ABSTRACT
The terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001, claimed nearly 3,000 lives and altered many of the core social institutions in this country. The aftermath created an influx of media attention while simultaneously causing a stoppage of sporting events. This chapter will examine how the New York Times covered sports in the months following 9/11. Framing theory was utilized to examine nearly 2,000 sports section articles to determine how sports were presented to the readership following the events of 9/11. Five themes emerged: (a) diminished significance of sports, (b) sports as a distraction, (c) united community symbolically moving forward, (d) logistical understanding, and (e) loss of innocence. Culturally, sports became more than wins and losses; they offered a place of solidarity for people who chose to use them as an outlet for healing. Sports are a powerful social institution, but they are not a life-and-death matter. The Times’s coverage was deliberate in placing sports in its rightful perspective as a social institution and in delineating heroism in the face of real sacrifice versus the hyperbole that is often in sports coverage.
