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The ‘Propaganda Peloton’ paper

The rare Saturday post here coincides with the second and final day of the International Association of Communication and Sport’s summit in Dublin, Ireland. I spent almost the entire night finishing up the slides and notes for my presentation today.

I did get about two hours of sleep, and arrived at the conference just in time to see a morning session that included a presentation by one of our former professors, and also her daughter, who is a law student at Syracuse. I have photos of that young woman as a very little girl, and have now watched her give research for a few years. She’s been studying Name, Image, and Likeness in the NCAA and I’ve been trying to make the case that she could graduate from law school and carve herself a substantial niche in that brand new area. Whatever she does, she’ll be brilliant at it, just like her mother.

Later I gave my last presentation of the conference. This was actually inspired by someone else’s paper from last year. I sat in a conference room in Chicago and jotted notes last March and thinking I could do a similar, but different work. I had a topic that no one researches, one only barely discussed in the popular media.

And, then, last September, la Vuelta a España took place. There, and in the months to follow, we had an instance where sportswashing most decidedly did not work. So I talked to one of our friends and Sports CaM colleagues, Dr. Julia Richmond. I knew the story, but she knows propaganda. We batted it around, and she figured out precisely the way we should frame the work.

This version of the research was titled “Propaganda peloton: Sportswashing in professional cycling.”

If you need a citation: Smith, K.D. & Richmond, J. C. (2026, March 13-14). “Propaganda peloton: Sportswashing in professional cycling. [Conference presentation].” IACS 2026 Summit, Dublin, Ireland.

So today I gave our little example of how and when and why sportswashing didn’t actually work. (It usually does.) All it took was the specific circumstances of the sport of road cycling, like the lack of liminal space between fans and athletes, a history of protest, a route through the Basque country and one other thing …

I’m presenting this paper at #IACS26 in a few moments on behalf of @rowanuniversity.bsky.social and The Center for Sports Communication and Social Impact.

If you were here you could hear how the story turns out.

If you are here, it’s in room E206.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 14, 2026 at 9:43 AM

Usually, sportswashing can be successful in road cycling. There are a lot of multinational petrochemical sponsors now. There are nation-states sponsoring teams. (Indeed, I used one of those to make a point in this presentation about budget disparities.) And while it can work in those other cases it didn’t work here because of genocide. By November, the Israel Premier Tech team was being denied entry into other races, riders were breaking contracts or outright retiring, IPT stepped away as the sponsor of the team in question a year early. Their owner also parted ways with the team.

And wouldn’t you know it, in the audience for this presentation was someone who knows all about this, and another scholar who has a friend that, until last year, drove for Premier Tech. But it’s interesting, and it worked because of what Richmond did to make it happen. I hope someone in the room knows her and tells her how I was bragging on her. She couldn’t be there, because she had to attend a wedding in the Caribbean.

He said jealously, in Dublin.

That’s two years in a row I’ve presented cycling research at this conference. I’m going to develop a reputation for doing that if I keep this up.

The IACS conference ended today. I attended a bunch of great sessions, met some lovely new people and saw some friends for all too short a period of time. Some of them we’ll see at next year’s conference. Others we won’t see until the conference goes abroad once again.

My lovely bride, who is the executive director of IACS, helped put on a great conference. Their largest ever attendance, despite this dumb new war in the Middle East keeping about four percent of the participants from attending. It was also their first hybrid conference with the people from Sport and Discrimination. And everyone seemed to have a good conference. Some of the board members celebrated at Il Corvo, a little four-star Italian restaurant just across the street. Because I know people, I was invited for this little dinner. I had the carbonara, which is a good litmus test for an Italian restaurant. If it’s good, you can be comfortable ordering other things on the menu. The carbonara was good. I guess we’ll have to come back again.

Poor me.

More on Monday, when we’ll be spring breaking.

adventures / bluesky / Friday / IACS / research / Rowan / scholarship / sports — Comments Off
13
Mar 26

The ‘That’s It, That’s it, I quit!’ paper

At the International Association for Communication and Sport summit my lovely bride and I presented some interesting and unique research. We met the friend of some friends and he was telling us about why he quit playing fantasy sports. It was an interesting conversation and led to a pretty basic research question: why?

It turns out that while there’s a reasonable amount of scholarship about why people gamble and play fantasy sports, there’s not a lot of work done studying why they quit. So we’re cornering the market. And here’s the first bit of that work, a pilot study. We told some of the best sports media scholars in the world about it today. She discussed the quantitative part of the mixed-methods study, and left me to discuss the qualitative themes. Here’s some of the takeaways, which I’ve already shared on Bluesky.

This version of the research was titled “That’s it, I quit!: An analysis between the relationship of quitting sports gambling and enjoyment.”

If you need a citation: Smith, L.R. & Smith, K.D. (2026, March 13-14). “That’s it, I quit!: An analysis between the relationship of quitting sports gambling and enjoyment.” [Conference presentation]. IACS 2026 Summit, Dublin, Ireland.

Just presented some new research with @laurensmith.bsky.social. Turns out there’s not a lot of work done studying why people stop playing fantasy sports.

Let’s dive in!

#IACS26

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

We met a guy who had strongly passionate feelings about why he no longer played fantasy sports. So we developed a mixed-methods instrument to study it. We approached this from a motivations perspective.

@laurensmith.bsky.social used PANAS and ENJOY on the quantitative side.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

We learned, from one person, that you can actually do some version of UFC fantasy sports.

We also learned, from other great scholarship, that gambling has the highest suicide rate of any addiction disorder (Vijayakumar &
Vijayakumar, 2023).

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Lauren broke down the quantitative data, I unpacked a bit of the qualitative. We had 50 respondents, 37 identified as male, 12 as female. The slide below has a few standout answers. Most said they quit because of the time invested, loss of money, loss of interest, stress, changing life priorities.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Eighty percent of the respondents could point to a specific incident that motivated them to quit. Most revolved around lost money, time spent, stress from building and dealing with lineups and, curiously, dissatisfaction with player performance and player injuries.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

We asked the quitters group where they spend their time now. Fully 60 percent said nothing about watching sports. Some 18 percent of them used specific phrase like “stress, attention, focus, relaxing.” Work, spending time with family, exercise filled in the time. So did video games and reading.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Nineteen of the 50 respondents wish they had quit sooner. The rest said no. Only one person, as you see here, indicated any regret at not playing.

Thirty-eight percent said they’d play again. All of those said they would impose limitations and low stakes on their participation.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

We wondered if they missed it; 36 percent said they do not.

Of the rest, 30 percent missed the competition, 18 percent missed the social aspects of fantasy sports. Sixteen percent we categorized as other.

Almost all said what they DON’T miss is the stress involved or the time invested.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Eight members of the quitters group said they’d spent more than $1,000 playing fantasy sports. The highest was $5,000. A personal appeal made them stop. They talked at length about how things have turned around for them.

One person self-reported spending 800 hours a year on fantasy sports.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) March 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Now if you’ll excuse me, after a day full of conferencing, and an evening full of networking and socializing with friends and colleagues, I have to finish my notes for tomorrow’s presentation.

Friday / Rowan — Comments Off
6
Mar 26

Three-out-of-four, then two-out-of-three

I had four meetings — count ’em, one, two, three, four meetings — on my calendar for today. Researchers were trying to wedge one more in there in between the few null spaces in my day. Me, I’m the researcher.

My first meeting, which was to be the best one of the day, was postponed or canceled. It’s that time of year for everyone, not just you or me. This meeting was to be about a presentation we are delivering next week. This was the get our ducks in a row meeting. Guess who’s ducks are all out of sorts?

Not ours, because we have a plan and a great slide deck. I am working with an amazing colleague on this particular presentation.

My second meeting was a regular committee meeting. We meet for half an hour, every other week. Lovely people. Just happy to be around them. Thoughtful, curious, dedicated, wanna-take-part, sorts of folks. We talked for about 25 minutes about the details of our work and how we might invite this person or that person or all of these people in to a meeting to talk and take a lot at the whatsits and the whosits. And finally, it occurred to me, we’ve been asked to focus on just this one group, not all of the groups. And so we returned to the start of the meeting, essentially.

My third meeting was about sustainability in the classroom. This one was led by a departmental colleague and it was more of a workshop than a meeting. A PLC, they call it, a professional learning community. This meeting is filled with smart people from all number of fields and they are, right now, looking for ways to weave this and that into their own classrooms. I don’t do a lot of that in my classes at the moment — the thises and thats of the environment and ecology conservation and so on. You might think, “You teach sports communication and communication studies, how could you?” And I would say, Thanks for reading my bio.

Then I would say, I have an idea for a future class that fits in nicely with some of what this PLC does. If I’m ever allowed to pitch and offer it, it is going to be awesome. I am trying to get my arms around more than just the basic details.

Today they were using some tool called Padlet which felt very 2.0 Wiki, to share ideas. It is a subscription-based customizable bulletin board with options to populate with text, images, audio, videos, and links. It is like Jamboard. It’s a fun little thing to type in. So people typed in stuff they were working on, and cast about for ideas. I read all of them, because I’m trying to learn stuff and project my project into it. I was also able to add two or three ideas for people, so time well spent.

Then, finally, I wound up the work day with one more webinar, a Q&A session about this work packet I’ve been going on and on about. This was the last minute session. There are a few people on campus who devote just huge amounts of time to this particular chore for everyone else, and good thing, too. We’d probably all be in a much different place if the help didn’t exist. I had three questions, myself, and the answers can be boiled down to: 1.) don’t use that form now use it later, 2.) yes use that form now how did you not know that, and 3.) you are probably correct about the last form, but continue asking around. Two out of three, late on a Friday, is not bad at all. Some other people had questions, and some of which were unexpectedly useful, too, so it was 80 minutes well spent.

Also, today, I got a bit ahead of some class prep for my online course and my in-person Criticism class. And, now, this. So it felt, more or less, like a productive Friday.

I hope yours was too.

photo / Rowan / sports / Thursday / video — Comments Off
4
Mar 26

Shiver spring?

Here’s the deal I, a southern boy, have made in my decade of living in northern climes. Below a certain temperature, I don’t go outside if I don’t want to. At the same time, I acknowledge that life has brought me to a place where winter happens. (Items one and two here generally take of each other.) If winter is going to happen, it should stick within certain calendar confines. (I never get my way on this one, really, I mean look at us.) Anything after February 14th won’t do, because, back home, trees are budding and the lilies have burst through the soil and the jonquils aren’t far behind. Winter is going to happen, though, and so I will accept days that are cold and bright, or dull and warmer. The wrong combination there is unwanted. And, somewhere in February, because I can’t have spring on schedule, I begin to think things like “Oh this feels awfully warm!” and it is 51 degrees. This is the Stockholm Syndrome that comes in the last third of winter.

The last third, because we’re not done yet.

There has been entirely too much of this in the atmosphere for March.

Walking into our building on campus today I could see my breath. This wasn’t so much about the cold, but the dew point. It was one of those days where everything felt like it would be cold soggy forever.

In Rits and Trads we wrapped up the student presentations of traditions they found. Someone actually showed off the Red Wings thing. While they love it in Detroit, where it is presumably gray until May, this strikes me as problematic for a lot of people.

Another student showed a video from his high school, which was cool, but I’ll never find again. The idea was how they integrated the marching band and the football team taking the field. It was simple, and neat.

Someone discussed the Red Sox playing Sweet Caroline. Fits the bill. Crowd loves it.

And the Buffalo Bills do a Mr. Brightside thing now, which is on its way to becoming a tradition, it looks like.

Admittedly, these guys right here aren’t the best singers, but this is all about the choreographed stadium atmosphere. The Buffalo snow probably helps.

I wonder if they’ll take this song, and emerging tradition, next door to the new stadium this year.

In Criticism, we watched this documentary, which I thought was fascinating, as it takes on issues of gender, politicization, culture, history, and colonization. It’s a slow start, which allows the whole story to breathe, but most of the last half hour feels like a sports film. Also, it shocks the sensibilities a bit to see 8th and 9th and 10th graders having to fight to play a sport they love.

We talked about those things, and a few others, after the film, which is now 10 years old. Apparently not a lot of people have seen it, but maybe more should.

It’s a good way to avoid a bit of winter, I’d say.

journalism / Rowan / sports / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
3
Mar 26

The editor in me wishes I’d become a better writer

Woke up tired, going to end it that way. And was tired most the way throughout. It was another busy and full day, too. When last we talked, I was taking a brief break from the big job packet. Yesterday was the clear-my-head-of-it day. Tonight, I started working on a dead tree edit.

You can edit the file you’re working on, but there’s a lot more you can catch on paper. At least that’s what I tell myself. It has the added benefit of being true. Also, this is a mortifying exercise.

I found the first typo on the Table of Contents. By page four I found my sixth correction.

It went on like that, for about 15 pages, which was just about all I could stand tonight. I’ll do the rest in the morning, and send it off.

I’ve read Dillard, I’ve admired Steinbeck’s journals, and Sarton’s memoirs. I’m sure they’re all more interesting than that, and — though it has been a while since I’ve read some of them, I don’t recall them talking a lot about editing comma splices and redundancies.

Today in Rituals and Traditions the students presented some interesting traditions that they found. I’m sure they all worked tirelessly, evaluating any number of these things from across the country and the world, studiously evaluating the premise behind any number of these things from all of the sports. That, I hope, is what they took from my directions. I wanted them to find something interesting, figure out where it came from, and tell us a bit about the thing. Why does it matter, and so on. The goal was to expose everyone in the class to a bunch of new ideas. You never know from whence inspiration will come. By and large, that’s exactly what they did.

Someone showed us a video of lighting the beam.

Someone else talked about the milk at the Indy 500.

And we also talked about how the Philadelphia Union bang a drum.

And maybe the inspiration will be that we wire a light to a drum, a drum soaked in milk, and then the most valuable player of the game will hit the drum over and over until the stadium lights come on. And then we’ll throw octopus on the playing surface. That Detroit Red Wings tradition keeps coming up in class, somehow.

In the Criticism class we talked about two pieces. The students picked these, and if nothing else it lets me prove there’s something to take away from anything we can read. Take, for instance, this column from The Athletic. The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team won gold — and then lost the room:

In the immediate aftermath of their victory, the team took a customary, congratulatory call from President Donald Trump, and some players laughed at a misogynistic joke about the gold-winning women’s hockey team that many Americans wouldn’t find funny. They celebrated in the locker room with beer-chugging FBI Director Kash Patel, who is now under scrutiny for using taxpayer money to fund a sports getaway. Then, after a wild night of partying in Miami following their return from Italy, some members of the team announced plans to step in the House Chamber – a stage upon which symbolism is never neutral – and make an appearance at Trump’s State of the Union.

In normal times, this would be an obligatory celebration for a championship team. They take presidential calls. They party too hard. They visit Washington and stroll through the corridors of power.

But this isn’t a neutral climate. This isn’t a neutral president. And in a nation this polarized, the proximity carries weight whether the players are being intentional or merely naive. America no longer experiences these rituals in the same way, and it may never again. Athletes would be wise to recognize that, in this climate, celebration is easily repurposed into political capital.

So we talked about how columns are different than articles, because we live in a time where people don’t read enough to have learned to distinguish between the two. It is, and take my word for it, a real problem.

That piece also let us talk about the Miracle of Ice, which at least one person was not at all familiar. So, as I reminded myself these are 21st century students, I tried to paint pictures about the Cold War, the Carter administration, small fuzzy TVs and nationalism. So we also talked about nationalism in sport, and the politics of sports in two different ways. And then the propaganda value of politicians (of any stripe) glomming on to successful sportsball teams.

All of which is what I planned on at the beginning of the semester, even if they didn’t.

We also talked about this story, Phillies make sure Kerkering ‘knows he’s not alone’ after tough error:

Nick Castellanos watched from right field as Orion Kerkering’s ill-advised throw home sailed over catcher J.T. Realmuto to end the Phillies’ season.

Castellanos saw the Dodgers pour out of the third-base dugout, sprinting past a stunned Kerkering to swarm Andy Pages at first base to celebrate their 2-1 walk-off National League Division Series-clinching win.

Then, Castellanos broke into a sprint of his own. He rushed past the euphoric Dodgers on the infield dirt to get to a visibly emotional Kerkering.

“That’s second nature. That’s instinct,” Castellanos said. “I understand what he’s feeling. Not the exact emotions, but I can see them. I didn’t even have to think twice about it, that’s where I needed to run to.”

And here we talked about tone and intentions and beat writers. There’s something to learn in every story. At least for me.

Especially when you print them out.