Dark Side of Sports– Money, Power, Politics– All About Business: Games Aren’t Just Games Any More

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Dark Side of Sports– Money, Power, Politics– All About Business: Games Aren’t Just Games Any More

by Bizshifts-Trends
Sports used to be simple. Go to games. Play games. Have fun. Be entertained. Now it’s so much more. Every level of sports-- from your local youth leagues straight up to the pros-- it's all become big business that generates big money and big influence... The theme driving the ethics of sports is 'win-at-all-costs' and 'profit-at-all-costs'... On Capitol Hill, sports businesses blatantly wield its power to get what it wants, and often succeeds. In the justice system, sports figures are, perhaps more than ever, at center of criminal investigations because they once felt invincible but no more... Sports is big business worldwide, according to research; the global sports market is valued over one trillion dollars, including; teams, players, merchandise, arenas, apparel, betting, e-sports, sports medicine, sports education and training, kids sports, sports television, sports media, special events, fantasy games, sports videos, sports equipment... and, it's expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.3%...
Nearly in every part of the world sports heroes are discussed around the dinner table... In the Olympic world, sports help give nations credibility and also can spark international conflict. For good and bad, the sports world is bigger and more powerful than ever, with athletes wielding more and more influence over culture, politics... But behind the million-dollar publicists, watered-down personas, fancy shoe commercials... athletes are still just men and women. Men and women who won the genetic lottery, for sure, but they often have deep, dark sides and the money to keep those dark sides under wraps...
In the article Dark Side of Sport by Dominic Hobson writes: Sport is war - it's about the loss, as well as the gain... Sport is war minus the shooting... Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It's bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence... It's rich in triumphalism, disdain and pride, in the love of power and of domination. Sport has something in common with war... It's zero-sum: What one gains, the other loses. Of course, some find in sport a positive sum-- an aesthetic pleasure akin to great art or literature...
The pleasure of effort is rewarded, the mastery of a skill, the exhilaration of speed, the thrill of danger averted, the union of mind and body, and the unity of body and nature. It can be beautiful to watch another human being run fast, or jump high, or bowl quickly, or strike a ball exquisitely. If sport really was improving the moral character of the players, it would not be necessary to equip officials with sophisticated video technology to check they are not cheating. But even he/she prefers an ugly victory to a beautiful defeat. What Douglas MacArthur said of war is as true of sport; there is no substitute for victory...
In sport, it's 'points', not the poetry, that count. No one remembers, as sports people are apt to remind each other, how they won. This is why the sports-field is as much a moral vacuum as a battlefield. The fist-shaking at the net, goal-mouth celebrations-- these are ugly metaphorical equivalents of mutilating slain enemies in battle. The character-building quality of sport is contradicted every time players take to field of play.
All too often, sporting contests feature some combination of spitting, sledging, swearing, shouting, fist-pumping, glaring, grunting, grass-kissing, badge-tugging, or outright violence... Sport does not build character: At best, it betrays it. At worst, it corrupts it. It's not just the players who are corrupted: So are spectators. Hence, it's easy to observe that modern democracy has rediscovered what emperors knew millennia ago: grotesque entertainments ensure quiescence of the populace. According to Hugh McIlvanney; sports is fantastic metaphor for life...
In the article Politicization of Sports and Sportization of Politics by Yves Smith writes: Sport has its own dynamic and its own identity. It's one of dominant global institutions, fully commercialized and professionalized. According to Ivan Ergic: it's one of last domains in which macho-culture and its relation to militarism, is still present. No wonder women’s sports are not accepted on same level as men's’: most women that do participate become masculinized so as to compete at the same level as men... This only shows how militant the industry of sports actually is...
According to Ivan Ergic: most sports fans come from the working class. Completely passivised, they watch the contests sitting in front of their televisions they don’t even go to the stadiums anymore. We live in a world of hyper commercialization and this is visible in sports as well. The fact that the working class is becoming passivised is problematic as it diverts attention from important life issues. The fan movement is the only movement in the world that doesn’t have a collective institution, or a body governing it. The divisions that this creates clearly shows that sports tend to segment different classes...
People construct their identities around their sports clubs as these are historically local clubs, which breed local patriotism. As symbolic representatives of a region, the connection that people feel to them is understandable. The issue with this is that it results in diverting attention from more existential issues. Fans protest energetically against corruption in a club, or a club going bankrupted, but protest much less about losing jobs or inequity in the local factory...
Nationalism is one of the most profiting mechanisms of reorienting people towards issues related to their identities. It's an ideology that de-politicizes peoples in a certain way, as its focus on identity blurs all other social and political issues... The World Cup, Olympics, etc. are events supposedly meant to unite people. At the same time they intensify national sentiments and national identities, which again diverts attention from the real issues. People should unite in common aim of fighting political, economic and ecological issues... yet instead they focus on small narcissistic differences between-- different teams or nations, on who wins, or who doesn’t... identifying themselves with the teams in a common-- 'we' have lost or 'we' have won, this 'we' being the team and the nation at the same time...