The topic of sports in today's culture is a highly popular one. Millions of Americans consider indulging in the sports fan culture as a satisfying escape from the demands of daily life. Sports is indeed SO popular, that it makes its way into non-recreational aspects of life as well.
It shapes our society as well as our understanding of today's society. It lines the shelves of many outlet stores. And, oftentimes, it makes its way into mainstream news.
Sometimes it's difficult to agree upon where to place incidents that relate to the sports world solely into one category listed in the title of this post.
A prime example of this is the Ray Rice incident. This is a story that has become so big, that even non-sports fans associate his name with some sort of negative connotation.
If something similar to this, but far less severe, were to have happened, it would probably only be briefly mentioned and written about in the Bleacher Report.
However, since the incident involved domestic violence--a subject that is a timeless, hot-button topic of news--and a celebrity, the viral sports news story became so "contagious" that it eventually hit the top stories of the hard news outlets.
It's amazing how quickly the story left sports, became sports news, gained momentum to become relevant news that dealt with sports, and ended as a hard news headliner. And if we are to be honest with ourselves, whether we are sports fans or not, the only reason why this story blew up news sites and social media is because of the supremacy and influence that our society places on sports.
The other fact that cannot largely be denied is that this story is interesting. It's something worth reading, because it's dramatic and antagonistic. People want to know good news sometimes, and they also don't mind checking out the quirky stories, but the bad news that deals with controversial, emotionally-charged topics is what many people know of and like to talk about the most.
As I mentioned briefly in my previous post, news today deals with the good, the bad, and the strange. Sports can fit into any one of these categories. Fans of the team that wins the Superbowl consider the proceeding story great news, Ray Rice's case of violence is bad news, and a superstar college football player who got drafted to an unexpected team may be considered strange news.
Of course, all three of those examples are still subjective, but not nearly as subjective as the my title's question. And just like sports events do not always fit neatly into a good, bad or strange story, the answer to the title question pertaining to any sports event will never be just one answer, either.
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