Athlete Lookism Theory

How much do looks impact athletic stardom?

Submitted from a participant in the BCC group chat….

I’m still not sure I get the…genre (?) of this app, but I’m going to treat this like a group chat and throw out a theory. I will note I already got roasted for this one in my old highschool group chat, but I still think I’m right.

Hypothesis: physical attractiveness matters more to our opinion of players (both current and past) more than we think.

Studies show that in all walks of life, being handsome is an advantage for how one is perceived, especially in business and industry. We like to think sports is pure achievement, but why would human psychology be any different as applied to sports?

If Kobe Bryant looked like Shelden Williams, we would remember him as 85–90% as good as we do now.

This isn’t a crazy take at all, even if we don’t often discuss it in polite company. I’ve long wondered about the impact of looks on athlete stardom, but there’s no way to measure it. I just know that Sam Cassell made only one All-Star team, when it seems like he perhaps should have made more. I also understand that coaches help select All-Stars, but you get the idea. Perhaps the more germane example is a counter factual, like if Allen Iverson was ugly. Would Ugly Answer have been considered a cultural trend setter? It’s a little easier to be the popular antihero when you’re a good looking bad boy. Iverson was potentially the most charismatic sneaker salesman outside of Michael Jordan, who was also Not Ugly.

This is one of those topics where most everyone would acknowledge the base level take of “Looks add to popularity,” but maybe balk at getting into specific examples. If you’re negatively assessing someone’s looks, it feels rude, and leaves you open to a public assessment of your own. If you’re a man positively assessing another man’s looks, that’s alright, especially in June, but many heterosexual men are uncomfortable wading into that territory. In some circles, my writing this is pretty sus, bro.

It’s revealing that, for all the talk of “privilege” over that 2012-2022 period, Looks Privilege was so rarely invoked. Looks might be the ultimate privilege though, so much so that few even admit to not having it. So yes, attractiveness matters, not just due to attraction, but because of mimetic aspiration. It’s that old James Bond quote, “Men want to be him, women want to be with him.”

There is a counter take in the chat though, refuting the idea being attractive rules all. Submitted by Chatter E:

You have to either look attractive or look interesting. Larry Bird looked interesting, same with Jokic, same with Wemby. What you can’t be is boring looking… one reason OKC hasn’t caught on nationally? SGA is boring looking. Not bad looking or good looking, just nothing captivating. Chet will probably become a bigger star than him in a few years because of this, I think.