On Jul 9, 2025, Dr. Brandon Wallace challenged the next generation of students on the current degradation of sports at the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University. The young educator addressed concerns, sparking a discussion across campus and shedding new light on how the media and people approach sports differently today.

“The central objective of sport, in the US context, is not to win games or to provide anything for fans. It’s to generate profit,” Wallace said while criticizing the effect of over-consumerism in sports. Wallace even called out how ads and endorsements have overshadowed the sports and athletes on TV, specifically in terms of merchandise and the number of commercials.

The professor later connected consumerism in sports to the attention economy, referring to the system in which people’s attention is scarce and necessary to maximize profit in today’s economy. Wallace’s idea that attention is scarce was ironically reflected in the room of high schoolers, many of whom were distracted by their own devices during the lecture.

Wallace soon transitioned from speaking about the professional level to the lower level– one that much of the audience was a part of. He focuses on how youth sports no longer carry the same passion and joy they once did.

“I remember when I was an eight-year-old playing football, like, I’ll get screamed at by my coach, and he was calling me all these, like gender insults that were super inappropriate,” Wallace said, recounting his personal experience playing sports growing up. Many of the students were engaged by Wallace’s background, and several others easily related from their own negative experiences with their sports.

Wallace hated what he wanted to see and the changes needed to be made, leaving students with a new outlook on what sports should truly be about.

“I think that sport should be structured to maximize participation, maximize access, maximize solidarity and health, and things like that,” Wallace said. “Sport can be something that serves human rights…and that isn’t contrary to what sport is now, which is about maximizing profit, maximizing winning, in ways that sometimes lead to toxicity.”