Warren Buffett once opined that "only when the tide rolls out do you discover who’s been swimming naked." In a similar vein, American Sport in the Shadow of a Pandemic focuses on how communication practices, structures, and principles change when a key locus—sport—has much of its cultural and political-economic power disrupted. How intertwined is the economic viability of an American collegiate institution to the communicative enactment of the regular staging of collegiate sports? What proportion of a sports media contract is for the competition itself, as opposed to the documentation of fans being "fanatic" as they witness contests live and in-person? Who and what is deemed most disposable, and how do such decisions play out for athletes of different genders, races, and abilities? Questions such as these form the core foci of this volume. As many have observed, out of crisis comes opportunity. In this instance, this volume provides an opportunity for leading scholars of communication and sport to consider which principles should be rethought or reconceptualized based on the effects of the pandemic on our culture, politics, and economy.
