“Activism is welcome as long as it’s peaceful”: athletic administrators’ perspectives on college athlete activism via stakeholder theory

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine athletic department administrators’ perceptions of student-athlete activism via Stakeholder Theory. Since 2012, the United States has witnessed a resurgence of activism within sport, college sport including. While collegiate athletes’ point of views have been studied, college athletic administrators’ (e.g., an Athletic Director) point of view is missing. The researchers interviewed senior level athletic administrators utilizing Stakeholder Theory to identify key stakeholders athletic administrators find salient when a college athlete engages in activism. Results are broken down into sub-themes highlighting stakeholders with power (coaches, communications, campus administrators, and high-level campus leaders), legitimacy (proactive culture of accepted activism, personal investment, and type of activism), and urgency (public protest, real-life events of socio-cultural importance, and the athletes). This study’s importance lies in the practical benefit it provides athletic administrators and other stakeholders surrounding an athletic department as it relates to collegiate athlete activism.

KEYWORDS:

• Athletic administration
• intercollegiate athletics
• athlete activism
• stakeholder theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The collegiate sport system in the U.S. is as unique as it is complex. The largest governing body in U.S. collegiate sport is the NCAA, where over 1100 colleges and universities compete across three Divisions. While an in-depth overview of the U.S. collegiate system is beyond the scope of this manuscript, it is worth noting that there is great diversity of institutions across and within each of the three Divisions. Institutions in NCAA Division I usually have the largest athletics budgets, the highest number of athletes on athletic scholarships, and biggest student bodies, while schools in Division II and III focus more on a balance between academics, athletics, and community engagement (NCAA, 2023). For more information on the U.S. intercollegiate sport system, see Hums et al. (2023).

² There are many forms of activism (see Cooper et al., 2019; Kluch, 2020), and there is no one definition of sport activism. However, Cooper et al. (2019) activism typology, mapping nine different types of activism, remains one of the most robust conceptualizations of contemporary activism in sport. The typology includes activist forms ranging from grassroots activism and media activism to scholar activism and uses of art for activist impact. In this study, we draw from their conceptualization of symbolic activism, which often refers to public acts used to call attention to social injustice (e.g., kneeling) and is most in line with participants’ understandings of activism.

³ Our conclusion of achieving data saturation was also supported by the fact that other qualitative studies on sport and activism have reached saturation by drawing from a similar number of participants (see e.g., Agyemang et al., 2010; Fuller & Agyemang, 2018; Kluch et al., 2022).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.