British Spectators’ Perceptions of the Values and Norms in Selected Professional Sports: a Comparative Ethical Survey

Abstract

In recent years the British media have made much of the apparent decline of standards in British sports. In order to interrogate the veracity of media assumptions regarding the standards of conduct in major British sports, a selection of British sports spectators were interviewed in order to examine: (i) their perceptions of the values and norms of sport; (ii) whether they thought that sporting conduct as currently demonstrated by UK sportsmen and women was positive and related to some ideal notion of the ‘ethos of sport’ and the ‘spirit of the game’; (iii) whether they thought that there had been an improvement, a decline or no change in the ethical standards of conduct in those sports; and (iv) views on the impact of new technologies on the values and norms of sport. At least 200 questionnaires were collected from spectators at each of the following major sporting events: (a) the English Nationwide Football League Divisions 2 and 3 play‐offs, Cardiff, May 2001; (b) the All England Tennis Championships, Wimbledon, July 2001; (c) the England vs Australia Cricket Test match, Edgbaston Birmingham, July 2001; and (iv) the British Open Golf Championships, Royal Lytham and St Annes, Lancashire, July 2001. Results showed that there were statistically significant differences in what sports spectators thought about British professional sportspersons acting in a fair and sporting way and also that standards of conduct had generally declined over the last 10 years. A general pattern of distribution emerged where the team sports (cricket and football) were less favourably perceived than the individual sports (golf and tennis).

Keywords:

• ethics
• professional sports
• spectator perceptions

Notes

1. The present paper is a more detailed analysis of a portion of a survey commissioned by UK Sport (see McNamee, 2002). We are also grateful to all the members of the survey team.

2. We use fan and spectator interchangeably in this research. It is clear that watching sport is a popular and engaging leisure pursuit (Jones, 2000) and it may be possible to draw a distinction between fans and spectators based on the seriousness of their engagement (Giulianotti, 2002). It was impossible in this study to draw a normative distinction between spectators and fans in this way.

3. It should be noted that there is a heterogeneity in sporting levels represented in the sports surveyed. While cricket samples attended an international fixture, football, golf and tennis did not. Yet tennis and golf surveys relate, essentially, to individual sports while cricket and football are team sports. Equally, cricket, golf and tennis are elite sports competitions, while the football play‐offs (it could be argued) are a sub elite level by comparison. Thus there are several similarities and differences between the samples. Whether this renders comparison between the groups is unclear. We are grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for noting this.

4. The precise strategy for data collection altered according to the nature of the sports event. For example, with the football and rugby surveys, crowds typically entered the stadia vicinity quite late on which put pressures on data collection. As the surveys progressed the team became clear that they needed to collect data as early as possible in order to achieve the required n. This often meant interviewing outside the stadia up to two hours before the event. Attempting to interview spectators after a crushing defeat proved not to be a successful approach (perhaps unsurprisingly). By contrast, in the cricket, there was ample time between the regular intervals that are a normal part of play. Here the team typically gravitated around the refreshment points where large queues were gathered and the crowd were more willing (often very interested) to engage with the interviewers. Equally, the nature of golf allows for significant time intervals between groups of players at each hole. Generally speaking, the refreshment sites proved a valuable location for data collection.

5. A full presentation of the data with more limited (report‐style) analysis can be found in McNamee (2002).

6. The Likert scale used in the interview questionnaires scored (for example) ‘strongly agree’ as 1, ‘agree’ as 2, ‘neutral’ as 3, ‘disagree’ as 4, ‘strongly disagree’ as 5 and ‘don’t know’ as 6. When transposing the subjects’ responses into Minitab, ‘strongly agree’ was recorded as 5, ‘agree’ as 4, ‘neutral’ as 3, ‘disagree’ as 2, ‘strongly disagree’ as 1 and ‘don’t know’ as 9.

7. Given the significance of the trend this is worthy of further, qualitative, research.

8. It is the task of the Rules Official to offer a ruling when, for example, a player finds his/her ball in a tyre mark, or when the ball has been lost and a location for the new ball to be played from must be agreed. Similarly, the Rules Official will instruct players when they may or may not remove obstacles before playing the ball. The sheer number and complexity of golf rules mean that it is not uncommon even for golf professionals to fail to know the particular rules that can govern conduct or play in such situations. Indeed it has been suggested that outside of the dozen or so ‘key rules’ many professionals would be ignorant of the precise details of rules.

9. The then England cricket captain, Mike Gatting, entered into an extraordinary verbal battle with the umpire Shakoor Rana, over what he perceived to be biased umpiring. Gatting effectively, and completely contrary to the traditions of the past, called the umpire a cheat, accusing him of bias in favour of the home team.

10. The notion of ‘walking’ is an historically important notion in the ethos of the ‘gentleman’s game’; it was that he (sic) did not wait for the umpire to confirm the ‘out’ decision but simply walked off the field of play. This supererogatory action – what is seen to be over and above one’s duty as a contestant – was often seen as the mark of a ‘gentleman’ who would always be honest and never seek to unfairly benefit the player or their team by deceiving the opposition or the umpire.

11. We are grateful to Ivan Waddington and to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.