Between sportsmanship and strategy

There are two different ways to win in competitive sport meets. One way is to perform well myself, and another way is to make opponents play worse. Which way is more effective? Interrupting other players could be an effective strategy to achieve one's goals in sport. However, NFL, the National Football League, has been applying strict roles to their players since this year. It hasn't been allowed taunting behaviors such as twerking, shooting a fake bow and arrow, and shooting a jump shot over the crossbar to promote sportsmanship. The NFL committee are considering that taunting somebody can lead to other's reactions, and it can be spread out among players quickly. On the other hand, there are several concerns that the regulations can decrease the joy of the games as it makes players paternalistic. Many players have been given penalties as the new roles were adopted all of a sudden, and it sometimes has had significant impact on the results. Sportsmanship is fundamental in sport games, but we need to think about the range of it.


Maske, M. (2016, October 26). NFL is cracking down hard on illegal celebrations. Newsela. Retrieved from https://newsela.com/articles/excessive-celebration/id/23209/.