Shouldn't Professional Sports Teams Employ Sports Ethicists?

During the AFC divisional playoff game on January 21, 2023 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars, quarterback Patrick Mahomes sprained his right ankle in the first quarter and was sidelined for the rest of the first half. When he returned to the game in the second half, he was still limping, and was obviously limited by his injury, but he eventually led Kansas City to a 27-20 victory. Should coach Andy Reid have allowed Mahomes to stay in the game? Was Reid more concerned with winning the game than with protecting his quarterback from further injury? Should Mahomes have insisted on staying in the game, when his backup, Chad Henne, had been effective in leading the team on a 98-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter? Was it inspiring and admirable for Mahomes to insist on staying in the game or was it merely a foolish gamble that risked worsening his injury and keeping him out of the AFC championship game? (It was later revealed that he had a high ankle sprain and would be able to play against the Cincinnati Bengals for the AFC championship the following week)

      Such questions, many of them ethical in one way or another, are encountered every day in professional sports. Shouldn't professional sports teams employ professional ethicists to advise them how to respond to such questions?

      There are so many examples of bad behavior by professional athletes--taunting, bullying, trash talking, showboating, excessive celebrating, etc.--why wouldn't the employment of professional ethicists by sports teams be helpful in promoting better sportsmanship? Why hasn't the employment of philosophical ethicists been more seriously considered by professional sports leagues in order to improve responses to the many ethical issues in sports? Why wouldn't consultation with sports ethicists be helpful in promoting more ethical conduct by league management, team management, players, and fans?

      Why should we as sports fans have to accept bad behavior by professional athletes as an inevitable aspect of athletic competition? It's not! 

      Is bad behavior among professional athletes a racial or cultural issue? It shouldn't be, but black NFL players are more likely to be suspended than white players,¹ and Latino MLB players are more likely to be suspended for using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) than white or African-American players (which may partly be due to the fact that PEDs are much more available to baseball players in some countries in Latin America²). There may be other factors, but racial profiling and implicit bias also need to be considered as factors in what gets labeled as "bad behavior" and what disciplinary punishment is administered. An example is that NFL referees are far more likely to penalize black players for excessively celebrating than they are to penalize white players.³

      Is bad behavior a matter of educational disparities among professional athletes? It shouldn't be. Most professional athletes have a college education or college degree. (Black athletes may, however, be more commonly subjected to bad behavior by fans, such as racist taunts and verbal abuse).

      Why aren't academic philosophy programs more interested in training philosophers as sports ethicists? Although many university programs offer (or have offered) undergraduate courses in the ethics of sport, including (to name just a few) UNC, Duke, George Mason, Georgia, Penn State, Arizona State, Ohio University, Colorado, Texas, Texas State, Rice, Santa Clara, SUNY, Alabama, and Kansas, how many of their graduate students actually go on to specialize in sports ethics? Why haven't more philosophers written about issues in sports ethics? Why hasn't philosophy become more engaged with professional sports, and why hasn't it been more interested in having some impact on professional sports, given that sports constitute one of the most important spheres of American society and culture?

      On the other hand, there are a significant number of philosophers who do specialize in the philosophy of sport, including (to name just a few) Heather Reid (Exedra Mediterranean Center), Emily Ryall (University of Gloucestershire), Jan Boxill (UNC), Shawn Klein (Arizona State), John William Devine (Swansea University), Francisco Javier Lopez Frias (Penn State), Michael McNamee (Swansea), William J. Morgan (University of British Columbia), Cesar Torres (SUNY Brockport), Jeffrey Fry (Ball State), Douglas Hochstettler (James Madison), Leon Culbertson (Edge Hill), Tim Elcombe (Wilfrid Laurier University), Dale Murray (Wisconsin-Platteville), Grant Farred (Cornell), Erin Tarver (Emory), Jason Holt (Acadia), R. Scott Kretchmar (Penn State), Drew Hyland (Trinity College), David Papineau (Kings College London), David Cruise Malloy (University of Regina), Angela Schneider (Western), Pam Sailors (Missouri State), Sarah Teetzel (Manitoba), Mizuho Takemura (Nihon Fukushi), Irena Martinkova (Charles University in Prague), Leslie Howe (Saskatchewan), and Robert Simon (1941-2018, Hamilton College).

      Academic journals concerned with sports ethics include Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, and Journal of the Philosophy of Sport.

      Professional societies concerned with the philosophy of sport include the British Philosophy of Sport Association, the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport, and the European Association for the Philosophy of Sport.

      Some examples of cases in which the advice of trained ethicists might be useful for professional sports teams include:

• responding to patterns of unsportsmanlike conduct by athletes (In the NFL, some examples of unsportsmanlike conduct include unnecessary roughness, making a horse-collar tackle, grabbing an opponent's face mask, making an illegal crackback block, tackling an opponent who has signaled a fair catch, lowering one's head to make helmet contact with an opponent, roughing the passer, roughing the kicker, taunting, throwing a punch at an opponent, kicking an opponent, and shoving, pushing, or hitting a referee.)
• responding to cheating, substance abuse, and use of PEDs
• responding to off-the-court or off-the-field issues of personal misconduct (such as DUI, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and sexual assault)
• responding to issues involving gamesmanship (such as trash talking, intentionally annoying or distracting an opponent, faking being fouled in order to draw a penalty on the other team, and intentionally slowing down or disrupting the flow of a game)
• responding to racial, gender, or sexual discrimination (e.g. in the hiring and promotion of players, coaches, league officials, and team management personnel)
• responding to issues involving the inclusion of transgender athletes in women's sports
• responding to issues involving the safety of athletes and fans (such as the use of protective equipment, concussion protocols, protection of injured athletes from further injury, protection of athletes from sexual abuse or harassment by coaches or trainers, providing security for locker room and training facilities, providing protective barriers for fans, etc.)
• responding to intentional "tanking" by teams involving the removal or trading away of key players from team lineups in order to lose more games and obtain higher draft picks
• responding to misconduct by fans (such as disorderly conduct, intoxication, fighting, throwing objects at players or onto the field, taunting players, taunting other fans, and using profane or abusive language)

      Professional ethicists could be useful advisers or co-workers in the management of many of these problems, and could help to promote social responsibility and ethical integrity in professional sports.

FOOTNOTES

¹Benjamin D. Rosenberg, "The NFL Has a Race-Related Suspension Problem," in Psychology Today, July 14, 2020, online at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-games/202007/the-nfl-has-race-related-suspension-problem

²James Wagner, "The Dominican Republic Loves Baseball, but Steroid Problems Run Deep," in The New York Times, Nov. 4, 2022, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/sports/baseball/jenrry-mejia-dominican-republic-steroids.html

³Dwayne Bray, "NFL referees penalize Black players for celebrating far more than White players," in Andscape, November 17, 2022, online at https://andscape.com/features/nfl-referees-penalize-black-players-for-celebrating-far-more-than-white-players/