ABSTRACT
The sports industry in the United States is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that impacts and influences American life and popular culture in numerous and consequential ways. From the merchandising of sports drinks such as Gatorade and Powerade, to basketball shoes made by Nike and Adidas, to the imitation of pro football players’ touchdown celebrations by children not even in their teenage years, sports in the U.S. holds vast sway in a nation of over 300 million and also across the globe. In a culture where athletes are revered for the number of championships they have garnered, their mantles weighted with Most Valuable Player trophies, where head football coaches of collegiate power football conferences like the Southeastern Conference (SEC), Big Ten, and Pac 12 are paid millions of dollars per year, where sports legends like O.J. Simpson, Ray Rice, Tom Brady, Aaron Hernandez, and Adrian Peterson can fall from grace and into public disfavor, sports is at least one metric by which we might measure the prosperity, progress, and collective ethics of the United States.
