Since footballer sexual assault became top news in 2004, six years after the first case was reported, much has been written in the news media about individual cases, footballers and women who have sex with them. Deb Waterhouse-Watson reveals how media representations of recent sexual assault cases involving Australian footballers amount to "trials by media", trials that result in acquittal. The stories told about footballers and women in the news media evoke stereotypes such as the "gold digger", "woman scorned" and the "predatory woman", which cast doubt on the alleged victims' claims and suggest that they are lying. Waterhouse-Watson calls this a "narrative immunity" for footballers against allegations of sexual assault. This book details how popular conceptions of masculinity and femininity inform the way footballers' bodies, team bonding, women, sex and alcohol are portrayed in the media, and connects stories relating to the cases with sports reporting generally. Uncovering similar patterns of narrative, grammar and discourse across these distinct yet related fields, Waterhouse-Watson shows how these discourses are naturalised, with reports on the cases intertwining with broader discourses of football reporting to provide immunity. Despite the prevalence of stories that discredit the alleged victims, Waterhouse-Watson also examines attempts to counter these pervasive rape myths, articulating successful strategies and elucidating the limitations built into journalistic practices, and language itself.

This book interrogates the process of court reporting on rape and other sexual crime cases involving Australian footballers. At the intersection of sport, gender, media and the law, it uncovers the story behind rape myths and stereotypes in media. This book analyses newspaper reporting alongside transcripts of the trials they represent and interviews with the journalists themselves. Waterhouse-Watson’s work maps structural factors within newsrooms, and the complex relationship between the judiciary and media, that affect the practice of court reporting. This book approaches key journalism concepts like objectivity and balance critically, illustrating the layers of mediation that surround a complainant’s testimony; the way sport shapes the meaning of courtroom and media narratives in these cases; and the tension between racism and sexism when race is thematised or otherwise highlighted. Ultimately, the book proposes an ethics of court reporting that protects individual complainants, as well as advancing public understandings of the crime.

One in three college sexual assaults is committed by an athlete (Crosset et al. 1995). In the past 20 years, athlete sexual violence has gained national attention through the Victim's Rights Movement and specifically through the creation of the National Center Against Violent Athletes. Research reveals that athletes are more likely than their other college counterparts to engage in coercive sexual activity and have rape supportive attitudes; however, little research delves into how victims and athletes are portrayed in the print media during a high-profile case of college athlete rape. Previous research suggests that victims of high profile rape cases are generally criticized and blamed for their role in the assault. Rape law reforms sought to change how victims were treated in the criminal justice system through legislative reforms, but have not achieved all that they intended. This study finds that rape law reforms have contributed to a more favorable view of rape victims in the media, but many stereotypes regarding rape victims still exist. Other findings include the portrayal of victims and athletes in the print media based on description, race, social support and institutional response. This study finds support for previous research that high-profile cases of athlete rape in the print media show evidence of male peer support theory, and that athlete's behaviors are minimized while the victim is placed on trial in the public arena. Future research should be directed to a larger sample of high-profile athlete rape cases, and a more diverse sample of athletic participation.

In Australia in 2004, several sexual assault allegations were made against footballers from the nation's principal football codes, Australian Rules and Rugby League, sparking an intense media debate around the culture of the leagues and the nature of relations between elite footballers and women. None of the cases was tried in court, and despite several new cases since, no Australian footballer has yet been made to stand trial for sexual assault. There is a disjunction between the growing number of cases and the repeated failure of any case to be criminally prosecuted; however, there is only a small literature on the problem of athletes and sexual assault, and the majority of this attempts to uncover what causes athletes to rape, rather than addressing the silencing of the cases once they have been reported. The Australian events illuminate a previously un-researched aspect of the unfolding of these types of crimes: the extensive public media debates that they ignite, which, I argue, ultimately perform a kind of de facto adjudication of the crimes.Using narratology, I argue that in the public discourse about these events, certain narrative and grammatical techniques are repetitively employed to deflect blame away from footballers and onto the women involved in the cases, providing footballers with what I call a "narrative immunity" against allegations of sexual assault. This narrative immunity is partly constructed through the rhetorical techniques used in criminal rape trials to discredit complainants. I also broaden the traditional boundaries of such investigations by examining the discourses of football reporting generally, including match reports, injury reporting and general sports news. These broader discourses of football underpin the discourses of sexual assault, and I further investigate the ways in which individual narratives intersect with, and are informed by, "stock" or "cultural stories" - those such as the Woman Scorned and the Gold Digger - which are widely understood to have truth-value, and work to undermine the validity of a woman's claim of sexual assault. I show that the circulation of these stories constitutes a de facto adjudication of the women's claims, and thus the media debate supplements and replaces an actual legal process. In this way, the narrative immunity of footballers relegates complainants to the position of Jean-Francois Lyotard's victim: the one who is injured, and deprived of the means to prosecute the injury. However, alternative narratives are possible, and I examine the possibilities that these alternative strategies provide for contesting footballers' narrative immunity, thus making it possible for rape complainants to argue their case in the public discourse, not as victims, but as plaintiffs.

"Jessica Luther studied history and the classics before marshaling her writing talent toward of-the-moment topics like sexual assault and college sports culture. Now she's an investigative journalist, working from her adopted hometown, Austin, Tex., in what is perhaps the nation's most college-obsessed state. Ms. Luther's new book, Unsportsmanlike Conduct, examines the 'programmatic manner' in which sexual assaults are swept under the rug by institutions both on campus and in the media." --New York Times "Not to reckon with Luther's book would be an abdication not only of one's moral faculty but also of one's fandom...Luther does't just want to save future victims; she wants to save college football." --New York Times Book Review "A significant and riveting look at how one of the greatest cultural tragedies of the millennial generation--the silencing of sexual violence against women on campus--is nurtured by a system of cover-ups and corporatized crises management." --Playboy.com "In Unsportsmanlike Conduct, [Luther] draws on years of research and reporting to outline what she calls the 'playbook'--all the standard, predictable ways that football programs, universities, the NCAA, and sports media typically respond when athletes are accused of rape or assault. It's an infuriating, exhaustively researched catalogue of problems, from denial and toothless language to ignoring or discrediting the victim." --Elle.com "The most important sports book of the year." --Booklist, Starred Review "Jessica Luther is a Texas-based investigative reporter who broke the story of Sam Ukwuachu, a football player at Baylor University who was then on trial for sexual assault. Since then she's kept track of the dozens of sexual-assault claims made against college football players every year. Here, she looks at the relationship between football and sexual assault, the people and systems that perpetuate it, and how we can change the narrative going forward." --New York Magazine "Investigative journalist Luther catalogues the abuses created and enabled by college football programs and suggests workable reforms." -- Boston Globe, One of the Best Sports Books of 2016 The latest from Akashic's Edge of Sports imprint. Football teams create playbooks, in which they draw up the plays they will use on the field. Playbooks are how teams work and why they win. This book is about a different kind of playbook: the one coaches, teams, universities, police, communities, the media, and fans seem to follow whenever a college football player is accused of sexual assault. It's a deep dive into how different institutions--the NCAA, athletic departments, universities, the media--run the same plays over and over again when these stories break. If everyone runs his play well, scrutiny dies down quickly, no institution ever has to change how it operates, and the evaporation of these cases into nothingness looks natural. In short, this playbook is why nothing ever changes. Unsportsmanlike Conduct unpacks this societal playbook piece by piece, and not only advocates that we destroy the old plays, but also suggests we replace them with ones that will force us to finally do something about this issue. Political sportswriter and Edge of Sports imprint curator Dave Zirin (the Nation) has never shied away from criticizing that which die-hard sports fans hold dear. The Edge of Sports titles will address issues across many different sports--football, basketball, swimming, tennis, etc.--and at both the professional and nonprofessional/collegiate levels. Furthermore, Zirin brings to the table select stories of athletes' journeys and what they are facing and how they evolve both in their sport as well as against the greater backdrop of one's life's odyssey.

In an age of sports hero idolatry, it is essential to understand the relationship between male athletes and violence against women. Reports of well-known athletes, both professional and intercollegiate, who have been charged with crimes involving violence against women are prevalent in the media. Are these athletes more likely to gain the spotlight because of their status as star athletes? Or do their lifestyles make athletes more likely to engage in sexual assault, battering, or other forms of violence against women than nonathletes? Athletes and Acquaintance Rape unravels the controversy of this topic by focusing on three high-profile cases involving professional athletes who have been charged with sexual assault. Jeffrey R. Benedict provides a brief history on each athlete and traces the chronology of events leading up to the charges of sexual assault and the results of those charges. By examining specific aspects of the collegiate and professional athleteÆs life, Benedict reveals a climate predisposed to committing violence against women that provides star athletes with protection from punishment and conviction. Intriguing and thought-provoking, Athletes and Acquaintance Rape will prove useful for academics, practitioners, and students in several fields, including sociology, psychology, gender studies, law, sport management, educational administration, violence against women, and family violence. Written in an engaging style, the general reader will also find this book accessible and enlightening.

CTE, Media, and the NFL: Framing a Public Health Crisis as a Football Epidemic examines the central role of mediain constructing an entangled relationship between chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and the National Football League (NFL), challenging a predominately symbiotic sports/media complex. The authors of this book analyze more than a decade of media coverage, along with three prominent films, to unpack how media discourse resurrects CTE, a preventable degenerative brain disease linked to boxing in 1928, and subsequently frames it as a football epidemic dating back to 2005. The authors position CTE as a public health crisis, whereby media coverage of CTE and the NFL’s vigorous reliance on controversial published research by the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) Committee parallels the moral panic of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and Big Tobacco’s manufacturing of doubt through faulty science. This book argues that the continued aspiration and idolization of the NFL, and its lack of accountability for health concerns surrounding brain injuries, highlight the firm grasp of hegemonic masculinity on the ideology of American football - further problematizing media’s glorification of the sport. Scholars of sports media, health communication, and general media studies will find this book particularly useful to discuss longitudinal effects of media framing centered on critical health risks in sport and the challenge of translating accurate scientific knowledge to the public domain.