Playing through Pain

For many fans and casual observers, professional sports and violence are deeply connected. Violence on the field has real consequences for players, notably in the form of life-altering injuries from concussions. Off the field, in the last several decades, scores of athletes have committed violent acts, from domestic abuse and sexual assault to animal abuse and murder. Beyond athletes, sport also serves as a site of political and structural violence, from the displacement and hyperpolicing of everyday people for mega-events to the sportswashing of environmentally harmful industries.Daniel Sailofsky examines the endemic violence in professional sports and argues thatwhile related to masculinity, misogyny, and individual factors like alcohol consumption and gamblingit is most intimately tied to capitalism and to capitalist modes of consumption and profit. Sailofsky explains how capitalism creates the conditions for violence to thrive and uncovers how sports leaderscoaches, league officials, and team ownersobfuscate these relationships to avoid accountability.From minor league baseball exploitation to spectator hooliganism, Sailofsky shows the connections between the business of sports and violence, but also, more importantly, he imagines new forms of sport that are not places of harm.