Media and the Coming Out of Gay Male Athletes in American Team Sports
Never before have we lived in a time in which sport and gay identity are more visible, discussed, debated—and even celebrated. However, in an era in which the sports closet is heralded as the last remaining stronghold of heterosexuality, the terrain for the gay athlete remains contradictory at best. Gay athletes in American team sports are thus living a paradox: told that sport represents the "final closet" in American culture while at the same time feeling ostracized, labeled a "distraction" for teams, dubbed locker room "problems," and experiencing careers which are halted or cut short altogether.
Media and the Coming Out of Gay Male Athletes in American Team Sports is the first of its kind, building upon the narratives of athletes and how their coming out experiences are shaped, transmitted and received through pervasive, powerful, albeit imperfect commercial media. Featuring in-depth interviews with out-athletes such as Jason Collins, Dave Kopay, Billy Bean and John Amaechi; media gatekeepers from outlets like ESPN and USA Today; and league representatives from Major League Baseball and the National Football League, this book explores one of the starkest juxtapositions in athletics: there are no active out players in the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL, yet the number of athletes coming out at virtually every other level of sport is unprecedented. Interviews are fused with qualitative media analysis of coming out stories and informed by decades of literature on the unique intersection of sport, media, and sexual identity.
Andrew C. Billings (Ph.D., Indiana University) is the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting and Executive Director of the Alabama Program in Sports Communication at the University of Alabama. He has published over 150 journal articles and book chapters along with 17 books, most of which pertain to the nexus of sport, media, and identity.
Leigh M. Moscowitz (Ph.D., Indiana University) is an associate professor and Head of the Public Relations Sequence in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of South Carolina. She is the author of The Battle over Marriage and co-author of Snatched.