ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the different levels of illegitimate violence in four major sports (football, basketball, baseball, and hockey) by focusing on their distinctive organizational features. It explores how the amount of scoring, the amount of legitimate body contact, the degree to which there are opportunities for retaliation, and the number of intermediate rewards affect the likelihood of illegitimate violence in given sports. The chapter illustrates the prevalence of normative violence in the four major American team sports. It also explains why the incidence of illegitimate violence varies by type of sport. The chapter focuses on the structure of sport as the explanatory variable. It further examines the structure of sport as an independent variable. The chapter presents an important step in understanding why sports vary in the degree of illegitimate violence that occurs because it focuses on the structure of each sport.
