Promotional Space or Public Forum: Protest Coverage and Reader Response in Team-Operated Media

Abstract

As sports reemerge as a site for social protest, league- and team-controlled media are a new forum for the spread and consideration of political messages. In-house sites challenge established boundaries between journalism and promotional content, but they seek to engage readers by establishing themselves as credible sources, although judgments about credibility are ultimately up to the audience. This content and textual analysis uses social protest by athletes following comments by President Donald Trump about National Football League (NFL) players in September 2017 as a means of exploring the terms of engagement in team media between site producers and audience. In content produced about the protest, writers for NFL team sites stressed the ideas of unity and collaboration expressed by players and executives. Fan response on Facebook was harshly critical toward the protesting athletes, teams, and NFL. These findings suggest in-house media may amplify messages of social protest, but fans use their power in this space to contest those messages. At the same time, the use of in-house spaces as equivalent to newspaper comment sections further casts team media content as less overtly promotional.