Gay sports celebrities in the closet

The proportion of openly homosexual star performers varies widely from industry to industry even within the same country. In some sports it is astonishingly low. (Soccer has apparently only 1 openly gay player, at a lower ranked Swedish club.) It has been argued that the fact that so few sports celebrities come out as gay demonstrates that these sports must have an extremely homophobic culture and homosexual players have a reasonable fear of being subjected to perhaps violent abuse and discrimination by fans, club management and other players (e.g.). But there is another possible confounding explanation: players may be afraid that their earning power would be undermined by breaking with the macho hetero stereotype.

The financial incentives account may have some scope to explain at least part of the brute fact that there are so few openly gay sports players even in markedly tolerant societies where gay celebrities abound in other industries. While many celebrities in areas like TV drama, arts, etc only have to appeal to a local market often limited to national boundaries by cultural and linguistic barriers, professional sport is a global industry and therefore subject to global rather than local prejudices. That might explain soccer's peculiar distinction, since it is probably the most globalised sport. Once can get only so far with anecdote, of course, but it would seem this hypothesis could be analysed econometrically, for example by analysing degrees of correlation between the representation of openly homosexual players and globalisation. One could also look at whether and how globalisation affects the culture of a sport as it is played even in rich and tolerant societies (international institutions, international movements of players and coaches, etc).

Leaving that empirical analysis aside, the possibility that such sports celebrities are at least partially motivated by financial considerations concerning the marketing of their global brand should affect our assessment of the (in)justice of the choice they face about being public about their sexual orientation. That is, having to make a stark choice between living a decent life and being open about one's sexuality seems to be an injustice that society should fix. But having to make a trade-off between living a lie but having great wealth and being open but having somewhat less wealth is difficult to characterise as an injustice at all.

Firstly, basic rights are not threatened. One will either have more or less wealth, but still, presumably a life most people would say was pretty successful and opulent. There is no sense that social norms are forcing people into stark and tragic choices. Even players who are not superstars may be operating under the hope of someday breaking into the Big Leagues, and thus be making a prudent decision in hiding anything likely to damage their earning potential then.

Secondly, 'society' doesn't seem present in the choice. These are global celebrities making prudential  calculations involving their agents and PR representatives about possible affects on merchandising and sponsorship deals across many countries. So it really isn't relevant if Britain becomes (as I think it has actually already become) markedly more tolerant of its gay sportsmen than even 10 years ago. Those British players are more concerned about their popularity in overseas growth markets such as in Africa and Asia, which have their own prejudices that the British are not responsible for and can do little about.

Thirdly, there is nothing unjust in the manner in which such prejudices as exist are expressed. That is, presumably some people will only 'like' certain players enough to buy their shirts and the products associated with them if they 'like' the (hetero) character they present. It seems problematic to condemn people for expressing such arbitrary preferences in the market, since that is exactly the appropriate arena for such private and unaccountable preferences (rather, say, than in deciding laws about marriage). Markets satisfy justice in the sense that, because of the voluntary nature of the transactions, when people purchase things they like both parties are made happier, but when one party demurs the result is inaction which leaves both exactly as well off as they were before. It would be a strange and unintuitive concept of justice that required people to like gay players and buy their merchandise (though that doesn't mean that their underlying prejudices can't be criticised).

So if nothing significant is at risk for these celebrities, if their situation has nothing to do with us, and if no one can be blamed for bringing it about, it would seem not to be a matter of justice at all, but a private prudential choice that is their own concern.