Sam Harkness has experienced the financial difficulties of being an ultimate player. Harkness is an ultimate player in the Seattle Cascades, a professional ultimate team in the Western Division of the AUDL. He is also a writer for Skyd Magazine, an online magazine that focuses on ultimate frisbee news and issues. Harkness wrote an article reporting his financial status while he was playing for a club team named Sockeye. In Harkness’ article, he explains that without a second job and his teammates’ generosity, he would not have been able to play and afford living necessities (Harkness, “The Costs of Playing Club”). Harkness suggest many low income professional ultimate players are working another job because they need support themselves on top of frisbee. Work and practice will consume most of many low-income players’ day, therefore making it difficult to partake in …show more content…
Almost 31-38 times more Americans watch popular sports than ultimate (see fig. 1, 2, 3). Popular sports must attempt to appeal to the masses in America because they receive massive attention. When Colin Kaepernick, an NFL football star, kneeled during the national anthem he did not appeal to the audience, and the crowd relentlessly booed him. Following the audiences’ disapproval, the networks streaming the football games begin to show the anthem before the games— something untraditional to the usual Sunday night streams (Hoffman and Belson, “N.F.L. Anthem Protests”). The networks suddenly playing the national anthem before games suggest Americans are trying to undermine the political players against the anthem. Many Americans care deeply about what their favorite sports players represent and want the players’ political opinion to be like their own. Therefore, when a popular player’s opinion does not agree with their American fans, many Americans will try to separate sports and