As children, often the easiest way to make friends is through sports. It teaches us valuable social skills, keeps us active and can often grow into a lifelong passion. This was the case for Matthew Hodler, sports media and communications professor. Living in nearly a dozen states throughout his childhood, this was the key to integrating into a new community. His love for playing sports grew into a passion for studying it, shifting from his interest in geopolitics and regional differences, to all sports in our culture.

Hodler graduated from Miami University (Ohio) with a bachelors in sociology and American religious movements, later earning his masters in sociology at the University of Greensboro and Ph.D. in critical cultural studies of sports at the University of Iowa. 

“I looked at the media representations of Michael Phelps and how his position in the 21st century, during the Olympics and all that stuff kind of helped to make him famous,” Holder said. “What does that culturally mean for us to be celebrating someone of his success, but also of his nationality, gender, race?”

Since starting at URI as the first tenure track hire for sports media and communication in 2019, the program has grown in staff, students and majors. What was once 39 majors in the program has grown to nearly 250 majors. The growing student interest has allowed for sports media to stand as its own department separate from journalism and communications, allowing for a wider range of staff, specialty courses and the overall curriculum.

“I think we’re popular because sports are popular, right? It’s a multi-billion dollar industry,” Holder said. “Sports are so integral to people’s society and lived experiences that connect so much to their identity…it’s obvious that they would want to explore this when they’re on college campus.”

Due to the growth of sports media programs across schools, many students enter the program with pre-developed skills on sports media production. As a cultural critic, Hodler’s job is to give his students an understanding of the meaning of sports, and building on writing and storytelling skills. One of Hodler’s favorite parts of the job is helping students learn about the many ways sport, identities, and culture intersect, interact, and interrelate so they will be able to tell interesting and important stories in their own sport media creations and production.

“[They] all are really well trained in how to write, how to research, and those things,” Hodler said. “And then I feel like my goal is to point towards the meaning of sports and help students think more broadly, more contextually.”

Recently tenured, Hodler plans to take a sabbatical for the upcoming school year to publish a book project on cultural politics at Barstool Sports. After teaching courses on the subject, he plans to take writings and presentations from the course to formulate how capitalism, betting, gender, race, and 21st century media as a whole are all understood through the culture of Barstool Sports.

Hodler’s research focuses on how meanings of race, gender, nationalism, and social class are constructed, produced, and/or remembered through sport and sport media. His academic work has been published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Sociology of Sport Journal, Sport History Review, Communication and Sport, as well as The Conversation, Tropics of Meta, SwimSwam, and the Sport in American History blog. He is currently the editor for the “Film, Media, and Museums Reviews” section of the Journal of Sport History.

This story was written by Erin Malinn, journalism, class of 2028, intern for the College of Arts and Science