Fame Money Drama: The Impact of Sports Media on Young Athletes
At what age is it acceptable to throw an athlete into the life of celebrity and fame?
College sports, especially basketball and football, have reached an unprecedented level of media attention that rivals that of their professional counterparts.
This can be great for young athletes. With scholarships, NIL deals, and other sponsorships, they have access to wealth and opportunities that might not be available to them without sports.
However, fame comes with a cost. Inflated egos, mental health struggles, and financial literacy issues all can be results of this fame.
Now is the best time to investigate the real impact that media attention, fame, and criticism has on young athletes.
To start, let's go way back to the early 2000’s to perhaps the most memorable case of an athlete being turned into a celebrity. “The Chosen One”, they called him. If you don’t know, I'm talking about NBA legend Lebron James. Since high school, Lebron was everywhere in the media. Magazines, television, and just about anywhere you looked. The kid was even being called overrated and he hadn’t even gone pro yet. Ever since he was in high school, his private life was essentially over.
Now, surprisingly, Lebron was able to handle this well all throughout his career, but he is just a rare example. Ever since then, any athlete who seems like they even have a chance of going pro is drowned in media attention, praise, and criticism.
Now fast-forward a decade and we reach Johnny Manziel and the case of a heavily inflated ego.
Manziel was an amazing quarterback for the Texas A&M Aggies and arguably the most popular player in college football while he played. What made his game even more desirable to watch was his boastful attitude while playing. Fans and students alike could not get enough of him.
The media saw this and ran with it, and the name “Johnny Football” was born.
Manziel received an absurd amount of media attention, tv time, as well as both praise and criticism for someone at his age. He would party constantly, sign autographs for money(highly against NCAA rules at the time), and do practically whatever he wanted because he felt untouchable. Who wouldn’t?
Unfortunately, because this had been instilled in him at such an impressionable time it only continued when he got to the NFL. He played a short stint with the Cleveland Browns and was eventually out of the league.
While Manziel did already have a somewhat cocky attitude, the media pushed it to the max for their financial gain and caused him to derail his own career.
However, what happens when all that praise from the media and fans turns into criticism?
The pressure and criticism imposed by sports media has often caused young athletes to develop anxiety issues and lead them into depression. This problem is seen very commonly with individual sports, such as tennis and gymnastics, due to all the attention being placed solely on one athlete.
Two of the best recent examples of this issue are international superstars Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles.
3 years ago, Naomi Osaka made the difficult decision to withdraw from one of her most important events, the French Open. Being the 2nd ranked tennis star in the world at the time, the decision shocked many fans. Osaka had been dealing with bouts of anxiety and depression due to the constant pressure and criticism by the media. Due to this, she had decided to not speak to the media one day, which was met with a fine and threat of a ban from the tournament. Ultimately she decided to back out of the tournament to address her mental health.
Similarly, Simone Biles, who is one of the greatest gymnasts ever, decided to pull out of many events at the 2020 Japan Olympic Games. Biles cited dealing with “twisties”, which is essentially a mental block that distorts a gymnasts sense of direction in the air. She had been dealing with a slew of mental health struggles that influenced the twisties.
Instead of simply giving them time to heal, sports media covered these two athletes nonstop following these decisions. Some outlets and reporters even criticized the two and questioned their mental health struggles. Biles was even called a “quitter” and an “embarrassment” at one point. This can have long lasting effects on young athletes that they may never recover from.
The last, and probably the most prominent issue with youth athletes today, is the negligence of proper financial literacy.
Since athletes are able to sign NIL deals and receive loads of endorsements in college now, this problem is growing by the day. When an kid is able to make millions right when they reach the college or professional level it is a recipe for disaster many times.
NBA hall of fame legend Allen Iverson is an excellent example of this issue and he didn't even play in a era where athletes got close to the same amount of money as they do today. Over the course of his career, Iverson earned nearly $200 million from the NBA as well as a shoe deal with Reebok.
Unfortunately, Iverson was not good at handling his money. Since he was propelled into fame and given so much money at a young age, he didn’t quite know how to manage it.
After his playing career was over he did not grasp the fact that he couldn’t spend money at the same rate if he was not earning it at the same rate. Cars, clothes, jewelry, he was buying it all. Not just for him, though, but for his whole entourage which could reach a few dozen of his friends at any given time.
Iverson blew through all of his money in just a few short years following the end of his playing days. If it weren’t for a special clause in his contract with Reebok that essentially saved him, he would be dead broke. $200 million gone in just a few years.
This isn’t the end of the examples, though. The list could keep going on and on with athletes like Michael Phelps and Connor McGreggor, for example. Even then that’s just scraping the surface.
So what’s next?
Media coverage of high school, college, and other young athletes on the pro level is never going to stop, that’s just a fact. The absurd amount of money also isn’t going to stop coming in and being given to these athletes.
However, the way these athletes are treated needs to change. The amount of immense pressure and attention that is put on them at such a young age is detrimental to their health. If I were to have received that much criticism and pressure my freshman year of college I probably would have dropped out after a few weeks. These athletes need time to grow, learn, and mature before they are thrown to the wolves.
Media and fans alike need to remember that they are people and not just simply a product for their entertainment.
