Do the Oscars snub sports movies?

By Chris Chase
Published

Sylvester Stallone is up for an Oscar on Sunday night, the only major nominee this year coming out of a sports movie. How rare is that? Do actors in sports movies often get invited to the Academy Awards? We dove into the answer and found out that sports movies at the Oscars are like the Seattle Seahawks at the Super Bowl: They've been invited a few times, most notably in recent years, but only rarely get the W. We looked at the five major categories at the Oscars and found every sports nominee. There are a few surprises, one or two shocks but, in general, sports movies and their actors and actresses don't get too much love from the Academy. Read on!

Best Actor

Look through the hundreds of men nominated for Best Actor and you'll find some names of actors you can't believe were ever nominated (Gary Busey!) and dozens and dozens of actors you've never heard of (so, so many!). Yet the list of 17 men nominated for starring in a sports movie is like a who's who of Hollywood royalty: Cooper, Douglass, Newman, Beatty, De Niro, Cruise, Eastwood, Pitt. Even Dumbledore is on there! Winning doesn't happen all that often though, as just three Best Actor winners have come from playing an athlete (or, in Paul Newman's case, a pool hustler).

Steve Carrell, Foxcatcher (2014)

Brad Pitt, Moneyball (2011)

Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby (2004)

(Amy Graves/WireImage)

Will Smith, Ali (2001)

Denzel Washington, The Hurricane (1999)

Tom Cruise, Jerry Maguire (1996)

Paul Newman, The Color of Money (1986)*

Robert De Niro, Raging Bull (1980)*

Warren Beatty, Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Sylvester Stallone, Rocky (1976)

Richard Harris, This Sporting Life (1963)

(TNT)

Paul Newman, The Hustler (1961)

Kirk Douglass, Champion (1949)

Gary Cooper, The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

Wallace Beery, The Champ (1931)* (tied)

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side (2009)*

Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby (2004)*

(Alan Band/Keystone/Getty Images)

Talia Shire, Rocky (1976)

Jane Alexander, The Great White Hope (1970)

Rachel Roberts, This Sporting Life (1963)

Piper Laurie, The Hustler (1961)

Teresa Wright, The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

Best Supporting Actor (Created in 1936)

The leading category on our list: Twenty-one times an actor has been up for an Oscar for their role in a sports film. The Supporting categories have always been a bit more populist, which is why you have Mr. Miyagi and Shooter getting nods in 1984 and 1986, respectively. Both were well deserved, but you get the feeling both would passed over for the more haughty Best Actor category. Also, as befitting the category's name, only six of the 21 actors actually played a sport on screen in their film, either inhibiting the role of coach or mentor or, in Joe Pesci's case, f-bomb dropper.

Sylvester Stallone, Creed, (2015)

Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher (2014)

(Barry King/Getty Images)

Jonah Hill, Moneyball (2011)

Christian Bale, The Fighter (2010)*

Matt Damon, Invictus (2009)

Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man (2005)

Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby (2004)*

Jon Voight, Ali (2001)

Cuba Gooding Jr., Jerry Maguire (1996)*

(Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Dennis Hopper, Hoosiers (1986)

Pat Morita, The Karate Kid (1984)

Ian Holm, Chariots of Fire (1981)

Joe Pesci, Raging Bull (1980)

Jack Warden, Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Burt Young, Rocky (1976)

Burgess Meredith, Rocky, (1976)

Vincent Gardenia, Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)

George C. Scott, The Hustler (1961)

Jackie Gleason, The Hustler (1961)

Stuart Erwtin, Pigskin Parade (1936)

Best Supporting Actress (Created in 1936)

This one surprised me: Take away the two nominations for The Fighter and there were just six supporting nods for women in the first 73 Academy Awards. In fact, it took 40 years of Oscars for a woman to land a nomination in this category: No. 1(B) Lakers fan Dyan Cannon for Heaven Can Wait -- man that got a lot of nominations. There's only one win here also, by Melissa Leo for the aforementioned The Fighter. 

Melissa Leo, The Fighter (2010)*

Amy Adams, The Fighter (2010)

Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler (2008)

(Joe Traver/Liaison)

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, The Color of Money (1985)

Glenn Close, The Natural (1984)

Cathy Moriarty, Raging Bull (1980)

Barbara Barrie, Breaking Away (1979)

Dyan Cannon, Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Best Picture

A total of 15 sports movies have been nominated by Best Picture, with four taking home the ultimate prize in film, the last being Million Dollar Baby in 2004. For the first 48 Oscars, only three sports films earned a Best Picture nomination. Starting in 1976 though, a sports movie received a nom five times in six years. And it's been relatively common since, with an eight-year gap the longest between nominations and noms in back-to-back years three times.

Moneyball (2011)

The Fighter (2010)

The Blind Side (2009)

(Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)*

Seabiscuit (2003)

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Field of Dreams (1989)

Chariots of Fire (1981)*

Raging Bull (1980)

Breaking Away (1979)

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Rocky (1976)*

The Hustler (1961)

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

The Champ (1931)*

In all, sports movies have scored 68 nominations in the Big Five categories, which sounds decent enough until you consider that there have been more than 2,000 such nominations in history. Then you do the math, dividing 69 bu 2,179 (our quick count at total nominations), you see that 3.12% of nominations have historically gone to sports movies. That's almost Pi! So, while the first way sounds infintesmile -- just 68 in 2,179???? -- the other sounds reasonable -- 1 in 33 is really good! 

As for winners, there have been a total of 13 in the 413 Academy Awards distributed to the main acting/film categories. Amazingly, the percentage of wins is almost exactly the percentage of nominations: 3.15%. If and when Stallone wins on Sunday -- and we have a few problems with that likelihood -- that number will jump a bit.

Of course, the answer still lacks context. If 90% of movies are sports movies, then sports would certainly be getting shunned at the Oscars. But if 1% of movies are sports movies, then the genre is doing well with the Academy.  

We tried to figure this one out. And while we can't tell you about all-time stats -- we'd need Rain Man to count up that total -- according to Box Office Mojo, there were 146 movies released in 2015 that made over $5 million, an arbitrary threshold generally hit by major releases. (If we counted all movies, you'd have like 150 documentaries that played in one theater). Also according to BOM, there were seven sports movies released in 2015, a percentage of 4.79%, which means sports movies are slightly underrepresented at this year's Oscars.

(Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

Oh, and if you were wondering which sort of roles get Oscar attention, you won't be surprised by the sport with the most statues. (Boxing.) You will be surprised that baseball doesn't come in second and that billiards -- yes, billiards -- has more than triple the nominations of horse racing and basketball. (That's what you get when you have Paul Newman star in two awesome hustling movies.) Here's the full breakdown:

Boxing -- 28 nominations, 9 wins

Baseball -- 9 nominations

Billiards -- 7 nominations, 1 win

(Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

Running -- 2 nominations, 1 win

Cycling -- 2 nominations 

Horse Racing -- 1 nomination

Karate -- 1 nomination

Basketball -- 1 nomination

Mothers, don't let your sons grow up to act in basketball-based karate movies.