ABSTRACT
In the fall of 2003, ESPN premiered its first entry in the realm of scripted, fictional television programming, Playmakers. The program chronicled, often with explicit detail, the trials and tribulations of a fictional pro football team, the Cougars. Dubbed a “macho soap opera” (Flynn, 2004, p. 68), plot lines revolved around everything from murder, to drug abuse, to domestic violence, to homosexuality, to abortion. The aging veteran, the raw rookie, the greedy owner-characters on the program embodied just about every conceivable sports stereotype.
