Ritual Disorder and the Contractual Morality of Sport: A Case Study in Race, Class, and Agreement

A critical understanding of social contract rhetoric is applied in an analysis of mediated discourse after a brawl between players and fans at a National Basketball Association game. Media coverage of the brawl suggests how ritualized social contracts are negotiated in ways that normalize and disguise political inequities. This essay expands upon previously understood functions of sports rituals by highlighting their inherently contractual morality, and promotes an understanding of social contracts as malleable rhetorical constructs that can be crafted to the advantage of powerful signatories, but also contested by groups and individuals who are oppressed or marginalized by their terms. The implications of social contract rhetoric are contextualized within race and class relations specific to professional basketball in particular and to sports culture more generally.