In my journal post about the Student Athlete documentary, I wrote: “Something I found intriguing was that the film only focused on basketball and football, but there are 24 NCAA sports nationally. Also, there were no female student athletes featured, which was weird because both directors are females.”
When we asked this question in class, Caroline and Molly spoke to how they didn’t think it was intentional that the directors of the documentary didn’t put female athletes. They believed there was a narrow focus on men in this documentary because they are seen as the money makers in the sports industry. Basketball and football are two sports that are tied to power structures. Why is it that these two sports are seen as the most engaging? Because they bring in the most money for the teams and the industry, in general. America has been structured to place higher value on these two sports as opposed to others.
In terms of the film’s intended audience, I think it was trying to reach a population of coaches, athletes, and sports fans. This documentary was made to communicate a message about a business that many people have first hand experience with or are going through right now. Profiting from the glory of these student athletes is not only continuing the system of oppression that is the sports world, but it is also an unjust way to put these athletes through a system where they either can thrive or ultimately, fail.