Sports and Its Contribution to Society Today Essay Example

Sports, without a doubt, play a significant role in society and also around the world. It reflects societal issues and morals in various ways. It is an enjoyable use of leisure time and promotes social bonding. While some people think of sports as only an outlet of violence, it mainly is done as a recreational activity, and people's fascination about the activity has been proven time and time again through their participation in the many sports that are available. Billions of people around the world not only international sporting events such as the World Cup and Olympics but also in the minor leagues that lead up to these big events and even the ones that are not so well recognized. Newspapers allocate a whole section to sports (Serrano, Shahidian, Sampaio & Leite, 2013). Some magazines and television channels are solely focused on giving sports news and updates. People are particularly touched by the grace and discipline of the top athletes and congratulate them for their courage and bravery and not the violence which taints the display of these virtues.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Sports provide an avenue for individuals to freely express themselves creatively, consequently leading to self-respect and personal development. "It can also serve to form a social union in a society of social unions [sic]," (Serrano, Shahidian, Sampaio & Leite, 2013). In this manner, personal development and self-respect are complementary. It also showcases the social hierarchy and mirrors society's vices and virtues and has effects on what it is a reflection of. There have been cases of cheating done by athletes through the use of drugs that enhance their performance on the field or track or even indoors depending on the sport they play. A cheating culture has been on the rise and the perpetrators (Callahan, 2013), as long as they benefit from it, do not care about the adverse effect that their actions would have on others. The emphasis is on self-promotion in the pursuit of fortune and fame. From 2011-2015, Russia has been involved in doping scandals in the Olympic Games that saw them be stripped of the Olympic medals they supposedly won (Duval, 2017). Also, in 2013, more than thirteen major league baseball players were reported to have taken a human growth hormone which is a performance-enhancing drug (Murray, 2012). They were subsequently banned from playing 50 games or more depending on the quantity of the drug that an individual took.

Gender equality in sports has been a significant bone of contention from as early as the beginning of time. History has shown the bias women were subjected to in sports which prevented their access to sport. During the early days of the Olympic Games, women were forbidden to participate in the activities. The first time that women took part in the Olympic Games was in the Paris Summer Games of 1990. In the United States, Title IX of the Educated omnibus Act was approved by the Congress and was later adapted to cater for sporting opportunities (Rose, 2015). It mapped out the way to competitive sports programs for women today. The overall rule in this is that when it pertains to non-contact and contact sports and only a single team is available, both male and female participants should be given an equal chance of being a member of the team. It featured gender specific games in addition to a variety of integrated disciplines. Our instinct and the physical and physiological distinction between the male and female make it clear that only members of the same sex should compete against each other but there are exceptions when a rule specifies that the latter could happen.

Promoting gender equity and fairness in the sport would significantly improve the society's attitude towards women. Typically, in a patriarchal society, females are viewed as the weaker and inferior sex. A game is an avenue where people can show their prowess, agility and physical strength. So if women are given a platform where they would not be discriminated against, then the gender stereotypes would be challenged and may even decide to start promoting gender equality and the emancipation of girls and women. Article 1 of the UNESCO International Charter of physical education and sport particularly states that "The practice of physical education and sport is a fundamental right for all [sic]." Sports and physical activity were initially acknowledged as a human right in the International Charter of Physical Education and Sport, which was adopted in the year 1978 (UNESCO, 2007). The charter states that one of the necessary conditions for the productive implementation of human rights is allowing people to be free to choose, develop and maintain their physical and mental strength. Today, the top female gets paid as well as the top male athletes. Even though there is still a wide gap in payment, this is still a step in the right direction for promoting equity in sports.

In almost all countries, the tax is collected and is a source of national revenue. But when it comes to using the taxpayer's money in building sports arenas is concerned, a majority of people seemed unconvinced that this is a good use of their hard-earned money. I am of the opinion that tax incentives should not be used to build sports stadiums. In the United States in 2016, the states of Missouri and St. Louis offered a sum of four hundred million dollars of public money to build a sports arena for the National Football League Rams. This led to a public outcry, and the state officials argued that the team was a revenue earner for the region. It was controversial because the billionaire owner of the Rams was able to foot the expenses of a new stadium on his own without outsourcing for funds. The public outrage eventually led to Stan Kroenke to construct a new arena for the Rams.

Economists say that using taxpayer's money to pay for the construction of new stadiums seldom gets back their money's worth. Ticket prices and parking fees are ridiculously high such that only a few individuals who can afford it go to the stadiums to watch the live games. Those who cannot afford it opt to stay at home and watch it from their television sets. For example, the average price of a ticket to attend a National Football League game in 2013 appreciated to $81.54, and the average premium ticket price skyrocketed to $247.85 (Excerpt 338). This has led to the decline of in-person attendance at the National Football League and even other sports over the years.

As you can see, the stadium is generating a lot of income as would be expected and thus the taxpayer's money is wasted while the teams could afford to pay for the construction of their own stadiums. In the 2016 budget, the Obama administration proposed the scraping of tax-free bonds which are used to finance stadiums and ultimately costs the United States Treasury a whopping 146-million-dollar budget a year (Povich, 2016). This was not the first attempt by the government to limit the use of public funds to finance the construction of stadiums; the struggle began as far back as 1986 through the Tax Reform Act (Povich, 2016). "Bondholders are happy, that's fine; the people who are paying double what they used to pay for the same seats [sic]," (Brodsky, 2016).

The sport has been an essential part of the history of humans since time immemorial. It has grown and evolved into a worldwide sensation is a sure way of countries making sure that they gain political mileage and more so, sell their ideology to other nations. It Sport brings together people from diverse backgrounds, whether social, economic or political and in doing so it bridges the gap between different cultures. It can be used as a diplomatic tool to promote the American ideology. Sport can be used as a political tool (Reichlmayr, 2013). During the cold war era, the eastern bloc countries would boycott the Olympic Games held in the western bloc countries and vice versa. Governments often use sport as a means of advancing their national identity and promoting international relations by politicizing it. The game is a powerful lens that can scrutinize important subject matter in democracy and political coherence. It is a superb tool that examines foreign political relations. American historians failed to acknowledge the role sport has played in history (Reichlmayr, 2013). An example of sport used as a diplomatic tool is seen in North Korea, a country which has several sanctions imposed on it since the onset of the Kim dynasty. They are tasked with the choice of choosing whether or not they would host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. If they do decide to host it, it would open up the otherwise secluded countries and would even gain political mileage.

Sports diplomacy uses managed communication where interested parties sought to solve international political contentions through sport. In other words, the sport is manipulated to work only in the interest of the concerned parties. When we go as far back as the year 1971, the United States and China used the "Ping Pong diplomacy" where a table tennis match was used to foster relations between the two countries. Ping pong in America is a recreational sport while the game became popular in China in the late 19th century. Rugby was used in South Africa during the apartheid regime to unite the native South African and the Afrikaners (Reichlmayr, 2013). Sports diplomacy is also used in the Olympic Games where countries that are divided politically are made to march under the Olympic flag to show that they are united. Sport shapes the world continues as each nation brings to table its diverse culture and views on multiple subjects that they differ on.

References

Callahan, D. (2007). The cheating culture: Why more Americans are doing wrong to get ahead. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Duval, A. (2017). The Russian doping scandal at the court of arbitration for sport: lessons for the world anti-doping system - the International Sports Law Journal, 16(3-4), 177-197.

Excerpt from the Assignment Journal CH 14, 15 (pp. 338-371)

Murray, T. H. (2012). Ethical considerations in anti-doping analysis. Bioanalysis, 4(13), 1537-1539.

Povich, E. S. (2016). "Why Should Public Money be Used to Build Stadiums?".

Reichlmayr, Todd J., "Sport as a Political Tool" (2013). Education and Human Development Master's Theses. 241. Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/ehd_theses/241

Rose, D. (2015). Regulating opportunity: Title IX and the birth of gender-conscious higher education policy. Journal of Policy History, 27(1), 157-183. Retrieved from: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/Women%20and%20Sport.pdf

Serrano, J., Shahidian, S., Sampaio, J., & Leite, N. (2013). The importance of sports performance factors and training contents from the perspective of futsal coaches. Journal of human kinetics, 38, 151-160.