“Stick to Sports” and Critical Sports Media Industry Studies

This research aims at unpacking the discourse of “stick to sports,” which audiences and industry wield to police social and cultural boundaries involving corporate control, race, gender, and politics. The “stick to sports” discourse is increasingly prevalent in sports discourse, but also national political discourse, and is used to dictate who can and cannot speak and what kinds of discussions are appropriate concerning sports and politics. In this article, the sports media franchise ESPN and their “No-Politics” policy, media personality Clay Travis’ PragerU polemic, Dan Le Batard, and Jemele Hill are analyzed as sites for understanding how corporations leverage this discourse to claim neutrality or unity while disciplining employees for veering too far politically. This paper analyzes “stick to sports” through industry practices and textual extensions of the discourse, calling for sports media and communication as a discipline to incorporate a critical sports media industry studies (CSMIS) approach.