SECTION A –
OPTION A2
CHAPTER 8
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
CHAPTER 8 – THE BIG FOUR SPORTS IN THE USA
Text between pages 54 and 59 answers to questions on page 59 of the text book.
1) Briefly describe the growth of ice hockey in the USA and explain why it was delayed. 4 marks
Answer
2 marks for two descriptions:
• Initially a European game on natural ice brought by settlers to Canada.
• English colonial developments in Canada and rationalisation in Canadian universities.
• Artificial ice (indoors) games introduced in Montreal in the 1870s.
• Entered the USA via university games much later in the 1890s.
• First US professional leagues in the early 20th century.
2 marks for two explanations:
• Ice hockey was a Canadian game that was eventually taken up by the USA.
• Possible reluctance because it was seen as a colonial game.
• Initially determined by climate and so not a natural game in much of the USA.
• Development of indoor facilities and advent of refrigeration in US began to popularise the game.
• Took off professionally to provide a violent, spectacular game ideal as a USA spectator sport.
• Dependent on facilities, it is now a major game in most American cities and taught as a major game in Northern and Mid-West
schools.
2) Compare the development of baseball in the USA with cricket in England.8 marks
Answer
4 marks for discuss similarities, both:
Tended to be summer games, because winters were too severe for them.
Team games because groups of children/men from communities organised teams.
Became professionalised into leagues.
Focussed in large towns with crowds attracted.
Taught in schools.
Reflects ethnic groups, English cricket, Italian baseball.
Taken up by African Americans and West Indies popularity as professionals.
4 marks for discuss differences:
Cricket has always been a minority game in the USA.
Baseball remains a child’s game of rounders in England.
The structure of the game is very different.
The extended version of county and test cricket does not meet the objective of USA team games, which must be explosive and short.
The USA media expects this approach unlike the English cricket public.
Cricket is very much more complex and sophisticated than baseball, a cultural difference between the public attitude in each country.
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COMPARATIVE STUDIES
3) Analyse the social phenomenon of ‘white flight’ in the context of American professional basketball.6 marks
Answer
3 marks for explaining ‘white flight’:
• White games players (Caucasian) choose not to play basketball, and so do not have expectations in that game.
• They see only black teams playing, such as the Harlem Globetrotters.
• And black superstars such as Michael Jordan.
• They have other sports/games they can follow, where whites play to show their talents.
3 marks for explaining it as a social phenomenon:
• The tradition or history of the game is being part of black culture and popularity among black people.
• White players presume the black players are physically gifted and naturally advantaged as exemplified number of black sports
stars.
• Other sports provide more opportunities for white sportspeople, for example competitive swimming.
• This tradition is gradually being broken down as a result of the emergence of successful white European players.
• And scholarships are an equal attraction to young white players.
4) Compare the game of American Gridiron Football with British Rugby Union, given that it has the same roots.20 marks
Answers may be consecutive or concurrent and the following breakdown is not structurally necessary, but may be useful in
identifying a balanced answer.
Answer
5 marks for similarities between the two games:
• Both are invasion ball games involving team competition over a field of play.
• Both involve body contact and objective of winning the ball and scoring points.
• Both involve skills and tactics in line with written rules and a code of conduct.
• Both have governing bodies that control and administer the game.
• Both have coaches and trainers to get the best out of their team.
• Both have fixtures and organised competitions.
• Both are now professionalised at the top/players full time.
5 marks for differences between the two games:
• Until recently the Rugby Union was an amateur organisation.
• To avoid injury, gridiron has blocking rather than tackling by the forwards in rugby.
• Gridiron has a forward pass rule which rugby union does not have.
• Gridiron has pivotal play around the quarterback.
• In rugby union the captain has greater responsibility.
• Rugby union has a grass roots organisation rising in a pyramid to a professional elite.
• Gridiron by it structure, is not a grass roots game.
• Gridiron has safety gear, particularly helmets.
• Rugby union players wear limited reinforced vests.
• Decision-making or plays are structured outside the game in gridiron.
• Whereas in rugby union, the game is much more spontaneous.
• Scholarships to college/universities for best young players in gridiron.
• Less formal approach in union, but can help get a place at centres of excellence.
• Pro-draft is a gridiron policy, not formally applied in rugby union.
• The SuperBowl is the culmination of the National Football League (NFL) staged annually.
• Whereas the Rugby Six Nations is the finale to the international season.
• Rugby union is a global game played in Europe and the Commonwealth.
• Gridiron has very limited international programmes.
• Women are able to play rugby union, but gridiron remains a man’s game.
Chapter 8
37
SECTION A –
OPTION A2
CHAPTER 8
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
4) continued
5 marks for the historical and cultural reasons for this:
• Same origin: both mob games without written rules.
• Development: both invasion games, developed by Old Rugbeians i.e. old students from Rugby.
• School/staff in US schools with Rugby School background.
• Rugby was introduced by English settlers or their off-spring.
• Rugby was changed to reflect the new culture in the USA.
• Aware of the concurrent game’s development in England/independence and extreme violence in gridiron led to rules to reduce this,
such as forward pass and blocking rather than tackling in re-starts.
• In both cases a middle class development through public/private schools and strong influence of Ivy League/Oxbridge.
• In the UK, rugby union has had the schism with rugby league and also rivalry with soccer.
• Whilst gridiron has become the unrivalled invasion game in the USA.
• The determination to stay amateur by the RFU was stand against professionalism, not relevant in the gradual emergence of
gridiron as a professional game in the USA.
• The spectacle and crowd appeal is new in top rugby union, but the professional gridiron game and even the collegiate games
attract huge crowds in high technology facilities.
• The commercialisation of gridiron more closely matches soccer in the UK or rugby league.
• Whereas in the UK, rugby union has only recently attracted the attention of television.
• While the win ethic is now a part of both, gridiron reflects Lombardianism to its extreme.
• At lower levels, rugby union is still a recreational game played for fun and social/club relationships.
• The professional gridiron organisation reflects the American Dream, either as it is achieved by highly paid top players or sublimated
by enthusiastic supporters.
• This development is only just appearing in rugby union through the advent of commercial television of top games.
5 marks for a judgemental awareness of additional variables which exist within the two games, additional insight into socio-cultural
factors and perceived trends in the future:
• There are a number of avenues, top students might explore in more depth, e.g. Lombardian ethics displayed in gridiron as against
rational ethics in most rugby union matches.
• Select at least one historical issue, such as segregation and race in gridiron as against social class in rugby union.
• More detail on the impact of President Theodore Kennedy on the refinement and creation of gridiron as a separate game from
rugby union.
• More detail on the pyramid organisation of the RFU as against the elitist culture of gridiron.
• More detail on male dominance in gridiron, as it is reflected in major sports and the female break through in soccer rather than
gridiron, where Britain has an opening for women in all major games/the glass ceiling discussed.
• Discuss such topics as centrality and stacking in relation to the two games.
• Discuss the hire and fire philosophy in gridiron, reflecting society, and its relevance in top rugby union.
• Address the question why didn’t gridiron become a universal game/what parallel futures do the two games have/are they coming
together, if so how, e.g. with professional rugby becoming more violent, will protective gear or a change of rules be necessary?
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COMPARATIVE STUDIES
5) Compare the cultural and commercial development of baseball and soccer in the USA and the UK.8 marks
Answer
6 marks for cultural development:
• The pre-history of baseball and soccer occurred as mob games that were played during fairs and wakes throughout the UK.
• Mostly male members of the lower classes played both games.
• Which were violent without many rules.
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Both baseball and soccer were taken over to America by early British settlers.
And by the 18th century a baseball-type of games was being played with informal rules and improvised equipment.
The rationalisation of baseball play, with an agreed full set of written rules emerged in 1845.
About the same time as the development of football in the 19th century English Public Schools.
But unlike the new codified game of baseball, English public schools had different versions of football.
Which fitted in with the buildings and grounds of the school.
• In the UK sons of gentry established soccer rules.
• This lead to a separation of clubs in which southern clubs were based around old boys from the public schools and Oxbridge, who
were strictly amateur.
• And northern teams who were based around the industrial towns with working class professionalism.
• Baseball became a people’s game, as soccer did in Britain.
• In the USA baseball had a consolidated base from which to develop.
• And so became the premier professional sport by the latter part of the 19th century.
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Both baseball and soccer appealed to the working classes.
This was because both games were cheap and easy to set up in open spaces.
And the most talented players were quickly rewarded at semi and full professional levels irrespective of their social backgrounds.
Unlike other ball games such as basketball, in baseball and soccer small players could find a place in these professional teams.
There was a colour bar operating in baseball until 1950.
Before this time there were separate leagues for black and white players.
Since the 1950s baseball has had a positive place as a multi-racial people’s games.
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Unlike soccer that has experienced hooliganism and discrimination, in more recent times, both on and off the pitch.
Black players were persistently abused verbally by spectators.
And so in 1993 FA campaign ‘Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football’.
To deal with racial issues.
6 marks for commercial development:
• Both games have commercial independence.
• With advertising revenue available by brand-naming and player sponsorship deals.
• Wealth derived from revenue streams such as gate money and TV contracts have positively stimulated the growth of high tech
facilities.
• Wages of the top professional players are huge.
• Both games have vast numbers devoted fans who spend thousands of pounds following their clubs.
• Regular TV coverage changed the nature of both sports from serving a home crowd to universal appeal, including the arm-chair
spectator.
• Soccer has more global appeal to the extent that clubs such as Manchester United are known throughout the World.
• And the Soccer World Cup has far greater following than the annual Baseball World Series between the United States and Canada.
Chapter 8
39
SECTION A –
OPTION A2
CHAPTER 8
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
6) Compare the cultural and commercial development of ice hockey and rugby league in the USA and the UK.12 marks
Answer
6 marks for cultural development:
• The pre-history of ice hockey and rugby leagues occurred as mob games which were violent without many rules and played during
fairs and wakes throughout the UK.
• The origins of ice hockey came from stick and ball games.
• And a folk game called ‘bandy’, played on ice in Northern Europe and England – played on the fens of East Anglia.
• European immigrants took various versions of ‘bandy’ to Canada.
• Where the game was played on frozen lakes and referred to as ‘hurly’ and ‘shinny’.
• Rugby league developed from mob games to variations of the game of football in the Public schools, as handling skills were
introduced.
• Which lead to a fully codified amateur game and the Rugby Football Union in 1871.
• In 1895 rugby split into a southern and northern divide.
• The RFU refused to allow broken time payments and maintained its amateur status until 1995.
• So in 1895, 22 northern clubs got together the rugby football league.
• In which working class players could be paid for participating.
• The split lead to different rules (13 a-side, the play-the-ball and scoring system).
• And the formation of leagues.
• It was not until 1995 that rugby union became professional.
• And welcomed rugby league players into club and international sides.
• The game of ice hockey did not experience the rift that split rugby into union and league.
• First known written rules were drawn up in Montreal in 1870s.
• This is later than the standardisation of rugby rules in Britain.
• In 1875 the first indoor ice hockey rink appears – a major development in the expansion of the game.
• In both ice hockey and rugby the principle of the ‘melting pot’ was such that when players left university they were responsible for
the spread of the organised games.
• In the USA ice hockey was being played informally during the winter in northern and central states.
• The amateur league was founded in New York in 1896.
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And the first professional league, the National Hockey League (NHL) was established in that year.
The NHL flourished in the North and Mid West.
But it was not until 1960s that the professional league spread to the Southern and Western States.
When sophisticated indoor refrigeration facilities were developed to withstand the warmer climates.
Ice hockey expanded so much and attendance rates matched those of gridiron football and basketball.
TV coverage enabled the whole country to see the speed and thrills of the game.
In both rugby league and ice hockey, women’s development lagged behind the men.
Some women were playing ice hockey as early as 1921.
But both games did not establish their governing bodies until recently.
Women’s Rugby League Association (WRLA) in 1985.
National Women’s Hockey Association (NWHL) 1999.
• Both rugby league and ice hockey are tough aggressive sports.
• But in male ice hockey body checking is allowed.
• And the speed and risk from swinging sticks, hard pucks in the air, congestion in the goal mouth and the confined space results in
many collisions and injuries.
• Hence protective clothing, mouth guards, helmets and highly padded goal-minders are worn by ice hockey players.
• Because rugby league is played on a large outdoor pitch the game is not as fast and collisions are forbidden except in the context
of the tackle.
• Both games have the use of the ‘sin-bin’ to control excessively violent behaviour.
40
COMPARATIVE STUDIES
6) continued
6 marks for commercial development:
• Both games have commercial independence for the top league teams.
• With advertising revenue available by brand-naming and player sponsorship deals.
• Wealth derived from revenue streams such as gate money and TV contracts have positively stimulated the growth of high tech
facilities.
• Wages of the top professional players are huge.
• Ice hockey has vast numbers of devoted fans who spend thousands of dollars following their teams.
• Rugby league has less of a spectator base, but grounds have become more amenable for spectatorship.
• Regular TV coverage changed the nature of both sports from serving a home crowd to universal appeal, including the armchair
spectator.
• In rugby league the advent of the superleague with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Sport has changed the game.
• From a winter to a summer game.
• From ancient wooden stands with mostly standing on the terraces to better all-seater stadia with excellent spectator facilities,
• From a semi-professional to a fully professional game.
• To full superleague coverage on Sky-TV.
7) To what extent did rugby union and American Football originate as middle class games?8 marks
Answer
• Rugby union was played in middle class boys public schools.
• American Football was the game played in major USA high schools.
• Both games were played at a high level in the Universities of both countries.
• Men who wrote the rules were middle class business men.
• Clubs were formed in the UK, but in the US clubs were owned by businessmen, but the players tended to be professionals.
• Rugby union in the UK remained amateur until recently.
• Until recently, except for major fixtures, rugby union was not a spectator sport.
• In the US the professionalisation made it very much a professional sport.
• The commercial side of American Football and the media coverage made is very much more a commercial business than rugby
union in Britain.
8) Compare the role of university sport in the USA and the UK, as a pathway into professional sport.4 marks
Answer
USA university sport:
• Enrolment into the professional ranks in most major games is through the university draft system.
• The majority of top players are drafted into university sports departments as a preparation for an eventual professional career.
• Historically, baseball has been the exception.
British universities:
• Accept applicants on academic grounds or as performers rather than professionals.
• Most British professionals have progressed through the club system involving talent spotting with junior clubs.
• With increased wages and bonuses, more middle class men go through the university system and into some professional sports.
9) It is only recently that elite women athletes have gained enough recognition for their athletic talent and social acceptance as
role models to earn a living playing sports. Discuss the view that most professional women athletes in the USA and the UK
receive very little media coverage or pay when compared with their male counterparts. 8 marks
Answer
• In both countries there are still stereotypical attitudes to female participation.
• Within the UK policies for equality exist, but a lack of a centralised system has inhibited implementation.
• In the USA Title IX is a major piece of legislation and boost for sporting opportunities for women and helped to increase mass
participation levels.
• But elite USA sport is still dominated by highly talented, able-bodied men.
• And it is only in the Olympic sports that women are equally as successful as their men.
• In Beijing 45% of all participants were female.
• In the USA the ‘matriarchal’ society is not keen to divert women from their real purpose of family life.
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Top sportswomen have 14% of the income of top men.
In both countries elite women’s soccer players are still semi-professional.
And find it harder to get sponsorship.
Men complain that funding is taken away from them.
It is only since 2007 that women tennis players earned the right for equal prize money.
Chapter 8
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