuts and Cracker Jacks, and for now there are no fans, but in Taiwan there is baseball” (para. 1). Speaking more about the live experience, many articles made note of several CPBL teams’ use of cardboard fans: “Baseball returns to Taiwan with cardboard cutouts in stands” (Budryk, 2020) and “Baseball Is Back in Taiwan—With Cardboard Cutouts Instead of Fans” were representative of many articles showcasing a unique addition to CPBL games: the use of cardboard cutouts instead of in-person human attendees. In writing for Cronkite News (the Arizona PBS broadcast outlet), Mathewson (2020) suggested that CPBL’s use of cardboard cutouts was influential in the practice being adopted by other teams and leagues internationally, with an end-of-year article in The New Yorker proclaiming 2020 “The year of the

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cardboard sports fan” (Thomas, 2020). Another fan fascination came in the form of robot fans, which were often discussed in articles—for some, constituting the full focus of the article. Later in the season, the CPBL did begin allowing fans to attend games, capped at 1000 per game with strict social distancing guidelines, for example, see “Fans at baseball games? Taiwan’s CPBL planning to allow 1,000 spectators starting May 8” by Snyder (2020). This decision attracted quite a bit of attention, with headlines such as “Taiwan baseball league to allow fans back in ballparks amid pandemic” (Grott, 2020) and “Taiwan baseball league set to begin allowing fans back in ballparks” (Associated Press, 2020b). One local news station in Spokane, Washington, interviewed an American reporter in Taiwan who discussed in detail the CPBL’s path toward live fans in stands under the title “An inside look at how Taiwan reintroduced baseball fans” (Charlston, 2020). CPBL Broadcast Information Many articles directed readers to broadcasting and scheduling information. Notably, in many of the articles referenced earlier (or that fit into the aforementioned categories but were not specifically referenced), articles directed readers to ESN’s English-language coverage of CPBL games and both the fan-driven English-­language @GOCPBL or league-managed @ CPBL Twitter accounts. In addition to more basic “where and how to watch” information, many articles focused specifically on English-language access to CPBL—with ESN commentators Richard Wang (@RWang_ WBSC, former CPBL International Affairs Chief) and Wayne McNeil (@ WayneSMcNeil, a Canadian living in Taiwan) receiving broad recognition and praise for their work. For example, Fleisher (2020b) wrote about “a chemistry that combines Wang and McNeil’s extensive knowledge of the 31-year-old four-team league as well as an easygoing style that mixes freeflowing commentary in a league where offense is prevalent” (para. 7). An oft-quoted opening line was offered by Wang at the start of the CPBL season opener: “Let us welcome baseball fans from all different parts of the world by saying good morning, good afternoon and good evening” (Fleisher, 2020a, para. 5 in an article titled “Live From Taiwan: EnglishLanguage Broadcasts Are A Home Run For Global Baseball Fans”). Time magazine wrote “Missing Baseball? Taiwanese Games Are Now Broadcasting in English. Here’s How to Watch Live” (Zennie, 2020);

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likewise, Li (2020) invoked U.S. claims of baseball as “The National Pastime” in writing “Baseball’s mother tongue is getting a rushed tryout in the only place on Earth where America’s pastime is being played” (para 1). One category conspicuously missing was U.S. domestic coverage of actual CPBL games. Rather than providing original coverage—either live broadcast or summary coverage and analysis—media outlets seemed to rely more on native Taiwanese content than assigning reporters to cover games. This broke somewhat from how U.S. media regarded other leagues, for example, ESPN provided live coverage of Korean professional baseball (KBO) (Gleeson, 2020; Garrity, 2020). The only “blips” in this coverage were specific coverage of novel events discussed earlier in the chapter, such as the Sosa-instigated brawl: “WATCH: Benches clear in CPBL game as tempers flare after hit by pitch” (Acquavella, 2020a, 2020b). In writing for Baseball America, Glaser (2020) suggested that one reason for this coverage discrepancy was that MLB scouts rated the quality of KBO baseball competition somewhat higher than CPBL competition—the former often rated somewhere between AA- and AAA-level baseball in the United States (the two highest minor leagues), and the latter between Low A- and High A-level baseball (the entry leagues for the U.S. professional baseball system). Notably, Glaser suggested that this was not an indication that Taiwanese baseball talent was not valued in the MLB, but rather, Taiwanese players with MLB aspirations often sign as amateur international free agents before ever actually playing in the CPBL (Taiwanese players can be signed by MLB clubs at age 17). That said, it would be unfair to suggest that U.S. media was not recognizing CPBL as legitimate baseball, given that many articles actively directed baseball fans to various CPBL outlets. At the same time, very few media outlets offered sustained coverage of CPBL beyond one or two articles—including sports media outlets that might be expected to have a vested interest in baseball. Taiwan and CPBL Governance in the Face of COVID-19 As already stated, U.S. coverage of CPBL often focused on the league as the first (and, for two months, only) professional baseball league actually playing. In many of these articles, the league’s success was conspicuously attributed to Taiwan’s stringent and successful response to and management of COVID-19 (detailed analysis offered in Summers et  al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). Nearly 400 days after the initial COVID-19 outbreaks

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in Wuhan, China, Taiwan has had just over 1000 total cases and only 10 total deaths—at one point, going over 200 days without a single reported infection (Berlinger, 2020)—in a nation with a population of nearly 25 million people and close (albeit tense) cultural and proximal ties to China. Jennings (2020) quoted one political consultant who suggested that “The fact that Taiwan baseball’s even on shows the world what a great job Taiwan’s done against COVID-19” (para. 17). Though not a U.S. news source, Jing (2020) explained that CPBL players were checked for COVID-19 symptoms daily, and, although testing was not required, the entire season was scheduled to be put on hold if even a single player tested positive (no such cases were ever confirmed). Broadly speaking, and as suggested by our second author (CPBL Deputy Secretary-General Hsu), the league relied heavily on an upsurge of Taiwanese national pride in setting a global example for managing COVID-19—a sentiment caught in broader geopolitical ties (Sung, 2020). With respect to our coverage sample, nearly every article made some mention of Taiwan’s management of COVID-19. In the United States, MLB publicly stated that CPBL’s successes gave hope that baseball would return to the United States (Abraham, 2020). Rubin (2020) and Fleisher (2020b) suggested that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was motivated by the successes of the CPBL and KBO and suggested that both could influence the MLB’s COVID-19 policies.

Conclusion COVID-19 presented itself as an existential threat on a global scale, ravaging many systems and structures in ways still not fully understood but not the least of which included professional sports, many of which were forced to cancel competitions on an unprecedented international scale. Among the few bright spots in the COVID-19 pandemic was Taiwan—an island nation with a precarious global position that became a beacon of hope for so many struggling to understand and contain the spread of the novel coronavirus that by mid-2021 had claimed more than three million lives globally, and counting (New York Times, 2021). During these times, the CPBL found itself the unintended professional baseball league of record on a global scale—interest in the game grew exponentially among fans seemingly unfamiliar with Taiwanese baseball but clamoring for it. In turn, the CPBL was both a public health success (during the 2020 season, there were no reports of players, league staff, or spectators contracting or

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spreading COVID-19) and a competitive and sporting triumph. By coordinating with media and fans to respond to international interest in the game, a global population was invited to be part of the 2020 CPBL season—successful media partnerships allowed for quick distribution of English-language content, and successful coordination with local governments allowed games to be played and viewed safely. Unfortunately, international interest in the CPBL waned in the months following the 2020 season as professional leagues the world over began to resume their normal operations. Likewise, there were no plans to continue English-­language broadcasts into the 2021 season, and even existing fan sites already in English (such as CPBL Stats and @CPBLGo) saw a decline in visits—although we note that visits today are higher than they were before COVID-19. This lack of continued engagement with international fans could be seen as a falling short of expectations but does speak to the potential for the league to cultivate a global market. For those fans new to the CPBL, Richard “Boston” Wang (@RWang_WBSC) greeted them where they lived—in the morning, afternoon, or evening. This spirit of openness and invitation drew anxious and lonely baseball fans to a foreign league in a foreign land for an experience that they are unlikely to forget. Acknowledgments  Special thanks to Rob Liu (@GOCPBL) for providing us insights into social media patterns of the CPBL and to Fulbright Taiwan for providing the apparatus for our partnership.

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Anderson, R. J. (2020b, May 4). 10 players to know from KBO and CPBL, including potential future MLB starts and a Wade Boggs-like slugger. CBS Sports. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/10-­players-­to-­know-­from-­kbo-­and-­ cpbl-­including-­potential-­future-­mlb-­stars-­and-­a-­wade-­boggs-­like-­slugger/ Associated Press. (2020a, April 24). Baseball in full swing in Taiwan, even in empty stands. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29095335/baseball-­full-­ swing-­taiwan-­even-­empty-­stadiums Associated Press. (2020b, May 6). Taiwan baseball league set to begin allowing fans back in ballparks. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29144158/ taiwan-­baseball-­league-­set-­begin-­allowing-­fans-­back-­ballparks Bengal, C. (2020, April 7). Rakuten Monkeys will have robot mannequins dressed as fans when 2020 season begins. CBS Sports. https://www.cbssports.com/ mlb/news/rakuten-­monkeys-­will-­have-­r obot-­mannequins-­dressed-­as-­fans-­ when-­2020-­season-­begins/ Berlinger, J. (2020). Taiwan just went 200 days without a locally transmitted COVID-19 case. Here’s how they did it. CNN. https://www.cnn. com/2020/10/29/asia/taiwan-­covid-­19-­intl-­hnk/index.html Bond, C. F., & Titus, L. J. (1983). Social facilitation: A meta-analysis of 241 studies. Psychological Bulletin, 94(2), 265–292. https://psycnet.apa.org/ doi/10.1037/0033-­2909.94.2.265 Bowman, N.  D. (2020, February 8). Self-management. Texas Tech in Taipei. https://ndbowman.info/fulbright/self-­management/ Bowman, N. D., & Cranmer, G. (2014). SocialMediaSport: Theoretical implications for the reified relationship between spectator and performer. In A. Billings & M. Hardin (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sport and new media (pp. 213–234). Routledge. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/ 1478088706qp063oa Budryk, Z. (2020, April 27). Baseball returns to Taiwan with cardboard cutouts in stands. The Hill. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-­briefing-­room/ news/494798-­b aseball-­r eturns-­t o-­t aiwan-­w ith-­c ardboard-­c utouts-­i n-­ stands?rl=1 Butler, A. (2020a, April 27). Home run happy Uni-Lions beat Monkeys in Chinese professional baseball. UPI. https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/ MLB/2020/04/27/Home-­run-­happy-­Uni-­Lions-­beat-­Monkeys-­in-­Chinese-­ professional-­baseball/8661588007802/ Butler, A. (2020b, May 4). ESPN to air live baseball in Asia with American commentators. UPI. https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/MLB/2020/05/04/ E S P N -­t o -­a i r -­l i v e -­b a s e b a l l -­i n -­A s i a -­w i t h -­A m e r i c a n -­c o m m e n t a t ors/2511588592989/

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Butler, A. (2020c, May 7). Ex-MLB players in spotlight as world turns to Asia for baseball. UPI. https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/ MLB/2020/05/07/Ex-­MLB-­players-­in-­spotlight-­as-­world-­turns-­to-­Asia-­ for-­baseball/5071588250980/ Castillo, J. (2020, April 16). Professional baseball in Taiwan has begun in empty stadiums. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-­04-­16/ professional-­baseball-­in-­taiwan-­begins-­empty-­stadiums-­ariel-­miranda Charlston, A. (2020, May 11). An inside look at how Taiwan reintroduced baseball fans. KXLY. https://www.kxly.com/an-­inside-­look-­at-­how-­taiwan-­allowed-­ baseball-­fans-­to-­return-­with-­u-­of-­i-­grad-­sean-­kramer/ Clavio, G., & Kian, T. M. (2010). Uses and gratifications of a retired female athlete’s Twitter followers. International Journal of Sport Communication, 3(4), 485–500. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.3.4.485 Courneya, K. S., & Carron, A. V. (1992). The home-field advantage in sport competitions: A literature review. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 14, 28–39. Cranmer, G.  A., Brann, M., & Bowman, N.  D. (2014a). Male athletes, female aesthetics: The continued ambivalence towards female athletes in ESPN’s The Body Issue. International Journal of Sport Communication, 7, 145–165. https://doi.org/10.1123/IJSC.2014-­0021 Cranmer, G. A., Bowman, N. D., Chory, R. M., & Weber, K. D. (2014b). Race as an antecedent condition in the framing of Heisman finalists. Howard Journal of Communications, 25(2), 171–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/1064617 5.2014.890979 DeSarbo, W. S., & Madrigal, R. (2011). Examining the behavioral manifestations of fan avidity in sports marketing. Journal of Modelling in Management, 6(1), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465661111112511 Earnheardt, A. C., & Haridakis, P. M. (2008). Exploring fandom and motives for viewing televised sports. In L.  W. Hugenberg, P.  M. Haridakis, & A. C. Earnheardt (Eds.), Sports mania: Essays on fandom and the media in the 21st century (pp. 158–171). McFarland & Company, Inc. Entman, R.  M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43, 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1460-­2466.1993.tb01304.x Fleisher, L. (2020a, April 21). Live from Taiwan: English-language broadcasts are a home run for global baseball fans. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ larryfleisher/2020/04/21/live-­from-­taiwan-­english-­language-­broadcasts-­ provide-­a-­home-­run-­to-­global-­baseball-­fans/?sh=3f0605287b1d Fleisher, L. (2020b, May 19). As MLB considers options to resume, Taiwan’s CPBL broadcasts games with fans in stands. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/ sites/larryfleisher/2020/05/19/live-­from-­taiwan-­as-­mlb-­considers-­options-­ to-­r esume-­play%2D%2Dannouncers-­wayne-­mcneil-­and-­richard-­wang-­call-­ cpbl-­games-­with-­fans-­in-­attendance/?sh=53ba291a3661

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Focus Taiwan. (2020, October 21). Fox Sports to shut down Taiwan channels by year end. Focus Taiwan. https://focustaiwan.tw/sports/202010210010 Gaines, C. (2021, February 7). The super bowl will have 30,000 cardboard fans to help the game look full and keep real fans socially distant. Insider. https:// www.insider.com/super-­bowl-­cardboard-­fans-­capacity-­covid-­2021-­2 Garrity, T. (2020, June 9). Is ESPN’s Korean baseball experiment working? Inside Hook. https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/is-­espns-­korean-­baseball­experiment-­working Gaydos, R. (2020, April 29). Manny Ramirez, 47, looking to return to Chinese Professional Baseball League. Fox Sports. https://www.foxnews.com/sports/ manny-­ramirez-­looking-­return-­to-­chinese-­professional-­baseball-­league Glaser, K. (2020, May 5). How good are the KBO and CPBL? Scouts and front office officials weigh in. Baseball America. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/ how-­good-­are-­the-­kbo-­and-­cpbl-­scouts-­and-­front-­office-­officials-­weigh-­in/ Gleeson, S. (2020, May 4). ESPN reaches TV deal to carry South Korean baseball league games live. USA Today. https://www.usatoday. com/stor y/spor ts/mlb/2020/05/04/espn-­t elevise-­k orea-­b aseball­organization-­games-­live/3077792001/ Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harper & Row. Goldberg, R. (2020, April 19). Video: Ex-Astros pitcher Henry Sosa starts benchclearing fight in Taiwan’s CPBL. Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport. com/articles/2887436-­v ideo-­e x-­a stros-­p itcher-­h enry-­s osa-­s tarts-­b ench-­ clearing-­fight-­in-­taiwans-­cpbl Graydon, J., & Murphy, T. (1995). The effect of personality on social facilitation whilst performing a sports related task. Personality and Individual Differences, 19(2), 265–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-­8869(95)00052-­8 Grott, C. (2020, May 6). Taiwan baseball league to allow fans in ballparks amid pandemic. UPI. https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/MLB/2020/05/06/ Taiwan-­b aseball-­l eague-­t o-­a llow-­f ans-­b ack-­i n-­b allparks-­a mid-­p andemic/ 4791588818205/ Hirschon, N. (2020). Social identity in sports fandom research. In R. A. Dunn (Ed.), Multidisciplinary perspectives on media fandom (pp.  172–191). IGI Global. Holmes, P. S., & Collins, D. J. (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13(1), 60–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200109339004 Huang, T-T. (2020, January 26). Taiwan tightens travel rules against Chinese visitors over epidemic. Taiwan News. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/ news/3864901 Jamieson, J.  P. (2010). The home field advantage in athletic: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40(7), 1819–1848. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1559-­1816.2010.00641.x

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Jennings, R. (2020, April 29). Batter up! How a Taiwanese baseball league opened its 2020 season despite COVID-19. Voice of America. https://www.voanews. com/east-­asia-­pacific/batter-­how-­taiwanese-­baseball-­league-­opened-­its-­2020-­ season-­despite-­covid-­19 Jing, B-J. (2020, April 24). Covering all the bases: How Taiwan opened its baseball season amid COVID-19. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/ covering-­all-­the-­bases-­how-­taiwan-­opened-­its-­baseball-­season-­amid-­covid-­19/ Johnson, D. (2020, May 5). With MLB dark, baseball in Taiwan suddenly draws eyes from around the world. WTOP. https://wtop.com/sports/2020/05/ w i t h -­m l b -­d a r k -­b a s e b a l l -­i n -­t a i w a n -­s u d d e n l y -­d r a w s -­e y e s -­f r o m -­ around-­the-­world/ Katz, E., Haas, H., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). On the use of mass media for important things. American Sociological Review, 38(2), 164–181. https://doi. org/10.2307/2094393 Li, D.  K. (2020, April 22). The only baseball right now is in Taiwan—And they need English broadcaster. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/ news/world/only-­b aseball-­w orld-­r ight-­n ow-­t aiwan-­t hey-­n eed-­e nglish-­ broadcasters-­n1188866 Liu, R. (2019, October 23). 2019 CPBL season review: Attendance. CPBL Stats. http://cpblstats.com/2019-­cpbl-­season-­attendance-­taiwan-­baseball/ Liu, R. (2020a, April 23). CPBL teams begin English commentary broadcast. CPBL Stats. http://cpblstats.com/cpbl-­teams-­begin-­english-­commentary-­ broadcast/ Liu, R. (2020b, July 11). 111 games: From 0 fans to 10,591 fans. CPBL Stats. http:// cpblstats.com/from-­0-­to-­10000-­fans-­stands-­cpbl-­coronavirus-­timeline/ Long, P-A., Yen, W., & Yeh, J. (2021, February 13). New pro league means fresh start for Taiwan basketball. Focus Taiwan. https://focustaiwan.tw/ sports/202102130002 Lyons, K. (2020, July 26). Those fake baseball fans are creeping people out. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/26/21339029/virtual-­baseball-­ mlb-­nba-­fox-­sports-­coronavirus Mackey, J. (2020, April 27). Everything you need to follow the Chinese Professional Baseball League. Pittsburgh Post-­Gazette. https://www.post-­ gazette.com/sports/pirates/2020/04/27/Pirates-­C hinese-­P rofessional-­ Baseball-­L eague-­p rimer-­w hat-­t o-­k now-­C PBL-­R akuten-­M onkeys/ stories/202004270077 Mathewson, T. J. (2020, April 16). No peanuts, Cracker Jack or fans: Baseball in Taiwan offers sneak peek of what MLB in Arizona might look like. Cronkite News. https:// cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/04/16/2020-­baseball-­season-­chinese-­model/ McCaskill, S. (2020, March 31). Sports tech comes of age with VR training, coaching apps and smart gear. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemc-

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caskill/2020/03/31/sports-­tech-­comes-­of-­age-­with-­vr-­training-­coaching-­ apps-­and-­smart-­gear/?sh=1b192ca819c9 Mennella, D. (2020, April 7). Pro baseball team to deploy robotic fans amid coronavirus. https://www.radio.com/sports/mlb/rakuten-­monkeys-­of-­cpbldebut-­robotic-­fans-­amid-­coronavirus Morris, A.  D. (2010). Colonial project, national game: A history of baseball in Taiwan. University of California Press. New York Times. (2021, July 16). Coronavirus world map: Tracking the global outbreak. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/ world/covid-­cases.html Otten, M. (2020, August 10). As the NBA and MLB resume, how might empty seats influence player performances? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/as-­t he-­n ba-­a nd-­m lb-­r esume-­h ow-­m ight-­e mpty-­s eats-­i nfluence-­ player-­performances-­140129 Raney, A. A. (2006). Why we watch and enjoy mediated sports. In A. A. Raney & J. Bryant (Eds.), The handbook of sports and media (pp. 313–329). Routledge. Rubin, S. (2020, May 4). What might an MLB season look like? Looking toward Asha, Australia for answers. The Mercury News. https://www.mercurynews. com/2020/04/28/what-­will-­a-­baseball-­season-­look-­like-­what-­the-­cpba-­kob-­ and-­nrls-­planned-­starts-­can-­tell-­us/ Ruihley, B. J., & Runyan, R. C. (2010, April). Schwabism: An investigation of the sports fan who knows it all. Southern Sport Management Conference, Troy, AL. Snyder, M. (2020, May 5). Fans at baseball games? Taiwan’s CPBL planning to allow 1,000 spectators starting May 8. CBS Sports. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/fans-­a t-­b aseball-­g ames-­t aiwans-­c pbl-­p lanning-­t o-­ allow-­1000-­spectators-­starting-­may-­8/ Spinda, J. S. W., & Puckette, S. (2017). Just a snap: Fan uses and gratifications for following sports Snapchat. Communication & Sport, 6(5), 627–649. https:// doi.org/10.1177/2F2167479517731335 Steger, I. (2020, April 23). The world’s baseball fans are being kept entertained by just four pro teams in Taiwan. Quartz. https://qz.com/1842138/ baseball-­fans-­turn-­to-­taiwan-­pro-­league-­for-­entertainment/ Sterlingice. (2020, April 20). Want live baseball? Give the (Taiwan) Chinese Professional Baseball League a try! Royals Review. https://www.royalsreview. com/2020/4/20/21226482/cpbl-­livestream Summers, J., Cheng, H.-Y., Lin, H.-H., Barnard, L. T., Kvalsvig, A., Wilson, N., & Baker, M. G. (Eds.). (2020). Potential lessons from the Taiwan and New Zealand health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet: Western Pacific. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2020.100044 Sung, W-T. (2020, June 2). Taiwan’s COVID-19 diplomacy and WHO participation: Losing the battle but winning the war? The Diplomat. Retrieved from

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https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/taiwans-­covid-­19-­diplomacy-­and-­who-­ participation-­losing-­the-­battle-­but-­winning-­the-­war/ Taiwan News. (2020, May 26). AIT encourages CPBL to add name ‘Taiwan’ in overseas ads: Taiwan News: 2020/05/10. Taiwan News. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3931282 Thomas, L. (2020, December 22). The year of the cardboard sports fan. The New  Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2020-­in-­review/ the-­year-­of-­the-­cardboard-­sports-­fan Thosar, D. (2020, April 17). Baseball is back in Taiwan and maybe MLB can learn a thing or two. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews. com/sports/baseball/ny-­t aiwan-­b aseball-­m lb-­c oronavirus-­2 0200417-­ iqa3dbu5qja4zjywpn7id5g36a-­story.html Vale, L., & Fernandes, T. (2016). Social media and sports: Driving fan engagement with football clubs on Facebook. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 26(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2017.1359655 Wang, C.  J., Ng, C.  Y., & Brook, R.  H. (2020). Response to COVID-19  in Taiwan: Big data analytics, new technology, and proactive testing. JAMA, 323(14), 1341–1342. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.3151 Wann, D.  L., & Branscombe, N.  R. (1993). Sports fans: Measuring degree of identification with their team. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 24(1), 1–17. Wann, D. L., & Hackathorn, J. (2019). Audience effects in sport: The reciprocal flow of influence between athletes and spectators. In M. H. Anshel, T. A. Petrie, & J. A. Steinfeldt (Eds.), APA handbooks in psychology series. APA handbook of sport and exercise psychology, Vol. 1. Sport psychology (pp.  469–488). American Psychological Association. Williams, A. W. (2020). Perceptual-cognitive expertise and simulation-based training in sport. In N. J. Hodges & A. M. Williams (Eds.), Skill acquisition in sport: Research, theory, and practice. Routledge. WSBC. (2020, April 14). Baseball season in Taiwan opens amid COVID-19 as the first in the world. World Baseball Softball Confederation. https://www.wbsc.org/ news/cpbl-­opens-­its-­2020-­season-­amid-­covid-­19-­as-­the-­first-­in-­the-­world Wu, P-H., & Chin, J. (2015, October 28). Baseball artist’s can-do attitude a hit. Taipei Times. Retrieved from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/arc hives/2015/10/28/2003631128 Yeh, J. (2008, October 6). Taiwan baseball a new rallying point for national pride. Taiwan News. Retrieved from https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/ news/756530 Yeh, W. (2020, April 19). Former MLB player becomes fastest to 1,000 hits in Taiwan league. Focus Taiwan. Retrieved from https://focustaiwan.tw/ sports/202004190007 Yu, J. (2007). Playing in isolation: A history of baseball in Taiwan. University of Nebraska Press.

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Yu, J., & Gordon, D. (2006). Nationalism and national identity in Taiwanese baseball. NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, 14(2), 27–39. https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2006.0014 Zajonc, R. B. (1965). Social facilitation. Science, 149(3681), 269–274. https:// doi.org/10.1126/science.149.3681.269 Zennie, M. (2020 April 16). Missing baseball? Taiwanese are now broadcasting in English. Here’s how to watch. Time. https://time.com/5822240/ watch-­taiwan-­baseball-­live-­free/ Zhuang, Y-T. (2020, February 7). 國家級警報 鑽石公主號1/31遊客行程曝光:北 車西門 (National Warning Diamond Princess 1/31 tourist itinerary exposures: Ximen). https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/1273449?fbclid=IwAR0EALlKbl2S LS2hH-­KRD0gHyhw_dLMhWq_A2yFjdJvEP90iRVZgn11CkqU

CHAPTER 3

Country-of-Origin Bias in Portrayal of East Asian and Asian American Athletes: The NBA-Hong Kong Episode M. Olguta Vilceanu and Julia Richmond

Introduction On October 3, 2019, athletes from mainland China and Hong Kong were heading to Beijing for the National Day celebrations. China’s 70th Anniversary parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing featured around 15,000 military personnel, emphasizing the country’s status and ambition as a political, economic, and military superpower (BBC News). The following day, October 4, Daryl Morey, then-general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted a “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” sticker (message since deleted) in solidarity with the growing movement focused on bringing attention to Hong Kong’s tenuous relationships with mainland China. Ironically, Twitter is used by a small audience in China, given its association with antigovernment communication and the fact

M. O. Vilceanu (*) • J. Richmond Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_3

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that posting or even accessing it is a punishable offense (Mozur, 2019). Morey’s tweet was particularly relevant in both the United States and China because the Houston Rockets were one of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) most popular teams in China. Moreover, the Rockets were beloved thanks to their former center, Chinese athlete Yao Ming. The Chinese NBA market is worth $5  billion, including content and apparel for about 300 million people who play basketball professionally, competitively, or for fun—according to deputy commissioner Mark Tatum (Reuters, October 7, 2019). Earlier in 2019, the NBA had awarded Chinese-based streaming company Tencent broadcasting rights to American-based games for $1.5 billion (Areddy & Cohen, 2019). Morey’s tweet emerged as the tip of the iceberg that threatened to disrupt the lucrative relationship between the NBA and China. The Chinese audience perceived Morey’s sharing the “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” tweet as a sign that the Houston Rockets and, by extension, the entire NBA did not support China’s integration and reunification efforts and the Chinese government’s idea of national sovereignty. Before 1997, the “one country, two systems” philosophy advanced the idea that the “Taiwan and Hong Kong problems” would be solved by allowing them to continue to operate in a capitalist system (China Through a Lens, 1984). By 2019, Hong Kong social protests presented a different set of problems, challenging the “projection of national unity and power” (Graham & Yu, 2019). In American sports communication, athletes and management use social media to promote or critique any manner of issues, including social protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement. In American public discourse, Morey’s tweet was innocuous. Morey posted the tweet to express his opinion, based on his understanding of and familiarity with the issue from personal experience and connections with Hong Kong residents (Helin, 2020). Though well within the bounds of free speech in North America, Morey’s tweet and the subsequent reaction of NBA management alienated a major segment of the NBA’s fan base and business partners in China. From mainland China, reactions were swift and unequivocal: China Central Television (CCTV) and Tencent stopped distribution of most NBA content and merchandise in a year-long ban. Consequently, Morey’s pro-Hong Kong tweet ignited a crisis within the Rockets organization, the NBA, and political leadership—worried by the reactions of the NBA’s extensive number of business partners, sponsors, and fans in China. Within

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a couple of days, the Chinese consulate-general condemned Morey’s comments and urged the “Houston Rockets to correct the manager’s erroneous comments on HK riots” (Global Times, 2019). The Chinese Basketball Association halted all relations with the Houston Rockets, and Chinese companies such as athletic brand Li-Ning and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB) withdrew their sponsorship of the Houston Rockets (He, 2019). From a stakeholder communication perspective, the clear and unified response from mainland China officials was met with mixed reactions from leaders in the United States. In many of the stories published in American news media, the whole controversy manifested as a clash between the U.S. Constitition’s First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech, and the unencumbered pursuit of profit, or the basis of a free market. In addition, American politicians took the opportunity to gain easy political favor by leveraging the free speech issue and bashing China: “The NBA,” said a journalist for The New York Times, “is hardly the first international business to make concessions to China’s political sensitivities as it seeks access to its lucrative market, or to forcefully apologize after running afoul of them” (Daniel, 2019a). This study offers a quick lesson in strategic communication, exemplifying what can happen when sports, business, and politics function in misaligned systems of values and identities. It is important to compare the ways in which major news outlets, such as China Daily and The New York Times, covered this incident and saw the ramifications along the lines of country-of-origin bias and the role of athletes in the sports industry and in international relations—and the ways in which social media and traditional media contributed to the shaping of this incident in each country.

Literature Review National news media coverage plays an important role when major brands experience episodes of international disagreement. Previous research on cultural bias in the news media discourse has associated higher levels of coverage and country-of-origin bias (Jimenez & San Martin, 2014) when brand-name products present consumers with high-risk problems (Miller & Littlefield, 2010) or when imported products present substandard quality (Kotler & Mantrala, 1985). Country-of-origin bias in news media coverage manifests itself through the promotion of national priorities, at the cost of countries and brands perceived as outsiders (Vilceanu & Murphy,

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2018). News media often act as intermediaries in intergroup and international communication, using strategies that fall within the purview of news domestication (Clausen, 2004; Lee et  al., 2002) and ethnocentrism (Freitag, 2002). Thus, there is a need to reconsider the strategic connections between sports organizations and athletes, the sports industry business, and politics in the context of an organization such as the NBA, which spans a broad array of interests and geographical locations. Whether they are seen as sources of information, propaganda, stories, or recommendations on key issues, news media serve as essential tools in nation-building (Martin & Copeland, 2003). Journalists balance conversation threads featuring multiple groups of stakeholders, competing voices, and audience needs, in a context often tightly connected to national interests, censorship, or long-standing tensions and conflicts. In the case of Morey, the competing issues were Chinese national sovereignty and American free speech values. A comprehensive literature review by Engesser and Franzetti (2011) explored the connections between news media systems and political systems along four key dimensions: freedom, diversity, centrality, and tradition. The dimension of freedom is an expression of the existence and application of formally guaranteed civil rights: freedom of the press, information, and opinion, combined with an absence of censorship, occupational bans, and overall autonomy for the media system in the country in which they operate. Diversity refers to variety in opinions, media outlets, formats, and so on. Centrality, on the other hand, is a complex measurement for the vertical and horizontal structures distributing power in the state and society. Finally, tradition is a vaguer dimension that nevertheless addresses the development, roles, and expectations of media in society (Engesser & Franzetti, 2011). Within this model, Chinese media content must support collective and national interests, whereas U.S. media hold freedom of speech as a national value. Historically, news media in Hong Kong evolved closer to the Western model, with the expectation that various actors, as well as Chinese- and English-speaking journalists, would have a moderate degree of freedom to support or criticize the power structures in the province’s ever-changing political, economic, and social systems. As an example, the civil disobedience campaign Occupy Central with Love and Peace or the so-called Umbrella Revolution illustrated the organized protests of over one million Hong Kong citizens supporting and demanding universal suffrage against mainland China’s growing and stifling influence. Within the next five years, public demonstrations and

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protests drew international attention to various issues Hong Kong was opposing from mainland China. From the perspective of China’s central government, various measures were implemented to ensure the “one-country” vision would be achieved with regard to problematic provinces or territories with special status, such as Hong Kong. From the perspective of Hong Kong residents, these measures were meant to negate China’s promises about not interfering with Hong Kong’s democratic reforms (Cheung & Hughes, 2020). In terms of diversity, there were over 2000 newspapers in China by 2006, issuing almost 100  million copies daily, or about double that of U.S. dailies (DBpedia). However, the single-party political system in China limits the scope of diversity in a country where national interests come first, in narratives approved or favored by the leading party. The Chinese government’s control over communication and internet technology provides a stark contrast to American values of free speech. The NBA took a firm stance on free speech when Commissioner Adam Silver supported the long-held values of the NBA and the freedom of expression by members of the NBA community (Booker, 2019). Digital journalism, not to be confused with individual access to digital platforms, has the potential to elevate information even as it helps shape the discourse around it, in real time and across vast distances. China has “17 million apps, […] 1,000 live-­streaming platforms, and […] over 3  million self-media operators” (Wang, 2019). Basketball and Sino-American Relations An overview of historical moments in China’s sports (Zhang & Zhao, 2019) pinpointed the beginning of “ping-pong diplomacy” as a term associated with the 1970s, when Chinese and American athletes served as ambassadors of goodwill toward each other’s countries, while at the same time bringing markers of their own culture in the other country. China’s opening toward the United States is tightly intertwined with table tennis, and athletes played key roles—as themselves first, and cultural icons later— when on tour for competitions. In late July 2020, basketball and international student exchanges featured again in a story focused on the “free fall” of Sino-U.S. relations, reminiscent of the power of enthusiasm for a shared cause—in contrast to the “disintegrated” diplomatic relations where China and the United States fight each other instead of joining forces to solve world problems and advance humankind (Brahm, 2020).

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Basketball, pointed out Cui Tiankai, Beijing’s top envoy in Washington (Zhao, 2020), is a powerful mediator for Sino-American relations, with Chinese fans of the American NBA teams embracing the sport and many of the products associated with it, from sports merchandise to Texas steaks. In the world of professional sports, mega events such as competitions and and other events are highly ritualized, commercialized, and watched by audiences across the globe (Horne & Manzenreiter, 2006). As such, during the season of athletic competition, there are a multitude of opportunities for players, fans, and affiliates to contribute their voices to social, political, and economic causes (Horne & Manzenreiter, 2006). Media attention surrounding professional sports teams gives players and staff increased visibility both locally and abroad (Frederick et al., 2018). News media as well as social media have increased and expanded the potential for political discourse between institutions, organizations, fans, and players (Antunovic & Linden, 2015; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). It is important to explore the degree to which athletes, fans, and sports management representatives are seen as legitimate voices in the public discourse when they do decide to publicly support a cause or issue. There is no question that sports are interconnected with globalization, international affairs, and politics (Boyacioğlu & Oğuz, 2016; Gupta, 2009): the same competitions that help raise the profile of the country hosting such events can also lead to hostile interactions between various groups, based on ideological, political, and social differences (Boyacioğlu & Oğuz, 2016). Conversely, participation in international sporting events can improve relations between otherwise siloed countries, a concept known as sports diplomacy (Trunkos & Heere, 2017). The United States and China have historically been successful in using sports to improve communication and political relations between the two countries. In the 1970s, U.S.-China relations were built through ping pong as competitors met through the International Table Tennis Tournament in Japan (Griffin, 2014), a move facilitated by Chairman Mao Zedong and President Richard Nixon (Eckstein, 1993). Diplomacy, in this context, started with individual-level interactions at the level of athletes, coaches, and managers—for the purpose of building state-level diplomacy (Qing, 2018). The tactic nicknamed “ping pong diplomacy” is credited for having led to reduced trade restrictions and improved dialogue between the two countries (Eckstein, 1993). Sports organizations and athletes increasingly function as branded identities and thus serve as proxies for the needs and wants of various

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target audiences—even as they are touted for their asset value as traded commodities and to express pride and measure success in athleticism and business. Athletes and businesspeople are both heralded as role models focused on self-growth and performance narratives (Ronkainen et  al., 2019); the interplay between athletic performance, attractive appearance, and marketable lifestyle (Arai et  al., 2014); and the ability to connect sports, sponsorship, and growth of sports markets at home and abroad (Chang et al., 2014; Phillips & Newland, 2014). The internationalization of the sports industry is accompanied by intersecting discourses supporting or combating political, economic, or social issues. Basketball is, like other sports, seen as a source of entertainment and aspirations for large audiences, manifested as a business opportunity for major corporations. In the 2018–2019 season, for example, the Chinese internet company Tencent reported almost half a billion viewers for NBA programming (Fan, 2019), streaming live games and other basketball-­ related content. Migu/China Mobile also streamed basketball games and content in 4K resolution—as well as Migu/NBA lifestyle merchandise and NBA-themed mobile games—to “fans on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong and Macao” (Fan, 2019). As a brand, the NBA indubitably dominates the Chinese market. This study compares news media discourses in two major publications in the United States and China, with a focus on (1) stakeholder narratives regarding sports branding and country-of-origin bias, around the time and context of Morey’s tweet; and (2) representations of East Asian and Asian American athletes as they constantly bounce between personal values, cultural symbols, and business commodities. Findings are analyzed in the emerging interplay between sports, strategic communication, and politics in the context of social protests and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods This study utilizes a qualitative approach to discourse analysis in international journalism (Hertog & McLeod, 2001). Discourse analysis seeks to understand the distinctiveness of a given text in a corpus and focuses on the syntagmatic and paradigmatic decisions journalists make as they help audiences make sense of situations occurring outside of their direct experience or contradicting their understanding of the status quo (Gee, 2014). A comparative approach between news media coverage in China Daily and The New York Times presents the opportunity to explore perspectives

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promoted by two media outlets that are seen as major publications for audiences not only in their home countries but also abroad. These two publications are broadly considered newspapers of reference not only in their own country but also in international contexts. There will always be discussions around the degree to which each publication faces pressure from their respective government regarding the presentation of national and international issues. However, at the end of the day, China Daily is the largest English-language Chinese publication for news and information, serving almost 200  million readers consisting of Chinese speakers who wish to practice their English proficiency in current news and topics, as well as English-speaking businessmen and general audiences in China and around the world. Similarly, The New York Times is seen as a newspaper representative of a “cultured, intellectual readership.” Previous studies used these two publications as proxies for comparing public discourse and opinion between the United States and China on topics such as product defects and recalls (Vilceanu & Murphy, 2018), Google’s departure from China (Lihua et al., 2018), and trade disputes (Chen & Wang, 2020). For this study, a one-year-period search in the ProQuest Central database sought out newspaper articles in China Daily that fit the following keywords: Hong Kong, or Morey, or Rockets; and athlete or basketball or NBA or N.B.A. The search for newspaper articles in The New York Times included an additional limiter consisting of keywords “protest” or “free” to reflect the interest of this study and filter out a multitude of stories that simply referred to basketball in Hong Kong. All stories were read and approved for inclusion based on relevance to this study. The final data set consisted of 110 stories, of which 40% (N = 44) were published in China Daily and 60% (N = 66) were published in The New York Times (Table 3.1). Themes and developments were identified and tracked through careful reading of stories from each media outlet.

Findings China Daily and The New York Times covered the Morey tweet extensively as an international relations incident between the NBA and China focused on business and voices from the sports community. Both news outlets contextualized the history of sports as a liaison between the two nations and the need for more political awareness around international relations.

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Table 3.1  Data set composition: number of stories, chronological Year-Month 2019-09 2019-10 2019-11 2019-12 2020-01 2020-02 2020-03 2020-04 2020-06 2020-07 2020-08 Total

China Daily

New York Times

Total

9 11 1 4 4 2 1 1 3 6 2 44

0 44 2 3 5 2 3 0 4 2 1 66

9 55 3 7 9 4 4 1 7 8 3 110

This section presents the main findings for news media coverage along two narrative lines: (1) sports and international affairs and (2) athlete voices. China Daily: Sports and International Affairs Basketball is big business both in the United States and in China. It is also a discrete and powerful cultural marker, carrying strong associations for fans, athletes, businesses, and many different types of organizations. Morey’s tweet seemed to gather the perfect political storm around the sports industry in China. In terms of news media systems, the Morey incident appeared as a stand-in representation for centrality and tradition. Before the tweet, news media coverage seemed to focus primarily on China’s aspiration for playing a dominant role in world basketball—consistent with the Chinese government’s narrative imposed at organizational and individual levels. In early September 2019, about a month before Morey’s tweet, China-U.S. trade relations were tense, while basketball relations appeared copacetic. Recent contracts with livestreaming sports were mentioned within the narrative of China’s strong markets and business acumen and understanding of the ecosystem of sports, resources, and commercialization (Fan, September 10, 2019). China Daily reporters covered basketball games using positive associations with the NBA, where top Chinese athletes such as Yao Ming and Zhou Qi had spent years working hard to improve their performance, before returning to play for China and, hopefully, help Team China win the upcoming International

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Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup in Beijing. China’s athletes competing in the World Cup were described as “young guns […] off to a flying start” who “provided particular cause for optimism” (China Daily Digest, September 6, 2019). As the World Cup neared, though, the tone used to describe the national squad changed toward “faint-hearted pretenders” and “stagnant player development and poor league competition” (Sun, 2019a), and criticism was leveled at the “outdated State-run governance” (Sun, 2019c). China’s strategy of bringing home ex-NBA players “failed to develop a world-class talent pool for the national program,” and Chinese Basketball Association Chairman and “national hoops boss” (Sun, 2019b) Yao Ming faced hardship in his effort to roll out “radical reforms to revamp the game’s outdated governance” and “expand the talent pipeline out of the State-run system” (Sun, 2019a). Most of the nine stories (20% of the sample) published in China Daily during September 2019 (Table  3.1) focused on current news and emphasized China’s desire to recapture a dominant role in basketball competitions. Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) Chairman Yao’s vision for making it happen required reforms, strategic player acquisitions, and hosting key competitive events. The stage was set for one major negative story to take over news reporting in basketball. On October 2, 2019, a story by Zhang (2019a) covered the Tiananmen Square parade celebrating China’s success at building a joint dream with Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Sports was the subject of one of the parade floats, commemorating the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, when China’s athletes won a hundred medals, half of which were gold—more than any other country in the world, including the United States. After the tweet, sports met politics, and the crisis became strategy for a while. By October 8, strong reactions were issued by a variety of voices. CBA Chairman Yao, former player for the Houston Rockets and NBA Hall of Fame inductee, immediately suspended all exchange and cooperation with the Houston Rockets, and NBA preseason games were canceled (China Daily, 2019). At first glance, the situation showed all signs of an incident becoming a crisis. A quarter of China Daily stories (N = 11) were published during the month of October 2019. Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, was mentioned 37 times as coverage of basketball converged on athletes, management, and owners in both China and the United States—and their position regarding Morey’s tweet. Sun and Heng (2019) covered the story in strongly negative terms, invoking a

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“strong stance against Houston Rockets” after “executive Daryl Morey […] infuriated Chinese fans.” In China Daily stories, several high-ranking American officials were acknowledged for having distanced themselves from Morey’s message, opinion, and beliefs. Mike Bass, Chief Communications Officer of the NBA, Tilman Fertitta (owner of the Houston Rockets), Joseph Tsai (owner of the Brooklyn Nets and cofounder of the Chinese e-commerce Alibaba Group), then-Rockets star guard James Harden, and All-Star Russell Westbrook all expressed dismay at Morey’s public stance on such a controversial issue and professed collective regret over the insult experienced by everyone in China. The backlash from Chinese fans, journalists, and business representatives was an unambiguous answer to a tweet that appeared to support the Hong Kong pro-­ democracy movement, thereby constituting an affront to China’s “sense of justice and national dignity” (China Daily, 2019). When NBA Commissioner Adam Silver defended free speech, even as he distanced his organization from Morey’s opinions, the NBA’s business partners in China retaliated by freezing all partnerships that generated profits for the NBA (Sun, 2019e). Geng Shuang, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, emphasized that profitable business cooperation goes hand in hand with mutual respect for public opinion. Foreign brands in China today face stiff competition from Chinese brands, and any disagreements over social values should be handled with care and corporate responses to such disagreements should be issued quickly and decisively to avoid serious damage to reputations (Sun, 2019c). When the tide of unhappiness spread beyond business organizations and reached microblogger level, for a while the very act of attending NBA games was portrayed as a betrayal of Chinese unity or siding with Hong Kong protesters. Journalists like Zhang (2019b) were quick to correct the course and point out that a game is a game and athletes are athletes. Politicizing either without just cause is wrong, as is failing to at least attempt to understand how, based on information available through Twitter, Morey might have thought he was reacting in good faith and based on solid information. However, according to a story by Zheng (2019), Twitter was openly supporting the Hong Kong protesters while deemphasizing voices from Chinese state-backed information operations. Therefore, voices from American coaches such as Steve Kerr, a vocal activist on human rights issues, received respectful coverage in China Daily when he declined to talk on a topic he felt he was insufficiently informed to discuss, even though he likened the Hong Kong unrest to gun violence

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in the United States—a clear alignment with mainland China’s negative view of the protests (Zheng, 2019). The topic, however, dried out within a couple of weeks, with China Daily simply stopping coverage of the incident. By late October 2019, new voices were calling for a cooldown of both conversation and sentiment, isolating the tweet as one poor decision instead of a marker for a real conflict. Other developments in the Chinese basketball market and industry were becoming more ominous, such as a cap on team wages for Chinese players, which did not apply to foreign player imports, and a fervent wish for Chinese basketball to reach top performance levels once again in international competitions. China Daily: Athlete Voices Throughout the data set, athletes were often portrayed as embedded political actors. There was a strong focus on former NBA players, such as Argentinian Luis Scola, as well as Jeremy Lin and Jamaal Franklin, recruited to play for teams in the CBA. American basketball players rarely sustained substantial focus in the stories published in China Daily. Foreign players in Chinese teams were presented in respectful and neutral stories when they contributed to advancing China’s status by winning games and upholding essential values such as respect for elders, modesty, and team spirit. Stories turned overly critical when the same athletes were blamed for losing games or expressed their individuality in ways that do not align with China’s official party line. For example, Scola was the main character in a story the Xinhua news service published on September 18. Scola was lauded for being the oldest player in the tournament, finding the right balance between modesty and boasting about his prowess on the field, working hard every day to improve his performance, and bringing honor to the teams he played in international games when he represented his home country of Argentina, or the Houston Rockets, or the Shanghai Sharks (the last two being former home teams of CBA Chairman Yao). The stance that seems to keep athletes in a positive light revolves around the idea of “I just enjoy playing and helping my team win” (Scola cited in Xinhua, 2019). Similarly, Franklin downplayed the honor of being named player of the month by CBA in November and instead focused on his role as part of a smaller team and building success one game at a time. Some of the athletes imported from American NBA teams, such as Jeremy Lin, received a different type of coverage, in stories hyping their

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“new high-profile role with the Chinese Basketball Association’s three-­ time champion Beijing Ducks.” These stories often portrayed athletes in individualistic terms, even when focused on the team: in Lin’s words, this is about “playing a leadership role to help my teammates become better” (Sun, 2019d), with a vague allusion to the notion that Lin considers himself better than his teammates and has more experience and that his contribution will increase the value of the team. Following China’s poor performance at the World Cup, athlete coverage turned despondent at times, with a focus on great athletes reaching the sunset of their competitive careers. For example, Yi Jianlian was the last member of the famed 2008 Team China and expected to retire before the next World Cup, with little hope for the Chinese squad to maintain its competitiveness against other Asian teams. The news about Kenneth Faried being released from his CBA contract one month after signing included no other details, beyond a mention that his career peak in 2014 when he played for the American team that won the FIBA World Cup. Such stories do not overtly criticize or even insinuate skepticism, but there is a subtle undermining of athletes. The narratives often contrast with direct quotes from team coaches and owners, who emphasize the benefits of bringing such players in terms of not only athletic competence but also an attitude linked to success in the basketball big leagues. Every athlete is a small, though potentially important, piece in a broader political game—reminiscent of ping pong diplomacy (Eckstein, 1993). The issue of naturalizing players is presented by reporters as one of utmost honor; in contrast, players hedge their bets by focusing on the magnitude of the decision to accept should a naturalization offer ever be extended. Consistent with China’s “one-country” narrative line, Lin’s Taiwanese heritage was never mentioned, though there was some discussion about Jeremy Lin possibly “one day representing China internationally” (Sun, 2019d). Within a couple of months, Lin ended up acquiring a Taiwan passport, which meant China considered him a domestic athlete (FocusTaiwan.tw, 2020)—though the news was not covered in China Daily. In the context of Morey’s tweet, American basketball athletes playing for American teams received minimal coverage, with brief mentions of Harden and Westbrook apologizing to Chinese fans after a practice session in Tokyo. After the incident entered its cooldown period, mentions included the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kyle Kuzma, who had been injured in 2018 while playing for Team USA in China and whose coach, Frank

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Vogel, compared Kuzma to other NBA superstars such as LeBron James and Anthony Davis. By mid-November, coverage was back to business as usual, with content selected based on its relevance to fans of the sport: Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters receiving fines and suspensions for inappropriate behavior; athletes being sidelined or returning to play after game injuries; and game performances in terms of points, wins, and losses. Kobe Bryant’s death received respectful coverage, with direct quotes from his colleagues’ comments from social media, tribute games or dedication of games to his memory, and pledges to continue Bryant’s legacy to the Lakers. Player acquisitions and releases mainly relayed information from newswire sources, with minimal context or editorial contributions. Domestic Chinese players were also portrayed in terms consistent with sports news coverage: game wins and losses, being nominated for CBA awards, scoring career highs, and team rankings in the season. Non-­ Chinese Asian athletes playing for the NBA were rarely mentioned. Rui Hachimura, for example, received a mention as the first Japanese first-­ round NBA pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, after being sidelined due to an injury while playing for the Washington Wizards. Though Hachimura might have represented a great opportunity to express the principles of Asian solidarity or mention slow and steady progress toward having more Asian players in the NBA, he garnered no other mentions in China Daily. These findings solidify the idea that, in China Daily, national identity and national priorities are reflected throughout the spectrum of topics, including sports. Furthermore, traditional patterns and expectations dictated that, unless there was some sensational aspect of an athlete performance—with potential broader financial or reputational impact on China’s national identity or national priorities—their representation in news media coverage was restricted to basic reporting: game results, game moves, and team strategy. Doing so allowed foreign topics, teams, and dreams to run parallel to national identity and national priorities. The New York Times: Sports and International Affairs To the American public, many of the stories published in The New York Times represented a clash of top-level principles: free speech and free markets. American institutions, chiefly the NBA, failed to defend free speech and attempted to appease China for the sake of protecting revenue streams. In terms of news media systems, the incident appeared as an exemplary

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representation of freedom and diversity, with conflicting arguments augmented and supported from a variety of sources. There was no mention of Hong Kong in the context of the NBA or basketball in The New  York Times during September 2019 (Table  3.1). The story exploded reactively, after Chinese news sources, in particular China Daily, wrote about Morey’s tweet and its significance for Chinese audiences. American politics and pro-democracy values were invoked in comments from major political figures such as Mike Pence, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Rick Scott (Buckley, 2019; Sopan, 2020), who criticized the NBA for “shamefully retreating” (Sopan & Li, 2019). Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke tweeted that the “only thing the NBA should be apologizing for is their blatant prioritization of profits over human rights. What an embarrassment” (Yglesias, 2019). The creators of the animated show South Park, known for its raunchy humor aimed at controversial issues, aired a tongue-in-cheek response sharing harsh critiques such as “we live in a time when the only movies that us American kids go see are the ones that are approved by China” and “we too love money over freedom” (Daniel, 2019a). NBA Commissioner Silver was accused of limiting free speech for athletes and other NBA representatives and pandering to China (Deb, 2019). Critics claimed that the NBA abandoned the “woke roll” it had embraced about issues such as Black Lives Matter and social justice in the United States—and dropped the ball on issues related to democracy in Hong Kong (Powell, 2019). In The New York Times, China’s strong and unified reaction to Morey’s tweet often alluded to China’s childish leadership style, maintaining that Chinese reaction to “this issue is non-­negotiable” (Li, 2019) and the inability of Chinese leadership to use less of a firm hand as is required for free markets and free ideas to flourish. Punishing major companies such as Givenchy, Versace, and Coach for their public support of pro-democracy arguments is framed, in stories published in The New York Times, as wrong (Qin, 2019), “petulant,” “thin-skinned” and show the Chinese government to be a “bully” (Myers & Buckley, 2019; Stein, 2019). In a way, these stories published in The New  York Times showed the American version of placing national values and a version of national sovereignty first in the media’s coverage of international affairs. To Chinese authorities and mainland Chinese citizens, the Hong Kong protests represented antigovernment movements. By defining the Hong Kong issue as pro-democracy protests, the American newspaper’s voices made it impossible to accept or even negotiate China’s first principle,

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defined as national sovereignty. In the words of Chinese tech blogger Kai Qu, “all the Americans on Twitter are criticizing the NBA for not supporting freedom of speech,” while on Weibo, “the Chinese are all criticizing the NBA for not openly condemning and punishing [Morey]. It’s a great cultural clash. Anybody who was caught in between will have no way to get out of it” (Sopan & Li, 2019). To American journalists, Chinese businesses were simply wrong to endorse state-backed censorship over free speech for citizens of another country—another example of where ethnocentric perspectives reflected country-of-origin bias in news reporting. U.S.-based Twitter and China-based Sina Weibo and WeChat mobilized social media users to show massive support for a country-preferred point of view. China’s businesses were blamed for framing an American free speech issue as an attack on Chinese national sovereignty and unity, and U.S. businesses and organizations were blamed for ceding to China’s demands to curb free speech, for fear of losing out on revenue from companies funneling Chinese basketball fans. In the basketball industry, the rumblings of disagreement came as no surprise, since Silver had already commented on the possibility of global politics interfering with the league’s effort to expand its presence in China, the fastest growing international market for basketball game viewership and licensed content, as well as branded merchandise. Acknowledging the league’s existence at the intersection of sports, entertainment, business, and politics, Silver nonetheless found a middle position where he could reaffirm his support for free speech while acknowledging regret over offending the league’s Chinese fans and business partners. The New York Times: Athlete Voices The Houston Rockets were the second most popular team in China, behind the Golden State Warriors, with 7.3 million followers on Chinese social media site Weibo (more than double their number of followers on Twitter) (Daniel, 2019b). Beyond the purely political discourse around the tweet, a secondary narrative focused on players who chose to request “basketball questions only” (Branch, 2019)—in a year when American basketball had already been struggling with managing communication around the Black Lives Matter protests and cancelled NBA regular season games. There was a “no comment” position from some American athletes and NBA leadership, following the backlash from the Morey tweet. Even

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LeBron James skirted the issue of Hong Kong protests vs. the territorial integrity of China saying, “I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance. Others can talk about that” (Cacciola, 2019), despite having no qualms about speaking against President Trump or on other controversial issues. While arguably one of the most popular and outspoken players in the league, James commented that “We all do have freedom of speech, but at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself” (Scott, 2019). Other players simply argued that the China-Hong Kong issues were too complicated for Morey—or anyone else in the sports industry—to understand and speak about on Twitter (Cacciola, 2019). Some prominent American basketball players joined the voices attempting to mitigate Morey’s tweet. Harden, the Rockets’ point guard, offered, “We apologize. We love China, we love playing there” (Branch, 2019). Harden had enjoyed years of celebrity status in China. Other athletes saw this incident as just another reiteration of conservative television host Laura Ingraham’s “shut up and dribble” admonishment to LeBron James’ political comments against President Trump. This attitude appeared in statements from representatives of both media and management, where players were treated as commodities rather than sentient beings and involved citizens. The New York Times relied heavily on Yao Ming to represent the Chinese player perspective, even though many American players were covered during the crisis. Yao was frequently referenced as “the crown jewel of Chinese basketball” (Daniel, 2019b). He was reported as being angry about Morey’s tweet and unequivocally in support of China-based businesses suspending partnerships with the NBA (Deb, 2019). Noticeably there was no mention of CBA star and former NBA player Yi Jianlian or Jeremy Lin or any other prominent players of Asian descent who could have provided a richer perspective. Instead, more attention was given to Chinese fans (Mozur & Qin, 2019), Taiwanese-born billionaire Joseph Tsai (Powell, 2019), and tech bloggers (Deb & Lin, 2019), all of whom shared the opinion that Morey’s tweet was a tactical mistake. One news article reported on snippets of conversations with Chinese basketball fans before the Los Angeles Lakers-Brooklyn Nets exhibition game in Shanghai on October 10, emphasizing the confusion and uncertainty among basketball fans who found themselves in the undesirable position of having to choose

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between a sport they loved, athletes they admired, and a perceived affront to China’s unity and sovereignty (Mozur & Qin, 2019). A parallel narrative relied on experts in the field of strategic communication and public relations, who offered insights about the need for geopolitical strategy (Myers & Buckley, 2019): “mixing sports and politics,” they reminded the public, “is not something that has to be said to make it exist. It is always there. Sometimes it takes a tweet to remind us” (Branch, 2019). Claire Fu, a researcher for The New York Times, said that “Chinese-­ American relations are not a zero-sum game … Both countries benefit from cooperation and are hurt when they fight” (Buckley, 2019). Sport, some voices maintained, once again has the power to bridge the gap between China and the United States (Branch, 2019; Deb & Yuan, 2019)—a return to seeing sports communication as a platform for culture sharing, nation building, and connection (Billings et  al., 2017). In the words of Tsai, owner of NBA team Brooklyn Nets and WNBA team New York Liberty, China’s basketball has a rabid fan base, and it is imperative to create opportunities where American and Chinese teams compete—not only as teams, but also as cultures. Communication, mutual respect, and an attempt to understand each other is key to growing the global market for basketball, even as it helps bridge the divide between China and the United States (Sopan & Li, 2019). In the words of Branch, “Sports have a history of bringing troubling aspects of our culture into the conversation. Sometimes it starts on the playing field and expands; sometimes it bleeds into sports from other areas of society (Branch, 2019).

Discussion This entire episode constitutes a textbook illustration of country-of-origin bias in news media coverage of international affairs, within the context of the sports industry. Morey’s Hong Kong tweet was portrayed as a major disagreement on key priorities: free speech vs. national sovereignty. Though each issue enjoyed an undeniable dominant position in one country, it was seen as subject to interpretation and negotiation in the other. Furthermore, the context that made the issue relevant in one country was completely underplayed in the other. Finally, athlete voices also emphasized the conflict between freedom of speech and capitalistic goals in the form of athletes being reluctant to speak up on international issues for fear of losing endorsements or future contract opportunities.

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It was interesting to notice that journalists simply never mixed any basketball-­COVID-19 coverage in comparative terms or with any references to the similarities, differences, and adaptations marking basketball industry measures in various countries. In broader terms, an argument could be made that Morey’s tweet acted as a catalyst for the first incident where American business organizations within the sports industry had to find a way to navigate through neoliberal capitalist ideologies and goals. In business terms, China’s upset posed a threat to billions of dollars in licensing content and merchandise directly to Chinese fans, with Chinese organizations using Morey’s tweet as a pretext to renege on newly signed contracts. The NBA called Morey’s tweet “regrettable” because the spirit of the post offended Chinese fans and partners—not because the league disagreed with or forbade Morey’s support of the protest movement. Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta distanced the team from Morey’s tweet and implicit opinions. Morey himself offered an apology to China—some might say upon facing the possibility of his imminent termination. Tensions remained high in American civil discourse as the NBA met harsh criticisms from American fans about its willingness to abandon free speech and human rights activism in favor of protecting revenue from China. Chinese media discourse was informed by the prominent themes of unity and sovereignty, in the context of China’s efforts to reunite and integrate the three Special Autonomous Regions (Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong). Because the Chinese government had already framed the Hong Kong protest as a separatist movement, it became impossible for the Chinese news media and fans to negotiate meaning around democracy, civil liberties, or even progress. For Chinese businesses and journalists, Morey’s tweet made it impossible to ignore the possibility of international support for the protests in Hong Kong—especially during a time when China made considerable effort to showcase unity on the issue of Special Autonomous Regions. In China, Twitter is not a medium accessed daily for communication tidbits carefully curated to fulfill the information needs of each individual user. Chances are, many other Americans (or foreigners) posted similar messages and did not raise any types of flags. Daryl Morey, however, was a known and respected official, representing a major team and a major American franchise standing to collect a substantial amount of money from the Chinese market in the upcoming seasons. Any of these arguments, and many others that could be invoked, made it impossible for Chinese businessmen and journalists to ignore Morey’s and, by association, the NBA’s voiced support for the Hong Kong protests. The sports

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industry and the entertainment industry became once again involved in high-level strategy and political games. Despite what appeared to be new rifts in Sino-American relations, the sports management and sports industry representatives chimed in, attempting to bring a level of calm to the conversation. Joseph Tsai explained that Morey’s tweet, while seen as an expression of free speech in the United State, constituted a major affront to ordinary Chinese citizens. Paradoxically, the swift business consequences of this incident quite possibly prevented the need for deeper implication of political leadership in negotiating the issue. Finally, it is important to note that, even when the discourse turned extremely negative, journalists were more likely to use pejorative terms when addressing individuals and organizations in their own country. In The New York Times, reporters did not shy away from calling the NBA “gutless” and greedy and accusing the organization of engaging in social justice marketing. But Chinese individuals and organizations were presented as simply unable to speak against the party line. Similarly, in China Daily, Chinese athletes and team managers who failed to meet their goals were sometimes called “faint-hearted pretenders.” However, American individuals or organizations were presented as simply disrespectful and ignorant of Chinese culture and context. Whether such discursive characteristics are indicative of the general audience or not, they certainly denoted situational awareness for the reporters covering this hot-button issue for the two media outlets. Considering the upcoming Winter Olympics to be hosted near Beijing in 2022, and the large amounts of American NBA merchandise stocks already in Chinese retailers’ shops, China could not afford to risk of a full-blown crisis and the threat it would pose in terms of Americans boycotting the Chinese-hosted event—or spreading awareness and apparent American support for the Hong Kong protests throughout the rest of the world. Furthermore, when the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in travel and event restrictions, Tencent streamed some NBA All-Star events. China Central Television discontinued broadcasting NBA games until late October 2020. By October 9, 2020, Game 5 was aired on CCTV (Negley, 2020), as a “good will gesture” (bangkokpost.com). The following week, Morey announced his decision to leave the Rockets organization, and on November 2, a Philadelphia 76ers tweet named Morey president of basketball operations (https://twitter.com/sixers/status/1323248593654947841? lang=en, November 2, 2020). Morey’s departure from the Houston

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Rockets became somewhat of a celebration among basketball fans in China (McGregor, 2020). NBA content distributors in China Tencent and CCTV promptly banned game streaming for Morey’s new team (Blennerhassett, December 28, 2020). To what extent some of the brands who suspended sponsorship of the Houston Rockets were genuinely offended by Morey’s tweet and the NBA response or were simply using the incident as a pretext to change course on the sponsorship deals is anybody’s guess. The timing of Morey’s tweet, very soon after Hong Kong protesters allegedly lobbied Twitter for implicit support through increased coverage of the social movement and while the general manager was in Tokyo, adds another layer of complexity. Finally, the onset of COVID-19 quarantine would have had a severe impact on the type and amount of content the NBA would have been able to provide in the year following Morey’s tweet, so the breakdown in negotiations and agreements would have happened one way or another. But these are all hindsight details. In the moment, the incident spurred a heated discussion that once again brought basketball, and the broader sports industry, to the forefront of international affairs. In the end, that is a big win for everyone involved—an opportunity unveiled in the chaos of the multiple voices activated in the discourse.

Conclusion As the NBA continues to build relations with institutions, companies, and fans in countries other than the United States, it must also acknowledge the perspectives and top-level values of international stakeholders. While political organizations have historically leveraged sports as a tactic of diplomacy, sports businesses and organizations like the NBA must recognize the cultural and financial effects of their popularity in other countries. Sustaining international relations means considering diverse perspectives among stakeholders while avoiding critical errors in country-of-origin bias. In other words, if the NBA wishes to maintain large profits in China, it must appreciate the ideologies, perspectives, and opinions of the Chinese people. Media coverage plays a role in how stories inform and shape public opinion internationally. As demonstrated by the media coverage of Morey’s tweet, news is constructed and domesticated by the country of origin where content is created. As the NBA continues to grow in China and other parts of Asia, the organization must understand the significance

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of their nonnative presence as expressed through journalistic storytelling. Further, the NBA must create messaging that educates employees and players on the international impact of its actions, social media practices, and messaging. In the wake of the Morey tweet, the real financial and reputational effects of seemingly visceral content were made clear. As we know, the Morey tweet was not a full-length commentary but a retweet of an image briefly shared on his Twitter account. However, the tweet became permanent through integration into news cycles across China and the United States, with ramifications for various national factions of the NBA, as well as the sports entertainment industry at large. It took almost a year of low-­ key negotiations and high-visibility gestures (such as the NBA donating $1.4 million to the Hubei Province to help fight the epidemic) to repair league relations with their Chinese partners.

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PART II

Sports Media Portrayals of East Asian Athletes and Leagues

CHAPTER 4

“No Attack, No Chance”: Takuma Sato’s Servant-Led Race Against the Trope of “Bad Asian Drivers” Dung Q. Tran

Introduction A surge of anti-Asian (Cheung et  al., 2020; Lee, 2020) rhetoric (Han, 2020) and violence amidst a persisting pandemic, coupled with Takuma Sato’s “reputation for crashing” (Associated Press, 2017, para. 9), was reinforced in a qualifying crash that forced him to miss the delayed season opener of the 2020 IndyCar racing season (Barnes, 2020). This provided a rhetorical opportunity to examine media characterizations of Japan’s Takuma Sato, the first Asian driver to win an IndyCar race—Long Beach, 2013—and the Indianapolis 500—Indy 500, 2017, 2020—, and his response to racist social media remarks that rhetorically counter the trope of “bad Asian drivers” through the lens of servant leadership.

D. Q. Tran (*) Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_4

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Since joining the IndyCar Racing Series in 2010, the Ex-Formula One (F1) racer has driven for five teams and started over two hundred races. As of June 2022, Takuma Sato has earned ten pole positions, twenty-seven top five finishes, and six victories, including Indy 500 wins in 2017 and 2020 (INDYCAR, 2021), making him the most accomplished Asian race car driver in the United States to date. At the same time, Sato has been excoriated for being overly aggressive on the racetrack (Martin, 2019) and endured waves of racist comments on social media, most notably after his first Indy 500 win in 2017 (Martinelli, 2017). While “sometimes hurt by what people say,” Sato funnels his feelings into racing: “Beating all the other racers is perhaps the easiest way to say to my detractors, ‘how’s that?’” (as cited in Hirai, 2017, para. 20). Despite the criticism, Sato is known for “being fierce and brave behind the wheel but kind and grateful away from it” (Olson, 2018, para. 15). For instance, following the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011, which “cost tens of billions of dollars, and nearly 16,000 lives” (Taylor, 2016, para. 1), Sato founded With You Japan, a disaster relief charity that creates opportunities for children to get involved with racing. Additionally, after a visit to Japan to celebrate his 2017 Indy 500 win, Sato (2017) stated the following: “This entire trip, I was really grateful and (showing) appreciation for the people who have been supporting me a long time” (as cited in Robinson, 2017, para. 4). Takuma Sato’s strong sense of gratitude coheres with Ferch’s (2010) contention that gratitude is a hallmark “of those whose lives are committed to servant leadership” (p. 77). More than a leadership theory or style, Gregory Sullivan (2019), author of Servant Leadership in Sport: Theory and Practice, asserted that servant leadership is a “way of life … [that] provide[s] direction and stewardship for athletic departments and sports teams” (pp. 4, 81). Consequently, the purpose of this chapter is threefold: (1) to familiarize readers with Takuma Sato and his racing accomplishments; (2) to identify media characterizations of Sato’s competence as an IndyCar racer; and (3) to examine how he has responded to racist social media remarks and redefined the “bad Asian driver” (Chow, 2013, para. 1) trope through the lens of servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977, 2002) within the context of (motor)sports. Guided by Larry Spears’ (1995) influential rubric of servant-­ leadership characteristics, which “are generally quoted as the essential elements of servant leadership” (van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1231), this inquiry explores how Sato has concretized servant-­leadership

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characteristics of empathy, conceptualization, and building community by channeling his anger in ways that positively fuel his public rhetoric and redemptive racing performances. Particular attention is paid to Sato’s responses following his 2017 Indy 500 win and to the criticism he received for his role in a massive opening lap melee at the 2019 Pocono 500.

“No Attack, No Chance”: A Brief Biography about the Man Behind the Motto Born in Tokyo, Japan’s Takuma Sato was introduced to the immense speed and intense drama of the Indianapolis 500 at the tender age of six or seven—“this is back when the television still had the rotary knob to turn the channel. I remember the fast passing and having all high-­speed corners” (as cited in Rehagen, 2021, para. 2). Sato’s first trackside experience of watching race cars was in 1987 when his father took him to the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. For ten-year-old Takuma, watching race cars passing each other at high speed was revelatory: “From that point on, I was a huge fan of any racing. I wanted to start karting” (para. 3). Despite his newfound passion, his “parents simply had no idea about racing” (para. 3) and lacked the proper financial resources to support his desire to race go-karts. In an effort to support their son’s emerging interest in motorsports, they gave him a bicycle so that Sato could participate in cycling competitions. Although bicycle racing and studies at Waseda University occupied most of his time, Sato maintained his motorsports interest by reading autoracing magazines, including an article that alerted him to a scholarship opportunity at Honda’s Suzuka Racing School (para. 5). In 1996, Sato “scraped together what money he had to buy a kart” (para. 1) and entered the competition a year later. Although he captured the prize, a fully funded racing opportunity in the 1998 All-Japan Formula 3 Championship, his enduring desire to drive in Formula One (F1)—the pinnacle of racing (Brereton, 2019; Button, 2017)—led him to decline the scholarship and move to Europe to compete in the British Formula 3 (F3) series. Within two years, Sato claimed the 2001 British F3 series championship with twelve wins, creating a pathway to participate in “the highest echelon of international racing” (Hiroaki, 2021, para. 6). From 2002 to 2008, Takuma Sato started ninety F1 races for three teams, Jordan, British American Racing, and Super Aguri. In seven seasons, Sato’s best and only podium finish was third at the 2004 United

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States Grand Prix on the road course of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana (INDYCAR, 2020). With his modest results and financial troubles forcing the Super Aguri team to withdraw from F1 after just four races of the 2008 season, Sato was left without a path forward in F1 (Rehagen, 2021). With F1 in the rear view mirror, Sato harnessed his “connections with sponsors like Honda and embarked on a new career in the United States, signing to drive for KV Racing Technology in the 2010 [and 2011 seasons of the] IndyCar Series” (Hiroaki, 2021, para. 10). With flashes of speed and inconsistent results in his first two seasons, Sato had to explore other opportunities and landed a one-year deal with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team. After nearly winning the 2012 Indy 500, Sato then drove for A.J.  Foyt Enterprises. The highlight of their four seasons together was the 2013 Grand Prix of Long Beach in California, where Sato earned his maiden IndyCar victory—and the team’s first win in over a decade (Rehagen, 2021). Sato’s second win at the 2017 Indianapolis 500, as a member of Andretti Autosport, would be a historic one as he became the first Asian and Japanese driver to win the race (Kallmann, 2020). Following his one-year association with Andretti Autosport (Pruett, 2016), Sato reunited with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2018. Since returning to his former team, Sato has earned four of his six career IndyCar triumphs, including his second Indy 500 win in 2020. With modest results during the 2021 campaign, Sato and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing went their separate ways. For the 2022 season, Sato drives for the Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing team. (Pruett, 2021a). Regardless of who he drives for, Takuma Sato’s hard charging style on the track (Oreovicz, 2013) has earned him the respect of his racing peers (Sipple, 2017) and made him a hero in his native Japan (Walsh, 2020). Despite “a lot of wrecks back in the day” (Olson, 2018, para. 17), Sato has “learned to temper his ‘no attack, no chance’” (Hiroaki, 2021, para. 17) racing mantra. At the same time, while “No one wants to crash” (Rehagen, 2021, para. 11), “opportunities only come to those who challenge themselves” (Kato, 2018, para. 3), and “sometimes you have to take the risk” (Sato, 2021, as cited in Rehagen, 2021, para. 11).

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Media Characterizations of Takuma Sato’s Competence as a Driver According to Denham (2020), “Recognizing the capacity of media content to affect perceptions of social reality” (p.  782), numerous scholars have explored the role of race and ethnicity in athlete portrayals in newspapers (Ferrucci et  al., 2013; Hardin et  al., 2004; Mastro et  al., 2011; Niven, 2005), magazines (Byrd & Utsler, 2007; Eagleman, 2011; Lumpkin, 2007), Internet blogs (McGovern, 2016), and some combination of print and broadcast media (Page et  al., 2016). Denham (2020) contended that “Content analyses have shown that media commentators tend to characterize White athletes as emotionally mature, hard-working, dedicated, and determined to succeed in spite of limited ‘natural athleticism’” (p. 783). Black athletes, on the other hand, “tend to be portrayed as ‘naturally’ talented, which conveys an expectation of success and little required effort (Ferber, 2007; Hoberman, 1997; Spaaij et  al., 2015)” (Denham, 2020, p.  783). Additionally, Black athletes have historically been described as “emotionally immature, physically aggressive, and hypersexual (Davis & Harris, 1998; Tucker, 2003)” (Denham, 2020, p. 783). With Asian athletes historically absent or stereotyped compared to White or Black individuals (Kim, 2004; Louie, 2003; Taga, 2005; Yu, 2001), Asian people tend to be described as “effeminate, nerdy, or exotic” (Choi, 2020, p. 171). Multiracial athletes such as Blasians (mixed-race Black and Asian people) have to contend with complexities emerging from the confluence of multiple stereotypes undergirding their media portrayals. For instance, following reports of golfer Tiger Woods’ extramarital affairs and his crashing of a Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant in 2009, “discourses deployed by a sundry cast of players within mainstream entertainment and news media to shame, emasculate, understand, praise, pity and mock Woods” (Washington, 2012, p. 147) relied on “hegemonic notions of Black male hypersexuality and Asian asexuality/femininity” (Washington, 2017, p. 80). Most germane to media portrayals of IndyCar racer Takuma Sato is that “One of the more popular responses to initial reports about the car accident was to reference Tiger Woods’ Asianness by connecting him to the stereotype of bad Asian drivers” (Washington, 2017, p.  81). Additionally, perhaps the most pervasive and accepted portrayal of Asian athletes in American media (Mayeda, 1999, p. 208) is that of being “weak

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and inferior in subtle ways” (Choi, 2020, p. 171). For example, as Park (2015) suggested in his case study of basketball player Jeremy Lin, the fierce media coverage of “Linsanity” essentially reaffirmed the low expectations of Asian and Asian American athletes. Similar to the aforementioned Asian stereotypes ascribed to Tiger Woods and Jeremy Lin, since the start of his racing career Takuma Sato has been characterized by motorsports commentators as “reckless” (Ayello, 2017, para. 1) and as a driver who’s “never really been labeled a favorite” (Miller, 2020, para. 15). For example, Japanese journalist Matsumoto Hiroaki (2021) recalled an initial interview with Sato “in which he announced his intention of winning on the international stage. Hearing his casual tone, I had to bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that no Japanese driver had ever won an event in hundreds of F1 starts” (para. 5). Additionally, as in F1, the poor performance of his Japanese predecessors played a pivotal role in the perception of racing prognosticators when Sato transitioned to IndyCars in the United States. In an article, longtime auto racing sportswriter John Oreovicz (2013) summarized the sporadic success of prior IndyCar racers from Japan: Hiro Matsushita was the Japanese trailblazer, making 117 starts between 1990 and 1998 with a best finish of sixth in the 1994 Michigan 500. Hideshi Matsuda, Shigeaki and Naoki Hattori (no relation), Shinji Nakano, Tora Takagi and Kosuke Matsuura all raced Indy car with only sporadic success. (Oreovicz, 2013, paras. 31–32)

With a record of underperforming Japanese IndyCar drivers and a third place finish being Takuma Sato’s best result in seven years of F1, the motorsports media’s modest expectations for his future in IndyCar racing were shared by fans. For example, when Andretti Autosport (2016a) announced the signing of Sato for the 2017 season on their Facebook page, fifteen of the seventy-five postings referenced Sato’s reputation for being hard on equipment. The following four comments represent a sampling of the crash-related commentary: “Have fun fixing the cars”; “I hope Andretti has plenty of spare parts!”; “He won’t last long as he will wreck everything he drives….”; and “Hope ya got lot of insurance with that guy” (paras. 1–75). Despite the crash damage concerns from fans, Michael Andretti, chief executive officer of Andretti Autosport, predicted a positive future for both Sato and the team:

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He’s not yet had the chance to be part of a larger team where the drivers collaborate; our four drivers and team of engineers working together has bred success for us in the past and has helped many drivers develop on track. Takuma has strong racing experience and we are looking forward to providing a team atmosphere where he can continue to grow, develop and be successful. (as cited in Andretti Autosport, 2016b, para. 3)

Andretti’s confidence in his new driver’s ability to flourish in Andretti Autosport’s collaborative environment was rewarded when Sato won the 2017 Indy 500 in decisive fashion. Similar to the 2012 Indy 500, Sato found himself engaged in a high-speed show down against a former winner of the race. This time, however, Sato (2021) “decided to go to the front with five laps to go….And we held on” (as cited in Rehagen, 2021, para. 21). Given the historic nature of Takuma Sato’s achievement—becoming the first Asian driver to win “the biggest single-day sporting event in the world” (Kallmann, 2020, para. 1)—reaction was strong and swift. According to Tomo Hirai (2017) of the Nichi Bei Weekly, Sato’s victory “sent Japanese racing fans into a frenzy following his monumental Indianapolis 500 win” (para. 1). Underscoring the enduring skepticism about Sato’s skills, a postrace commentary on was titled “It’s time to finally believe in Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato” (McGee, 2017, para. 1). Echoing that belief was Jim Ayello (2017) of the Indianapolis Star who stated that Sato had rewritten “his chapter in the 500 chronicles … and etched a new one in 500 lore” (paras. 4, 6). Acknowledging the transformative impact of Sato’s achievement, Ayello added that “by holding off three-time champion Helio Castroneves to win a chaotic and wreck-marred 101st running of the Indianapolis 500,” the driver historically known as “Takuma the brave, Takuma the bold … [and] Takuma the reckless” had also become “Takuma the champion” (paras. 1, 6). Echoing the sportswriters were several of Sato’s racing rivals. Dario Franchitti, the driver who had defeated Sato in the 2012 Indy 500, called him “a great guy” who’s “clearly got a heavy right foot” (as cited in McGee, 2017, para. 4). Though deeply disappointed with a runner-up finish, Helio Castroneves offered the following assessment: “Takuma Sato is a veteran, a great driver. He has a lot of misses. But when he gets it, he gets it, and not only in qualifying and racing. But today was his day” (as cited in Ayello, 2017, para. 19). Sato even received respect from Andretti Autosport patriarch and racing legend Mario Andretti (2017), who noted that Sato’s “really cleaned up his act, so to speak. He’s always been fast, but now he’s fast and reliable” (as cited in McGee, 2017, para. 10).

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“Nothing Specifically Personal”: An Anti-Asian Tweet Goes Viral after the 2017 Indy 500 Though a majority of the postrace media coverage of Takuma Sato’s historic triumph at the 2017 Indianapolis 500 was positive, not every race fan and at least one sports journalist was comfortable with the outcome. For instance, Terry Frei, an award-winning sportswriter and author of eight sports books (Allen & Boren, 2017), was relieved of his duties with the Denver Post shortly after sharing the following postrace tweet: “Nothing specifically personal, but I am very uncomfortable with a Japanese driver winning the Indianapolis 500 during Memorial Day weekend” (as cited in Joseph, 2017, para. 3). Despite issuing an extensive apology afterward, Frei’s initial tweet attracted widespread news coverage (Allen & Boren, 2017; Joseph, 2017; Sipple, 2017) and ignited a firestorm of social media activity, which included accusations of racism. Additionally, Frei’s perspective may have contributed to a torrent of similar sentiments posted on Andretti Autosport’s (2017) Facebook page. The volume of such postings prompted team officials to publish a lengthy and carefully crafted message expressing support for Takuma Sato’s Japanese patriotism, gratitude for those who sacrificed their lives in military service, respect for diverse viewpoints, and clarity that hateful comments would be deleted and reported. For Sato’s IndyCar colleagues, it was more than acceptable for him to win and less about politics as several drivers publicly praised Sato and criticized Frei. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Brazilian Helio Castroneves (2017), the then three-­ time winner of the Indy 500 who finished second to Sato, characterized the tweet as “an immature, dumb moment” in which Frei was “Trying to make a big splash, which cost him his job” (as cited in Sipple, 2017, paras. 11–12). Moreover, Castroneves added that “Indianapolis—it’s not about (being) political. It’s about bringing the best drivers in the world” (para. 12). Fellow Brazilian Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indy 500 winner, characterized Frei and those who share(d) those views as “small-minded people” and that “The world doesn’t need people like that” (para. 16). Though not as dismissive as Kanaan, Simon Pagenaud (2017) of France, the 2016 IndyCar series champion, provided a more measured critique: “Some people are more evolved than others … You would expect a journalist to be more open minded than most and step back on what he writes” (para. 14). Like Takuma Sato’s IndyCar peers, Gil Asakawa (2017), a former Denver Post colleague of Terry Frei, was bewildered as to why such a

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“hateful sentiment was blurted by a journalist” (para. 1). However, more troubling to Asakawa was that “the raw, naked nationalism reflected in his tweet isn’t unique to Terry Frei. It festers with more people than I care to think about” (para. 14). Asakawa pointed to the wave of anti-Japanese sentiment after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern portion of Japan as a prime example. A common theme to those social media threads was that “the disaster was god’s revenge for Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of WWII” (para. 15). Interestingly enough, that 2011 disaster prompted Takuma Sato to start With You Japan, his charitable organization that is committed to providing relief and reconstruction support in affected areas, especially for children.

Grace, Gratitude, and Guts: Takuma Sato’s Servant-Led Responses Takuma Sato seems to recognize his privilege as a professional athlete and the importance of hard work, humility, and gratitude, especially when responding to discrimination (Hirai, 2017) or criticism for his aggressive approach to racing (Wilson, 2013; Martin, 2019). Although these attributes align with the model minority stereotype of Asians and Asian Americans—“the desirable classmate, the favored neighbor, the nonthreatening kind of person of color” (Nguyen, 2020, para. 13)—sports can be leveraged to resist and reimagine hegemonic norms (Mayeda, 1999). Interestingly enough, there has been a noted increase in interest among business leaders and sport leadership scholars in transforming sport industry organizational cultures “away from fear-based, economics primary, transactional cultures, values, and ends, and toward love-based, prosocial, balanced cultures, values, and ends” (Rothausen, 2017, p. 811). Despite the understandable concern about positive and person-­centered movements such as servant leadership as another fashionable technique to enhance the bottom line (Khanna & Khanna, 2019), perhaps the insights of Antonia Darder (2017), an internationally recognized critical pedagogy scholar, can address the concern of how love can transform lives and organizations. In her view, love is more than a “sentimental exchange between people, but rather love constitutes an intentional spirit of consciousness that emerges and matures through our social and material practices, as we work to live, learn, and labor together” (p. 96). More than promoting a

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feel-good notion of love, Darder (2009) advocated for a form of “love that could be lively, forceful, and inspiring, while at the same time, critical, challenging, and insistent” (p. 567). In many ways, Sato’s reputation for “being fierce and brave behind the wheel but kind and grateful away from it” (Olson, 2018, para. 15), especially when confronting criticism and racial discrimination for his aggressive driving performances, coheres with Darder’s conception of love, which, along with humility and gratitude, is a cornerstone of servant leadership (Ferch, 2010; Patterson, 2010; Tran, 2020; van Dierendonck & Patterson, 2015). Therefore, this chapter now turns to how Takuma Sato has responded to racist social media remarks and reimagined the “bad Asian driver” (Chow, 2013, para. 1) trope via “an epic late-career resurgence” (Pruett, 2019, para. 1) through the lens of servant leadership within the context of (motor)sports. Servant Leadership The philosophy of servant leadership is an alternative approach that sharply contrasts with the dominant and traditional forms of leadership that emphasize a hierarchical, top-down organizational structure, preoccupied with the attainment, exercise, and retention of power (Trompenaars & Voerman, 2010, p. 13). Fundamental to the practice of servant leadership is that the aspiration to lead is preceded by a desire to serve (Greenleaf, 1977, 2002, p. 27). Through an ethic of care and concern, servant leaders are “in the business of growing people—people who are stronger, healthier, more autonomous, more self-reliant, more competent, and more likely to be servant leaders themselves” (p.  159). For Johnson and Hackman (2018), “Servant leaders believe that healthy societies and organizations care for their members … [and] that the measure of a leader’s success lies in what happens in the lives of followers—not in what the leader has accomplished” (p.  385). Consequently, what made Greenleaf’s (1977) conceptualization distinctive from other formulations of leadership was his emphasis on the “ideal of service in the leader-follower relationship” (van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1229). Although servant leadership can be viewed negatively by communities of color, “particularly African Americans, who associate the word servant with a history of slavery, oppression, and discrimination” (Johnson, 2021, p. 254), and though the term suffers from a “lack of coherence and clarity

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around the construct” (Eva et al., 2019, p. 111), “The most popular servant leadership definition comes from [Greenleaf’s] writings” (Burton et al., 2020, p. 27): “The servant leader is servant first … It begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead” (Greenleaf, 1977, 2002, p. 27). In choosing to lead, Greenleaf held that servant leaders needed proper motivation to lead. He appealed for leaders to “make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served” (p.  27) and to “reject the idea that our fellow humans are to be used, competed with or judged” (Greenleaf, 2003, p. 82). Firmly rooted in Greenleaf’s (1977, 2002) ideas, Spears (2004) “extracted a set of ten characteristics of the servant leader that [he] viewed as being of critical importance” (p. 13). These ten characteristics of servant leadership are generally regarded as the “essential elements of servant leadership” (van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011, p. 250). Spears’ (1995) ten characteristics were presented by van Dierendonck (2011) with the following brief descriptions: These are (1) listening, emphasizing the importance of communication and seeking to identify the will of the people; (2) empathy, understanding others and accepting how and what they are; (3) healing, the ability to help make whole; (4) awareness, being awake; (5) persuasion, seeking to influence others relying on arguments not on positional power; (6) conceptualization, thinking beyond the present-day need and stretching it into a possible future; (7) foresight, foreseeing outcomes of situations and working with intuition; (8) stewardship, holding something in trust and serving the needs of others; (9) commitment to the growth of people, nurturing the personal, professional, and spiritual growth of others; (10) building community, emphasizing that local communities are essential in a person’s life. (p. 1231)

Within the world of sport, every dimension of doing by an athlete or sport organization ought to contribute to the ultimate goal of athletes and sport businesses: winning championships and maximizing revenue (Wagner et al., 2017). However, a number of scholars have argued that winning and servant leadership can be a both/and proposition: “With a servant leadership approach, athletes can be supported, employees can be inspired, rules can be followed, and you can still win (Burton & Welty-­ Peachey, 2013; Minjung et  al., 2017)” (Sullivan, 2019, p.  82). Consequently, there has been a “growing interest in the use of servant leadership both in business and in sport management contexts” (Burton et al., 2020, p. 34).

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What Servant-Leadership Characteristics Has Takuma Sato Embodied? Given the space constraints of this chapter, only the following three characteristics of servant leadership, as identified by Spears (1995), are explored in the public rhetoric and racing performances of Takuma Sato: (a) empathy, (b) conceptualization, and (c) commitment to the growth of people. As previously chronicled, Takuma Sato had to endure waves of what media outlets such as Bleacher Report (Daniels, 2017), the Detroit Free Press (Sipple, 2017), the Des Moines Register (Martinelli, 2017), and the Indianapolis Star (VanTryon, 2017) characterized as racist comments following his historic Indy 500 victory in 2017. Given his platform as a professional athlete, Sato could have chosen to publicly criticize the sportswriter and fans who felt “uncomfortable” (Sipple, 2017, para. 5) with a Japanese driver winning a historic American race on Memorial Day. Instead, Sato’s responses seemed to start from a servant-led place of empathy—striving to understand and recognize another person’s perspective (Spears, 1995; Tran et al., 2020)—for sportswriter Terry Frei. In an interview with the Nichi Bei Weekly, Sato stated, “He didn’t attack me personally, he expressed he was uncomfortable with the situation overall. He said he was uncomfortable that a Japanese racer won on Memorial Day … He didn’t harbor any ill will toward me personally” (as cited in Hirai, 2017, para. 14). Sato also acknowledged that “I can see someone letting something like that slip in any conversation when they’re frustrated” (para. 14). Another example of Sato endeavoring to “identify with the humanity of others … [and share in] the immensity of their losses” (Ferch, 2012, p. xi) was during an interview with the Detroit Free Press prior to the Detroit Grand Prix—the first race after the Indy 500. Sato (2017) began by saying, “It’s sad … Obviously unfortunate for him to lost [sic] a job” (as cited in Sipple, 2017, para. 6). Having said that, in Servant Leadership in Sport: Theory and Practice, Gregory Sullivan (2019) noted that servant leaders are “empathic, accepting and yet demanding of others; a servant leader does not accept subpar effort or work” (p. 34). In Sato’s (2017) situation, though he acknowledged the existence of people “who feel very sensitive” about the end of World War II, he also insisted that Frei’s tweet was “inappropriate” (as cited in Hirai, 2017, para. 16). Though Sato could have publicly characterized the reactions of Terry Frei and others as racially discriminatory, Sato’s response could have been conditioned and constrained by the

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“tenuous place” (Nguyen, 2020, para. 32) that Asians and Asian Americans occupy in American society as the so-called model minority. Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (2015) argument that racism, economic exploitation, and war “are all tied together” (p.  177), Viet Thanh Nguyen (2020), a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, asserted that “the overall American perception of [Asian and] Asian-American success, and by the new factor of Asian capital and competition” (para. 28) has created a liminal space where we “are caught between the perception that we are inevitably foreign and the temptation that we can be allied with white people in a country built on white supremacy … and capitalist exploitation” (paras. 22, 43). In Sato’s situation, he is contractually and economically beholden to his IndyCar employer and a bevy of corporate sponsors that value spokespersons who (re)present their brand in a positive manner. Therefore, to maintain his employment and in keeping with the “so-called model immigrant” (Hong, 2020, p. 14) stereotype, a servant-led response, marked by empathy and measured criticism, proved to be the most pragmatic path forward. That being said, from a strictly servant-leadership standpoint, upon reviewing the preceding sampling of Sato’s responses to Terry Frei’s tweet, it can be surmised that Sato rhetorically embodied the servant-led characteristic of empathy, which “involves humility, and a capacity to be present and available even in the midst of chaos or rejection” (Horsman, 2018, p. 93). Given his record in both F1 and IndyCar racing for captivating fans with his raw speed but being involved in too many race-ending collisions (Hiroaki, 2021; Oreovicz, 2013), Sato is no stranger to chaotic crashes at two hundred and thirty plus miles an hour (Ayello, 2019) and intense rejection from racing peers (Pruett, 2021b). As of August 2021, this was most evident in 2019 after a spectacular five-­car crash during the first of two hundred laps at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania involving Sato that sent one driver to the hospital. According to accounts from NBC Sports (Martin, 2019) and the Associated Press (Fryer, 2019), the multicar melee unfolded in the second of three turns on the two-and-a-half-mile triangleshaped superspeedway. According to Matt Weaver (2019) of Autoweek: In real time, it appeared as if Sato took Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-­ Reay three-wide heading towards Turn 2 before turning left into both, triggering the five-car melee that also collected James Hinchcliffe and launched Felix Rosenqvist nose-up and towards the catchfence. (para. 2)

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As Jenna Fryer (2019) of the Associated Press reported, Sato was “widely criticized as the aggressor” (para. 1) who triggered the five-car pile-up. For example, Alexander Rossi immediately expressed his frustration with Sato as soon as he emerged from the track medical center: I didn’t get a good start and that was on me, but then we were three-wide and Sato was on the outside. I can’t begin to understand, after last year [when Robert Wickens was left paralyzed after a similar accident], how Takuma thinks any kind of driving like that’s acceptable, to turn across two cars at that speed in that corner in a 500-mile race is disgraceful and upsetting. (as cited in Crask, 2019, para. 7)

Without mentioning Sato’s name, Rossi’s teammate, James Hinchcliffe (2019), seemed confident about who the aggressor was by alluding to Sato’s racing motto—“no attack, no chance” (Kato, 2018, para. 3)—in his postaccident reflections: “I don’t know how many times we have to do this before people figure that you can attack all you want, but it doesn’t give you a chance to win if you’re in the fence. It’s just crazy, man” (Crask, 2019, para. 14). In response to the stinging criticism from his fellow drivers, Sato expressed concern for his hospitalized colleague, contrition for contributing to the crash, and caution to those rushing to judgment: I’m worried about Felix and hope he is OK … I feel sorry for all the guys in the championship. But Ryan and I were racing in Turn 1 Alex got a slow start and we both went right-and-left. I thought I was all clear and all of the seams grabbed the car and unfortunately, we made contact. I was not really overaggressive overtaking anything. People need to watch the replay before making that decision. I thought I was all clear and kept the steering wheel straight, but we all got together. (as cited in Martin, 2019, paras. 28–29)

Needless to say, “Twitter was already buzzing with thousands and millions of comments” (Sato, 2019, as cited in Ayello, 2019, para. 26) before everyone involved had exited the trackside medical center. The public scrutiny was so “suffocating” (Fryer, 2019, para. 3) that a few days after the race, Bobby Rahal (2019), co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, flew from team headquarters in Ohio to Sato’s then Colorado residence to deliver a pep talk: “Just don’t worry, we know what we are doing. Just keep your head down and do your job” (as cited in Fryer,

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2019, para. 5). Part of that encouragement included the team’s “almost unheard of” (Ayello, 2019, para. 9) step of issuing a statement of support that included footage of the crash from Sato’s in-car camera on their social media platforms: Normally in a situation of this nature it is not necessary for a team to comment but following the accusations levied at Takuma, and after reviewing Takuma’s onboard data and camera, we feel that a clarification is necessary. The data and video clearly shows that Takuma did not turn down the track into Alexander in this incident and in fact the first steering wheel movement made by Takuma was to the right, as he tried to correct his car after the initial contact. (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 2019, paras. 1–2)

Days after the foregoing media release, but before the next race, Sato joined Jim Ayello (2019) of the Indianapolis Star for an interview to clarify “some very unfair things said about me and my driving. Things that weren’t true” and to reflect on the harsh public backlash, some of which, in Ayello’s view, “had crossed the line from angry to evil” (paras. 6, 10). When asked how he was handling some of the “overtly racist” (paras. 25) reactions, Sato carefully acknowledged the complexities of his reality and thanked his supporters: Yeah, it’s not the first time. I am from Japan, and I’m competing in the United States. Being Japanese, being Asian, sometimes, you could say, it’s not an easy life all the time. At the same time, there are a lot of people who support me as well … [and] this is what I love, and I shall keep going and trying to improve myself all of the time. All the other people who say nonsense, I basically try to not listen. (paras. 26–27)

A man of his word, Sato lived up to his rhetoric and silenced his critics at the next race. For Jenna Fryer (2019) of the Associated Press, next to winning the Indy 500, Sato’s rapid redemption was a major achievement: In the biggest swing of his career, Sato literally went from zero to hero by winning last Saturday night on the Gateway oval outside St. Louis. A lucky caution put him in position for the victory, but it didn’t matter to Sato, who felt he’d publicly cast aside his role as villain for the Pocono crash.

As Sato (2017) shared with a pool of Japanese reporters, he harnesses his anger from racial discrimination and channels it in a way to fuel his racing:

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“Beating all the other racers is perhaps the easiest way to say to any of my detractors, ‘how’s that?’” (Hirai, 2017, para. 20). When considered from a servant-leadership point of view, Sato’s image-­ repair rhetoric and redemptive race-winning performance evince the servant-­ leadership characteristic of conceptualization. According to Sullivan (2019), servant leaders who are strong conceptualizers “are able to straddle that fine line between conceptual thinking and a concern with organizational production” (p. 34). In Sato’s case, and with the full support of his race team’s executive leadership, he was able to directly respond to detractors through media availability to provide a data-driven explanation and carefully acknowledge some of the unjust accusations. At the same time, he was focusing forward, preparing for the next battle and “dreaming great dreams” (Greenleaf, 1977, 2002, p.  30; Spears, 1995, p. 6; Tran et al., 2020, p. 131) of winning his next race. As Ferch (2012) claimed, “Conceptualization is the ability to build the most effective and meaningful response to the complexities of personal, family, and work life in a global world” (p. xi). The third and final servant-leadership characteristic that Takuma Sato seems committed to is (re)building community, especially among and for young people in his native Japan. As mentioned earlier, after a severe 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, Sato established the With You Japan organization to assist with the recovery and relief efforts for children impacted by the disaster. As Greenleaf (1977, 2002) asserted, “All that is needed to rebuild community as a viable life form for large numbers of people is for enough servant leaders to show the way, not by mass movements, but by each servant leader demonstrating his own unlimited liability for a quite specific community-related group” (p. 53). Another example of Sato’s community-building efforts occurred after his first Indianapolis 500 victory in 2017. To celebrate Sato’s historic achievement as the first Japanese driver to win the Indy 500 and as a token of appreciation for the enduring support from fans and corporate partners in Japan, the IndyCar series sent Sato and the Borg-Warner Trophy on a two-week victory tour across Japan. Valued at nearly four million dollars, it was the first time in eighty-two years that the sterling silver trophy that stands at five foot four, weighs one hundred and ten pounds, and features the faces of every winning driver since 1911 had been allowed to leave the United States (Kelly, 2017).

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In reflecting on the two-week tour, Sato (2017) stated, “This entire trip, I was really grateful and (showing) appreciation for the people who have been supporting me a long time” (as cited in Robinson, 2017, para. 4). In many ways, Sato’s signature gesture of gratitude and community-­building event was when “thirty thousand people” (Olson, 2018, para. 11) came to see him drive his Indy 500 race-winning car at Twin Ring Motegi Speedway. This was an emotional moment for all as it was the first time an IndyCar had been on the track since being damaged by the 2011 earthquake. Taken together, the With You Japan charity and the extended Indy 500 trophy tour in Japan show the tangible ways in which Takuma Sato has endeavored to build a servant-led community “that is responsible, loving, sustainable, and just” (Ferch, 2012, p. xii). Additionally, as Northouse (2022) noted, servant leaders who build community help others “feel a sense of unity and relatedness” and “identify with something greater than themselves that they value” (p. 256).

Conclusion As evidenced by the preceding presentation, Takuma Sato has distinguished himself from previous Japanese IndyCar drivers with “a go-for-­ broke personality that makes him a fan favorite” (Garrett, 2020, para. 18). By becoming one of twenty two-time winners in the hundred year history of the Indianapolis 500, Sato has elevated the historically low expectations of Japanese and Asian IndyCar drivers. Although his “no attack, no chance” (Ayello, 2019, para. 28) racing philosophy has earned him a reputation for being “fast, fearless, and often reckless” (Martin, 2019, para. 4), countering the perception of Asians as docile and meek (Hong, 2020), it has also resulted in many race-ending collisions and reinforced the “bad Asian driver” (Chow, 2013, para. 1) trope. This stereotype has figured into the waves of racist comments he received following his first Indy 500 victory in 2017 and after a multicar crash at the 2019 Pocono 500. Though resigned to the fact that episodes of racial discrimination will “never go away” (Hirai, 2017, para. 19), Sato has responded to his detractors by concretizing servant-leadership characteristics of empathy, conceptualization, and building community by channeling his anger in a way that positively fuels his public rhetoric and redemptive racing performances.

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Ferrucci, P., Tandoc, E. C., Jr., Painter, C. E., & Leshner, G. (2013). A black and white game: Racial stereotypes in baseball. Howard Journal of Communications, 24, 309–325. Fryer, J. (2019, August 20). Rahal team says data absolves Sato of blame for Pocono crash. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/9a5f59ec 1e864398b3d450794d417bb8 Garrett, J. (2020, August 24). Winning Indy 500s and surfing couches. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/sports/autoracing/indy-­ 500-­Takuma-­Sato-­Dixon.html Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press. Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. (25th Anniversary ed.). Paulist Press. (Original work published 1977). Greenleaf, R.  K. (2003). The servant leader within: A transformative path (H. Beazley, J. Beggs, & L. C. Spears, Eds.). Paulist Press. Han, N. (2020, May 23). I don’t scare easily, but COVID-19 virus of hate has me terrified: Reporter’s notebook. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/ asian-­americans-­covid-­19-­racism-­virus-­hate-­reporters/story?id=70810109 Hardin, M., Dodd, J. E., Chance, J., & Walsdorf, K. (2004). Sporting images in black and white: Race in newspaper coverage of the 2000 Olympic games. Howard Journal of Communications, 15, 211–227. Hirai, T. (2017, September 28). Takuma Sato: Driving force of Japanese motorsport. Nichi Bei Weekly. https://www.nichibei.org/2017/09/takuma-­sato­driving-­force-­of-­japanese-­motorsport/ Hiroaki, M. (2021, February 8). Sato Takuma: Veteran racer getting better with age. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-­topics/g01007/ Hoberman, J. (1997). Darwin’s athletes: How sport has damaged Black America and preserved the myth of race. Houghton Mifflin. Hong, C. P. (2020). Minor feelings: An Asian American reckoning. One World. Horsman, J. H. (2018). Servant leaders in training: Foundations of the philosophy of servant leadership. Palgrave Macmillan. INDYCAR. (2020, October 24). Sato returns to RLL racing for 2021. https:// www.indycar.com/news/2020/10/10-­24-­rll-­sato INDYCAR. (2021). Takuma Sato: Career stats. https://www.indycar.com/ Series/IndyCar-­Series/Takuma-­Sato Johnson, C. E. (2021). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow (7th ed.). Sage. Johnson, C. E., & Hackman, M. Z. (2018). Leadership: A communication perspective (7th ed.). Waveland Press.

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Joseph, A. (2017, May 29). Denver Post fires writer Terry Frei for racist tweet about Indy 500 winner. USA Today. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/05/ terry-­frei-­tweet-­indy-­500-­takuma-­sato-­denver-­post Kallmann, D. (2020, August 23). Takuma Sato becomes a two-time Indy 500 winner at empty Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. h t t p s : / / w w w. j s o n l i n e . c o m / s t o r y / s p o r t s / m o t o r / 2 0 2 0 / 0 8 / 2 3 / takuma-­sato-­wins-­indianapolis-­500-­no-­fans-­site/3401874001/ Kato, M. (2018, May 22). “No attack, no chance”—Takuma Sato keeps racing towards his dreams. U.S.  Embassy Japan Official Magazine. https://amview. japan.usembassy.gov/en/no-­attack-­no-­chance-­sato-­takuma/ Kelly, P. (2017, November 28). Borg-Warner trophy headed on first overseas adventure. https://www.indycar.com/News/2017/11/11-28-Borg-Warner-goes-to-Japan Khanna, V., & Khanna, P. D. (2019). Critical perspectives on corporate mindfulness and workplace spirituality. In S. K. Mishra & A. Varma (Eds.), Spirituality in management: Insights from India (pp. 179–194). Palgrave Macmillan. Kim, J. (2004). The legend of the white-and-yellow black man: Global containment and triangulated racial desire in Romeo Must Die. Camera Obscura, 19, 150–179. King, Jr., M. L. (2015). The radical King (C. West, Ed.). Beacon Press. Lee, B. Y. (2020, May 26). Over 1700 reports of coronavirus-related discrimination against Asian Americans since March 19. Forbes. https://www.forbes. com/sites/brucelee/2020/05/26/covid-­19-­coronavirus-­continues-­to-­expose-­ anti-­asian-­bigotry-­how-­to-­stop-­it/ Louie, K. (2003). Chinese, Japanese and global masculine identities. In K. Louie & M. Low (Eds.), Asian masculinities: The meaning and practice of manhood in China and Japan (pp. 1–16). Routledge. Lumpkin, A. (2007). A descriptive analysis of race/ethnicity and sex of individuals appearing on the covers of Sports Illustrated in the 1990s. Physical Educator, 64, 29–37. Martin, B. (2019, August 18). Sato blamed for massive crash at start of Pocono IndyCar race. NBC Sports. https://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2019/08/18/ sato-­blamed-­for-­massive-crash-­at-­start-of-­pocono-indycar-­race/ Martinelli, M. R. (2017, May 31). Takuma Sato’s team responds to racist comments. Des Moines Register. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/ftw/ 2017/05/31/takuma-­satos-­team-­responds-­racist-­comments/102353474/ Mastro, D. E., Blecha, E., & Seate, A. A. (2011). Characterizations of criminal athletes: A systematic examination of sports news depictions of race and crime. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55, 526–542. Mayeda, D. T. (1999). From model minority to economic threat: Media portrayals of Major League Baseball pitchers Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 23(2), 203–217.

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McGee, R. (2017, May 28). It’s time to finally believe in Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/ id/19486112/believe-­2 017-­i ndianapolis-­5 00-­w inner-­t akuma-­s ato-­ andretti-­autosport McGovern, J. (2016). Does race belong on sports blogs? Solidarity and racial discourse in online baseball fan forums. Communication & Sport, 4, 331–346. Miller, R. (2020, August 23). A very 2020 afternoon. Racer. https://racer. com/2020/08/23/miller-­a-­very-­2020-­event/ Minjung, K., Yukyoum, K., & Wells, J. E. (2017). Development of athletes and sports teams: The servant leadership for sport organizations (SLSO) model. International Journal of Sport Management, 18(1), 19–43. Nguyen, V. T. (2020, June 26). Asian Americans are still caught in the trap of the ‘model minority’ stereotype. And it creates inequality for all. Time. https:// time.com/5859206/anti-­asian-­racism-­america/ Niven, D. (2005). Race, quarterbacks, and the media. Journal of Black Studies, 35, 684–694. Northouse, P. G. (2022). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). Sage. Olson, J. (2018, May 22). Recognizing Takuma: How Indy 500 winner’s life has changed, part 2. https://www.indycar.com/News/2018/05/05-­22-­ Recognizing-­Takuma-­Sato-­part-­2 Oreovicz, J. (2013, April 22). Historic triumph for Takuma Sato. ESPN. https:// www.espn.com/racing/indycar/story/_/id/9199781/indycar-­h istoric-­ triumph-­takuma-­sato Page, J. T., Duffy, M., Frisby, C., & Perreault, G. (2016). Richard Sherman speaks and almost breaks the Internet: Race, media, and football. Howard Journal of Communications, 27, 270–289. Park, M. K. (2015). Race, hegemonic masculinity, and the “Linpossible!” An analysis of media representations of Jeremy Lin. Communication & Sport, 3, 367–389. Patterson, K. (2010). Servant leadership and love. In D. van Dierendonck & K.  Patterson (Eds.), Servant leadership: Developments in theory and research (pp. 67–76). Palgrave Macmillan. Pruett, M. (2016, December 2). Andretti welcomes Sato. Racer. https://racer. com/2016/12/02/indycar-­andretti-­welcomes-­sato/ Pruett, M. (2019, June 7). Sato’s resurgence fueling RLL’s 1-2 punch. Racer. https://racer.com/2019/06/07/satos-­resurgence-­fueling-­rlls-­1-­2-­punch/ Pruett, M. (2021a, July 22). RLL emerging as likely destination for Harvey. Racer. https://racer.com/2021/07/22/rll-­e merging-­a s-­l ikely-­d estination-­ for-­harvey/ Pruett, M. (2021b, April 26). Pruett’s slowdown lap: St Petersburg edition. Racer. https://racer.com/2021/04/26/pruetts-­s lowdown-­l ap-­s t-­p etersburg­edition/2/

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Tucker, L. (2003). Blackballed: Basketball and representation of the Black male athlete. American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 306–328. van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228–1261. van Dierendonck, D., & Nuijten, I. (2011). The servant leadership survey: Development and validation of a multidimensional measure. Journal of Business Psychology, 26, 249–267. van Dierendonck, D., & Patterson, K. (2015). Compassionate love as a cornerstone of servant leadership: An integration of previous theorizing and research. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(1), 119–131. VanTryon, M. (2017, May 31). Takuma Sato faces racism after Indy 500 win. The Indianapolis Star. https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/motor/2017/ 05/31/takuma-­sato-­faces-­racism-­after-­indy-­500-­win/358408001/ Wagner, U., Storm, R. K., & Nielsen, K. (Eds.). (2017). When sport meets business: Capabilities, challenges, critiques. SAGE. Walsh, M. (2020, September 11). Takuma Sato’s Indy 500 win struck chord with Michael Keohane. The Southern Star. https://www.southernstar.ie/sport/ takuma-­satos-­indy-­500-­win-­struck-­a-­chord-­with-­michael-­keohane-­4211352 Washington, M. S. (2012). Branding blasians: Mixed race Black/Asian Americans in the celebrity industrial complex. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Washington, M. S. (2017). Blasian invasion: Racial mixing in the celebrity industrial complex. University Press of Mississippi. Weaver, M. (2019, August 20). Rahal Racing says data absolves Takuma Sato of fault for Pocono IndyCar crash. Autoweek. https://www.autoweek.com/racing/indycar/a2147586/rahal-­racing-­says-­data-­absolves-­takuma-­sato-­fault-­ pocono-­indycar-­crash/ Wilson, P. B. (2013). Sato caught Foyt’s eye aggressive style. USA Today. https:// www.usatoday.com/story/sports/motor/indycar/2013/05/15/takuma-­ sato-­aj-­foyt-­izod-­indycar-­indianapolis-­500/2159741/ Yu, H. (2001). Thinking orientals: Migration, contact, and exoticism in modern America. Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

Intersecting Race, Gender, and Sports: How Japanese News Media Depict Tennis Stars Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori Steve Bien-Aimé and Yasue Kuwahara

By the time she turned 22, tennis star Naomi Osaka became the highest earning female athlete (Badenhausen, 2020). Osaka’s prowess on the court, a former world No. 1 ranked player and two-time major tournament winner, coupled with her background, makes her a sought-after athlete for product endorsements. One business professor told Forbes: “To those outside the tennis world, Osaka is a relatively fresh face with a great back story. Combine that with being youthful and bicultural, two attributes that help her resonate with younger, global audiences, and the result is the emergence of a global sports marketing icon” (Badenhausen, 2020). Osaka represents Japan in competition, and this is somewhat complicated by her tricultural heritage, not bicultural, as the business professor told Forbes. Her mother is Japanese and her father is Haitian, and Osaka was born in Japan but raised primarily in the United States. While her

S. Bien-Aimé (*) • Y. Kuwahara Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_5

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accomplishments are celebrated, her identity has been difficult to navigate, not only for herself, but also for Japanese people. Japan is predominately a racially homogeneous country, and multiracial people there suffer discrimination from those Japanese who are monoracial (Oikawa & Yoshida, 2007). And so Osaka’s tricultural background poses difficulties for her. For example, in 2019, one of her major sponsors released an anime-­ style cartoon of her and Japanese male tennis star Kei Nishikori. The commercial was widely criticized for “whitewashing” Osaka, portraying her “as having pale skin, light brown hair and Caucasian features” (McKirdy, 2019, para. 3). A screengrab of the commercial depicts Osaka very similarly to Nishikori, even though their hair and skin tones are very different. It is quite notable that Osaka and Nishikori are paired in the same advertisement and portrayed similarly, especially considering that sport is often depicted as a masculine industry (Cahn, 1994). Media often do not portray male and female athletes similarly. Journalists, for instance, tend to focus more on a female athlete’s beauty than her athletic abilities (e.g., Kane & Greendorfer, 1994). Additionally, male sports and male athletes generally receive far more media attention than female sports and female athletes (e.g., Cooky et al., 2013). Returning to Osaka and Nishikori, while both are quite accomplished tennis players, only Osaka has been ranked world No. 1 and won major championships. Osaka surpassed Nishikori on annual earnings in 2020, $37.4 million to $32.1 million, but the disparity in endorsements is only $3  million (Badenhausen & Forbes staff, 2020). This perhaps indicates that even though Osaka is the more successful athlete, the media might view her and Nishikori as on the same level. Thus, this chapter explores how Japanese news media outlets depict their two top tennis stars.

Literature Review Framing Mass media often provide the images or understandings for how many perceive the world (e.g., Bien-Aimé et al., 2017, 2019). Within the realm of mass media, journalists’ portrayals or frames of various people, places, and events, for example, hold significant power to shape audience members’ perceptions (Frear et al., 2019). One of the major reasons frames are salient is because many mass media content consumers, especially news consumers, lack direct knowledge or contact of the phenomena being

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shown on television, radio, and social media, for instance (Lind & Salo, 2002). Thus, the media representation serves as the basis for how many news consumers view many people, places, and events. In terms of sport, news media often try to portray it as a space free of political controversy (e.g., Bien-Aimé et al., 2017). Gender and Sport When it comes to journalists’ framing of sport, the sport industry is viewed as primarily male (e.g., Hardin et al., 2013; Cooky et al., 2021). This is likely because men hold many of the influential positions in sport as in other areas of society. Sports journalists in myriad countries are overwhelmingly male (Hardin et al., 2013; Laucella et al., 2016), the sports that receive the majority of media attention are played by men (Cooky et al., 2021), and the top financially compensated athletes are heavily male (Badenhausen & Forbes staff, 2020). The coverage differences between male and female athletes go beyond the paucity of coverage devoted to women’s sports. Generally, sports journalists highlight male athletes’ athletic prowess and abilities, while female athletes’ aesthetic qualities and family lives receive comparatively more attention (Bien-Aimé et al., 2019). Additionally, female athletes are often portrayed as more emotionally affected than male athletes (Kian & Hardin, 2009). Olympic coverage stands out in contrast to other sports media because Olympic media coverage tends to be more egalitarian in terms of coverage amount (Coche & Tuggle, 2016). Even the sports themselves can be viewed through a gender lens. Research indicates that some sports, such as football, are seen as highly masculine, whereas a sport such as gymnastics is perceived as feminine (Hardin & Greer, 2009). These perceptions reflect persistent gender norms as football rewards strength and gymnastics rewards elegance and beauty. According to Hardin and Greer (2009), there are sports that are perceived as gender-neutral, including tennis. How society views tennis could help explain why female tennis players receive more coverage (e.g., articles, photographs) than other female athletes in general (Crossman et al., 2007).

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Gender and Japan According to the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report, Japan ranked 121st out of the 153 countries in 2020, down 11 positions from 2018. The economic gender gap was 115th, “the third largest among the advanced economies,” and 144th in the political gender gap (World Economic Forum, 2019, p.  31). Despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe administration’s slogan to promote and increase women in senior and leadership positions from 2012 to 2020, only 15% of such positions were held by women, who were paid half what men in similar positions were paid. Even worse, only 10% of parliament seats were held by female representatives, and the cabinet of the subsequently elected prime minister Yoshihide Suga includes only two women. Clearly women are afforded the limited opportunities to actively contribute to the country’s politics and economy and are still dealing with the remnants of Confucianist moral principles, which shaped women’s roles until the end of World War II (WWII). In the early days of modernization, women were regarded as being biologically inferior to men, and their role was to “serve men, and to maintain the family line” (Fujieda, 2011, p.  318), as defined by the Meiji constitution and civil code (Fujieda, 2011, p. 317). Although the new constitution, which went into effect in 1947, declared equality between men and women, the system to rebuild the economy based on the feudal relationship of lords and retainers necessitated the maintenance of traditional division of labor between men and women. While men as breadwinners spent long hours in their workplace, women took care of the family by staying home and raising children. Firmly established in postwar Japan, this “male breadwinner model” became the societal norm and deprived women of opportunities to pursue political and economic careers. Owing to the activism of women who sought equality, the Basic Act for Gender Equal Society was implemented in 1999. According to Midori Wakakuwa and Kumiko Fujimura-­ Fanselow  (2011), however, backlash against the passage of the act followed immediately, beginning with the attack in school curriculum that aimed at advocating women’s rights and gender-free education. The Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1985 and the subsequent major revisions in 1997 and 2006, ironically, increased the gender disparity in employment status and wages due to the creation of the dual track system in the labor market and the deregulation of labor laws. Companies created the career track and the auxiliary track and hired an overwhelming

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number of women for the latter track while men dominated the former track. The deregulation aimed to remove the barrier between men and women in employment actually forced women to work for as long hours as men, and this made it impossible for them to raise children while working full time. Although a white-collar company employee known as a salaryman who often worked for the same company until retirement was a fixture of the male breadwinner model, the prolonged recession in the 1990s and 2000s created a pool of fixed-term dispatched workers, a majority of whom were women. Despite the state’s purported efforts to improve women’s status, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women reported the existence of widespread discrimination in various areas of society in 2016 (United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies, 2016). Popular culture presents independent, wise, and strong working women and people cheer for successful female athletes, but women are not viewed as being equal to men, as attested to by the sexist comments by former prime minister and president of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, Yoshiro Mori, in February 2021 (Rich, 2021). Race and Japan Race is not a biological phenomenon; it is a sociological, legal, and cultural way to separate groups of people. Race is often seen through a European/Western lens, dividing the world into the White West and “Others” (Kendall, 2006; Taylor, 2004). The perception of race in Japan is different from that in the West because the Japanese have maintained a firm belief in the racial purity myth throughout the country’s modern history. This myth explains that all Japanese originated from one group of people with distinctive and unique characters that made them a superior race. Known as Nihonjinron, this belief was used by those in power to justify Japanese aggression in Asia after the late nineteenth century and the expansion of imperialism in the West after the 1930s. The myth was forgotten briefly with Japan’s defeat in WWII but reemerged when the island country began its economic expansion in the global market in the 1980s. Whereas at the end of WWII few in the West thought Japan, devastated as it was by the war, would rebuild its economy and begin to compete against Western countries within the span of a generation, the Japanese were able to work economic miracles because of their cultural and racial uniqueness, according to the Japanese mindset. Thus, Nihonjinron was revived and has

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continued to influence the actions and thoughts of the Japanese since then. For instance, psychoanalyst Osamu Kitayama, who studies the Japanese subconscious, thinks that two characteristics of Japanese creation myths—cultural value placed on cleanliness and quiet yet firm historical devotion to avoid the unclean—helped limit the spread of COVID-19 in Japan (Yoshida, 2020). Nihonjinron, which puts the Japanese above all other groups of people, results in discrimination against non-Japanese people, as is widely acknowledged by popular and scholarly sources. The degree of discrimination is determined by their proximity to Japaneseness as well as their racial background. As Jane H. Yamashiro (2013) states, “In Japan, the concept of Japaneseness includes ideas of race but also conflates them with other characteristics, such as culture, citizenship, and language” (147). The current Japanese law gives citizenship to a person who “has at least one parent who is a Japanese national” (Yamashiro, 2013, p. 151). Citizenship, however, is not sufficient to qualify a person as Japanese; she or he must be fluent in Japanese and competent in Japanese culture in addition to their having a so-called Japanese-type of appearance. This poses a problem, particularly to those who have one Japanese and one non-Japanese parent. Commonly called “half” (half Japanese and half non-Japanese), they will never be accepted as one of them by the Japanese regardless of their language fluency or cultural competency (Kuwahara, 2008, p. 22). Needless to say, the Japanese are aware of the commonly accepted racial category and hierarchy through their encounter with the West, beginning in the sixteenth century. Though Nihonjinron elevated the Japanese above all other races, only White people/Caucasians deserved attention and Asian and Black people were practically nonexistent in the Japanese popular consciousness until the 1990s, when Japan’s booming economy expanded the market in developing countries and attracted an increasing number of immigrants, including those who traced their ancestry to Japan. Also, there has been a fascination with African Americans in terms of sports and entertainment among the youth (Columbia University Weatherhead East Asian Institute, 2020). Within Japanese mass media, the changing perception of non-Japanese others can be observed in the change in gaijin tarento (foreign celebrities). While gaijin tarento were exclusively White/Caucasian until the 1990s, Black and Asian people, such as Bob Sapp, Bae Yong-Joon, Bobby Olugon, and Billy Blanks, began to dominate media in the new millennium. The appeal of Black celebrities was because of the combination of

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their perceived threatening image coming from their physique and their childish cuteness resulting from their cultural incompetency, including the inability to speak Japanese (Kuwahara, 2008). This change is certainly worth noting, yet the racial hierarchy in the popular consciousness remains unchanged to this day. It should also be noted that athletes who are racially or ethnically different from the majority population can be temporarily adopted as full members of the majority population if they achieve great success in sports (Farrington et al., 2012). Why Osaka and Nishikori? Kei Nishikori and Naomi Osaka stand out as the two most popular and successful Japanese tennis players from 2017 to 2020, in terms of both tennis tour ranking and economic success (e.g., Badenhausen, 2020; Badenhausen & Forbes staff, 2020). Besides their celebrity, the ethnic and sex differences between Osaka and Nishikori make them prime examples for comparative study. Osaka is from Japan, born to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, but was raised primarily in the United States. Nishikori is fully Japanese ethnically but spent much of his teenage years in the United States. Exploring how Japanese media portray them reveals in emphatic terms how Japan views Japaneseness, multicultural identity, and national pride. More specifically, this chapter seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. How do Japanese news media frame the Japaneseness of Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori? 2. How do Japanese news media frame the athletic accomplishments of Osaka and Nishikori? 3. How do Japanese news media treat Osaka’s “otherness”? a. American b. Blackness

Method The authors used the Access World News database from NewsBank to analyze three Japan-based news outlets that produce English-language content, The Japan Times, The Japan News, and the Kyodo News Service.

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The Japan Times is a prominent newspaper in the country (Darling-Wolf, 2004), though because it is published exclusively in English, the newspaper holds a different cache among Japanese citizens compared to newspapers written in Japanese (Shih, 2013). The Japan Times has a “primary function of serving Anglophone readers in Japan” (Shih, 2013, p. 118). The Japan News is the English language version (Japan News, n.d.) of the Yomiuri Shimbun, among the top newspapers in Japan in terms of circulation (Budner & Krauss, 1995; Kim, 2002; Tollefson, 2014). The Kyodo News Service is a Japan-based wire service that is very influential in the country (Lee & Yang, 1996). The articles analyzed were published from January 2017 to December 2020, spanning a year before Osaka’s first major championship and going through the last full year before this chapter was written. The search terms were separately “Naomi Osaka” and “Kei Nishikori,” and those names had to be in the opening paragraph to be counted for the sample. The authors examined the articles using thematic analysis to determine the prominent frames (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011).

Results Let us turn now to the first research question, about how the Japanese news media frame the “Japaneseness” of Naomi Osaka and Kei Nishikori. Japanese news media generally treat Nishikori and Osaka as Japanese first without much distinction. In stories about their performances in matches, both Nishikori’s and Osaka’s names are often preceded by “Japan’s” in the introductory paragraph, or both athletes are described as Japanese in a subsequent paragraph. Two examples are as follows: “Japan’s Kei Nishikori and Naomi Osaka each advanced to the second round at Wimbledon on Tuesday, while three other Japanese contenders crashed out at the first stage” (Kyoto News International, 2018a, para. 1) and “Former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka is looking to compete at this year’s U.S. Open, as well as fellow Japanese Kei Nishikori, who has been recovering from a right elbow injury, their management company said Tuesday” (Kyoto News International, 2020c, para. 1). However, portrayal distinctions exist between Osaka and Nishikori. When it comes to how they write about Osaka, Japanese journalists add qualifiers to her Japanese identity. Kyodo and The Japan Times often refer to Osaka as “Japan-born” or born in Japan. There were no references to Nishikori as “born” in Japan. Rather, he’s allowed to exist as Japanese

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with no qualifiers. Japanese media could be using this qualifier because of how Osaka described herself: I was born in Osaka. I came to New  York when I was 3. I moved from New York to Florida when I was like 8 or 9. And then I’ve been training in Florida since. My dad’s Haitian, so I grew up in a Haitian household in New York. I lived with my grandma. And my mom’s Japanese, and I grew up with the Japanese culture too. And if you’re saying American, I guess because I lived in America I also have that too. (Arudou, 2018, para. 11)

Additionally, Japanese news media might use the born in Japan qualifier because Osaka’s physical features differ from someone whose parents are Japanese, whereas Nishikori resembles someone with stereotypically Japanese physical characteristics and so does not need such a description. Right after Osaka defeated Serena Williams in 2018 and became the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam singles title, news coverage began to referring to Osaka as Japanese by focusing on her Japaneseness, including her language speaking ability. Osaka is not fluent in Japanese but spoke and answered the questions in Japanese as much as she could during the interviews and press conferences, and this resulted in comments such as “… by sprinkling her on-court interview with a few Japanese phrases” (Kyodo, 2018b, para. 8), “Osaka’s simple and straightforward use of the language during press conferences and interviews … (Kyodo, 2018c, para. 12),” and “Osaka sometimes spoke in Japanese during the conference and she thanked her fans in the Japanese language (Japan News, 2018, para. 3).” The ability to speak fluent Japanese is a requirement for being accepted as a Japanese person in the popular consciousness and so is worth mentioning in the coverage. Although her broken Japanese would disqualify her as Japanese under any other circumstances, her spectacular feat at the U.S. Open was too great to dismiss for the Japanese, and therefore the coverage stressed Osaka’s familiarity with Japanese culture—another requirement for being a Japanese person—to make up for her deficiency with the language. For instance, during her visit to Japan after her Grand Slam win, she wanted to go to Harajuku to eat katsu-don and matcha ice cream, just like any other 20-year-old Japanese woman would. Despite her achievement as one of the best tennis players in the world, she does not mind being called “Naomi-chan” (Kyodo News International, 2018b, para. 9): “chan” is a common way of calling young women and children in Japan.

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Columnists in The Japan Times were sympathetic to Osaka’s particular situation. Soon after Osaka won the first major championship for any Japanese tennis player, one writer suggested, in a column titled “Warning to Naomi Osaka: Playing for Japan can seriously shorten your career (Arudou, 2018, para. 9), that “Osaka is insufficiently self-aware of her situation as a representative of Japan”. The columnist went on to say that Osaka’s grasp of the Japanese language and culture is limited and that her acceptance is likely contingent on continuing to win. A couple weeks after Osaka’s U.S. Open victory, The Japan Times did a story titled “What is it that makes someone—like Naomi Osaka—Japanese or not?” asking various Japanese people in Tokyo to define Japanese (Wadhwa, 2018). Answers varied by age and profession, but this issue would persist, especially in The Japan Times. The newspaper did not shy away from the tensions surrounding Osaka’s Japaneseness. In fact, there was a column after Osaka’s 2019 Australian Open victory titled “How Japanese is Naomi Osaka?” (Miyake, 2019). The column mentions that ideas of Japaneseness are changing and that the “very Japanese” Osaka embodies that (para. 14). “Unlike the United States, Japan is not a country of immigration and in this respect is similar to some European nations. ‘Japanese-ness’ is not something you can artificially define. It is rather a transformational concept to be permanently defined by the Japanese in the years to come” (para. 18). Successes When it comes to Research Question 2, about how Japanese media frame the athletic accomplishments of Osaka and Nishikori, this is especially one-sided because during the 2017–2020 period, Nishikori had suffered from several injuries, including COVID-19, that often prevented him from playing (e.g., Kyodo News International, 2018d, 2019g, 2020f). As a result, Nishikori won only one Association of Tennis Professionals Tour tournament during this time (ATP Tour, n.d.; Kyodo News International, 2019a). The victory was framed as a personal achievement: For Nishikori, ranked ninth in the world and the second seed, it was his first tour victory since he won his fourth straight Memphis Open title in June 2016. The match was the third between Nishikori and Medvedev, the last two both tour finals … The victory in the Australian Open warm-up event

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is Nishikori’s 12th career tour championship. (Kyodo News International, 2019a, para. 2–3)

Conversely, Osaka won three Grand Slam tennis tournaments and became the first Japanese woman and first Asian person to be ranked No. 1 in tennis (Kyodo News International, 2019d, 2020e). Notably, in the 2019 article announcing Osaka’s ascendance to No. 1, she is identified first as Japanese, then Asian (para. 2), and then “[b]orn in Japan and raised in the United States by her Japanese mother and Haitian father” (para. 8). When celebrating Osaka’s achievement, the Kyodo News (2019d) went to her Japanese mother’s hometown: The news of Osaka’s ascension to world No. 1 brought another wave of celebration in Nemuro, Hokkaido, the northern Japan city where her mother Tamaki grew up. The city hall has several pieces of Osaka memorabilia on display, including the tennis racket she gifted to her grandfather Tetsuo, and hung a banner on the building saying “congratulations on the win” on Sunday morning, the day after Osaka’s Australian Open triumph. “I’m happy that the name of the city is spread around the country every time Osaka accomplishes something. I’m looking forward to her future (accomplishments),” said Kazuo Suzuki, a 45-year-old from the city. While many of her peers approach tennis with a hypercompetitive demeanor, Osaka has endeared herself to fans and the media with her cheerfulness and sense of humor, using her post-match interviews to profess her love for video games and Japanese food, especially the fried pork dish “katsu-­ don.” (paras. 10–13)

Using the hometown of Osaka’s Japanese mother in combination with mentioning her love of Japanese food serves to deemphasize her outsider status. Nemuro, a fishing town devastated during World War II (Britannica, n.d.), is gaining some fame through tethering itself to Osaka. The preceding excerpt also provides support for The Japan Times column’s (Arudou, 2018) assertion that Japan’s support of Osaka at least in part remains contingent on her maintaining on-court success. Not all the articles about Osaka’s Japanese fans focused on Osaka’s heritage or sought to frame Osaka’s achievements as to what it means to Japan or Asia or women or racial minorities. For example, The Japan News focused on fans’ reactions to watching Osaka’s 2019 Australian Open title victory:

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About 70 fans flocked to the sports bar “B ONE” in the Ginza district of Tokyo to view the match on a big screen. The audience went from cheers to groans with each point during a thrilling back-and-forth match in which the players traded points. The throng shouted her name during the final minutes of the match, with supporters high-fiving each other after Osaka clinched the victory. Said a 24-year-old employee from Matsudo in Chiba Prefecture: “She was on the verge of falling apart mentally, but for her to regain control of herself was amazing” (Japan News, 2019, paras. 3–5).

The Kyodo News described both fans’ nationalistic pride and pride in Osaka’s skill during its fan reaction story “Japan elated after Osaka’s 2nd straight Grand Slam title”: Japan sparked in joy after Naomi Osaka won back-to-back Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open on Saturday, with fans taking pride in the feat that guaranteed she will become the country’s first world No. 1 in tennis. In the namesake city of Osaka in western Japan, where she was born, around 30 fans waving Japanese flags erupted in joy after watching the grueling final match on an installed TV screen at a tennis center where Osaka practiced in her childhood. “I’m deeply moved. I can only say she’s fantastic,” said 58-year-old Hiroshi Kawai, who visited the Utsubo Tennis Center with his 8- and 10-year-old children. “I think she was able to win because her serves were on target,” said 9-year-old Chihiro Matoba, after Osaka beat the Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova. In Nemuro, Hokkaido, in northern Japan, Osaka’s 74-year-old grandfather Tetsuo Osaka told reporters, “I’m proud of my granddaughter. I want to tell her congratulations.” (Kyodo News International, 2019c, paras. 1–5).

Japanese, But Different The articles yielded an interesting dichotomy with regard to Research Question 3, about how the Japanese news media treat Osaka’s “otherness.” Osaka did not shy away from embracing multiple facets of her identity, primarily being an outspoken woman who is both Japanese and Black. That said, the news outlets would describe Osaka’s nontraditional Japanese background without explicitly saying she was an American or is Black. For example, Japanese media largely ignored calling Osaka “Black.” The

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Kyodo News often used Haitian as a stand-in for Black as in referring to Osaka with a hyphenated identity—Japanese-Haitian or Haitian-Japanese (e.g., Kyodo News International, 2020d)—or referring to her parents: Born to a Haitian father and Japanese mother in Japan, Osaka immigrated to the United States when she was 3 years old and has been in the racial minority her whole life. She grew up listening to her father tell stories about his home island in the Caribbean which is among the world’s poorest countries outside of Africa. (para. 13)

Interestingly, these media constructions downplayed Osaka’s U.S. identity in that many articles did not explicitly mention Osaka had dual U.S. and Japanese citizenship  (Kyodo News International, 2019f) for much of her life. As seen in the preceding excerpt, Japanese journalists seemingly ignored the influence that U.S. culture has had on Osaka. Explicit mentions of Osaka’s race came primarily from the tennis superstar herself. In interviews and on social media, Osaka confidently and prominently identified herself as Black: “Before I am an athlete, I am a black woman,” she said on Twitter. “As a black woman, I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis.” (Kyodo News International, 2020d, para. 17). Note that in this example Osaka also did not specifically identify herself as a Black American woman. She often does not refer to herself as American, according to the articles in the sample. Osaka’s physique also makes her unique to the Japanese. News stories often referred to a powerful shot made possible by her exceptional physical prowess, as seen in this report: “One of just a handful of women to break the 200 kilometer-per-hour barrier with her serve, the 1.8-meter Osaka brings a level of physicality that few players on the circuit can match” (Kyodo News International, 2019b, para. 15). Standing 5 ft 11 in. tall, Osaka is taller than the average Japanese men of her age (5 ft 6 in.), let alone women, and thus her physique gets the attention of Japanese media. It is interesting to note that Osaka was framed just like Black celebrities with the focus on physique and her childish cuteness resulting from her cultural incompetency, including the inability to speak Japanese. While the majority of coverage of Osaka and Nishikori focused on their on-court performance, there was a large disparity in coverage between Osaka and Nishikori when it came to their personal lives and personality. For instance, news consumers learned more about Osaka’s stances on

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cultural/social issues, such as Black Lives Matter. Here is the introductory paragraph after Osaka advanced to the finals of the 2020 U.S. Open, the final major tennis tournament of the year: Naomi Osaka said at the start of the U.S. Open that she had seven masks prepared with the names of victims of racial injustice and police brutality in the United States, one for each round of the tournament. She said she hoped to make it to the final so she could help spread awareness of the issue to the world, the latest sign of her growing activism over racial discrimination. (Tansey, 2020, para. 1)

Osaka’s relatives were featured or mentioned in many stories, too. In a related news article about Osaka’s social justice stances, The Japan News described the opinions of Osaka’s Japanese grandfather. The first two paragraphs said: The grandfather of tennis player Naomi Osaka, this year’s winner of the U.S. Open, said he was “so proud” of the masks she wore at the tournament to protest racial discrimination. “There are some radical people out there, so I was worried about her, but I thought what she did was admirable, and that she has a lot of courage,” said Tetsuo Osaka, 75, in Nemuro, Hokkaido, on Sunday morning. “I’m so proud of her.” (Japan News, 2020, paras. 1–2)

Nishikori was primarily absent from stories regarding the #MeToo Movement spotlighting sexual abuse against women (Kyodo News International, 2020e) or Black Lives Matter. However, Nishikori was mentioned in the final paragraph of a Kyodo article titled “Osaka condemns racial injustice as other Japanese athletes add voices” for participating “in the ‘Blackout Tuesday’ protest, in which social media users posted a plain black image on their profiles” to protest racism (Kyodo News International, 2020b, para. 4). Interestingly, Japanese news media did not talk about Nishikori’s family until he announced his marriage in December 2020. The Kyodo article appeared to focus equally on Nishikori’s physical ailments than it did describing his marriage: Japan’s Kei Nishikori married 29-year-old former model Mai Yamauchi last week, the former world No. 4 men’s singles player announced Friday on his personal app.

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“I want to prepare thoroughly, and with my new companion, look forward to restart for next season,” Nishikori posted, referring to fitness issues that wiped out almost all of his 2020 season. Nishikori, who will turn 31 on Dec. 29, and his bride have been dating for five years. She has been accompanying him and supporting him on tour and at Grand Slam events. They registered their marriage on Dec. 11. The Japanese star, currently ranked 41st, underwent elbow surgery in October 2019 and only resumed competing this past September. That month, however, he exited the French Open in the second round with pain in his right shoulder and has not competed since. (Kyodo News International, 2020g, para. 1–4)

Also of note were the article’s subsequent mentions of Nishikori’s past tennis achievements and the time he spent living in the United States. Osaka’s multifaceted identity is also considered a financial asset. In 2019 and 2020, Osaka was the second-highest and highest-paid female athlete in the world, respectively, according to Forbes (Kyodo News International, 2019e, 2020a). Regarding Osaka, the Kyodo article said: The 21-year-old Osaka, who has a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, has endorsement deals with Mastercard Inc., All Nippon Airways Co., Nissan Motor Co., among others. She won two majors, the U.S.  Open and the Australian Open, and became the first Asian tennis player to reach world No. 1 in singles. “Osaka’s accomplishments, youth, skill and multicultural appeal make her a marketer’s dream,” Forbes said. (Kyodo News International, 2019e, paras. 3–5)

Osaka’s immaturity, especially emotionality, has attracted the attention of mass media as well. While some articles describe Osaka’s emotions positively, especially in differentiating her “cheerfulness” from her “hypercompetitive”—and likely non-Japanese—competitors (Kyodo News International, 2019d, para. 10), Japanese news media did criticize Osaka for having emotional outbursts. The image of Osaka with a towel over her head sitting on the bench while a coach talked to her was often shown in the early days of her career and created an unprofessional image of a rude teenager who could not handle mistakes well. The coverage also presented an image of an emotional player who lost her temper and expressed her frustration by throwing her racket or skipping postmatch press conferences. These behaviors are certainly unacceptable in Japan, where respect

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for coaches and control over one’s emotions are the cultural norm. Thus, a Japan Times reporter commented after her first Grand Slam win that “Osaka’s mental game is still a work in progress” (Tansey, 2018, para. 14). Simultaneously, journalists avoided describing Nishikori in terms of his emotional state. Osaka is unique because she is friendly, funny, compassionate, polite, and shy at the same time she is emotional, rude, and selfish. Amid such mixed coverage and questions about her racial background, she has never been fully accepted as a Japanese native; as Osaka said, “I am me” (St. Michel, 2018, para. 10).

Conclusion & Discussion Japanese news outlets Kyodo News and The Japan Times both identified Nishikori and Osaka as Japanese first in news articles, features, and sports recaps. Using the Japanese adjective likely explained to readers as to why the news outlets were reporting the results of tennis tournaments. Most of the articles about both athletes focused on their athletic performance, which perpetuates the notion of sport as an apolitical space (Bien-Aimé et al., 2017). That said, Osaka’s non-Japanese identity appeared in later references to her, even though her multiethnic identity would be of little relevance in stories focused on her on-court performance. Moreover, Osaka’s outspokenness forced Japanese news media to also cover social justice issues, complicating the idea of sport as apolitical. On the other hand, Nishikori’s noncontroversial coverage extended to his off-the-court life, in that Japanese news media largely ignored Nishikori’s personal life, in stark contrast to Osaka. Nishikori has had a longer career than Osaka. During the period the articles covered, Osaka was a rising star while Nishikori’s position was in decline, and so there was likely little interest in him as a person. Throughout the coverage of Osaka’s career, the press has provided information on her background and experience; she was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, who is an American citizen, and the family moved to the United States when Osaka was 3 years old. Her looks definitely grabbed the attention of the Japanese public, and the press needed to account for that when she was new to WTA and to the Japanese, but the attention on her looks has persisted to this day, likely because she does not meet the definition of “Japanese” in the popular consciousness. Interesting observations that illuminate Japanese race consciousness can be made when the coverage of Osaka is compared with that of Kei

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Nishikori and Taro Daniel. Born and raised by Japanese parents, Nishikori moved to the United States for tennis. His experience in the United States is seldom mentioned beyond the initial stage of his rise in the tennis world. Is this because both of his parents are Japanese? Although not as prominent as Osaka and Nishikori, Taro Daniel, whose father is Caucasian American and whose mother is Japanese, has represented Japan in major international tournaments, including a win at the 2018 Istanbul Open. He was born in New York, grew up in Japan until he was 14, when he moved to Spain. Yet his racial background is seldom mentioned in news coverage, even though his last name and his looks clearly indicate his mixed-race background. This seems to be a clear example of Yamashiro’s (2013) statement that “‘a white Japanese’ mix tends to be more highly regarded and perceived than, say, a ‘black-Japanese’ mix” (157). Coupled with her gender, Osaka is twice removed from what is acceptable for being considered Japanese. Like other female athletes (Kian & Hardin, 2009), Osaka received more coverage that focused on her emotional weaknesses compared to her male counterpart. It should also be noted that Osaka was only 20 years old when she won her first major in 2018 and is still relatively new to the media spotlight and scrutiny. However, Japanese news media seemingly expected her to be more polished and perhaps more Japanese in controlling her emotions. Another interesting finding was Japanese media’s reluctance to overtly mention Osaka’s race as Black. Japanese news outlets rarely, if ever, directly described Osaka as Black. Instead Japanese media used Osaka’s ethnic background to describe her racial identity because of the image associated with Black people in the Japanese popular consciousness. Myriad news articles referenced her Haitian background; however, audiences would have to know that Haiti is a majority Black country. Recall, though, that Japanese culture focuses heavily on parental identity (Kuwahara, 2008; Yamashiro, 2013), and so to Japanese people, Osaka is Black. As to the dearth of references to her race in news coverage on her, two reasons are considered. In Japanese poplar consciousness, Black people (kokujin) are associated with the United States. The term itself includes all Black people globally, but those from Africa are called Africans primarily and those in England are called British, for instance. African Americans are called kokujin in order to distinguish them from White Americans. In fact, the use of the term “African Americans” by some media has become common within the past decade. Historical preference for pale-skinned people, coupled with exposure to Western racism through entertainment,

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beginning with minstrel shows on the warship commanded by Commodore Perry and subsequently through Hollywood films and TV programs, has created a stereotypical derogatory image of Black people in Japanese society (Russell, 1991) as it was conspicuously displayed on the NHK (Japan’s Public Broadcasting Service) program on the Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020. As described by Michael Sharpe, the program presented stereotypical caricatures of Africans Americans looting, an African American man in a sleeveless purple suit and fedora playing guitar while sitting on a fire hydrant in sandals and a single overly muscular African American narrator in a tank top speaking in crude and vulgar Japanese language about the impact of inequality and COVID-19 as the source of the protests. (Columbia University Weatherhead East Asian Institute, 2020)

Because of such images, kokujin is a loaded term—almost equivalent to “negro” in English—and therefore no Japanese media dare use it to describe their internationally renowned athlete. When she talked about her social justice positions, Osaka was mentioned with other prominent Black people. When her race was explicitly mentioned, it was mentioned through Osaka’s self-identification as a Black woman. Japanese identity has very precise precepts, and those with foreign parentage are often perceived as less than in Japanese society (e.g., Kuwahara, 2008; Yamashiro, 2013, p. 151). Osaka’s “otherness” is more apparent because of her limited use of Japanese, even though, as Kuwahara (2008) notes, total proficiency in Japanese would not make Osaka fully Japanese in the minds of many Japanese people. On the other hand, Osaka’s historic success did make her temporarily accepted as fully Japanese when these achievements were made, in line with Farrington et  al.’s (2012) findings about how majority populations view athletes with different ethnic and racial backgrounds. In fact, Japanese corporations promoted Osaka’s Japaneseness as she sponsored their products. With Japanese citizens and commentators wrestling with defining Japaneseness, Japanese news media often relied upon Osaka’s own words to articulate her identity. Osaka spoke about her Japanese and Haitian heritage and about her identity as a Black woman—but not so much about being an American. This is despite the fact that she had dual American and Japanese citizenship for much of her life (Miyake, 2019). This was convenient for Japanese news media that wanted to claim the rising tennis

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superstar as Japanese. Conversely, even though Nishikori left Japan at 13 to train in the United States (Kyodo News International, 2020g), his Japaneseness never receives scrutiny. This is likely because Nishikori has been well known in Japan since 2008, he speaks fluent Japanese, and his parents are both Japanese. Thus, his Japaneseness was never questioned. Lastly, Osaka’s identity might also challenge the notion of sport as apolitical, at least for Japanese fans. Though many articles in the sample analyzed here celebrated Osaka’s achievements, some columns and articles, primarily in The Japan Times, debated notions of what it means to be Japanese. The Japan Times serves many non-Japanese residents of Japan, who more or less experience discrimination in their daily lives. Thus, the newspaper was likely addressing the concerns of its specific constituency. The Japanese-language media differed in its coverage of the Japaneseness issue, which was limited. Thus, while sport is supposed to provide a respite from real life, it appears that jubilant fans and the news media were evaluating their personal and national identities by consuming Osaka’s successes.

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Kyodo News International. (2020f, December 4). Nishikori eager to bounce back after troubled season. Kyodo News International. (2020g, December 18). Nishikori has married ex-model. Laucella, P., Hardin, M., Bien-Aimé, S., & Antunovic, D. (2016). Diversifying the sports department and covering women’s sports. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 94(3), 772–792. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1077699016654443 Lee, C.-C., & Yang, J. (1996). Foreign news and national interest: Comparing U.S. and Japanese coverage of a Chinese student movement. Gazette (Leiden, Netherlands), 56(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/001654929605600101 Lind, R. A., & Salo, C. (2002). The framing of feminists and feminism in news and public affairs programs in U.S. electronic media. Journal of Communication, 52(1), 211–228. Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2011). Qualitative communication research methods. SAGE Publications. McKirdy, E. (2019, January 23). Japanese sponsor accused of ‘whitewashing’ tennis star Naomi Osaka. CNN.  Retrieved from https://www.cnn. com/2019/01/23/tennis/nissin-naomi-osaka-skin-tone-intl/index.html. Miyake, K. (2019, January 29). How Japanese is Naomi Osaka? The Japan Times. Oikawa, S., & Yoshida, T. (2007). An identity based on being different: A focus on Biethnic individuals in Japan. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 31(6), 633–653. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2007.05.001. Rich, M. (2021, February 11). Tokyo Olympics chief resigns over sexist comments. The New  York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/ world/asia/yoshiro-­mori-­tokyo-­olympics-­resigns.html. Russell, J. (1991). Race and reflexivity: The black other in contemporary Japanese mass culture. Cultural Anthropology, 6(1), 3–25. Shih, C. (2013). Japanese Asian: The absence of China 1997  in Japan times reporting. In Sinicizing international relations (pp.  117–132). Palgrave Macmillan. St. Michel, P. (2018). Social media falls in love with Naomi Osaka as tennis star sparks debate. The Japan Times. Tansey, J. (2018, August 14). Osaka must improve mental focus to become elite player. The Japan Times (Web Edition). Tansey, J. (2020, September 11). Naomi Osaka reaches U.S. Open final with gutsy three-set win. The Japan Times (Web Edition). Taylor, P. C. (2004). Race: A philosophical introduction. Polity Press. Tollefson, J. W. (2014). The discursive reproduction of technoscience and Japanese national identity in the daily Yomiuri coverage of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Discourse & Communication, 8(3), 299–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1750481313510817

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CHAPTER 6

Making Sense of Korean Baseball: Articulating Race, Gender, and Cultural Hegemony in the North American Media Coverage of Korea Baseball Organization During2020 Baseball Season Daniel Yu-Kuei Sun

Introduction In March 2020, the COVID-19 virus outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China, had quickly become a global pandemic. This pandemic profoundly impacted many aspects of human societies around the world, and sports were no exception. In North America, major professional sports leagues, such as the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, suspended their 2020 seasons indefinitely in early March. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball (MLB) suspended its spring training games, and its 2020 season would not start until July 23

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thanks to both health concerns and the labor dispute between the ownership and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). For a few months, sports news networks, such as ESPN, had few live sports events to cover, and this gap significantly disrupted the operation and revenue flow of North America’s mainstream sports industry. The dire situation, however, created a marketing opportunity for nonmainstream and international sports. On May 4, ESPN announced its plan to broadcast six Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) games live every week for North American viewers as the top-tier professional baseball league of South Korea prepared to begin its season the next day. In North America, few people had shown much interest in or knowledge of Korean baseball, but ESPN’s broadcast, and its accompanying media coverage throughout the 2020 KBO season, introduced and promoted an Asian baseball league to North American sports fans. Considering MLB’s hegemonic status in the baseball world, this was both unprecedented and unimaginable before the COVID-19 pandemic. In this chapter, I examine and analyze North American media narratives of the 2020 KBO season. I will first provide a brief discussion on the historical context of Korean baseball since this illustrates the historical foundations of baseball’s significance and cultural meanings in Korea. I will then review scholarly discussion about the media representations of Asian and Asian American athletes, especially regarding how gendered and racialized ideas about Asian masculinity were being articulated in these media narratives. Following that, I will review and analyze media narratives of the 2020 KBO season in North America. My sources include major newspapers, online news articles from sports media, and articles from baseball-specific websites such as Fangraphs.com (a popular baseball website specializing in baseball statistical analysis) and Baseball America (a sports magazine that focuses on baseball player development and Minor League talents). I used search terms such as “KBO,” “Korean baseball,” and names of high-profile players in the league such as “Sung-Bum Na” and “Dan Straily” to find relevant journalist accounts published from May 2020 to November 2020. Many of these narratives come from ESPN.com because ESPN broadcasted the whole KBO season live, and its website understandably had the most comprehensive coverage of the Korean league throughout the 2020 season. Most of the other major media outlets, however, only covered the league at the beginning of the season. I believe these sources provided a general sense of how the KBO was perceived and received by mainstream North American audiences. In

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addition, I also include narratives from Korean-based media and social media. Most notably, these sources provide counternarratives to the mainstream viewpoints on the KBO in North America, and to some extent they illustrate how Koreans interpreted the North American perception of Korean baseball. This research follows the theoretical tradition of “reading sport critically”—a methodology laid out by Susan Birrell and Mary McDonald (Birrell & McDonald, 2000; McDonald & Birrell, 1999). Birrell and McDonald argue that a critical reading of media narratives allows us to interrogate and example the ideological messages and power relations in this specific context. This theoretical framework has been widely utilized by critical sport studies and sports media scholars (Choi, 2020; Jamieson, 1998; Schultz, 2005). In doing so, my analysis seeks to uncover celebrated cultural values and dominant ideologies regarding gender, race, and nation in ideologically coded cultural texts. I contend that, though media coverage of KBO games and players potentially challenges the stereotypes of Asian American men and reimagines the qualities that constitute Asian masculinity, these narratives nevertheless reinforce the exoticness and foreignness of Asian and Asian American athletes. Moreover, the media coverage articulates the hegemonic, U.S.-centric view of baseball and relegate the KBO to an inferior status. The Korean league is thus positioned within the Minor League system of the Major League Baseball—the KBO can only be meaningful when it is regarded as one of the Minor Leagues of the MLB. In this regard, both talented Korean and foreign-born (or non-­Korean-­born) players in the KBO are incorporated into the MLB talent pool. Narratives of foreign-born players usually revolve around a “chance to return” to the MLB if they can perform well in the KBO, while narratives of elite Korean players (such as NC Dino’s outfielder Na Sung-bum and Kiwoom Heroes’ Kim Ha-seong) center on their possibility of leaving the KBO and joining MLB in the future. These examples point to not only a rigid definition of Asian American manhood in the larger context of North American racial hierarchy but also a reaffirmation of MLB’s dominant status and an unchallenged cultural hegemony in a transnational sporting context.

Baseball in Korea: A Brief Cultural History Before examining the media narratives, I will briefly discuss the historical context in which baseball’s popularity in Korea was cultivated and illustrate the sport’s transnational journey from America to Asia since the late

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nineteenth century. Two imperial powers, the United States and Japan, played important roles in introducing and popularizing baseball in this nation, and the unique context of Korean politics in the 1980s facilitated the birth of South Korea’s professional baseball. Baseball appeared in Korea as early as the late nineteenth century, as historical records suggest American missionaries in Korea played the sport in Seoul in 1896 (Reaves, 2006, p. 206). Historians credit Philip Loring Gillett, an American missionary associated with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), for popularizing baseball in Korea at the turn of the century (Cho, 2012; Reaves, 2006). It was, however, during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) that baseball started to be fully integrated into Korea’s social life. As in Korea, American missionaries brought baseball to Japan in the late nineteenth century, and the sport was soon embraced by the Japanese. Seen as a symbol of modernity, advancement, and Westernization, baseball’s popularity in Japan quickly rose against the backdrop of the Meiji Restoration, a transformative period that laid the foundation for Japan’s rise as a regional empire in the early twentieth century. As such, the imperial powers of both the United States and Japan played key roles in spreading baseball to Korea. The sport’s presumed embodiment of Americanness and modernity made it a favorite activity in Japan when the country was eagerly absorbing Western institutions and customs. Baseball was included in Japan’s school curriculum as the country modernized its school system, which mirrored the education system of the United States (Cho, 2016). The expansion of the Empire of Japan—especially its colonization of Korea and Taiwan—further spread Japan’s modernization project, including baseball, into other parts of Asia. In colonial Korea, YMCA missionaries and Japanese soldiers, administrators, and educators were the primary promoters and participants of baseball. According to Reaves (2006), in 1912, “teams from the Seoul YMCA were playing more than sixty games a year, and the association’s top squad rarely lost” (p.  210). However, baseball was by no means a hugely popular game across social classes during this period. Games were only held in Japanese-run education facilities, and baseball was “strictly controlled by Imperial Japan … for acculturating Koreans to Japanese rules—in other words, for assimilating them into Japan” (Cho, 2012, p. 535). But the meanings of baseball meant much more than simply subjection to Japanese rule for the colonized Koreans. For them, baseball was a cultural signifier of both the Japanese colonizers and the Americans, and

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the positive images of the Americans made baseball much more easily accepted by the colonized Koreans, even though it was primarily brought to them by the Japanese. Yoo (2001) argues that during the time of Japanese rule, Koreans had long imagined America as “the richest nation in the world as well as a gentleman-like brotherly nation that had no intention to occupy, but rather help weak countries to achieve independence” (p. 427). America, unlike Japan and other Western powers, was the country that the Korean people admired and felt friendly to because it was regarded as the “birthplace of Modernism” and a benefactor of Korea (Yoo, 2001, p. 427). The root of this attitude, and in general American cultural hegemony in Korea, can be traced to the interconnected history of European colonialism in Asia, Eurocentrism, and Japanese colonialism—all of which contributed to the acceptance and embracing of American values and customs among Korean people. Paik (2000) notes that Japanese colonialism especially made Eurocentrism and American hegemony work more effectively in Korea because these values were not directly imposed on them by the West, but they infiltrated Korean society through another Asian mediator, the Japanese. This cultural context facilitate the rapid development and growth of modern sports in Korea after the colonial period. After World War II, South Korea’s enthusiasm for baseball revolved around high school and amateur baseball. It was not until the 1980s that professionalization of baseball started to take shape, and the establishment of the KBO in 1982 was closely intertwined with Korea’s national politics at the time. In October 1979, South Korea’s President Park Chung-hee was assassinated. Soon after Park’s assassination, Chun Doo-hwan, then commander of the Security Command of the Korean army, grabbed power by orchestrating a successful military coup d’état in December 1979. Chun enacted martial law, outlawed political activities and gatherings, and eventually became the president of South Korea in 1981 through an undemocratic special election. Civil unrest and pro-democracy demonstrations exploded nationwide after the coup d’état. The Gwangju Uprising, which took place in the spring of 1980 and resulted in at least several hundred deaths at the hands of government forces, was the culmination of the conflict between Chun’s authoritarian leadership and South Korea’s general public. In this context, starting a professional baseball league should be understood as a governmental strategy that allowed Chun and his administration to appease the public and divert “the public’s interest from politics to sports” (Kim, 2008, p. 377). This was especially true considering

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the KBO’s first commissioner was a high-ranking general who helped President Chun seize power, and all six teams of KBO’s inaugural season were owned by giant corporations with close ties to the Korean government (Kim, 2008). Still, the KBO blossomed in the following years and joined Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), established in 1950, and Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), established in 1989, as the major professional baseball leagues of Asia. In 1998, the league allowed foreign players to join the league for the first time (with each team rostering at most two foreign-born players), and talented Korean players were also being recruited by organizations from Japan and the United States. Among them, Chan-ho Park was a pioneering figure who blazed the trail for other Korean-born players to play for MLB organizations. Signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1994 as an amateur, Park became a regular starting pitcher for the Dodgers in 1996, and he went on to have a stellar MLB career for 16 years, playing for several different MLB teams, including the Texas Rangers under a lucrative contract worth $65 million. Park’s success made him a national hero for South Korea, and others who followed his footsteps, including Byung-hyun Kim and Shin-Soo Choo, also enjoyed celebrity status in Korea. Accompanying these cases were the South Korean national team’s achievements in the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic (WBC): In the 2000 Summer Olympics, South Korea won a bronze medal in baseball—the nation’s first medal in baseball, and eight years later they reached the very top by winning the gold medal in Beijing. Their success in WBC was also impressive, claiming third place in the inaugural WBC tournament in 2006 and coming just short of the championship by losing to Japan in the 2009 final. It is fair to say that baseball in Korea made giant strides following KBO’s formation and is now one of the powerhouses in the world of baseball. Before the start of the 2020 season, the COVID-19 pandemic had significantly impacted South Korean society. The first confirmed case was discovered in late January, and a widespread outbreak took place in February when an infected person attended mass religious gatherings in the city of Daegu, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to more than 400 (Farrer, 2020). At that time, South Korea was one of the countries most severely hit by the coronavirus, and drastic governmental measures were taken to mitigate the spread of the virus. As a result, the league cancelled the preseason games in March and postponed the start of the season several times. Fortunately, by late April, the outbreak was firmly

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under control as the number of new cases in the country each day decreased significantly (McCurry, 2020). The Korean government decided to lift restrictions on some public spaces, and the KBO could finally start the season on May 5, though with no fans in the stadium.

Sport and Asian American Masculinity In the North America context, Asian and Asian American men’s presence in mainstream sports had been rare and unnoticed until very recently. The racialized and gendered bodies of Asian men are not expected to play sports, and when they do, their Asian heritage is either highlighted or effaced (King, 2006). Moreover, Asian men have also long been considered physically inferior to men of other races, and this perceived physical inferiority has been reaffirmed by the underrepresentation of athletes of Asian descent in major North American sports. Individually, elite Asian or Asian American athletes encountered excessive media scrutiny, and they were often subjected to racist treatments by both sports media and sports fans. For example, Japanese baseball icon Ichiro Suzuki’s body had been heavily scrutinized by U.S. media, and his physical being was rendered exotic and feminine, despite his stellar performance and accolades when playing for the Seattle Mariners in the early 2000s (Nakamura, 2005). Jeremy Lin, the Taiwanese American basketball player who was the protagonist of the “Linsanity” media frenzy in 2012, had long been subjected to racist jokes during his college and professional careers, and the media narratives about him reinforced the racist view that Asian people were exotic, different, and “forever foreigners” in North America (Hsu, 2012; Lee, 2016; Leung, 2013). When Asian-born athletes compete in American professional sports leagues, the media narratives from the athletes’ country of origin also tend to reinforce the dominant ideologies of nationalism and American superiority, and their masculinity is often compromised and negotiated in the racial dynamics among White, Black and Asian athletes. In her media analysis of Korean baseball players, Choi (2020) argues that in Korean digital media, the Korean male athletes were understood based upon “the naturalized connection between athletic power and male bodies, so that the bodies functioned as an ideological space to reaffirm male-centered athleticism” (p.  174). However, such naturalized and nationalized Korean masculinity was fractured and agitated when “Korean players were juxtaposed with White males” (Choi, 2020, p.  174). For example, Chan-ho

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Park was described as the “2nd Nolan Ryan”—the legendary retired pitcher of the Texas Rangers. His relation to another veteran pitcher, Orel Hershiser, was described by the media as a mentor–student relationship (Choi, 2020, p.  175). The Korean media constructed a racial hierarchy that positioned Korean men below White men, and in the case of Park and other Korean players playing in the United States, they looked up to White players as their role models. These narratives reflected “Koreans’ cultural ethos favoring Whites” (Choi, 2020, p. 175). ESPN’s KBO coverage and full-season broadcast in 2020 had the potential to alter these racial stereotypes. At the very least, for North American audiences, KBO televised games signified a more diverse scene in sports media, and the regular appearance of athletic Asian men playing baseball on ESPN had already pushed the boundary of the racial expectations associated with Asian American men. However, as the following analysis illustrates, the media narratives revolving around the 2020 KBO season did little to challenge the hegemonic views of Asian male athletes as well as the cultural hierarchy between the United States and South Korea in baseball and beyond.

KBO on ESPN: Making it on the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” On May 4, just a day before the KBO started its 2020 season, ESPN announced that it had reached a deal with the Korean league to live televise six games a week throughout the 2020 regular season, and ESPN would also broadcast the postseason games, including the Korean Series— the best-of-seven championship series that would take place in November. Despite the fact that KBO games took place at wee hours in North America—most weekday games started at 1:00 a.m. in the Eastern Time Zone—the decision to cover the KBO league generated positive responses from both North American sports fans and baseball enthusiasts in Korea. In the United States, most sports events were put on hold because of the coronavirus, so it was logical and profitable for sports networks like ESPN to find alternative products whenever possible, especially since MLB’s return was not in sight at that time. While few people in the United States followed Korean baseball, a small number of KBO experts, many of whom were familiar with both sides of baseball and fluent in both English and Korean, played important roles in introducing the Korean version to American baseball fans. Dan Kurtz, a

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stay-at-home father who was born in Korea but was adopted and grew up in Pennsylvania, was one of them. Kurtz started an online message board called MyKBO.net in 2002, and over the years, the site evolved as the only English-language website that covered the KBO schedule, live statistics, and game logs. Kurtz fell in love with the league after his trip to Korea in 1999, and his website served as the go-to source for English-language fans of the league (Jaffe, 2020b). For a long time, MyKBO.net “never attracted more than 100 visitors at one time,” but on May 4, extremely high volume of visitors crashed the site’s stats section (Gonzalez, 2020). Kurtz was also interviewed by a number of major media outlets to offer his insights on the once obscure baseball league. As he told ESPN, “I didn’t ever expect the site to go down, I didn’t ever expect to get so many interview requests and actually ever appear on ESPN … Whenever I made this [message board] 20 years ago, it was never in my wildest dreams that I would appear on a broadcast that would put KBO games on ESPN, the world’s sports leader, and talk about baseball. I still really can’t wrap my mind around it” (Gonzalez, 2020). Baseball enthusiast and writer Sung Min Kim shared Kurtz’s sentiment. Kim, a Korean native and a research and development member of KBO’s Lotte Giants, was a sportswriter for Fangraphs.com, The Athletic, and other U.S. sports media outlets before returning to Korea and joining the Giants. Knowing ESPN’s Karl Ravech would anchor the network’s KBO broadcast, Kim tweeted, “I was a fan of @karlravechespn’s ever since playing ESPN MLB 2K4 on Xbox and he had his voice featured there. Absolutely wild to hear him commentate on a #KBO game” (Kim, 2020a). When the 2020 season was coming to an end in November, he tweeted, “I must say, it has been surreal seeing ESPN broadcast/cover a KBO season in its entirety. I never thought it was even in the realm of possibility of happening” (Kim, 2020b). Kurtz and Kim’s feelings were understandable and common among KBO fans and followers in both the United States and South Korea. Long regarded as an afterthought in the American-centric world of baseball, the KBO was finally cracking mainstream sports coverage thanks to the hiatus of MLB during the global pandemic. Along with Taiwan’s CPBL, which started its season in early April and also garnered unprecedented global media attention, the KBO took over the media space that was typically reserved for MLB, allowing North American fans to learn about not only the players and the league but also Korean culture, language, and food. This was a refreshing and welcome development, especially considering

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the lack of coverage in Asian sports as well as the underrepresentation of Asian and Asian American athletes in major North American sports leagues (King, 2006; Thangaraj, 2015; Willms, 2017). However, both Kurtz and Kim articulated and reaffirmed the cultural hierarchy that positioned the United States, as well as its baseball industry, on the very top of the world. By unquestionably regarding ESPN as the “worldwide leader of sports,” as Kurtz noted in his interview, it suggested whatever ESPN was broadcasting took precedence and priority. While it was true that ESPN was a powerful, if not ubiquitous, sports media company in North America, these discourses reinforced the belief that the United States should be the center of attention, and the KBO was not truly deserving of the coverage and was receiving it only because of the major disruption of North American sports. In another interview, Kim was quoted as saying: The thing about Korea is that, while we may give an impression of “catching up” to things they do in the United States, the country has made unprecedented strides in being one of the poorest countries of the world to one of the richest. The KBO, which only started 38 years ago, does not have the historical depth compared to the MLB and NPB, but it’s made significant enough strides that we have major league-caliber talents playing in this league every day—and many others have clearly noticed. (Jaffe, 2020a)

Just as Kim regarded MLB as the highest standard of baseball that Korean baseball needed to “catch up,” so too did Korean coaches and players in the league express such sentiments. LG Twins manager Ryu Joong-il was quoted as saying, “We may not be as good as MLB, but we’ll still try to show people that Korean baseball has come a long way” during the press conference before the season opener (“ESPN Deal Is a Good Opportunity for Korean Baseball,” 2020). It is important to note that these discourses articulated a sense of Korean nationalism—the idea that Korea had come a long way—and they also reflected and engaged with the similarly pro-American attitude of early-twentieth-century Korea.

Chasing the American Dream: MLB as the Ultimate Challenge for Korean Players For Korean players, MLB also represented the ultimate challenge in baseball. In a feature story published by ESPN.com, NC Dinos star Sung-Bum Na discussed his desire to play in MLB and his admiration for the United

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States. For him, the United States is not only where the best baseball players play but also a shopping and food paradise. Recalling his recent trip to the United States, he was quoted as saying, “I do a lot shopping in the United States. I love Abercrombie & Fitch and Lululemon. And baby back ribs are my favorite” (Rivera, 2020). He also commented on how spectacular and great American ballparks were: … when you see Dodger Stadium … that grass is sooooo green! … It’s so nice, the field conditions, the major league players, and seeing [Hyun-jin] Ryu pitch … It’s my dream to go to all 30 MLB baseball stadiums. I believe all 30 stadiums have their own charm. (Rivera, 2020)

For many Korean players like Na, MLB not only represents a much bigger financial reward than playing baseball in the KBO; it also signifies the highest achievement possible for a baseball player. Na was chasing a dream, and he said that “watching MLB on TV made me have bigger dreams.” Na said he would like to be like Christian Yelich and Bryce Harper, two of the biggest stars in MLB, and he was working hard every day to achieve that dream (Rivera, 2020). In the Korean context, it was hardly a surprise that elite players like Na were chasing such an “American dream.” As noted earlier, the colonial history of Korea and the United States’ involvement in multiple wars in East Asia in the twentieth century facilitated a pro-American attitude among many Koreans. In sports, U.S. cultural hegemony also goes unchallenged, and it has been further implemented through the process of globalization when American professional sports organizations aggressively market their games to the Korean audience since the 1990s. In the late 1990s, when South Korea was going through a severe financial crisis, two Korean athletes, Park and Se-ri Pak, became nationally celebrated figures because of their athletic success in the United States. Both Park and Pak were hailed as national heroes, and their respective careers in MLB and the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) significantly popularized the two U.S.-based sports leagues in South Korea (Cho, 2008). In the following years, more and more Korean athletes competed in American sports leagues, and some of them became national celebrities for their success in a foreign land. For Na, Park, Choo, and Ryu’s success in MLB encouraged him to take on this next challenge, and he should have a “bigger dream” than staying in Korea playing in the KBO.

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The KBO as MLB’s “Farm System” As Korean baseball garnered more media attention in early May, ESPN and other major media outlets focused on introducing the league to new fans, and many did so by comparing the league to MLB and discussing KBO’s “equivalents” to their MLB counterparts. For example, Doosan Bears, the defending champion of the KBO, was regarded as the Korean version of the Washington Nationals because both teams won the championship in 2019 in surprising fashion. The Hanwha Eagles, on the other hand, were the equivalent of MLB’s Baltimore Orioles—both teams boasted a beautiful home ballpark (Hanwha Life Insurance Eagles Park and Camden Yards, respectively) but have had little success in recent years (Weyrich, 2020). KBO’s star players were also constantly compared with MLB stars. As more and more North American baseball fans were getting exposed to live KBO games through ESPN’s broadcast, one of the more popular discussions about the KBO was about the overall quality of KBO players—more specifically, how good were the KBO players compared with players on MLB teams? In an ESPN.com article titled “How good would Mike Trout be in the KBO? We have the numbers,” baseball writer Dan Szymborski tried to answer this question by comparing the two leagues using advanced statistical analysis. Szymborski argued that Trout, one of the best players in MLB, could dominate the KBO, hitting 40 home runs and having a 0.333/0.502/0.696 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) slash line in the 2020 season, according to his projection model (Szymborski, 2020). More importantly, this article set a clear presumption of the Korean league’s level of play by contextualizing the KBO in MLB’s player development system. He put it this way: Based on the data available, KBO appears to be somewhere between Double-A and Triple-A, on average, though the best players are more likely to be MLB-quality than your typical Double-A league; it’s harder to get “promoted” from KBO to MLB than it is from Double-A to MLB. (Szymborski, 2020)

In the system of MLB, each team partners with several Minor League teams, and these Minor League teams are divided into various playing levels (e.g., from the lowest to the highest, Low-A, High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A). Most MLB players play in the Minor Leagues before being

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promoted to an MLB team. This “farm system,” as it is commonly called by baseball fans, allows MLB teams to develop and evaluate young talents before sending them to the highest level of competition and paying them a premium salary. Although Szymborski hinted that the Korean league was fun to watch in its own right, inserting the KBO “somewhere between Double-A and Triple-A” in MLB’s farm system regulated the foreign league and all its players as inferior to MLB players, a common view held by North American baseball writers and journalists. Baseball America, a baseball magazine specializing in covering young prospects and future talents of MLB, also published several articles that treated the KBO as MLB’s farm system. In one article, the magazine offered its evaluation of the KBO, Japan’s NPB, and Taiwan’s CPBL, giving readers a comprehensive look at Asian baseball in comparison with MLB and its farm system: Overall, here is the hierarchy of how MLB front office officials and evaluators generally view the quality of the various Asian leagues compared to MLB and the Minor Leagues: MLB NPB (Japan) AAA KBO (Korea) AA High A CPBL (Taiwan) Low A (Glaser, 2020b)

Once again, the KBO was ranked between Double-A and Triple-A. More interestingly, the article included other Asian baseball leagues in the hierarchy of baseball, suggesting these leagues were no different from MLB’s Minor Leagues. Since the primary purpose of the Minor Leagues was to develop young talents for MLB teams, the KBO and other Asian leagues, from Baseball America’s perspective, should also be seen as such. It was thus not a surprise that Baseball America published another article to introduce KBO’s “Top 10 MLB Prospects.” The author argued that the league had “become important sources of talent for major league clubs” since the mid-1990s, and quite a few KBO players, including Na and Kiwoom Heroes’ star shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, were thought to be “prospective major leaguers” in the future (Glaser, 2020a).

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These examples evidently showed MLB’s hegemonic status in the world of baseball as well as the blatant American-centric view from North American sports media. Although the global pandemic in 2020 allowed for the spotlight to be shone on the Korean baseball league, North American baseball followers were still not quite ready to embrace the KBO as a standalone, unique baseball league. The constant comparison with MLB and the emphasis on different levels of play between these two leagues strengthened the belief that MLB should be the only thing that mattered. The KBO, on the other hand, was only “ably filling the holes” when MLB was shutting down (Glaser, 2020b).

KBO’s Foreign Players: “Remember These Guys”? Foreign-born players played important roles in the KBO, and they typically outperformed their Korean counterparts. For the 2020 season, each KBO team could carry three foreign-born players, but no more than two of them could be pitchers. Many of these foreign-born players were American or had experience playing for MLB teams, so it was natural for the North American media to highlight their performance. In another ESPN.com article, the author describes Aaron Altherr, Casey Kelly, Dan Straily, and Tyler Saladino—all of them currently in the KBO but with MLB experience—as players MLB fans would “evoke a ‘Wait, he’s still around?’ reaction” (Mullen, 2020). The author playfully argues that watching KBO games “is sort of like opening up an old pack of baseball cards and suddenly remembering a player you haven’t thought about in years” (Mullen, 2020). Kelly, for example, was a highly regarded young prospect in the Boston Red Sox organization before being traded to the San Diego Padres in 2010. Despite his high pedigree, Kelly’s MLB career was underwhelming, pitching for three different teams from 2012 to 2018, and he had accumulated much more pitching innings in Triple-A than in the Major Leagues. After the 2018 season, he joined KBO’s LG Twins and became a reliable starting pitcher for the team. As of this writing, his KBO career will continue into the 2021 season. MLB’s official website also published an article titled “Remember these guys? 26 former prospects in KBO,” introducing a list of players who were once regarded as future talents for MLB teams. The tone of such articles seemed to suggest these former prospects were disappointing, failed investments by MLB teams, and their appearances in the KBO point to the unpredictability and ultracompetitiveness of professional baseball. It was another

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reminder about KBO’s still inferior place in the global hierarchy of baseball. Aside from players like Kelly whose MLB aspirations did not work out and chose to take an alternative route throughout their baseball journey and likely ended their playing career in Korea, others joined the KBO to seek another chance in MLB. They looked up to Eric Thames, a first baseman who played for the NC Dinos from 2014 to 2016, as their role model. Before joining the KBO, Thames played briefly in MLB for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners, but he spent most of his career as a journeyman Minor Leaguer. His stint with the Dinos was spectacular both offensively and defensively—he hit at least 37 home runs in each of three seasons, and his cumulative offensive slash line (349/.451/.721) over three KBO seasons was an otherworldly feat. He earned KBO’s Most Valuable Player Award and Gold Glove Award in 2015 and became a fan favorite in South Korea. Thames made his way back to the United States in 2017, joining the Milwaukee Brewers on a multiyear MLB contract. Not only that, he performed well as an everyday position player for the Brewers, shaking off his reputation as a career Minor Leaguer before his KBO stint. Thames was regularly mentioned by the media as an inspirational story—the KBO was not necessarily a dead end for American players, but it could be a place where one regains his reputation. Straily, a 31-yer-old pitcher for the Lotte Giants, envisioned this possibility and hoping to follow Thames’s footstep. Straily was a struggling starting pitcher in 2019 for the Baltimore Orioles, posting an ugly 9.82 earned run average (ERA) in 47.2 innings before being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies and demoted to its Minor League team. In Korea, he shined as one of the more dominant pitchers of the league, accumulating 15 wins and pitching to an excellent 2.82 ERA for the 2020 season. After the season, Straily reportedly received interest and offers from multiple MLB teams (Kelly, 2020). Chris Flexen, a 26-year-­ old pitcher who previously played for the New York Mets, took a route similar to Straily’s. For the 2020 season, he pitched to a 3.01 ERA for KBO’s Doosan Bears, and his nice performance in Korea resulted in a multiyear contract with the Seattle Mariners. On Twitter, KBO reporter Daniel Kim congratulated Flexen, tweeting, “Congrats to Chris. Came to Korea and pitched exceptionally well … earned his way back to #MLB. Another #KBO success story” (Daniel Kim 대니얼 김, 2020b)! Though it was true the players who made their way back to MLB enjoyed more lucrative financial rewards than playing in Korea, these

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narratives, including those from Korean reporters, once again exemplified the KBO’s inferior status and the perception that MLB was the only baseball league that mattered. For American players like Straily and Flexen, the KBO was not a destination but a passage, a temporary stop for them to improve themselves and eventually return to the highest level of baseball, MLB. Unsurprisingly, from the Korean perspective, this was not only an expected move by the foreign players, but it was a good thing for the KBO. In another tweet by Daniel Kim, he argued that while losing great foreign players like Thames was disappointing, “I see it as a progress for #KBO. This only helps #KBO brand and enhances its credibility” (Daniel Kim 대니얼 김, 2020a). The idea that the KBO still needed “credibility” and “approval” from MLB and other more “advanced” leagues worked exactly hand in glove with the thought that the KBO was subordinated to the hegemonic MLB and its baseball hierarchy. As noted earlier, North American media narratives regarded the KBO as one of the farm systems of MLB, and this was accepted as a taken-for-granted fact by Korean-­ based media as well. Therefore, the KBO should be proud of Thames’s and Flexen’s returns to MLB, just like a Minor League team should be proud of a former player making it to MLB. In all, from both American and Korean perspectives, the hegemony of MLB remains solid and unchallenged, even though the 2020 KBO season shifted the media spotlight from North America to South Korea for a few months.

Bat-Flip Culture, Wackiness, and Negotiated Asian Masculinity Another constantly discussed aspect of the KBO was how the league differed from MLB in terms of playing strategy and style. An American fan living in South Korea was quoted as saying that MLB was like opera, while the KBO was like “rock-and-roll” (J. Lee, 2020). The fan culture in the KBO was much more vibrant, and the performance on the field was also more expressive. For example, compared with MLB hitters, Korean league hitters tended to put more balls in play, struck out less, and hit fewer home runs. In Korea, it was much more acceptable for hitters to “flip” their bat in an expressive way, usually after hitting a home run, while bat flipping in North America was generally considered disrespectful against one’s opponents. The KBO’s bat-flip culture was perhaps the most popular topic among North American baseball fans about Korean baseball, as video clips

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and social media helped disseminate and visualize Korean hitters’ colorful gesture even before the 2020 season (e.g., Kimes & Duzyj, 2016). While many media narratives describe the bat-flip culture as a unique and intriguing element of the KBO, a few articles suggested, half-jokingly, that the Koreans were crossing a line. In one of the weekly KBO roundups by ESPN.com, the coverage included a short clip featuring a Samsung Lions hitter flipping his bat after a pop-up—an unusual move since a bat flip typically follows a well-hit ball. In the following moments, the fielders of the opposing LG Twins missed the catch, only to make up for the bad play by nailing the overly aggressive Lions runner at home plate (KBO Weekly, 2020). This sequence made it to ESPN.com, not because of the players’ brilliant athletic performance, but because of its perceived wackiness. In another ESPN piece, a KBO umpire also appeared in one of the highlight clips because of his unusual, strong strikeout gesture. The article noted, “With such a great view of all the KBO’s bat flips, the umpires apparently want to be part of the fun too” (KBO Weekly, 2020). Once again, the media narrative presented an umpire gesture as weird and unusual, and its playful tone seemed to trivialize the league and took away its seriousness as a professional baseball league. Perhaps the best example of where the media represented the KBO as “fun” and “weird” at the same time came after the final game of the Korean Series. The NC Dinos defeated the Doosan Bears in six games and won their first ever KBO championship on November 24. Instead of covering the game actions and key moments of the series, the media narratives overwhelmingly focused on the postgame ceremony, when a giant sword was presented to the NC Dinos along with the KBO championship trophy (Dator, 2020; Foote, 2020; Monagan, 2020). The sword was not the official championship trophy (it was a gift from the team’s parent company, which operated online video games), but many North American media outlets claimed that the sword was the “greatest sports trophy” or “the coolest thing we’ve ever seen.” Video clips of Dinos players holding the sword went viral on Twitter, and many called for other sports leagues to “step your trophy game up” (Foote, 2020). These narratives, while praising and commending, exemplified the trivialization and exoticization of the KBO. Few media outlets discussed Dinos’ pitching strategy, timely hits, or performances by key players of both teams; the sensation centered exclusively on an unusual gift at the postgame ceremony. These media representations resemble the stereotypical representations of Asian or Asian American men in the North American sporting context.

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Although ESPN’s KBO coverage and full-season broadcast provided a more diverse scene for a North American audience, the athleticism of Korean players was not fully appreciated in these narratives. Their masculinity was negotiated and compromised in the cultural logics of White/ American superiority, and their athletic achievements were never treated seriously because of the perceived inferior status of the KBO.

“That’s Not Just Distracting, It’s Also Obnoxious and Insulting” As media narratives from both North America and South Korea followed the themes discussed previously and reinforced MLB’s hegemonic status, a few counternarratives emerged in The Korean Times, one of the major English-language newspapers published in South Korea. In an opinion column, renowned New  York-based reporter Donald Kirk bluntly criticized ESPN’s KBO broadcast: What’s surprising about the live broadcasts of the KBO games on ESPN, however, is how little time these jokers devote to the game that's being played before their very eyes … in one game I watched the announcers seemed preoccupied with anything but the game. They persisted in talking, quite knowledgeably, about the brilliant performance of the Yankees against the Red Sox and other stuff that might interest American fans, interspersing their commentary with occasional bows to the game as they happened to glance up on the screen. … A memorable moment came when the catcher nailed a guy stealing second with a perfect inning-ending throw. One of these clowns suddenly said, “Looks as if we’ve got a third out here.” If you didn’t have your eyes on the screen, you would have had no idea what happened. (Kirk, 2020)

Kirk went on to argue the broadcasters’ focus on guest interviews and lack of attention to the game was “not just distracting, it’s also obnoxious and insulting to the KBO” (Kirk, 2020). He encouraged ESPN to “cut back on the goofball interviews” and make the game action the priority of the program. Furthermore, it “would be great if ESPN were to carry KBO games even if MLB resumes in full force next year” because there was indeed a lot of interest in Korean baseball (Kirk, 2020). This article was one of the more notable examples of those that challenged and resisted ESPN’s American-centric view on Korean baseball. By

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pointing out ESPN’s unjustified attention to MLB-related news during KBO broadcasts, Kirk’s words represented a pro-Korean perspective that was not in conformity with American cultural hegemony. In his view, Korean baseball should be embraced and consumed by both sides of the Pacific regardless of MLB’s status, and the existence of Korean and American players in the league should garner enough attention from ESPN (or other sports media outlets) to continue broadcasting and promoting this league after the 2020 season. It remains to be seen whether the KBO will attract much interest from North America in a postpandemic world, but Kirk’s words offered an alternative viewpoint from the majority of sports media in both North America and South Korea.

Conclusion In this chapter, I focused on the media narratives of the 2020 KBO season in North America and analyzed the cultural and ideological messages of these mediated texts. My findings and discussions suggest that these narratives rarely challenged the stereotypical images of Asian or Asian American men, and they further reinforced the exoticness and foreignness of Asian and Asian American athletes. Moreover, the media coverage articulated the U.S.-centric, hegemonic view of baseball and relegated the KBO to an inferior status to MLB and American baseball. The Korean league is regarded as the farm system of MLB, and both talented Korean and foreign-born players in the KBO are incorporated in the MLB talent pool. These narratives articulated a rather rigid definition of Asian American manhood in the larger context of North American racial hierarchy, and it also reaffirmed MLB’s dominant status as an unchallenged cultural hegemony in a transnational sporting context.

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Choi, Y. (2020). Major League Baseball and racialized masculinities in Korean digital media. Communication & Sport, 8(2), 168–187. Daniel Kim 대니얼 김. (2020a, December 9). Yes, it is disappointing to lose good players like @melrojasjr, @JoshLindblom52, @Mert_723 and @EricThames to #MLB and #NPB, but I see it as a progress for #KBO. This only helps #KBO brand and enhances its credibility. If you can make it in #KBO, more opptys will come ur way. [Tweet]. @DanielKimW. https://twitter.com/DanielKimW/ status/1336545355358343175 Daniel Kim 대니얼 김. (2020b, December 19). Congrats to Chris. Came to Korea and pitched exceptionally well … Earned his way back to #MLB.  Another #KBO success story! [Tweet]. @DanielKimW. https://twitter.com/ DanielKimW/status/1340241837664083968 Dator, J. (2020, November 24). This Korean world series trophy is a giant sword from a video game. SBNation.com. https://www.sbnation.com/2020/11/24/ 21612616/korean-­world-­series-­sword-­trophy “ESPN deal is a good opportunity for Korean baseball”. (2020, May 5). The Korea Times. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/sports/2020/08/662_289006.html Farrer, M. (2020, February 22). Coronavirus: South Korea cluster drives huge rise in cases. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ feb/22/coronavirus-­south-­korea-­sees-­huge-­jump-­cases-­china-­hubei-­wuhan-­outbreak-­ Foote, D. (2020, November 24). No trophy is worthy of a presentation unless it’s the KBO sword. Deadspin.com. https://deadspin.com/no-­trophy-­is-­worthy-­of­a-­presentation-­unless-­it-­s-­the-­k-­1845748085 Glaser, K. (2020a, May 4). KBO: 10 MLB prospects to know in the Korean baseball organization. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/top-­10-­mlb-­prospects­to-­know-­in-­the-­kbo/ Glaser, K. (2020b, May 5). How good are the KBO And CPBL? Scouts and front office officials weigh in. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/ how-­good-­are-­the-­kbo-­and-­cpbl-­scouts-­and-­front-­office-­officials-­weigh-­in/ Gonzalez, A. (2020, May 13). Meet the stay-at-home dad turned international expert on Korean baseball. ESPN.Com. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/ id/29154712/meet-­s tay-­h ome-­d ad-­t urned-­i nternational-­e xpert-­k orean­baseball Hsu, H. (2012). Everyone Else’s Jeremy Lin. Amerasia Journal, 38(3), 126–129. Jaffe, J. (2020a, April 17). Half a world away, the Korea baseball organization looks to play. FanGraphs Baseball. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/half-­a-­world­away-­the-­korea-­baseball-­organization-­looks-­to-­play/ Jaffe, J. (2020b, May 4). Nothing lost in translation: Meet Dan Kurtz, the KBO’s TopAmbassador, Part 1. FanGraphs Baseball. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ nothing-­lost-­in-­translation-­meet-­dan-­kurtz-­the-­kbos-­top-­ambassador-­part-­1/ Jamieson, K. M. (1998). Reading Nancy Lopez: Decoding representations of race, class, and sexuality. Sociology of Sport Journal, 15, 343–358.

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CHAPTER 7

“Framing KBO: ESPN, Media Discourse, and the Cultural Identity of Korean Baseball” Travis R. Bell and Taeyeon Oh

Televised sports offer a specific window into media culture with multiple methods for viewers to simultaneously see and experience events in everyday life (Bell, 2021; Snow, 1983). During the coronavirus pandemic, ESPN provided numerous broadcast opportunities for sports cultures to emerge through a televised sports network that has historically been a gatekeeper of what sports are deemed worthy of reaching a U.S. audience. These sports cultures ranged from eSports (Goldman & Hedlund, 2020) to Australian rules football, which ironically is linked to ESPN’s formative years (Bingaman, 2020). The concept of “live,” on-site broadcast productions was also affected, whereby ESPN relied on the use of mobile technologies and audience- and participator-constructed content to maintain programming without sports (Coche & Lynn, 2020; Hanna, 2020). T. R. Bell (*) University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] T. Oh Seoul School of Integrated Sciences and Technologies, Seoul, South Korea e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_7

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These disruptions collectively informed an unexpected broadcast partnership between ESPN and the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) that led to more than 100 KBO games being broadcast on ESPN between May and October 2020. This served as unlikely exposure for KBO and provided a baseball-starved U.S. fan base with live games before the return of Major League Baseball (MLB) in July 2020 (Curry & Good, 2020). KBO and South Korea were leaders in the return of sports during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. KBO’s opening day on May 5 reached a global (e.g., English-speaking) audience on ESPN for the first time in the league’s history. Its contract with ESPN offered a unique opportunity for KBO to expand its cultural reach (Chiu et  al., 2017), albeit with some questionable decisions by ESPN that limited KBO’s potential across all the network’s platforms (Garrity, 2020). While concerns over capitalist exploitation are evident, this chapter examines how ESPN’s broadcast of KBO games introduces KBO and a broader Korean baseball culture to a U.S. audience that thrives on live sports programming (Steinberg, 2020). Specifically, ESPN’s framing of Korean baseball identity impacts how KBO and its players are perceived within a globalized, transnational baseball system. A qualitative approach to media discourse was utilized across a stratified, one-week sample of KBO broadcasts during the first month of its partnership with ESPN.  This first month provided a space for close analysis of how ESPN framed KBO and, as a byproduct, Korean baseball culture for a global audience.

Literature Review Framing Media Discourse and Cultural Resonance Framing offers a malleable theoretical framework by which to enter this study of media discourse and cultural resonance (Ettema, 2005). Framing works in multiple ways, but its primary function is through the selection of content, salience of coverage, and omission of others, which constructs meaning. Through a media lens, Gamson and Modigliani (1989) explain these constructs as packages, which provide ways to cluster and catalog content into a cohesive space of understanding. Through repeated exposure that illuminates or elevates topics or individuals as important, media discourse serves a functional logic in socially constructing awareness and significance. Thus, framing is unique in that it explores communication-­ as-­text that, in many ways, can help understand the role of communication

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in situating cultural knowledge (Entman, 1993; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989; Snow & Benford, 1988). Important theoretical roots in framing lie in media studies because of the role the media play in both distributing content and analyzing and assigning meaning and value to that content (e.g., news production, primetime programming). How that meaning applies to cultural understanding involves what Schudson (1989) outlines as “five dimensions of the potency of a cultural object” (p.  160). This process, when situated in media production, explicates the meaning of cultural objects through (1) retrievability, (2) rhetorical force, (3) resonance, (4) institutional retention, and (5) resolution. Because KBO on ESPN was in its first year, the first three dimensions are most applicable for situating how KBO would reach an audience (retrievability), assess the communicative process of broadcasting (rhetorical force), and establish KBO’s relevance to the ESPN audience (resonance). Resonance is the significant point of analysis for this chapter. Resonance aligns with salience as a media effect, but Ettema (2005) offers a distinction. Salience is a news process of selection and emphasis of news-gathered facts, whereas resonance enacts “the processes of message production” (Ettema, 2005, p. 134) that crafts story details and elevates the information beyond a salient feature. These elevated details produce “narrative fidelity” (i.e., framing as truth) through this crafting process (Fisher, 1984; Snow & Benford, 1988), and the media convert these narrative nuggets into “cultural narrations” (Snow & Benford, 1988, p. 210) or, as Geertz (1973) explains, “it is a context, something within which they can be intelligibly—that is, thickly—described” (p. 14). Thus, narrative fidelity serves as frames within stories that can align with existing understanding of culture (Snow & Benford, 1988), and media discourse crafts cultural resonance as a collective framing mechanism to produce context (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989), Hall (1996) explains that identification of culture is a discursive and historical process, where “identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse” (p. 4). Media and sports provide two languages in the discursive negotiation of identity (Billings & Hundley, 2010). The sports/media complex positions this negotiation as a cultural production for audience consumption (Jhally, 1984). Within this complex, it is necessary to consider the role of media in teaching sports culture to new audiences. Kellner (2011) states that “media are a profound and often misperceived source of cultural pedagogy” (p. 7). Though culture is not something to be fixed

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(Sommier, 2014), it regularly becomes how audiences label identities and understand sports through “the ‘tool-kit’ sense of culture” (Schudson, 1989, p. 167) from which they rely on these resources as readily available frames of reference. Korean Baseball Identity Korean professional baseball traces back to 1982 when a six-team KBO began under corporate ownership and government support (Jang & Lee, 2016; Kim, 2008). There is a view that Korean professional baseball was born as political propaganda by the military dictatorship that took power through a coup (Jang & Lee, 2016). Whatever the cause, the early KBO teams were an unprofitable business for the team owners, and they provided no benefit to the company owning the team other than an additional promotional channel. Therefore, it is common for Korean teams to use the name of the team-owned sponsor instead of the local geographical identity to maximize the promotional effect of the company, such as LG Twins instead of Seoul Twins. After two league expansions in 1986 and 1991, the popularity of professional baseball grew to a peak of five million spectators in 1995 before falling to two million in the mid-2000s (Fort et al., 2015). The decline in the popularity of professional baseball is due to various factors. Of course, it is not possible to exclude the effect of an external macroeconomic factor, that is, the decrease in demand for sports itself caused by the global recession. Nevertheless, internal causes, such as the absence of marketing efforts due to the not-for-profit operation of the clubs and the outflow of star players to overseas leagues due to reduced profits, were more significant. However, in the mid-2000s, Korean professional baseball witnessed a rebound in popularity. The Korean national baseball team recorded good results in successive international competitions, including third place at the inaugural World Baseball Classic (WBC) in 2006, second place at the following WBC in 2009, and a gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This immediately affected the popularity of the KBO league, where spectatorship increased from 2.3 million in 2004 to more than 5 million in 2008, and peaking at 8.4 million in 2017 (KBO, 2020). Spurred by the increase in attendance, KBO expanded the league in 2013 and 2015, and it is currently organized as a ten-team league (Table 7.1). Based on its historical background, KBO has formed its own unique identity. Sport is a significant mark of national identity in South Korea,

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Table 7.1  Teams in KBO Team (Year Established)

Hometown

Business of Owner

Doosan Bears (1982) Lotte Giants (1982) Samsung Lions (1982) Hanwha Eagles (1986) LG Twins (1990) SK Wyverns (2000)a KIA Tigers (2001) Kiwoom Heroes (2008) NC Dinos (2011) KT Wiz (2013)

Seoul Busan Daegu Deajeon Seoul Incheon Gwangju Seoul Changwon Suwon

Infrastructure Food Electronics Chemical Electronic Telecommunication Car Finance Game Telecommunication

Source: http://eng.koreabaseball.com/Teams/TeamInformation.aspx SK Wyverns were renamed SSG Landers in 2021 after Shinsegae Group’s E-Mart purchased the team and named it after the company’s online mall, SSG.com a

and baseball constitutes a complex juxtaposition within that identity (Chung et al., 2015). Baseball problematizes roots in Japanese colonialism and American imperialism (Cho, 2016; Hirai, 2012). This is because baseball was introduced as a result of colonial invasion by imperialist powers in the early twentieth century and was particularly popular in Japan, which colonized Korea. However, baseball also provides a freeing power through international sporting success in events like the Olympics and the WBC (Kelly, 2010). In the 1990s, Korean baseball teams were considered inferior compared to their Japanese, let alone American, counterparts, but in the 2000s, the Korean national team competed equally against teams from both Japan and the United States in the WBC or Olympic Games. This spurred national pride in the fact that Korea overcame the pain of the past and rose to an equal position within baseball. This can be confirmed by the rapid growth in attendance at KBO league games following the adoption of baseball as an official sport at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and the birth of the WBC in 2006 (Fort et  al., 2015). Additionally, these international sporting successes paralleled a globalized media environment that saw sport as uniquely less reliant on “cultural proximity” (Chung et al., 2015, p. 486) than other media products and fueled media opportunities for KBO and other Korean sports leagues. In addition, through its near half-century history, KBO has formed its own unique cultural identity. KBO is characterized as having the most robust regional identity compared to other professional sports in South

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Korea, even though, ironically, it is a league that uses company names instead of city names. Not only identity as a club representing the region but also policies induce the formation of regional identity. For example, the first-round pick of the rookie draft is unconditionally selected from among high school players in the region of each team. KBO is now a “civic ritual” (Kim, 2008) as a ten-team league praised for its creative cultural production with respect to fan experience (Chiu et al., 2017). KBO’s stadium attendance is characterized by a passionate cheering culture and a kind of picnic culture (Oh et al., 2020). The baseball field has cheermasters and cheerleaders, regardless of home or away team, and they ask the audience to constantly sing, dance, and yell throughout the game. Each club and its players have a signature cheer song and dance, and there are songs to be sung at specific times, such as cleaning time. Furthermore, most stadiums have barbecue zones, where fans can enjoy fried chicken and beer. Such cheering and food culture can be seen as the most important factor for understanding the identity of Korean baseball. Although KBO already has a professional history for nearly half a century, a unique culture, and frequent exchanges with foreign sports leagues, it has never been broadcast outside South Korea (Chung et  al., 2015). Media studies of Korea and sport include baseball player Chan Ho Park signing with MLB (Chung et al., 2015), the unification of Olympic teams (Lee & Maguire, 2011; Oh et  al., 2020), and comments during World Series broadcasts (Woo et al., 2010). The intersection of Korean sport and American media provides a unique gap in which to examine the globalization of sports media and its impact on identity, especially as noted by Chung et  al. (2015), whereby “(t)he compression of time and space caused by the globalization of sport pushes the traditional and national cultural formation of sport to an international level” (p. 485). Thus, the following research questions will help examine this gap within the context of globalized sport identity: RQ1: How do ESPN announcer comments discursively frame KBO and Korean baseball culture? RQ2: How do ESPN announcer comments compare KBO to other professional baseball leagues?

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Method A randomly selected, one-week sample was used for this qualitative approach to analyzing KBO on ESPN (Altheide & Schneider, 2013). All ten KBO teams were included in at least one broadcast to ensure fair representation. A thematic analysis was conducted across these six ESPN broadcasts of KBO games during the first thirty games that were televised between May 4 and June 13, which allowed time for “tracking discourse” to explore how terminology and perspective on KBO “change(d) or ‘travel(ed)’ across the social environment” (Altheide & Schneider, 2013, p.  116). Utilizing thematic analysis provided methodological flexibility (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun & Clarke, 2006) in examining content like KBO on ESPN, which had never appeared on an English-speaking broadcast network in the United States. This exploratory process was iterative and reflexive but yielded rich details about how ESPN announcers enacted repeated themes to situate cultural interpretations in everyday broadcasts about KBO and Korean baseball (Altheide & Schneider, 2013; Geertz, 1973; Nowell et al., 2017). Data Collection All KBO games on ESPN were recorded on YouTube TV. These games were transferred to video files to store on a computer for further, simultaneous analysis (Altheide & Schneider, 2013). Games were then separated by day of the week. A random number generator was used to select six random games. The process was repeated to identify additional games that allowed for all 10 KBO teams to be represented in the sample. The games included in this analysis were: Doosan at LG (May 5), NC at Doosan (May 19), KT at LG (May 22), Samsung at Lotte (May 26), Kiwoom at Hanwha (June 3), and KIA at SK (June 13). Protocol Development Before beginning any formal data coding or analysis, the authors watched an English-language KBO broadcast on ESPN not included in the six-­ game sample that was eliminated from consideration because of duplication of teams involved. The purpose of watching this game was to become familiar with the available data, how the broadcast was formatted and organized, and how KBO was discussed (Nowell et al., 2017). Altheide

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and Schneider (2013) suggested developing a coding protocol through this initial phase of discovery. This open-ended coding protocol allowed for initial definitions, labels, and processes to emerge for further examination through the thematic analysis (Altheide & Schneider, 2013). The authors independently watched this KBO broadcast and met to discuss what was seen and heard throughout the broadcast. This conversation led to an initial coding protocol that included the following overarching categories: (1) Korean-born vs. foreign-born players; (2) playing style in KBO; (3) KBO vs. MLB, especially emphasizing organizational structure and league rules; (4) coronavirus impact, especially considering KBO was the first team sport to return to play; and (5) other, which allowed for additional themes to emerge during the initial phase of coding. The use of “foreign” for players started when the KBO created a draft system in 1998 to add non-Korean-born players to KBO, both as a way to grow the league globally and to maintain a strong Korean identity for all KBO rosters (Lee, 2020). ESPN announcers and broadcast graphics used this same language. The announcer discourse was transcribed and included in each code, accompanied by who said it and in what inning this discussion happened. However, the initial protocol only focused on ESPN announcers. This allowed for further consideration of how (or whether) the discourse emerged, shifted, or faded through a given broadcast. Coding Process Coding the data involved a two-part process. Once the protocol was developed, the authors selected two of the six games to watch independently. These games were the Doosan Bears against the LG Twins (May 5) and the Kiwoom Heroes against the Hanwha Eagles (June 3), which offered one broadcast from the first week and one later in the thirty-game window to examine whether the initial themes had shifted (Altheide & Schneider, 2013). After watching these games, the authors met and discussed whether any changes were needed. The thematic codes remained without any need for additional codes. Initially, only ESPN announcer discourse was considered, but after viewing the preliminary broadcast, it was noted that multiple non-ESPN personnel were interviewed during a broadcast, which should be considered for source of information. This alteration was necessary because each KBO broadcast generally included three or four in-game interviews with a combination of English-speaking individuals, including KBO players (current and former), KBO insiders,

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and other ESPN baseball announcers (e.g., Tim Kurkjian, Doug Glanville). The authors were in agreement for what constituted each theme and what to code for the remaining four games, which were divided between the authors. Data Analysis The authors coded the discourse across the themes in a shared Excel file for the six KBO broadcasts. Following these coding processes, the authors met and discussed the data to examine how the discourse framed understanding of KBO.  This qualitative analysis offered an opportunity to examine the narratives that ESPN explored during the first month of KBO broadcasts. When entering the data analysis phase, it was important to remember that the research process “takes place in a historical-cultural context” (Altheide & Schneider, 2013, p. 13) and that the analysis was impacted by multiple social factors. These included (1) the return of sport during a pandemic, (2) the translation of an unfamiliar baseball league (KBO) to a novice U.S. audience, and (3) while original in content, the broadcast production process was atypical, where the announcers were English-speaking, based in the United States, and watching the game broadcast just like the audience in real time through a television in their home that was limited to the “local” Korean production. The following discussion addresses the two research questions and the ways in which KBO and Korean baseball culture was identified, organized, and described by ESPN announcers.

Discussion The first research question asked how ESPN announcer comments discursively framed KBO and Korean baseball culture. Broadly speaking, KBO was framed as quality professional baseball with some players being potential MLB material and overall was heralded for a style centered on baseball fundamentals. Specifically, ESPN announcers started broadcasts with limited knowledge (often willingly recognized by the announcers) of who the KBO players were, their respective strengths and weaknesses, and league history. By the end of the month, the need for basic understanding of league rules and players had been reduced to a minimum as announcers became more familiar, and comfortable, with applying their own

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knowledge through repeated broadcasts. Two themes are discussed to answer the first research question. “This Is Small Ball. I Love This Part” KBO coverage provided a history lesson for ESPN announcers about league traditions and style of play. Repeated topics included expressive bat flips, excessive foul balls, less pitching velocity, cheerleaders, and Korean food, which collectively served as an English speaker’s guide to Korean baseball. Each broadcast started with a “let’s get to know” session for each team that included year of origin in the league, past successes or failures, and a snapshot of how the team was performing in 2020. While it might be rudimentary from a broadcasting standpoint, it helped provide situational knowledge for entering the broadcast for an unfamiliar audience. These repeated discussion points were present in every broadcast and served as a process to construct the cultural narratives that became foundational across each broadcast (Ettema, 2005; Snow & Benford, 1988). With limited institutional knowledge of KBO, ESPN announcers (see Table 7.2 for announcer teams) relied on fundamental understanding of baseball transferred from calling MLB or U.S. college baseball games that constructed overlapping narratives of the style of play in KBO. The notion of “small ball” was ever present and became part of the announcer discourse as a way to culturally catalog (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989) this style as explicit to KBO identity. When discussing the ability to move runners by hitting behind them, analyst Eduardo Perez stated, “This is small ball. I love this part.” Announcers were largely supportive of the KBO playing style and considered it a lost art in the sport, especially compared to the MLB style the announcers are most accustomed to broadcasting. With that knowledge, though, announcers regularly highlighted the KBO Table 7.2  Selected ESPN broadcasts in 2020 Date

Away Team

Home Team

Announcer/Commentator

May 5 May 19 May 22 May 26 June 3 June 13

Doosan Bears NC Dinos KT Wiz Samsung Lions Kiwoom Heroes KIA Tigers

LG Twins Doosan Bears LG Twins Lotte Giants Hanwha Eagles SK Wyverns

Karl Ravech/Eduardo Perez Karl Ravech/Eduardo Perez Jon Sciambi/Kyle Peterson Jon Sciambi/Eduardo Perez Karl Ravech/Eduardo Perez Jason Benetti/Kyle Peterson

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culture of “juicing” or “de-juicing” the baseball to control the amount of home runs by adjusting the core composition of the baseball (Kim, 2019). For announcers (e.g., Karl Ravech noted a significant drop in home runs for Jae-Hwan Kim after KBO “de-juiced” the ball in 2018), this practice was not perceived as a core principle of KBO style less reliant on home runs than MLB, especially for Korean-born players. Another hint at a controlled version of KBO—both in pitching style and league limits on foreign-­born players—was with pitchers, especially the notion of velocity. The consistent form of denigration was targeted at Korean-born pitchers (Ravech: “Seeing good velocity [from Doosan pitcher Young-Ha Lee]. Haven’t seen that a lot from the Korean pitchers”) and correlated the lack of pitching velocity as a reason for a significant number of pitches being fouled away and the increase in home runs that required “de-juicing” the ball to maintain a consistent and recognizable playing style. While Korean playing style was often conflated into a group identity, foreign-born (non-Korean) players and their non-Korean style of play were prominently featured by ESPN announcers. This was constructed largely in two ways. First, foreign-born players were highlighted for their familiarity with a U.S. audience, but also to contextualize the KBO system that allowed a maximum of three foreign-born players to be on any one team. This discourse served to separate these players from the team identity and elevated their significance and prominence as players. For example, ESPN announcer Ravech described non-Korean players as carrying a “different responsibility” based on the fact they held one of three coveted foreign-born roster spots, which often represented some of KBO’s higher salaries (Lee, 2020). Thus, when lineups were announced or a foreign-­ born player was a starting pitcher, announcers overemphasized the exemplar status of the foreign-born player within this divergent, unique feature in KBO. Second, the language barrier and need to assimilate in Korean culture was positioned only through foreign-born players. This information was largely offered during in-game interviews with current or former KBO players as a way to explain for the U.S. audience how Korean baseball was different. The foreign-born players who were interviewed offered glowing reviews of their KBO experience and how they were “just part of the team” while excelling in KBO, often with the goal of returning to MLB. With this element of conversation, the influence of “power” in hitting and pitching was translated into a position of power on a KBO roster.

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“Liken Him to the Yadier Molina of the KBO” The second theme that emerged within the first research question was specific to Korean-born players and how their mediated identity was constructed through ESPN announcer discourse (Hall, 1996). This identity formation was largely contextualized for any successful KBO player alongside a comparison to a successful MLB player. The rhetorical force of repeatedly comparing KBO players to their MLB counterparts was a resonant process (Schudson, 1989) of how ESPN announcers contextualized individual playing style (outside generalized KBO style). Thus, KBO player identity shifted away from individual narratives to a familiarized level of knowledge where announcers discursively constructed KBO player identity that relied on MLB framing mechanisms (Billings & Hundley, 2010). NC Dinos catcher Yang Eui-ji provided an ideal example. He was a ten-­ year KBO veteran and had won five Gold Glove awards for defensive excellence at his position. In 2020, he was awarded the Korean Series MVP. Yet for all that on-field excellence, Ravech suggested viewers could “liken him (Eui-ji) to the Yadier Molina of the KBO.” While that served as a complement in baseball circles for comparison to Molina as a nine-­ time Gold Glove catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, it still diminished Eui-ji as needing an unnecessary comparison partner in the MLB. Other examples include having a “Dustin Pedrioia type build” or being a “poor man’s version of D.J. LaMaheiu” (Kun-Woo Park) that produced a U.S.centered lens for a KBO broadcast of some of the league’s best players. These cross-cultural comparisons produced “narrative fidelity” (Snow & Benford, 1988) to situate knowledge for ESPN viewers but largely did a disservice to the KBO players. Thus, the contextualization by ESPN announcers of the quality of play in the KBO and the framing of Korean-­ born players within the context of American exceptionalism in baseball reinforced a problematic and historical issue for Korean baseball as being subservient to other nations, which traced back to the origins of the league’s formation as an affront to Japanese imperialism (Cho, 2016). Only three situations allowed for a KBO player to have some level of individual identity, yet it was still within the MLB framework. First, if a KBO player was a former MLB player, it was assumed by the announcers that this player was more familiar to the U.S. audience with a statement regarding which team he had previously played for (e.g., Hak-Ju Lee was a Cubs and Rays prospect). Second, if a KBO player was a record-setting

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performer in the KBO, his identity was given for its outstanding level of KBO performance, as in the case of 41-year-old KBO career hits leader Yong-Taik Park. Third, if a younger player was described as having MLB potential, then he could be singled out, such as 20-year-old catcher Chung Sang-ho, who “digests everything” as a catcher and was “brilliant defensively.” These resonant features and constant comparative analysis between KBO and MLB provided the only lens for announcers to craft individual identities outside the boundaries of their limited KBO knowledge (Ettema, 2005). The second research question explored how ESPN announcer comments compared KBO to other professional baseball leagues. KBO was contextualized alongside MLB in every broadcast and nearly every inning across the six broadcasts, which is largely discussed in this section. The Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) organization in Japan was the only other league singled out when discussing KBO.  This was done in two ways. First, NPB was considered a barometer for KBO as a fellow second-­ tier professional league for which KBO, which Ravech called the “third best brand of baseball worldwide,” aspired to compete with for baseball supremacy in Asia. However, the leagues were considered for their divergent style of play, with KBO more aligned with MLB style. Second, announcer Eduardo Perez played one NPB season (2001) in the middle of his 13-year MLB career, and he made several cultural comparisons in the broadcasts to situate how MLB players transitioned overseas (e.g., batters face a significant drop in pitching velocity) and the perceived MLB influence in Asian professional baseball leagues, whereby Asian players “dream” of reaching the MLB. These nuggets of personal reference served as Perez’s toolkit to give viewers some cultural frame of reference that further affixed labels to Korean baseball’s identity (Schudson, 1989). “MLB-ization of KBO” The consistent overlapping MLB discourse was constructed as the Americanization of all global professional baseball leagues to follow their lead. Specific to KBO, the announcers highlighted the “flair” with bat flips and “emotion” that the players showed on the field in response to making exciting plays but also to acknowledge the opposition, especially when a pitcher hit a batter, which was different from levels of showmanship often connected to MLB. However, this inability to hide emotion is one significant way in which a parallel was drawn between KBO and MLB rather

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than NPB, which announcers suggested had better defensive fundamentals than either KBO or MLB and displayed visibly less emotion. Regarding the style of play, announcers constructed KBO as being akin to the Triple A level of minor league baseball in the United States but also credited the improved quality of play given KBO’s relative infancy. This resonant tendency was heard most when discussing Korean-born players with MLB potential or foreign-born players who could use KBO as a “stepping stone” back to MLB. In the case of former Colorado Rockies prospect Roberto Ramos, ESPN announcers questioned Ramos’ decision to flee the MLB minor league system for a bigger payday in KBO with the risk of never returning to MLB. This slight toward KBO as a “surprising” downgrade for someone of Ramos’ on-field potential was echoed in the Denver Post, where Newman (2020) noted that Ramos tore up “the Korea Baseball Organization” (para. 1) before leading the league with 38 home runs in 2020 and wondered why the Rockies let him leave. Beyond the field, Perez further positioned the organizational distinctions and comparisons seen in the “MLB-ization of KBO” through the context of video replay at the game on May 5, the development of an injured list, heightened influence of data analytics for roster movement and improved on-field performance, and player contracts that for the first time in league history included “options” for greater roster flexibility. These parallels could suggest further outsider influence that has historically impacted Korean baseball culture (Cho, 2016; Hirai, 2012). Three league differences were noted that maintained a unique cultural identity for KBO.  First, the shorter travel between KBO teams, given that South Korea is comparable in size to the state of Indiana, was noted for how KBO quickly developed rivalries similar to that between the New  York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in MLB, except that KBO rivalries were sponsor driven rather than geographically motivated. Second, the winner of the KBO regular season directly advanced to the Korean Series championship. This difference from MLB, where all teams must win an equal number of games to reach the World Series, weighted more value to the regular season title in KBO. ESPN noted that twenty-four of the twenty-­nine KBO champions won the regular season and benefited by skipping one playoff round. Third, the importance of cheerleaders and bands (Oh et al., 2020), while largely not visible (except for a few masked and socially distanced cheerleaders) because of the pandemic, was discussed by ESPN announcers. For example, Tim Kurkjian explained, “It’s a crazy crowd in Korea. What you normally hear, and take that away, will be an

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adjustment for players.” Here, Kurkjian attempted to paint visual imagery for an audience that was not able to “see” KBO fans and convey a stadium atmosphere that would generally be a notable and culturally relevant feature a U.S.-based audience would want to know about, as well as the impact of sport without fans. “Just Doesn’t Feel Normal” This altered reality for KBO helped ESPN announcer discourse consider the cultural resonance of the league within the context of the coronavirus pandemic. First, KBO was positioned broadly as a litmus test for the return of professional sports, and specifically for MLB in considering return-to-­ play protocols, travel restrictions, and in-game changes, including masks worn on field by umpires and in the dugout by players and minimal player contact (e.g., high fives). This COVID-19 “blueprint” offered sweeping changes in KBO with no fans, expanded rosters, and on-field conduct that MLB later implemented during its return in July 2020. Interviews with Kurkjian and pitcher Tyler Wilson outlined how empty stadiums affected players and on-field performance, but this “loss” of baseball atmosphere was positioned as the reality facing global sport, including when (or if) sports leagues returned following the KBO experiment early in the pandemic. The remaining pivot away from a sense of normalcy was contextualized for the broadcasters themselves. All announcers were based in the United States and so were calling regularly scheduled “primetime” KBO games in the early morning hours from their respective homes. This was evident when the announcers were shown at the beginning of a broadcast and when they were positioned in two of three boxes on the right-hand side of the broadcast during an in-game interview. This removal from the stadium environment was frequently noted for the disconnect between the production crew who handled video replays and in delayed calls regarding strikes or for defensive plays that fell outside the camera view. The announcers were forthright about the impact this had on broadcast quality and how it prevented them from highlighting KBO and Korean baseball in its original form. Additionally, the announcers and nearly all interviewees (with the exception of two current KBO players and one Lotte Giants employee) were U.S.-based, English-speaking guests. Thus, the notion of KBO “insiders” was forged for the viewers as a true picture (Snow & Benford, 1988) of KBO, when, realistically, it was mostly a learning

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experience during each broadcast to glean more insight through a cultural toolkit (Schudson, 1989) to understand KBO and Korean baseball culture, which further amplified the Americanized perspective offered through ESPN discourse of KBO games. Korean Media Response To further consider framing of ESPN’s broadcast of KBO beyond this qualitative analysis, it was helpful to consider how Korean media interpreted this new global reach, given that “KBO has been largely viewed as a novelty or curiosity among the U.S. audience” (Yoo, 2021, para. 8). Multiple sources were searched for KBO reaction: three major broadcast networks (Korean Broadcasting Station, Munwha Broadcasting Corporation, Seoul Broadcasting Station), Yonhap News (Korean equivalent to the Associated Press), and Naver (a search engine that aggregates seven Korean newspapers). These sources offered an aggregate snapshot of Korean media reaction. When ESPN’s interest was first reported, Korean media discussion on the potential impact on KBO was amplified on April 13 (Yoo, 2021). It was reported as an overwhelmingly positive and tremendous opportunity for KBO’s overseas broadcasting to reach new audiences through ESPN, and a few streams of favorable media responses emerged. The first trend was tributes to the international achievement of professional baseball. Although KBO is the most popular league in South Korea, it is considered a local league in terms of global sporting business, and KBO was self-critical of its status as a second-tier league. However, as the U.S. broadcast through ESPN was confirmed, it was perceived by Korean media that KBO’s achievements had grown to the class level of MLB (Lim, 2020). Furthermore, Korean media showed great encouragement in that South Korea became a country exporting professional sports, like the United States, UK, or Germany. In particular, Korean media emphasized things that are allowed in KBO but are prohibited by unwritten rules in MLB (e.g., bat flips) and suggested that KBO had built its own culture and was not simply a subordinate of MLB (Park, 2020). Moreover, Korean reporters focused on how Americans embraced KBO, such as North Carolina baseball fans, who had no MLB team, supporting NC Dinos because of the same initials (Lee & Lee, 2020) or a Houston Astros fan showing support for SK Wyverns because the teams shared the same team color: orange (“Reactions of American Fans,” 2020).

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The second trend was pride in the successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic. When KBO decided to begin its new season, all major sports in the United States had been suspended, and the opening of the MLB season was uncertain. Therefore, Korean media felt national pride that Korea had started a sports season amid a pandemic and exported that success to various countries through the broadcast of KBO (Yang, 2020). From this point of view, in all Korean media, not just sports departments, KBO was highlighted for navigating the social issues posed by COVID-19 that were illuminated through international broadcasts (Kim & Jo, 2020). Few negative aspects of the KBO on ESPN were considered by Korean media. One report in particular mentioned the lack of skills of KBO players compared to those in MLB and worried that KBO players would put on shameful performances for American viewers, who were accustomed to a high level of performance in MLB (Jo, 2020). Beyond possible self-­ interpretation of on-field talent disparities, it was difficult to find Korean media reporting that framed KBO’s export to the U.S. as a negative event.

Conclusion ESPN announcers became more familiar with KBO players, their playing style, and Korean baseball culture across the month of discourse examined in this chapter. Through this process, the announcers and individuals they interviewed offered more details and analytical interpretations of the players and leagues that provided what Perez described as an “interesting brand of baseball,” rather than relying on constant comparisons to MLB, with which the announcers were naturally more familiar through years of broadcasting games. When considering the concept of tracking discourse (Altheide & Schneider, 2013), ESPN announcers, much like the fan base that was watching, applied a learn-as-you-go approach. From the first broadcasts that included “get to know” opening sessions for team names, locations, and history, the announcers evolved without needing to provide viewers constant history lessons about how KBO was formed and basic knowledge of who was playing. Former KBO player Josh Lindbloom said during an interview that “baseball is a universal language” while discussing his positive experience during two different stints playing in KBO for a total of five years. As this chapter discussed, ESPN announcers mediated KBO cultural identification and its resonant features through repeated discursive processes that

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were limited by broadcasting games from their U.S.-based homes thousands of miles from the “live” game (Hall, 1996). The ways in which ESPN announcers constructed a basic form of KBO cultural pedagogy (Kellner, 2011) was seen through emergent and consistent themes whereby ESPN announcers crafted KBO through an Americanized, MLB lens that relied on a familiar (but not universal) language of baseball that offered limited context for understanding Korean baseball culture. Whether because of geographic distance or hurried decisions to return to sport, KBO on ESPN may have been more about filling a programming gap than devoting traditional broadcast resources to a new venue. Despite these limitations for exposure and production value, new KBO commissioner Chung Ji-taik said during his introductory press conference before the 2021 season, “Having our brand of baseball introduced to the rest of the world through ESPN last year was quite significant” (Yoo, 2021, para. 3). Thus, future analysis of KBO broadcasts (or other non-U.S. sports leagues) beyond the pandemic could help provide insight into whether ESPN lived up to its self-imposed moniker of “worldwide leader in sports” or just capitalized on an opportunity to offer any available live programming during a pandemic.

References Altheide, D.  L., & Schneider, C.  J. (2013). Qualitative media analysis (2nd ed.). Sage. Bell, T. R. (2021). SportsCenter: A case study of media framing U.S. sport as the COVID-19 epicenter. International Journal of Sport. Communication, 14(2), 298–317. Billings, A.  C., & Hundley, H. (2010). Examining identity in sports media. In H.  Hundley & A.  C. Billings (Eds.), Examining identity in sports media (pp. 1–16). Sage. Bingaman, J. (2020). Australian football in American during COVID-19. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 533–540. Boyatzis, R. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Sage. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Chiu, W., Bea, J., & Won, D. (2017). The experience of watching baseball games in Korea: Analysis of user-generated content on social media using Leximancer. Journal of Sport & Tourism, 21(1), 33–47.

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Cho, Y. (2016). Double binding of Japanese colonialism: Trajectories of baseball in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Cultural Studies, 30(6), 926–948. Chung, J., Hwang, S., & Won, D. (2015). Globalization, media imperialism and South Korean sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(3), 484–498. Coche, R., & Lynn, B. J. (2020). Behind the scenes: COVID-19 consequences on broadcast sports production. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 484–493. Curry, A.  L., & Good, T. (2020). Talking baseball when there is no baseball: Reporters and fans during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 551–558. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fracture paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. Ettema, J. S. (2005). Crafting cultural resonance: Imaginative power in everyday journalism. Journalism, 6(2), 131–152. Fisher, W. A. (1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1–22. Fort, R., Kang, J., & Lee, Y.  H. (2015). KBO and international sports league comparisons. In Y. H. Lee & R. Fort (Eds.), The sports business in the Pacific Rim: Economics and policy (pp. 175–193). Springer. Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1–37. Garrity, T. (2020, June 9). Is ESPN’s Korean baseball experiment working? Retrieved June 12, 2020, from https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/ is-­espns-­korean-­baseball-­experiment-­working Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books. Goldman, M.  M., & Hedlund, D.  P. (2020). Rebooting content: Broadcasting sport and esports to homes during COVID-19. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 370–380. Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’? In S. Hall & P. Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1–17). Sage. Hanna, C. (2020). Interview with Josh Krulewitz, ESPN vice president, communications. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 294–299. Hirai, H. (2012). An indispensable but fragile geopolitical triangle: Baseball in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29(17), 2465–2477. Jang, H., & Lee, Y. H. (2016). A business analysis of Asian baseball leagues. Asian Economic Policy Review, 11, 95–112. Jhally, S. (1984). The spectacle of accumulation: Material and cultural factors in the evolution of the sports/media complex. Critical Sociologist, 12(3), 41–57.

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Jo, K. (2020, May 6). Reactions of US to the very First Game of the KBO on ESPN. Busan Ilbo. http://www.busan.com/view/busan/view.php?c ode=2020050609554072973 Kellner, D. (2011). Cultural studies, multiculturalism, and media culture. In G. Dines & J. M. Humez (Eds.), Gender, race, and class in media: A critical reader (pp. 7–18). Sage. Kelly, J. D. (2010). One world, real world, memory and dream: Shadows of the past and images of the future in contemporary Asian sports internationalisms. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 27(14–15), 2608–2641. Kim, B. (2008). Professional baseball in Korea: Origins, causes, consequences and implications. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 25(3), 370–385. Kim, S.  M. (2019, August 16). Let’s check in on the KBO’s dejuiced baseballs. Fangraphs.com. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ lets-­check-­in-­on-­the-­kbos-­de-­juiced-­baseballs/ Kim, S., & Jo, H. (2020, May 6). American fans quenched their sports thirst. Korean Financial Times. https://www.hankyung.com/life/article/2020050606521 Lee, S.  C. (2020, January 15). Foreign players in the KBO: What the future holds. The Hardball Times. https://tht.fangraphs.com/foreign-­players-­in-­the-­ kbo-­what-­the-­future-­holds/ Lee, J. W., & Maguire, J. (2011). Road to reunification? Unitary Korean nationalism in South Korean media coverage of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Sociology, 45(5), 848–867. Lee, Y., & Lee, H. (2020, May 7). Korean baseball team NC Dinos games fans in N.  Carolina amid sports shutdown in US. Pulse. https://pulsenews.co.kr/ view.php?sc=30800028&year=2020&no=467768 Lim, J. (2020, December, 29). In 2020, the paradigm of Korean baseball has shifted. Nocut News. https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5472202 Nowell, L.  S., Norris, J.  M., White, D.  E., & Moules, N.  J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16, 1–13. Oh, T., Kim, S., Love, A., & Seo, W.  J. (2020). Media framing of the Unified Korean Olympic women’s ice hockey team. Communication & Sport. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479520925765 Park, S. (2020, June 17). Why does the hometown of baseball cheer for Korean baseball? Joongangilbo. http://jmagazine.joins.com/monthly/view/330417 Reactions of American Fans to ESPN’s KBO. (2020, May 5). BBC Korea. https:// www.bbc.com/korean/news-­52540742 Schudson, M. (1989). How culture works: Perspectives from media studies on the efficacy of symbols. Theory and Society, 18(2), 153–180. Snow, R. P. (1983). Creating media culture. Sage.

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Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization. In B. Klandersmans, H. Kriesi, & S. Tarrow (Eds.), International social movement research (Vol. 1, pp. 197–217). JAI Press. Sommier, M. (2014). The concept of culture in media studies: A critical review of academic literature. InMedia, 5. https://doi.org/10.4000/inmedia.768 Steinberg, B. (2020, May 4). ESPN strikes deal to bring Korean baseball to U.S. TV. Retrieved June 12, 2020, from https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/ espn-­kbo-­league-­korean-­baseball-­sports-­tv-­deal-­1234597027/ Woo, C. W., Kim, J. K., Nichols, C., & Zheng, L. (2010). International sports commentary frame and entertainment: A cross-cultural analysis of commentary differences in World Series broadcasts. International Journal of Sport Communication, 3(2), 240–255. Yang, H. (2020, December 24). KBO surprised American Baseball Fans. Oh My News. http://star.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/OhmyStar/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_ CD=A0002703264&CMPT_CD=P0010&utm_source=naver&utm_ medium=newsearch&utm_campaign=naver_news Yoo, J. (2021, January 5). New KBO commissioner hoping for another broadcast deal with ESPN. Yonhap News Agency. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/ AEN20210105007400315

PART III

Sports Media Portrayals of North American Athletes of Asian Descent

CHAPTER 8

Professional Sport, Settler Multiculturalism, and Exalted Chinese Arrivants: Re-Remembering the “China Clippers” Chen Chen

Introduction Larry Kwong (吳啟光) and Norman Kwong (林佐民) were two athletes of Chinese descent who left important marks on Canadian and North American sports history in the mid-twentieth century. Lawrence (Larry) Kwong was the National Hockey League (NHL)’s first player of Asian descent, representing the New York Rangers in March 1948. Later that same year, Norman (Normie) Kwong, biologically unrelated to Larry, became the first player of Chinese descent to play in the Canadian Football League (CFL). In a historical period when Chinese immigrants endured exclusionary policies in Canada, they managed to defy the odds and shine on elite stages, both remembered as the “China Clipper” in their respective sports. While the original China Clipper was a plane of the U.S. airline

C. Chen (*) University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_8

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company Pan American Airways, famous for fulfilling the inaugural commercial flight delivering mail across the Pacific, between San Francisco and Manila, on November 22, 1935 (Williams, 2010), “China Clipper” was then widely used by Canadian sport commentators as a moniker to describe Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong, denoting both their ethnic identity and their fast pace as athletes (Hawthorn, 2010). Despite the historical significance of their careers, Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong have received marginal scholarly attention with regard to Asian diasporic sportspersons in North America. As more Asian diasporic athletes in recent decades have risen to stardom in the North American sporting landscape, an important site for understanding racialized communities’ experiences therein (Joo & Pandya, 2015; Thangaraj et  al., 2016), critical examinations of the two China Clippers, two important predecessors of today’s high-profile athletes of Asian descent, seem long overdue. Beyond focusing on their individual trajectories as exceptional sportspersons, however, this chapter is concerned with contextualizing the legacies of Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong as Chinese arrivants within the structure of (multicultural) settler colonialism and imperialism (Day et al., 2019; Huang, 2018; Wong, 2008; Wong, 2019). If sport as a site of cultural production deeply intersects with both the state and its economic formation (Yep, 2012), as “trailblazers” and “pioneers” of a previous generation, how were their stories told and remembered by the public? How can their stories inform the inspirations, actions, and movements of present and future Chinese or Asian diasporic communities in the settler state, the imperial core that feeds off the continuous occupation/expropriation of Indigenous land and exploitation of (often racialized) labor here and elsewhere? Because both Kwongs’ careers as athletes took place long before the advent of social media, mainstream newspaper was one of the most important platforms wherein organized, professional sports were publicly discussed and consumed. In this chapter, I take a Marxian dialectic view that regards the production of media content as material practices, an important site of social construction of meaning that helps illuminate power and resistance (Fuchs & Mosco, 2016) within the settler state of Canada. I perform a critical, longitudinal reading of Canadian mainstream newspapers’ coverage of Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong, spanning from their playing career in the 1940s and 1950s to the last three decades, in which both athletes received a second spike of media attention, thanks to the emerging discourses of Canadian multiculturalism. I am particularly

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interested in exploring how their identities and legacies as groundbreaking racialized athletes were constructed and mediated within the mainstream Canadian discourse and how this construction forecloses interrogation of the imperial and settler colonial violence that racialized diasporic communities like the Chinese are implicated in. This chapter is structured as follows. I first review the major sporting achievements of Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong within the historical context of Chinese exclusion in Canada and the shifting of the state’s immigration and citizenship policies post WWII. Next, I discuss and compare the narratives produced about the two so-called China Clippers within mainstream media before suggesting an alternative lens through which to interpret and commemorate their legacies that defies the logics of settler multiculturalism.

Who Were the China Clippers? Eleven months after Jackie Robinson famously broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball (MLB) in April 1947, Larry Kwong, a 24-year-old Chinese man from Vernon, British Columbia (BC), competed for the New York Rangers in a NHL game against the Montreal Canadiens on March 13, 1948, at the old Montreal Forum. Despite being deployed on the ice for one brief minute with no other statistics recorded, he nevertheless became the first person of Asian descent to play in the NHL, ten years before the widely celebrated first Black player in the league, Willie O’Ree. In November 1948, the first player of Chinese descent in the CFL, Norman Kwong, from Calgary, Alberta, won the Grey Cup as a rookie playing for the Calgary Stampeders, kickstarting a 13-year, hall-of-fame career in that league. An important historical undertone of these figures’ legendary sports careers, however, was the period of Chinese exclusion in the settler state of Canada. Both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong were born to Chinese migrant families in Western Canada in the 1920s, when Chinese immigrants were deprived of many civil rights (Roy, 2007). Following the Fraser River Gold Rush, the inflow of Chinese immigrants in the 1860s and 1870s became an important resource for labor on road and railway construction projects in BC, most notably on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) project (Lai, 1988). When Larry Kwong’s father arrived in 1882 (Johanson, 2015), the CPR construction was close to completion (in 1885). Chinese migrant labor would soon be deemed expendable, as the Canadian government passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, imposing a head

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tax on every Chinese immigrant thereafter.1 Having paid a large racist “entry fee,” Norman Kwong’s parents arrived in Canada in this period and made a living by opening a grocery business in Calgary, Alberta (Stock, 2010). By 1923, an estimated revenue of $23 million was extracted from some 90,000 Chinese head taxpayers who entered the country.2 The year 1923 also marked a new period of Chinese exclusion in Canada: The steady increase in Chinese immigration during the head tax period eventually led to a nationwide anti-Chinese movement: the passing of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, widely known as the “Chinese Exclusion Act,” signaled a total ban on Chinese immigration alongside other anti-Chinese restrictions, including the denial of the right to vote in provincial and federal elections. While the Chinese Immigration Act was repealed in 1947, the exclusionary immigration practices directed against Chinese immigrants only ended in the 1960s after decades of lobbying by Chinese Canadian communities, signifying an overall shift toward more “tolerant” immigration policies in Canada (Roy, 2007; Thobani, 2007). Both Larry Kwong (born in 1923) and Norman Kwong (born in 1929) grew up and started their endeavors in sports during the Chinese Exclusion Era. In his late teens, Larry Kwong demonstrated his talent in hockey with the Vernon Hydrophones in the BC minor league between 1939 and 1941 before being recruited by the Trail Smoke Eaters and performing well in the Alberta-British Columbia (ABC) Senior League in the 1941–1942 season. He then brought his impressive talent to the West Coast for the Nanaimo Clippers and Vancouver’s St. Regis Hotel the following year before joining the Canadian Army and playing for the army-­ affiliated Red Deer Wheelers (Johanson, 2015). Post WWII, Kwong returned to the Trail Smoke Eaters and caught the attention of the NHL.  With an impressive tryout at a hockey school organized by the New York Rangers in 1946, Larry Kwong obtained a contract with the franchise’s farm team, the New York Rovers. Despite performing well for the Rovers and building a considerable following in the Chinese community in New York, he did not get the opportunity to shine in the NHL, except for that historical minute in 1948. Thereafter, he left the NHL and  This de facto entry fee was raised to $100 in 1900 and $500 in 1903.  This was equivalent to 1.2–1.5 billion Canadian dollars in the early 2000s. In 2006, then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in response to Chinese communities’ decades-­ long campaigns for redress, eventually issued an apology to the Chinese head taxpayers (Friesen, 2013). 1 2

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enjoyed a number of successful seasons with the Valleyfield Braves in the Quebec Senior Hockey League. In the late 1950s, Larry Kwong ended his playing career in Europe and started a coaching job in Switzerland (Johanson, 2015). In 1973, he returned to Canada and joined his brother’s grocery business. His groundbreaking accomplishment in hockey remained largely hidden from the public until much later. Six years younger than Larry Kwong, Norman Kwong emerged as a high school football star in Calgary and joined the Grey Cup-winning Calgary Stampeders in 1948 as a CFL rookie. Later, he transferred to the Edmonton CFL team, playing an integral role in the team’s success in the mid-1950s. As the first CFL player of Chinese descent, Norman Kwong enjoyed a highly decorated career, with five All-Canadian selections, participation in seven Grey Cup games, four championships, and thirty league records (Jones, 2016). Retiring from playing in 1960, Norman Kwong first transitioned to become a businessman and community leader in the 1960s and 1970s, became an owner of the newly relocated Calgary Flames in 1980, and successfully turned around the crisis-ridden Calgary Stampeders in late 1980s as the franchise’s president and general manager (Simons, 1999). As a prominent representative of Chinese Canadian communities, Norman Kwong was named Member of the Order of Canada in 1998 for his many achievements. He would be even more famously remembered, however, as the first person of Asian descent to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Alberta from 2005 to 2010 (Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, n.d.). While it could be argued that Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong reached different heights as athletes and had dissimilar postathletic life trajectories, they nevertheless shared important commonalities. As contemporaries, they both grew up as second-generation Chinese in Canada during the Exclusion Era and made groundbreaking contributions in their respective sports, notably associated with the moniker China Clipper in recognition of their athletic prowess. Later in life, in different social locations, they both witnessed and experienced the so-called liberalization of immigration and citizenship policies in Canada in the postwar era and the adoption of multiculturalism as an official state policy and state-sponsored discourse since the 1970s (Bannerji, 2000; Thobani, 2007). In recent decades, scholars have documented North American mainstream media’s established history of misrepresenting underrepresented or racialized athletes, which simultaneously reflects and perpetuates the country’s White-­ dominated racial hierarchy (Lakhani, 2008). For example, as Black athletes

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have become hypervisible on the media because of their overrepresentation in elite sports, this coverage is often associated with the myth of Black athletic superiority, the portrayal of Black males as deviant and sexually promiscuous, and the construction of atypical “good blacks” and typical “bad blacks” (Abdel-Shehid, 2005; Jackson, 2004; Wilson, 1997). In contrast, athletes of East Asian descent have been less successful in the major leagues, and their accomplishments have historically received limited media attention, and when they do, the coverage has tended to reproduce orientalist stereotypes (Mayeda, 1999; King, 2011). A critical examination of both Kwongs’ sport and life stories as (re)constructed over time within the mainstream Canadian discourse, therefore, can shed important light on the Chinese diasporic communities’ tensioned status within the Canadian settler state (Wong, 2008, 2019). In the next section, I discuss the mainstream media narratives constructed around Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong in two different historical periods: their playing career (as exceptional athletes) in the 1940s and 1950s and their reemergence as notable figures in the media since the 1990s. I approach the newspaper coverage of the two periods with the same set of questions: What made them newsworthy? How were their stories told?

Early Coverage As noted previously, both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong grew up during the Chinese Exclusion Era in Canada. When they excelled in their respective sports in the 1940s and 1950s, their presence as the rare Chinese representatives was deemed newsworthy for some Canadian sports writers. In this period of coverage, both men’s Chinese identity was frequently acknowledged for its novelty or “exotic” appeal to the (sport) audience. Attention to the “First,” Exotic Chinese As one of the most widely covered events in his hockey career, the signing of Larry Kwong to the New York Rangers to fill in an on an injury-plagued roster at an away NHL game in Montreal became sensational news for the Canadian media. The distinctiveness of Kwong as the “first Chinese,” who made a historically significant breakthrough on the highest level of hockey, was well captured and emphasized by various outlets. The local Montreal Gazette announced on the same day prior to the game: “Kwong, when he makes his debut here tonight, will be the first Chinese ever to play in the

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National Hockey League” (“Chinese puck star makes NHL bow”, 1948). Closely following this important milestone of Kwong, the BC-produced hockey talent, Vancouver Daily Province lauded him as “the first player of his race ever to play in the NHL” (“B.C.  Chinese with N.Y. tonight”, 1948). Another BC-based newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, included a comment from the New York Rangers’ coach, Frank Boucher, who singled out Kwong as a representative of the “colored race”: “He is the first Chinese ever to make the N.H.L. … I never before heard of any member of the colored race making the big time in hockey” (“‘King’ Kwong toes Vernon’s NHL hopes”, 1948). By including this quote, which lumped all the non-White groups as “the colored race,” this coverage illuminated the taken-for-granted racial hierarchy and White dominance in the sport industry at the time. Similar to Larry Kwong, Norman Kwong’s breakthrough in Canadian football also brought attention to his presence as the lone Chinese representative. Early in his career, he was described as “Calgary’s 19-year-old backfielder, the only Chinese in senior football in Canada” (Sullivan, 1949) or “one of the few Chinese ever to make the grade in senior Canadian football” (“China’s Grid Contribution,” 1949). He would be consistently mentioned as “the only Chinese” in Canadian professional football throughout his career (e.g., Bruce, 1952) (Fig. 8.1). Being the “only Chinese” meant that both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong were discursively associated by the media with an exotic appeal in the rink or on the gridiron, beneficial to expanding the reach of their teams or leagues, an early sign that the value of culturally specific marketing was recognized by the sports-media-industrial complex. When playing for the Nanaimo Clippers in 1942, Larry Kwong’s appeal to the densely populated Chinese community in the BC coastal region was acknowledged by the Vancouver Sun: “Kwong is quite a drawing card. He’s a good hockey player and he attracted some four or five hundred of his countrymen” (Patterson, 1942). As he competed in the hockey trial organized by the New York Rangers in 1946, a hockey scout was quoted in the Calgary Herald in declaring that Kwong “would be a great drawing card in New York,” pointing to the large Chinese community in the city (“Larry Kwong impresses Lester Patrick,” 1946). On the other hand, while playing in Alberta, a province with a much smaller Chinese population, Norman Kwong’s stardom in football drew interest from the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) in mid-1950s. While he chose to stay with the Edmonton team, his Chinese identity was considered an additional asset, as shown in a football informant’s comment to

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Fig. 8.1  Photo of Norman Kwong featured in Edmonton Journal, November 25, 1949 (p. 31)

Calgary Herald: “There is a great Chinese population in San Francisco … They would like nothing better than to have a star Chinese player in the lineup—would do wonders at the box office” (Hunter, 1955). While both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong’s abilities as athletes were acknowledged (hence the China Clipper moniker bestowed by commentators), the media nevertheless opted to put a spotlight on their foreignness or otherness as possessing additional value for the teams. This seems to indicate that “difference” has become perhaps “the commodity,” wherein racial difference (in this case, their Chineseness or Asianness) was appropriated as a means to sell to particular markets (Grainger et al., 2006). Chinese, Not Yet Canadian It’s an advantage, being Chinese, I know … The fans like to see a Chinese hockey player as a curiosity. That’s my good luck. But it has disadvantages. Ever since I was a midget there has always been a player or two trying to cut

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off my head just because I am Chinese. And the bigger the league the bigger the axe they use. (Larry Kwong, as cited in Cotterell, 1943)

This quote was excerpted from a 1943 Vancouver Sun coverage of Larry Kwong, when the 20-year-old shared his experience of facing animosity as a Chinese player. At a time of exclusionary policies toward the Chinese (and other racialized minorities, like the Japanese), who were not considered full Canadian citizens (Roy, 2007), the Canadian media would describe both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong as “Chinese” or, at best, “Canadian Chinese” in this period of coverage. Larry Kwong played for different teams in West Canada in the early 1940s, with various descriptors being used to convey his small physique, such as “clever little Chinese puckman” (Patterson, 1942) and “diminutive Chinese” (“Stampeders Lose,” 1942). Yet his notable performance also helped him to be associated with terms like “Chinese sensation” (“Trail Looking for Cup Again,” 1941) or “Chinese flash” (“Western and Central Juniors,” 1945). After World War II broke out, as with many other Chinese immigrants in Canada, Larry Kwong voluntarily enlisted in the Canadian Army and played for an army-affiliated team, the Red Deer Wheelers. This, however, was not enough to earn him recognition as being a “full” Canadian (Roy, 2007). As he moved across the border to play for teams in New  York, he would be referred to by the media as “Canadian Chinese.” For example, in 1946, after Larry Kwong’s debut for the New  York Rangers’ farm team, the Rovers, Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, introduced: “… Kwong, Canadian-­ Chinese from Vernon, B.C., who is the only Chinese player in United States organized hockey, scored a goal tonight …” (“Chinese hockeyist scores in debut,” 1946, emphasis added). As Larry Kwong became a popular figure for the Chinese community in New York during his two-year stint in the city, he was noted as the “Canadian-born Chinese youth” who was made an honorary citizen of New York’s Chinatown (“Chinese icer is N.Y. hero,” 1947, emphasis added) (Fig. 8.2). Similarly, when Norman Kwong first entered the CFL, he was described as “the chunky 180-pound five-foot-eight Calgary-born Chinese lad who hits the line hard and is a broken-field running threat” (“Stampeders boast players,” 1949, emphasis added). In 1951, he transferred to the Edmonton CFL team and enjoyed a series of successful seasons there. At the time, his Chinese identity and fast speed on the field would be associated with metaphors such as the “Orient Express” (Brooke, 1953). As Norman Kwong

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Fig. 8.2  Photo of Larry Kwong featured in Edmonton Bulletin, November 21, 1946 (p. 7)

retired in 1960 from a decorated career, the Edmonton Journal would still describe him as “a Chinese kid” with “quite an accomplishment” (Glover, 1960, emphasis added). Overall, in this early coverage, overtly racist undertone was rare, perhaps because both men’s excellence as athletes contradicted the weak, emasculated stereotypes of Asian men. Yet, just as Canada’s transcontinental economy in the late nineteenth century demanded cheap Chinese labor, as opposed to citizens of the nation, to work on occupied Indigenous lands (Wong, 2019), both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong were first and foremost considered Chinese, that is, exotic Chinese sport labor foreign to Canadian society, who nevertheless were capable of making useful contributions to the burgeoning sports industry. In other words, despite being born and raised in Canada and their level of competence and achievement in sports, they were not considered “full” Canadians, not exceptional to the broader Chinese community’s experiences during the Exclusion Era. Notwithstanding the fleeting focus on their Chinese

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identity as being beneficial to the sports establishment, the media showed little interest in their familial/ancestral histories, much less paid attention to the institutional racism and discrimination they had to endure at the time.

Recent Coverage After Larry Kwong left competitive hockey in the 1950s and Norman Kwong retired from professional football in 1960, they only received scant attention from mainstream media in the next three decades, largely in the form of brief updates of their new endeavors or professions. Within this same period, however, the popular discourse around migrant and racialized peoples in Canada went through dramatic changes, reflecting both the federal government’s “liberalization” of immigration policy and citizenship and the resulting increase in the immigrant population from the Global South (Fleras, 2015). Moreover, the adoption of multiculturalism as a state policy under the Pierre Trudeau administration enabled Canada to self-represent on the global stage as a welcoming, tolerant, racially/ ethnically diverse nation (Mackey, 2002; Thobani, 2007). It was within this context that stories that depicted Chinese/Asian immigrants with the “model minority” narrative began to emerge in Canadian mainstream media (Pon, 2015). Therefore, it should be no surprise that Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong attracted media attention again starting in the late 1980s. In Larry Kwong’s case, the significance of his trailblazing role in hockey gradually received recognition by the established institutions in sports that claimed to value “diversity” and “inclusion.” In Norman Kwong’s case, his managerial role at the Calgary CFL team, his appointment to the Order of Canada, and his election as Lieutenant Governor of Alberta all rendered him a highly newsworthy public figure in this period. As (Chinese) Canadian: Individual Qualities of Perseverance The first in-depth retrospective treatment of Larry Kwong’s hockey career appeared in 1989. The times had changed. More than 40 years after he was known as the first Canadian Chinese to make history at the highest levels of hockey, a Calgary Herald writer described him as “the first Chinese Canadian in pro hockey …,” a feat that received “virtually nil” recognition (Bilych, 1989, emphasis added). Similarly, contrary to being described as the impressive “Chinese kid” in football, this time Norman

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Kwong was introduced as a “Chinese Canadian” when the formidable mid-1950s Edmonton CFL team was discussed in a 1988 Toronto Star article (MacDonald, 1988). Here, a subtle switch between “Chinese” and “Canadian” in describing their ethnic/national identity seems to indicate a profound difference: Instead of being Chinese who obtained Canadian traits, they are now newly recognized as first and foremost Canadian (citizen) who identify with Chinese cultural traditions, an identity emerging within Canadian multiculturalism (Mahtani, 2002). An important element of this recent coverage is the recognition of past racism in Larry Kwong’s and Norman Kwong’s lives, which served as a discursive backdrop to highlight their success in coping with these obstacles, that is, exemplifying individual qualities such as perseverance and resilience. For example, in a Vernon Morning Star report in 2009, Larry Kwong recollected the racism he faced as a young man in the interior regions of BC: “I couldn’t even get a haircut here … I went to Trail to play for the Smoke Eaters, and every player on the team was given a job at Cominco,3 every player except me … They wouldn’t give me a job, even though I was Canadian, because I was Chinese” (Knox, 2009). When a Calgary Herald writer lamented the obscurity of Larry Kwong as a hockey player, he also praised the latter’s approach to being snubbed: “One thing you don’t find Larry Kwong doing is complaining” (Bilych, 1989). When Larry Kwong was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2013, his story was described in the Vancouver Sun as “an improbable dream and dogged perseverance, of discrimination and racism, of avenues blocked and adventures sought” (Kingston, 2013). The “past racism” element was also present in the recent coverage of Norman Kwong, who remained a prominent public figure in the 1990s and 2000s. Frequently referenced stories included how he was disallowed the use of a swimming pool in his neighborhood in Calgary and how his sister’s job applications at large department stores were rejected due to her Chinese identity (e.g., Mah, 2005; Ovenden, 1999). In a Calgary Herald article, he recalled one of the most memorable matches in his professional career—after overhearing the opposing team’s conversation, including “we’ll stop that so-and-so ch*nk,” in his hotel room the night before a game in Winnipeg in 1954, 3  Cominco was a mining company based in the region of Trail, BC, Canada. It started as Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. (CM &S) in 1906 and changed its name to Cominco in 1940. It merged with Teck-Hughes, another mining company, in 2001. The corporation was rebranded as Teck Resources in 2008 (Nesteroff, 2020).

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he became extra motivated: “The next day I rushed for 140 yards and we won” (Konotopetz, 1991). While past racism was acknowledged in this coverage, its focus on both Larry Kwong’s and Norman Kwong’s individual qualities and efforts to “overcome” racism risks sidestepping the question of structural issues in sports and in the state apparatus that rendered racism and discrimination possible in the first place. Ironically, the sports establishment and the state were sometimes lauded for their role in “helping” them thrive. For example, almost 60 years after Larry Kwong’s breakthrough in the NHL, the league eventually started to exploit the value of that story. In a 2008 Calgary Herald article, Ken King, then president and chief executive officer of the Calgary Flames, attempted to credit the league for generating stories of inspiration: “The NHL has produced many stories of individuals with determination to break down barriers and with perseverance to overcome obstacles … Larry Kwong’s story is such a tremendous example of those qualities” (Locke, 2008). In this discursive maneuver, the NHL was portrayed as a stage where marginalized individuals could engage in self-­ improvement instead of an institution with deep-rooted whiteness and racism (Valentine, 2012). A similar example can be seen in comments from Wally Buono, a football coach who worked with Norman Kwong when the latter managed the Calgary Stampeders. In a Calgary Herald article that reviewed the life of Norman Kwong, Buono emphasized the “productive” role of Canada in shaping Kwong’s life: “This country doesn’t limit you by your origins or your roots. This country will give you an opportunity … As much as there’s always prejudice, you can overcome the prejudice and that’s what Normie did” (Willes, 2016). The inclusion of prominent (elite, White men) voices in Canadian sports, such as Ken King and Wally Buono in the coverage of both Kwongs, was indicative of how their lives/stories were to be closely associated with the established White/settler interests, which is discussed next. This type of celebration has been similarly found in the U.S. context, wherein the media participated in the exaltation of prominent former athlete activists such as Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and Muhammad Ali as examples of American racial/sports progress, which simultaneously serves to silence or condemn Black athlete activism today (Leonard & King, 2009).

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Settler Recognitions Another important feature of this recent coverage was an emphasis on both Larry Kwong’s and Norman Kwong’s accolades and honors awarded by sports institutions or the state. In other words, they became newsworthy for their symbolism that reflects the mainstream (White/settler/ elite) values. Unlike Norman Kwong, who received most of his Hall of Fame honors shortly after his playing career (three-time Alberta Sports Hall of Fame; CFL Hall of Fame: 1969; Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame: 1975), Larry Kwong received belated recognition long after his retirement: thanks to the sustained efforts of hockey enthusiasts such as Chad Soon, a Chinese Canadian teacher in Vernon, BC, Kwong received the Pioneer Award from the BC Hockey Hall of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame and the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 and 2013, respectively (Hawthorn, 2018). In 2014, Larry Kwong’s Nanaimo Clippers (BC Intermediate Hockey Association) jersey from the 1942–1943 season was exhibited in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. While there was minor coverage that critically viewed these recognitions as indicating the “changing attitude” within hockey (Bellaart, 2014), the more prominent narrative viewed these honors as evidence of a multicultural Canadian society that triumphantly arrived. For example, when Larry Kwong was given an award by the BC Sports Hall of Fame, a local politician, the Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Stockwell Day, praised the then 85-year-old in a column: “He had truly blazed the way and taken the hits so that my grandkids and yours will never have to face the painful barriers that kept him from every young kid’s dream” (Day, as cited in Hawthorn, 2010). Here, absent any stories about current racism faced by various communities of color, including the Chinese, Larry Kwong was portrayed as a valiant contributor to the transformation of the formerly racist society that has become barrier-free, signified by the extraordinary honors he received. Following this logic, it is not surprising that he would also be exalted in other coverage as a “role model for many Canadians” (Locke, 2008) or, in the eyes of some members of the Chinese community, “a real hero … having made it into the mainstream of Canadian society” (Soon, as cited in Kingston, 2013). The double-layered recognition of Larry Kwong as an exceptional Chinese Canadian who added important value to the meaning of Canadian citizenship would be similarly present in the recent media narrative about Norman Kwong.

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As noted previously, Norman Kwong had long received his fair share of accolades by sport establishments for his career as a football player. As elaborated in more depth elsewhere (Chen, 2021), his investment into the Order of Canada in 1998 and appointment as the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta in 2005, two important symbolic forms of recognition by the state, sparked a new wave of intense media attention. In the coverage of the first event, Norman Kwong was variably celebrated in Edmonton Journal as “less a football legend than a social pioneer,” “a potent symbol for Chinese-Canadians” (Simons, 1999), and “a national symbol of empowerment and pride for what had been a persecuted minority” (Ovenden, 1999). His fame rose to a new height when he was nominated for and eventually appointed as lieutenant governor in 2005. The media was quick to capture the event’s symbolism by including voices from both the Chinese Canadian community and the political establishment. For example, Henry Mah, a Chinese Canadian in Edmonton, commented to Edmonton Journal that the Chinese community considered Kwong a “role model” and “more than just a football player” and was “in awe” of the news of his nomination (Simons, 2005). In Calgary, Chinese Canadian community leader Theresa Woo-Paw told the Calgary Herald that the potential appointment of Kwong upheld both Alberta’s and Canada’s image as “inclusive and multicultural” (Fekete, 2005). Following Kwong’s formal appointment, a number of established White politicians, e.g., former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed (Dohy, 2005) and then Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin (Mah, 2005), delivered public remarks in the media that acknowledged the symbolic value of Kwong’s appointment, associating this event with the merit of Canadian multiculturalism. The lack of racial/ethnic minority representation in Canadian politics, however, was not mentioned in this coverage. Just as the belated recognition of Larry Kwong generated narratives about his contribution to an allegedly racism-free Canada, Norman Kwong’s story was, in a bizarrely identical manner, described by the Edmonton Journal as both “an inspiration to any Albertan who has had to face racism” and “a reminder of just how far our society has come” (Simons, 2005). The media storylines about the two China Clippers in the 2010s have shifted considerably compared to the 1940s. In contrast to being referred to as Canadian Chinese in that early coverage, Larry and Norman Kwong were (re)considered legitimate members of Canada who exemplify the merit of that society. When Norman Kwong passed away in 2016, in an Edmonton Sun report that looked back on his life, then Alberta Premier

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Rachel Notley described him as “a person of exceptional character and extraordinary accomplishment, a great Albertan and a great Canadian” (Wood, 2016). Perhaps no other notion than the so-called Canadian dream could better encapsulate the recent, dominant narrative around the two China Clippers. In Norman Kwong’s case, he helped to make that association clear by himself. At his swearing-in ceremony as lieutenant governor of Alberta, he announced to the media: “My story has to be the Canadian dream. My father was an immigrant grocer who couldn’t even vote in Canada until his 40th year in Canada, and he has a son who becomes the lieutenant-governor of this province” (Audette, 2010). In Larry Kwong’s case, despite remaining less prominent as a public figure post retirement and only receiving belated recognition from the sports establishment, he was nevertheless associated with the notion of Canadian dream. Chad Soon, an important advocate for Larry Kwong, commented to the Vernon Morning Star shortly after the latter’s death at the age of 94: His whole life he surpassed expectations, defied stereotypes, and broke barriers with finesse and a smile. Larry was a hero to four generations of my family. He was a pioneer who changed perceptions, helping to make the Canadian dream possible for people of all kinds (Soon, quoted in Knox, 2018, para. 5)

Discussion In the early period of coverage, Canada’s mainstream media paid attention to Larry Kwong’s and Norman Kwong’s Chinese identity, generally regarding it as a source of uniqueness and exoticism as the sole representative in the elite, professional sporting spaces. As racialized individuals who rose to sports stardom in Canada, where they were born and raised, their relationship to this country seemed ambivalent, evidenced by the designation as “Chinese” or, at best, “Canadian Chinese” in the media coverage of the 1940s and 1950s. This is coherent with the broad institutional and societal exclusion and discrimination faced by Chinese immigrants in Canada at the time because they were not recognized as citizens or fully participating members of that society with equal rights until the 1960s. In more recent coverage, the mediated narratives pivoted around their individual doggedness, perseverance, and hard work, qualities desired by the capitalist settler state. While past racism and discrimination were

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mentioned in this coverage as backdrops, their achievements were exalted as evidence of multiculturalism’s success. Larry Kwong’s and Norman Kwong’s legendary lives undisputably deserve celebration in the public sphere by members of different communities on Turtle Island. Yet mainstream media, as an apparatus that (re)produces the normalcy of the White capitalist settler state (Chen et al., 2018; McCreanor et  al., 2010; Sloan Morgan & Castleden, 2014), is hardly equipped to generate narratives that transcend settler futurity (Tuck & Yang, 2012). When their endeavors are learned, labor respected, hardships empathized, records marveled at by current and future Chinese/ Asian diasporic communities in Canada or the many sports enthusiasts enthralled by their legendary careers, important questions must follow: Can their stories be told differently? If so, how? Drawing upon the notion of arrivant, I offer an alternative way to (re)frame their stories and (re)appraise their lives and legacies other than the version in the mainstream media. Chinese Arrivants To unsettle the settler-Indigenous binary and highlight the multitude of trajectories and experiences of peoples implicated in the colonization of the “New World,” Chickasaw scholar Jodi Byrd (2011) used arrivants to signify the people who were “forced into the Americas through the violence of European and Anglo-American colonialism and imperialism around the globe” (p. xix). Arrivant, along with terms such as alien (Day, 2016) and settler of color (Trask, 2000), has generated contested discussions regarding the different complicities, responsibilities, and obligations shared among racialized migrants in settler states. Arrivant signifies that racialized peoples’ pathways of arrival on Indigenous territories can be drawn from a wide spectrum, ranging from forced removal by imperial violence to voluntary relocation. Hence, it is more than a racial designation of non-White, non-Indigenous peoples but one that illuminates the different yet deeply intertwined relationship between racialization and colonization, highlighting the desirability and exploitability of racialized labor by the settler state. Chinese Canadian scholar Angie Wong (2019), for example, used Chinese arrivants to theorize the experiences of early Chinese railway workers in Canada, whose abundance and perceived cheapness were essential for the expansion of settler economy in Western

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Canada. This theorization opens up possibilities to recontextualize the China Clipper stories. As an emerging U.S.  Empire maintained its colonial rule of the Philippines in the 1930s, the first commercial plane to deliver mail from the U.S.  West Coast to Manila, its Southeast Asian foothold, would be famously named the China Clipper (Williams, 2010). The seemingly innocuous moniker assigned to both Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong by North American (white) sports pundits in the 1940s was, inadvertently, a symbol of U.S. projection of imperial power during the interwar era in the Asia-Pacific region. As noted earlier, arrivant indicates racialized peoples’ vastly different reasons of relocating on Indigenous land, and it helps highlight Larry Kwong’s and Norman Kwong’s familial and individual pathways as deeply entangled with structures of oppression locally (settler colonialism) and globally (imperialism). After all, the generation of Chinese arrivants, like the parents of Larry and Norman Kwong, left their homelands when China was threatened and destabilized by Western imperial forces in the late nineteenth century (Cheng et  al., 1982). As the media generated sensational stories such as Larry Kwong being rejected to work at Cominco as a result of racism in the 1940s, it stopped short of raising questions about colonial resource extraction, land expropriation, and racialization (e.g., Karuka, 2019; Sandlos & Keeling, 2012). The relationship between the Chinese arrivants and the Canadian settler state helps reveal the underlying tension of the dominant media narratives about Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong. The early development of the settler colonial economic project demanded cheaply exploitative, racialized labor to transform Indigenous land into private property, which was well illustrated by John A.  Macdonald administration’s seemingly contradictory policies to disenfranchise the Chinese while simultaneously enfranchising Indigenous Peoples in Western Canada (Stanley, 2016). As overtly discriminatory measures became unpalatable and the demand for economic participation increased post WWII, the settler state has allowed agreeable and desirable arrivants to assimilate into its norms, with symbolic tactics such as public apologies and praising minority achievements (Wong, 2019). Thus, it should be no surprise that the recent media narratives of Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong fit with the “model minority” and “good immigrant” tropes (Leung, 2013; Kalman-Lamb, 2015): They were represented as examples of the nonthreatening, non-White immigrant labor who demonstrate qualities such as hard work, discipline, and acceptance of the prevailing norms of whiteness and capitalism, a

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requirement to gain acceptance by the established settler institutions, which was in turn positioned as fair and accessible, providing opportunities to all who work hard enough. The theorization of early Chinese migrant workers and their descendants as arrivants, therefore, automatically entails the following questions: What is a “good immigrant”? What are the other possibilities of relating to Indigenous land than aspiring to reap the “dividends of diversity and inclusion” (Camp et al., 2019) within the settler state and the imperial core? Similarly, within the context of Canadian multiculturalism, the upsurge of media attention in the recent coverage of Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong, which focused on acknowledging their achievements by the sports establishment, also indicated the growing interest in the sports/media complex in appealing to a more racially diverse audience by self-promoting as “inclusive.” This was more evident in the coverage of Larry Kwong, centering around his belated recognition by various leagues and sports halls of fame, spaces of selective recognition for the public remembering and interpretation of sports that legitimize certain aspects of sports practices, traditions, and values over others, representing established interests (Kidd, 1996; Kohe, 2010). While the recognition and media attention accompanying it are undoubtedly necessary and important, it raises the question: What are these recognitions for? What are other possibilities of recognition that uphold potentials to transform the material and epistemic conditions underlying the absence of recognition in the first place?

Conclusion This chapter provides a critical examination of the dominant narratives of two historically significant Chinese Canadian athletes, Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong, constructed by mainstream media in Canada. As sons of early Chinese immigrants, they initially appeared in the media as rare, exotic “Chinese” subjects in competitive sports in North America. With the changing political and ideological context of Canada, their careers and achievements were differently represented and exalted in recent decades, serving the myth of Canada as a progressive, multicultural society. While their historic breakthroughs in the sports of hockey and football were highly symbolic for the Chinese diasporic communities in Canada and have, to some extent, served to disrupt the stereotypes of the emasculated Chinese man in Western media, I contend that the mediated narrative around Larry Kwong and Norman Kwong nevertheless (re)produce and

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naturalize the settler colonial, capitalist social order and, therefore, should be critically scrutinized. The theorization of Chinese immigrants in settler states as arrivants (Wong, 2019), I argue, helps recontextualize and reappraise the stories and legacies of the China Clippers, which can open up possibilities of disrupting the normalcy of settler colonialism and generating alternative visions of existence for racialized communities on Indigenous land.

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Thobani, S. (2007). Exalted subjects: Studies in the making of race and nation in Canada. University of Toronto Press. Trail Looking for Cup Again. (1941, November 11). Edmonton Journal, 6. Trask, H.  K. (2000). Settlers of color and ‘immigrant’ hegemony: ‘Locals’ in Hawaii. Amerasia Journal, 26(2), 1–26. Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity. Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. Valentine, J. (2012). New racism and old stereotypes in the National Hockey League: The “stacking” of aboriginal players into the role of enforcer. In J.  Joseph, S.  Darnell, & Y.  Nakamura (Eds.), Race and sport in Canada: Intersecting inequalities (pp. 107–135). Press. Western and Central Juniors Win Second Straight Games. (1945, October 10). Calgary Herald, p. 16. Willes, E. (2016, September 8). ‘I’m sad that he’s not here’; Lions’ Buono enjoyed special bond with CFL legend Normie Kwong. Calgary Herald, p. B11. Williams, A. J. (2010). Flying the flag: Pan American Airways and the projection of US power across the interwar Pacific. In F. MacDonald, R. Hughes, & K. Dodds (eds.), Observant states: Geopolitics and visual culture (pp. 81–99). London: IB Tauris. Wilson, B. (1997). ‘GOOD BLACKS’ AND ‘BAD BLACKS’ media constructions of African-American athletes in Canadian basketball. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 32(2), 177–189. Wong, A. (2019). A sorry state of affairs: Chinese arrivants, indigenous hosts, and settler colonial apologies. The Canadian Society for Study of Practical Ethics / Société Canadienne Pour L'étude De L'éthique Appliquée — SCEEA. 5. https:// scholar.uwindsor.ca/csspe/vol3/1/5 Wong, R. (2008). Decolonizasian: Reading Asian and first nations relations in literature. In E. Soper & N. Bradley (Eds.), Greening the maple: Canadian ecocriticism in context (pp. 329–355). University of Calgary Press. Wood, D. (2016, September 4). True champion; Family and friends recall man of ‘quiet strength, innate kindness’. The Edmonton Sun, p. A4. Yep, K. (2012). Linsanity and centering sport in Asian American studies and Pacific islander studies. Amerasia Journal, 38(3), 133–137.

CHAPTER 9

Linsanity and its Aftermath: Sports Journalism Framing of Jeremy Lin William P. Cassidy

Jeremy Lin, just the fourth Asian American to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA), found himself languishing at the end of the bench for the New York Knicks during the 2011–2012 season. The point guard had been cut by two other teams and did not see action in thirteen of his first twenty-three games with the Knicks (Stein, 2012). Lin was reportedly in danger of being released yet again until Coach Mike D’Antoni, out of desperation due to the team’s poor performances and injuries to key players, threw caution to the wind and gave the son of Taiwanese immigrants extended time on the court in a February 4, 2012 home game against the New Jersey Nets (Berman, 2012; Gregory, 2012). Lin seized the opportunity with gusto, posting a (then) career high 25 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds, leading the Knicks to a 99-92 victory. The New York Times called it “a night when an undrafted prospect from Harvard took over Madison Square Garden, outshined three of the NBA’s

W. P. Cassidy (*) Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Bien-Aimé, C. Wang (eds.), Perceptions of East Asian and Asian North American Athletics, East Asian Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97780-1_9

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biggest stars and ignited an instant love affair with New  York” (Beck, 2012a, para. 1). That startling performance was the beginning of a “global cultural phenomenon” that soon became known as Linsanity (Leung, 2013, p. 52). Lin, the first Taiwanese or Chinese American player in the league’s history, averaged 22.3 points and was the driving force behind the Knicks’ 9-3 record in the next 12 games, which put the team back into the playoff picture (Smallwood, 2012). He quickly became a point of pride for Asian Americans as an antidote to the prevailing popular culture depictions of Asian American men as “effete, weak and physically and sexually inferior” (Leung, 2013, p.  54). Sportswriter Howard Beck enthused that Lin’s appeal also went beyond race and nationality, noting that the 23-year-old “resonates with devout Christians, because he speaks openly of his faith … He taps into the passions of Harvard alumni, Ivy Leaguers, New Yorkers and anyone anywhere who loves an underdog” (Beck, 2012b, para. 30). In fact, Lin became such a media phenomenon that during the height of Linsanity he graced the cover of two consecutive editions of the venerable magazine Sports Illustrated (Wong, 2017). The craze extended across Asia as well (Siegel, 2012). When Lin traveled to Taiwan and China after the season concluded, he caused a frenzy whenever he left his hotel room. “The first time I went to Taiwan,” he said, “there were cameras, paparazzi, TV stations outside my hotel twenty-­four hours a day nonstop” (Leitch, 2012, para. 9). A Christian Science Monitor article said that because of Lin, “Taiwan found a sudden passion for the NBA and lauded Lin as one of their own” (Jennings, 2012, para. 2). China also laid claim to Lin as a native son, noting that one of his grandmothers was born there (Chen, 2012). NBA executive David Shoemaker reported that in China the impact of Linsanity “was as strong, if not stronger, than everywhere else in the world” (Jessop, 2012, para.4), and Michael Wilbon (2012), cohost of ESPN’s popular program Pardon the Interruption, wrote that during Lin’s rise to fame, he exerted a bigger worldwide impact on the sport than even LeBron James. As further confirmation of his popularity on the continent, Lin appeared on the February 27 cover of the Asian edition of Time, relegating North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un—who appeared on the cover of the other worldwide editions of the magazine— to the sidelines (Badenhausen, 2012). Several other scholars have examined Jeremy Lin and the Linsanity phenomenon (e.g., Su, 2014; McElroy, 2014; Parks, 2015). However, this chapter differs from those efforts in several substantive ways. First, it

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compares how sports journalists in the United States and in major media outlets published in four Chinese-speaking nations and regions framed coverage. Second, it analyzes content about Lin via the theoretical lens of media sociology, which addresses journalism as a social practice, created in part by the routines of the profession because journalists “mediate reality through the mere process of doing their work” (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014, p.  39). Relatedly, sports journalism has been historically labeled “the toy department” because it often lacks a critical perspective and fails to reflect the connection between sports and cultural/societal issues (Boyle, 2013; Rowe, 2007). Here, coverage of Lin is also examined over a more extended time frame than earlier analyses. Linsanity lasted less than two months and was effectively over on March 31, when Lin revealed he would undergo surgery for a partial meniscus tear in his left knee (Howard, 2012; Hughes, 2013). He did not play for the remainder of the season. However, this study also included stories leading up to Lin’s signing with the Houston Rockets in July in order to assess coverage once sports journalists could examine Linsanity and assess its impact from a broader perspective, especially given his status as a restricted free agent who would surely attract lucrative offers from other teams (Taylor, 2012a). For example, one article published in the days following Lin’s injury boiled it down to a question of “what exactly is Jeremy Lin, an above-average point guard and potential international marketing juggernaut, really worth?” (Kang, 2012, para 4).

Background Information Lin’s rise to prominence was hard to imagine for a variety of reasons, which made his story all the more compelling. Writer Pablo Torre (2012), author of the February 20 Sports Illustrated cover story, reported that Lin had been overlooked at every stage of his career. He led his high school team to a state championship, but no university offered him a scholarship. Then after carving out a solid record at Harvard, where he was a three-­ time All-Ivy League player and averaged 16.4 points per game during his senior year, Lin was not selected in the NBA draft. After being signed by the Golden State Warriors in 2010, he seldom played and was cut by two NBA teams in a span of 15 days (Torre, 2012). When Lin was claimed off waivers by the Knicks in December 2011, the news received little fanfare. In a bit of foreshadowing, coach D’Antoni

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told ESPN,“If someone wakes up with a cold, he’s playing a lot. If not, then we’ll see” (Stein, 2011, para. 9). The same article intimated that Lin might not last long with the team, explaining that when another player returned from injury, Lin could be “the odd man out” (Stein, 2011, para. 11). Lin joked that oftentimes at Madison Square Garden (the home of the Knicks) he was asked if he was the team’s trainer, and in the days leading up to his breakout performance, he had been sleeping on the couch in his brother’s one-bedroom apartment (Maese, 2012; Torre, 2012). Writers gushed that there was something for everyone in Lin’s story. Washington Post reporter Rick Maese said Lin “quickly became a rallying point, dribbling a ball at a unique intersection where culture, religion and sport meet” (Maese, 2012, para. 11). A Sports Illustrated article written months after Linsanity had subsided acknowledged that, though Lin was seen as a national hero in Taiwan, he also cut a wide swath in the United States. He was “the savior of the Knicks, a basketball hero … a Harvard man who glamorized Ivy League hoops; a man of faith … an inspiring underdog … [and] an Asian-American trailblazer who shattered match-­ science nerd stereotypes” (Chen, 2012, para. 23). However, Linsanity wasn’t a feel-good story for everyone. Lin, who said he endured racist comments from fans, players, and even coaches during his time at Harvard, faced similar backlash as his profile increased with the Knicks (Youngmisuk, 2017). Controversial boxer Floyd Mayweather, who had previously drawn attention for making racially insensitive remarks, tweeted that Lin was getting attention primarily due to his race. “Jeremy Lin’s a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian,” Mayweather wrote. “Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise” (Begley, 2012, para. 2). Journalist Jason Whitlock, then of Fox Sports, received backlash for a tweet he posted after Lin scored 38 points in the Knicks’ win over the Los Angeles Lakers. “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple of inches of pain tonight,” he said, further perpetuating long-held stereotypes of Asian American men. Taking into consideration the hypermasculine culture of the NBA, Park (2015) said Whitlock’s comments “reinforce the notion that Asian-American men are … void of authentic masculinity” (p.  380). The Asian American Journalists Association demanded an apology for the tweet, calling it “inappropriate on so many levels” (Burke, 2012, para. 1), and Whitlock complied, saying “I debased a feel-good sports moment. For that I’m truly sorry” (Yoder, 2012, para 2). ESPN fired an employee for posting a mobile headline reading “Chink in the Armor” about Lin following the Knicks’ loss to the

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New Orleans Hornets on February 17 and suspended another for using the same phrase on a telecast (Shaw, 2012). McElroy (2014) found that racism was the most prominent frame utilized in opinion columns written about Lin. Many columns, she wrote, “contended that stereotyping and racism had delayed recognition of Lin’s talents in a league more comfortable with Black and international players and that the ESPN incidents were typical of treatment toward Asian Americans” (p. 442). On the other hand, Park (2015) said reporting about Linsanity showed that sports journalists had become more sensitive to issues of race because “the majority of sports writers in mainstream print news outlets avoided describing Jeremy Lin’s success in racialized or stereotypical terms” (p. 383). However, he also observed instances where coverage of Lin reinforced dominant hegemonic norms of masculinity by emphasizing his performances as something rarely seen from Asian American men, who are historically considered to lack the skills needed to compete successfully in physically demanding sports like football or basketball. Similarly, Leung (2013) stated that Lin’s “breakout success gave Asian-American men a striking respite” from stereotypical portrayals of physical inferiority (p. 54) and challenged perceptions because of his success in a hypermasculine sport. Yet, at the same time, he said Lin’s story “affirmed the myth of Asian Americans as the ‘model minority’” (p.  53) who, through their intelligence, ambition, hard work, and perseverance, can overcome any institutional obstacles. In a comparison of Linsanity coverage in U.S. and Taiwanese media, Su (2014) found extensive differences between the two nations. She reported that Lin was initially portrayed in the United States as “a quintessential underdog, who represented all Americans and embodied the American dream” (p. 481) by stressing how he overcame adversity to reap the benefits of his hard work. Such emphasis on Lin’s individual efforts, she claimed, sought to prove that institutional racism in U.S. society doesn’t exist. As time went on, she found coverage moved to focus on Lin as a “perpetual foreigner” by emphasizing his ethnicity and immigrant background and simultaneously preserving stereotypes about Asian Americans. In contrast, Lin was consistently hailed as a national hero in Taiwan, with reporters “localizing” the story by prioritizing his heritage and treating his success as symbolic of the island’s progress and increased international presence.

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After Lin’s knee injury, numerous stories assessed the likelihood of him returning to action if the Knicks made the playoffs. But once that possibility fell by the wayside, coverage centered on his upcoming free agent status. Lin wanted to stay with the Knicks, and team officials said they would match any other offer received from another team (Beck, 2012d, 2012e). However, in July, once the Houston Rockets put forward a three-­year deal worth $25 million, speculation turned to whether or not Lin was worth the money. Despite the Rockets’ offer, Knicks Coach Mike Woodson proclaimed Lin would be his starting point guard in the upcoming season (Taylor, 2012b). But, in contrast, his star teammate Carmelo Anthony called the contract “ridiculous,” and ultimately the Knicks demurred, allowing Lin to become a member of the Rockets because matching the offer would have would cost the team more than $10 million extra in luxury-tax penalties (Roth & Martin, 2012).

Literature Review Media Sociology Much of the previous academic research about Linsanity took a cultural studies approach in examining coverage. While those efforts have yielded compelling results and insights, the approach taken here, given its emphasis on the work of journalists, stems from media sociology, which analyzes the “creation of news content … within a larger institutional and ideological context” (Reese, 2019, p. 1) because content and the forces that shape it are important to study and understand (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Numerous ethnographies of newsrooms have described the content produced by journalists as a social construction of reality (Tuchman, 1978), which is often regarded as an “implicitly true indicator of social reality” (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016). This project focuses specifically on the routines of journalism that occupy a prominent place in the media sociology literature. These “patterns, repeated practices, forms and rules that media workers use to do their jobs” are crucial to better understanding news media content. Furthermore, a large portion of news and sports media content is the result of routine forces (Lowes, 1999; Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Another researcher calls routines “the crucial factor which determines now newsworkers construe the world of activities they confront” (Fishman, 1980, p.  14). Internationally, researchers have also found great

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consistency among journalists in terms of their routines in a wide variety of countries (e.g., Herscovitz, 2004; Ramaprasad, 2001; Shoemaker & Cohen, 2006). Furthermore, factors related to routines, such as the ethics and conventions of the profession, exert strong influence on their work, even more so than political and economic factors (Hanitzch et al., 2010). Now, that is not to say that there is a global journalistic culture. Research has documented differences among nations regarding the influence of factors other than routines (e.g., Hanitzch & Mellado, 2011). Indeed, Shoemaker and Reese’s (2014) hierarchy of influences model, the most prominent articulation of influences on media content, consists of five levels ranging from individual to social systems. But in terms of the routines of the profession (the second level of the model), there is strong cohesion among journalists across nations. Sports journalism’s status as the “toy department” is directly tied to the routines of journalism, with some saying that sports journalism operates under more lenient professional and ethical standards than other areas of the profession (Fink, 2001). Many also contend that sports coverage rarely steps “beyond the game” to address sociological, political, and economic issues connected to sports (Salwen & Garrison, 1998). Similarly, some critics and scholars claim sports journalism often lacks a critical perspective and fails to uphold the traditional watchdog role of the press (Hardin et al., 2009; Rowe, 2007). This is unfortunate, they say, because sports plays an important role in society and is therefore deserving of more in-­ depth coverage (Jurkowitz, 2006; Oates & Pauly, 2007; Poole, 2009). Such criticisms of sports journalism and its routines are not restricted to the United States. For example, a survey of newspaper sports journalism in 37 countries found that little attention was given to political or social issues directly connected to sport (Schultz-Jorgensen, 2005). Rowe (2007) said those results show that sports journalists “are likely to leave sustained, intensive, critical inquiry into sports and its relationship with other major areas of society to others.” Another study reported that journalists at international events, such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup in soccer, were heavily dependent on official sources for their stories. This, according to Sugden and Tomlinson (2007), limits the amount of investigative journalism done because sports journalists want to and must maintain friendly relationships with these sources so they do not lose access to information. More recent research by Vimiero (2017) found that sports journalists at the largest media network in Brazil paid little attention to corruption and bribery investigations involving the head of

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the Brazilian Football Confederation because of network dependence on the organization for broadcast rights to the Brazilian Championships and FIFA World Cup. However, there are some signs that sports journalism may be moving beyond the toy department moniker. For example, in a study examining how sports journalists framed the coming-out stories of NBA veteran Jason Collins and NFL draft prospect Michael Sam, Cassidy (2017) found that nearly half of the stories about Sam connected his coming out to larger issues relating to gay athletes, both in the NFL and in society. English (2017), in his analysis of sports coverage of the Australia-India Test cricket series, said many of the stories from both nations adopted a critical perspective and went beyond cheerleading, while sports journalists interviewed by Broussard (2020) revealed they enjoyed writing about social and political issues related to sports. Framing This study looks at how sports journalists framed Jeremy Lin during and in the aftermath of Linsanity. Framing is popular with communication scholars, and its applications are varied (Cacciatore et al., 2016; Weaver, 2007). Many media sociology studies utilize framing (Benson, 2004; Carragee & Roefs, 2004; Revers & Brienza, 2018), and it is relevant here because of its direct connection to the routines of journalistic practice (Chyi & McCombs, 2004; Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). A media frame, according to Tankard (2001), is a “central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis and elaboration” (pp. 101–102), while McCombs and Ghanem (2001) say framing is “the construction of an agenda with a restricted number of thematically related attributes to create a coherent picture of a particular object” (p. 70). Frames add meaning to news content, and journalists frame stories in a predictable manner (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). However, they also reframe stories by focusing on different aspects of the subject in order to maintain its relevance (Chyi & McCombs, 2004). A criticism of framing studies is that they can often only be applied to a specific case, making cross-issue generalizability difficult (Ghanem, 1997). Furthermore, there is a lack of agreement on a specific set of frames used by journalists (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). To address those issues, Chyi and McCombs (2004) developed a two-dimensional measurement scheme

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that organizes frames in news stories around the dimensions of space and time because both “represent central organizing ideas in journalistic practice” (p.  25). In their framework the spatial dimension consists of five levels, viewed as a continuum: (1) individual, (2) community, (3) regional, (4) societal, and (5) international. The time dimension consists of three levels: (1) past, (2) present, and (3) future. Chyi and McCombs (2004) tested their framework in a content analysis study of New York Times coverage of the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Littleton, Colorado. They found that 54% of the stories were framed at the societal level, while 70% utilized the present time frame. Many other studies examining mass shootings have also utilized this measurement scheme (e.g., Holody & Daniel, 2017; Kwon & Moon, 2009; Muschert & Carr, 2006; Park et  al., 2012; Schildkraut & Muschert, 2014), which has enabled researchers to compare shifts in journalistic routines in covering these tragic events. For example, a study analyzing news reports about the 2015 shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, discovered that journalists used a wider variety of frames than those who covered other mass shootings, which suggests that routines utilized in reporting such tragic events are evolving and not as rote and formulaic as some have stated (Cassidy et al., 2018). The framework has also been used as a vehicle to assess the quality of coverage given to various issues. Schwartz and Andsager (2008), in a study of newspaper reporting about methamphetamine use, said that widespread employment of the individual frame by journalists meant that they didn’t view the issue as a serious problem to the general population and that an emphasis on the gay community in stories framed at the community level suggested that “gay and bisexual men may be expected to solve this problem themselves or within their own communities, much as they did in the early years of the AIDS crisis” (p. 64). Research examining sports journalism coverage of the coming-out stories of gay and lesbian athletes has argued that increased use of space frames beyond the individual level would indicate journalists were engaging in more in-depth, critical coverage that went beyond each athlete’s individual story, thus signaling progress beyond the field’s “toy department” reputation (Cassidy, 2017, 2019). For example, a volume examining coverage of lesbian athletes over a 30+ year time span discovered an increased emphasis on societal issues and subjects related to the challenges faced by gay

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athletes in the years following the outing of tennis champion Billie Jean King in 1981 (Cassidy, 2019). Other studies have made adjustments to Chyi and McCombs’ (2004) framework. Collectivist storytelling was incorporated into an examination of the 2005 mass shooting at Virginia Tech because the authors were comparing U.S. and South Korean newspapers, while Cassidy (2017, 2019) added a pair of identity-based components into the space frames because there was little geographic relevance to examining the coming-out stories of gay and lesbian athletes.

Research Questions This study utilizes Chyi and McCombs’ (2004) framing measurement scheme to address the following research questions: RQ1: How did U.S. and Asian sports journalists utilize space frames in their coverage of Jeremy Lin between February 4 and July 31, 2012? RQ2: How did U.S. and Asian sports journalists utilize time frames in their coverage of Jeremy Lin between February 4 and July 31, 2012? Given that this project was interested in how journalists assessed Lin’s talents and value to the Knicks and other NBA teams, the overall tone of articles was also measured. Researchers have said that examining affective attributes provides additional depth to the analysis, and the tone of coverage has been found to significantly influence audience perceptions of public figures and issues (Bichard, 2006; McCombs et al., 1997, 2000, 2011). Furthermore, tone is of relevance here given the historically stereotypical media portrayals of Asian American men, not to mention the aforementioned missteps by journalists in their coverage of Lin. Therefore, the final research question is as follows: RQ3: What is the overall tone of stories written by U.S. and Asian sports journalists in their coverage of Jeremy Lin between February 4 and July 31, 2012?

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Methodology Content analysis was used to answer the research questions. Articles from The New York Times composed the U.S sample, which was gathered via the NexisUni database. The New York Times was chosen because of its status as the paper of record in the United States and as a publication whose coverage has historically influenced how issues are addressed by other news organizations (e.g., Carpenter, 2007; Cassidy et  al., 2018; Golan & Lukito, 2017; Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). The New York Times is also a logical starting point for examining coverage of Lin because he played for the paper’s local NBA team, the New York Knicks. The NewsBank database was used to select articles from available Asian newspapers with English editions published in Chinese-speaking countries and regions. The newspapers used for the Asian sample were the China Daily (China), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), The Straits Times (Singapore), Taipei Times (Taiwan) and Xinhua News Agency (China). It was decided to use all of these publications in order to gain a broader understanding of how “Linsanity” was covered in Asia. These papers likely lacked the resources to cover Lin on a day-to-day basis, but because of his Chinese heritage and the newsworthiness of his story, they would certainly cover Lin’s ascension to prominence with some regularity. For both samples, full-text keyword searches were conducted for “Jeremy Lin” for the dates February 4, 2012—July 31, 2012. February 4 marked the day of Lin’s breakout game, and Lin was signed by the Houston Rockets in July. Only articles where Lin was the main focus or featured prominently were chosen, along with stories written as a consequence of Linsanity or his accomplishments (Holody & Daniel, 2017). Mirroring Chyi and McCombs (2004), the unit of analysis was the individual article, letters to the editor were not included, and items appearing in multiple editions of any of the newspapers were only coded once. Each article was coded for four variables: date published, most prominent space frame, most prominent time frame, and overall tone. The five levels of space frame categories developed by Chyi and McCombs (2004) were used as a starting point, but, much as in studies conducted by Cassidy (2017, 2019) two identity-based components were added. Community was shifted to NBA/basketball community to also account for stories focused on the NBA and team-related matters, while Asian/Asian American athlete replaced regional as a way to code for articles addressing issues specifically related to Asian and Asian American athletes. Thus, the

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five dimensions of space frames were (1) individual level, which consists of stories focused on Lin and other individuals involved with him, the interactions among them, or descriptions of their acts or background information; (2) NBA/basketball community, which includes focus on the community of the sport of basketball and the NBA, such as the perceived or potential impact of Lin’s rise to prominence; (3) the Asian/Asian American athlete level focused on the issues and challenges concerning athletes who are Asian or Asian American; (4) the societal level focused on concerns with nationwide interests, such as social problems, in other words, the impact of Lin’s rise to prominence on the nation (where the newspaper is published) as a whole; and (5) the international level includes discussion of the global impact of Lin’s achievements, or the interaction between multiple countries. The three time frame levels were (1) the past, consisting of stories focusing on previous events with no direct linkage to Lin’s rise to prominence; (2) the present, which includes discussions of events and developments at the time of Lin’s rise to prominence; and (3) future, which focuses on the long-term effects of Lin’s rise to prominence. The tone of each article was assessed based on three categories: (1) negative, where the overall tone expresses criticisms of Lin or his performance or related factors; (2) neutral, where the overall tone expresses mixed (positive and negative) or neutral reactions to Lin or his performance or related factors; and (3) positive, where the overall tone expresses support or praise for Lin or his performance or related factors. Numerous studies examining tone have utilized similarly constructed categories (Bichard, 2006; Cassidy, 2017, 2019; McCombs et al., 1997, 2000). The author and a second trained individual served as coders. For reliability purposes 25 articles (approximately 12%) were analyzed by both. Using Scott’s Pi—a summary statistic that corrects for the possibility of chance agreements—the level of agreement was 0.87 for the space frame variable, 0.95 for the time frame variable, and 0.92 for the tone variable.

Results A total of 214 (N = 214) stories were analyzed. Of that total, 135 (63.1%) were published in The New York Times, while 79 (36.9%) appeared in the Asian newspapers. The articles were also divided into two time periods to assess any changes in coverage post-Linsanity. Time Period 1 was from February 4, 2012 (Lin’s breakout game for the Knicks) to March 31,

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2012 (when he announced his decision to undergo knee surgery), while Time Period 2 was from April 1, 2012 to July 31, 2012. The second time period began the day after Lin’s announcement and continued until the end of July, two weeks after he officially became a member of the Houston Rockets. The majority of the stories (n = 145, 67.8%) were published in Time Period 1with 69 (32.2%) in Time Period 2. RQ1 asks whether there were any differences between U.S. and Asian coverage of Jeremy Lin in the use of space frames. The results reveal a significant overall difference between the two groups (chi square [4, N = 214] = 13.92, p = 0.008). Stories appearing in The New York Times were more likely to use the NBA/basketball community space frame (23%, vs. 7.6%), while Asian newspapers utilized the societal space frame more frequently (17.7%, vs. 6.7%). The individual space frame was the leading space frame for both groups (Table 9.1). Table 9.1  Space frame dimension coverage of Jeremy Lin in U.S. and Asian newspapers Level Newspaper Group

Individual NBA/Basketball Community

Percentages Overall (N = 214) U.S. 62.2 23.0 (n = 135) Asian 62.0 7.6 (n = 79) Chi square [4, N = 214] = 13.92, p = 0.008 Time Period 1(N = 145) U.S. 67.0 12.8 (n = 94) Asian 51.0 5.9 (n = 51) Chi square [4, N = 145] = 10.14, p = 0.038 Time Period 2(N = 69) U.S. 51.2 46.3 (n = 41) Asian 82.1 10.7 (n = 28) Chi square [4, N=69] = 10.66, p = 0.014

Asian/Asian American Athlete

Societal International

5.9

6.7

2.2

7.6

17.7

5.1

8.5

9.6

2.1

11.7

25.5

5.9

0.0

0.0

2.5

0.0

3.6

3.6

Note. Time Period 1—February 4–March 31, 2012. Time Period 2—April 1–July 31, 2012

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When examining results in each time period, they show a significant difference in Time Period 1 between the two groups (chi square [4, N = 145] = 10.14, p = 0.038). U.S. sports journalists were more likely to use the individual space frame (67% vs. 51%), while Asian sports journalists made more use of the societal space frame (25.5% vs. 9.6%). Significant differences were also apparent in Time Period 2 (chi square [4, N = 69] = 10.66, p = 0.014). Asian newspaper stories utilized the individual space frame more frequently (82.1% vs. 51.2%), while U.S. coverage featured the NBA/basketball community space frame more prominently (46.3% vs. 10.7%) (Table 9.1). Comparing New York Times coverage during the two time periods also revealed significant differences (chi square [4, N  =  135]  =  22.59, p