Media Effects On Athletes

The championship game is a week away. The star athlete of one of the teams is receiving negative media coverage with domestic violence allegations. How can the athlete play while being bombarded with all of this negative, external attention? Athletes are at the mercy of what the Media says about them. The Media will report anything that enables them to gain more viewers. The negative attention that athletes receive from the Media contributes to their diminishing performance, unrealistic expectations, and complete destruction of their athletic career. First, when athletes first begin receiving negative media coverage, their diminishing athletic performance is very observable. Stress is a gargantuan contributor to decreasing athletic performance …show more content…
Coaches are well aware of the impacts of the Media and inform their players to avoid the Media at all costs because it has the ability to significantly impact players and teams (Anderson). The Media proves to do nothing but destruct the careers of athletes. However, it is virtually impossible to avoid the Media in today’s day and age. Even if players manage to avoid all forms of the Media, they can still hear about media coverage of them through others. The Media can never truly be avoided. Many coaches and athletic directors are well aware of the impact that the Media has on athletes, and make it mandatory that players avoid all forms of the Media during the season (Anderson). Although this may seem like a rational request, athletes will hear about the top stories one way or another. When they are in the spotlight for something bad, they will find out. Coaches, like Jim Mora of UCLA, are aware that the Media is inescapable. Jim Mora does not disclose injuries to the Media because he wishes to maintain a competitive advantage over his opponents. However, the Media is seen reporting about information that was never meant to be disclosed (Greenspan). There is no way to keep the Media from making information public. The Media is everywhere and can never be outwitted. Many argue that athletes should simply avoid the Media, yet they do not realize that the Media is …show more content…
Media coverage simply adds stress to athletes and makes them perform worse. The unrealistic expectations set forth by the Media do nothing but discourage athletes. Athletes make one mistake and see their careers disappear right before their eyes because the Media makes sure that everyone is well aware of the mistake. The Media maintains truly unprecedented power and indirectly does things to athletes that it simply does not intend to