Sports and politics intersect in Scoop Jackson’s new book

In his new book, The Game is Not a Game, Scoop Jackson looks at the ways sports and politics intersect, with mixed results.

Few men have been more tuned in to the worlds of sports and culture over the last few decades as writer Scoop Jackson. Jackson has written for ESPN since 2005, but even before joining them, he had already established himself several times over by contributing both writing and editorial work for a number of publications such as Slam, Hoop, Inside Stuff, and XXL. All of this makes the relative failure of his new book about sports, politics, and power, The Game Is Not a Game, even more disappointing.

The Game is Not a Game looks at several issues in the world of sports, with Jackson offering his thoughts about the role politics and power plays in the way we think and talk about them. However, for those who have already thought about the topics discussed here, there is not enough new analysis or insight to merit more than a cursory read. For example, if you have already thought about sexism in sports or the inherent corruption of the NCAA, or have read previous articles or books on the topics, you’re not likely to encounter anything new or revealing here.

His writing is direct, but not always clear. There were multiple times I found myself rereading paragraphs trying to figure out exactly what was being said before realizing that any points being made were either facile or opaque. His analysis often seems to be surface level, not digging enough into the deeper issues at play for it to be truly interesting or revealing. There are times when it seems like he had an interesting thought that may have made for a solid column, but one not worth expanding into a 20-page chapter.

This general sense of aimlessness extends to the formats Jackson employs here to make his arguments. Most of the chapters are standard essays, but there are a few that break from that, with one looking at a handful of media-driven narratives he wishes to deconstruct, one featuring an extended interview with Jemele Hill, and another that is a fictional short story about an athlete reckoning with the hypocrisy of the NCAA. The problem is that with the book having no real center of gravity, these varied ideas and forms seem to indicate a book that isn’t quite sure what it wants to be more than it does a work overflowing with ideas.

This is not to say that the book is bereft of interesting insights. His chapter on Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr claims that their ability to speak out against social injustices is predicated not only on their privilege as white men but also because of their standing in their sports as winners, as men who have won a combined 13 championships between them. It is an interesting addition to that conversation as most have focused on their whiteness at the expense of their success, which deems them as worthy of offering their opinions to the public. As Jay Caspian Kang notes in his own essay on this book, “There are no ‘Fizdale 2020’ shirts.”

Also generally strong is the chapter on analytics in the NBA, which he sees as a sort of gentrification in the basketball world. He expresses concern that such emphases could lead to the “sterilization of the game” by making it all about numbers instead of the game’s culture, soul, and emotion. It’s an interesting take that has merit but is undercut by portions of the chapter that read like just another reflexive and reactionary anti-analytics screed instead of a passionate argument for basketball’s inherent beauty. There is certainly an extremely interesting piece that could be written about how the love affair with analytics can be seen as re-establishing the power of whiteness — whether one means that literally or figuratively — in front offices and the way fans talk about the NBA, but this is unfortunately not it.

There are just so many missed opportunities here. While writing about the rhetoric surrounding LeBron James, analyzing the way the media and public have talked about him, he begins talking about the Michael Jordan v. LeBron debates. This could theoretically be an interesting discussion about whether there is, or even could be, a greatest player of all time, of what fans and media members prioritize and why, and what unspoken assumptions are at play in these debates. These are not the routes he takes though. Instead, it itself devolves into yet another Jordan/LeBron debate, which is far less interesting. (For what it’s worth, Jackson thinks Jordan’s defense is superior, settling the debate in his favor.)

At one point, after making a bit of a specious argument, Jackson catches himself, writing “Yeah, it’s a reach. But still…” That brief moment captures the problem with this book. Jackson’s motives and intentions are clearly good, but the analysis and the writing are suspect. In an attempt to shed new light onto well-trod topics, he finds himself either repeating points previously made by others or going astray as he tries and unfortunately fails to add something new to the dialogue.

The Game Is Not a Game may be a solid introductory work for someone who is intrigued by issues of justice and politics in sports but has not explored them much before. However, it is hard to recommend when there are other books that mine the same territory with greater insight and depth. If one is trying to be comprehensive, then this book may be worth checking out, but it is outshined by similar books by Jessica Luther and Kavitha Davidson whose Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back touches on many of the same issues in a better, more cohesive way. There is also Howard Bryant’s The Heritage which is possibly the best book on sports and race to come out in the last few years. In light of this, while The Game Is Not a Game may be of interest to someone trying to read everything possible on these important topics, it is ultimately a well-intentioned disappointment.