Commercialization of School Sports

Commercialization of School Sports

Introduction
Sport is probably among the oldest organized activities in every society. In most communities, games were designed to increase social support structures. Games were thus used extensively in leisure time to foster bonding between individuals in a similar age set. Games were thus organized with special attention to the nature of the individuals anticipated to participate. However, the dynamics of sports have been changing rapidly in the last century or two. The onset of friendly matches between inter-communal teams gave rise to the need for precision in evaluation methods. This led to the formalization of sport structures as we see them today. In addition to this, an interesting phenomenon was rising. Games were beginning to become commercialized.
Inter-communal games drew pools of fans from either side that had to be hosted in some form of auditoriums. These structures required maintenance. Additionally, since not everyone could be hosted, there was the need to establish vetting techniques for the tournament viewing. These activities introduced the initial forms of sports commercialization. Other types of commercialization then rose at a rapid rate. The prestige and financial awards associated with the winning matches introduced an emphasis for better players. Where sport persons had been selected purely on belonging to a particular setting, now teams began to scout for external talent in exchange for monetary awards (Furst, 1971).

Modern professional teams are indeed made up of a deep integration of nationalities in a bid to win as many games as possible. There are also other forms of commercialization that have affected sports. Among such are activities such as betting. Neutral betting practices where individuals externally speculate on the winning team are as old as sport itself. In modern times, this betting went a notch higher to engage players, coaches and team managers in match fixing.
Commercialization also influenced media coverage of games with particular sports receiving higher profiles than others. As a result, today, athletes especially the young are no longer necessarily naturally drawn to the sport but enticed by the economic reward (Furst, 1971). In fact, sports scouting begins early in life where local talent developers select individuals that are deemed to have the potential capacity to perform in later life based on an individual’s physical build, height, intelligence, aptness and other characteristics. Besides, college sports have other types of commercialization in the form of sponsorship and scholarship. Athletic students have a higher chance of earning financial support from reputable institutions in return for sporting services. Super Bowl and other tournaments are also the gateways to professional sporting careers with numerous coaches following these games with immense interest. This phenomenon has re-introduced parents in the dynamics of trying to match young people to potentially beneficial sporting activities.
These factors do not have a neutral effect on sporting activities. They have introduced a ‘must win at any cost’ attitude. There are many beneficial aspects of this. The most important is that such practices avail opportunities to individuals who would not have been able to access such unique opportunities. Sport is in its entirety a magnanimous industry. Through its apparel and equipment industry, advertising, media, and raffle and ticketing to salaries of all stakeholders, the industry is sustaining millions of families across the globe. However, there are also numerous detrimental effects to this nature. The pressure to win tournaments gives team managers, coaches and the athletes themselves the urge to partake in numerous disastrous activities. These activities range from drug use, cheating, game fixing, corruption and other vast arrays of negative aspects. There is also another risk that pertains especially to younger players (Striegel, Vollkmmer, & Dickhuth, 2002). Competitive physical sports involve the use of tricks that could impart permanent physical damage on individuals. In the recent past, scientists have established definitively that hitting a ball with the head as happens in soccer produces temporary memory loss effects. Research on the possible permanence of the memory loss when the ball is hit over an extended career period is ongoing. The commercialization of school sports is leading to the introduction of such tricks in school tournaments. Money, therefore, has influenced sport more than any other force could have done before. This paper will use extensive literary analyses to review the impact of commercialization of sports especially among the young people in schools.
Literature Review
Zhen-xi defines the commercialization of sports as a phenomenon that is primarily characterized by fervent marketing, a shift to more dynamic management and administration techniques that require entirely professional and complete departments in the lines of enterprises, and numerous impositions of incentives for participation and enhanced performance. These are all characteristics that we can observe in popular college sports tournaments. Globally, sports news focus on sporting competitions as early as between high school teams (Zhen-xi, 2006). In some places such as the US, these games attract extensive advertisement which increases at the college level. This advertisement is itself an indication of the economic value of the sports. Most advertisements focus on the potential benefits that will be reaped from participation. In addition to this, school teams are no longer managed by the old charitable organizations run by the school coach and a few volunteers (Guo, 2006). The sport has shifted to the for-profit mode of administration hailed for efficacy and versatility. The reason why schools are more willing to invest in trained personnel to manage sports is that the games harbor an immense depth of wealth.
Zhen-Xi continues to indicate that the association between sport and money bears both positive and negative influences. The positive impacts are associated with an enabling development of the sport (Zhen-xi, 2006). This means that with the extensive amount of money collected, enterprises can buy facilities and construct the appropriate infrastructure needed for sports participation. It also enhances scouting for otherwise unavailable talent. The search for talent indeed leads to successful professional teams establishing associations with poor communities where talent is exchanged with financial support. This has a dual benefit. On the one hand, it allows young talented individuals exploit their capability for a living while it assists the team in achieving greater success.
While the ability to draw talent from local people offers immense wealth, it also creates various challenges among the youth. In a research investigating the psychological influence of commercializing school sport on young people, McAllister found out that the phenomenon correlates heavily with increased pressurization towards success and hence detrimental practice. In the recent past, students have been observed performing tricks that should be well beyond their scope (McAllister, 1998). In the US, hitting a ball with the head in football is prohibited for children less than 11 years. This has been a contentious topic with sports enthusiast claiming that parents have become over protective of children diminishing the value of sport, inhibiting full development of potential and subjecting the children to adverse effects of lack of physical exercise. However, recent research on the topic has conclusively shown that there is instantaneous memory loss when individuals hit a ball on the head. It is yet unclear how repetitive actions over a long time may affect the athlete especially when this is started at an early age. This is however among the least potentially hazardous activities. Other physical activities such as some forms of stretching arms during basketball expose the individuals to risk of permanent damage in arms and legs. To make matters worse, there are instances where team stars are injured in initial stages of the tournaments. The team officials are often tempted to push the individual to continue playing while the injury risks permanent deformity. In some instance, the players themselves conceal these damages because they are afraid of missing out on an opportunity to display their prowess to professional scouting coaches.
Apart from the physical exertion of excess pressure to achieve success, the use of drugs is also rampant among young players. Doping tests have exposed an intensive use of steroids in the attempt to achieve an extra mile in sporting activities. The commercialization of games has led to increased competitiveness. As a result, teams are getting better and young athletes are becoming more apprehensive about winning. Steroids then become embraced as an efficient trick towards winning games. It is at times argued that steroid use does not equate to cheating on competitive games as the tournaments have already eluded the field of social support and leisure sport (Striegel, Vollkmmer, & Dickhuth, 2002). Of particular importance when evaluating the effect of these phenomena is its influence on the future health if the user. School games often involve minors. This means that most of the individuals are not able to discern the real intensity of the risk that they are exposing themselves to. In most cases, their opinion is instantaneously determined by the anticipated scholarship or the cheering crowd. This phenomenon, therefore, endangers the life of athletes for sheer vanity.
In addition to this, commercialization interferes with the natural course of charitable fundraising as well as sponsorship. When Zhu et.al investigated the correlation between purchases of sponsor products with the support given to the club, there was an absolute correspondence (Zhu, Won, & Pastore, 2016). This means that aid has lost course of finding and supporting talent but aligns towards marketing of products. When this goal is not achieved, the corporations are fast to cancel sponsorships disheartening many young talents. This increases the pressure for performance and increases the uncertainty within the teams preventing the effective development of talent (Walraven, 2012).
The psychological impacts of sponsorship programs are advanced. From a young age, parents model their children towards athletic success. As a result, so many young people attach success in life to achieving a sports scholarship. This also introduces status differences between athletic and non-athletic individuals in schools. Those regarded as non-athletic are often discriminated against as inferior while athletes are awarded celebrity status (Hinkle, 1999). While this phenomenon is destructive to those who do not achieve athletic prowess from the start, it is even more disastrous for those who miss it by a whisker. Their aspirations are up to that istant associated with sporting endeavors. Failure to achieve them then leads to depression and disillusionment. Besides, commercialization has a very intrinsic impact on the relationship between the sponsor and the athlete (Walraven, 2012).
As soon as the athlete does not match the economic gain anticipated by the sponsor, they become a liability and therefore are subject to dispensation. This is the basis for the extensive endangering of individual health over performance. It also exchanges talent development for financial gain. This is undoubtedly a negative development for the sporting industry. The venture, which is primarily supposed to encompass youth development, may be becoming more detrimental than it is beneficial.
Besides, the amount of money in a sport and specific teams determines the probability for media coverage. This is another way in which money interferes with true talent development. Instead of focusing neutrally on tournaments and local development of teams, media focuses its lens on the talent is already robust and on prominent athletes. The effect is more pressure on already established teams and deterioration of teams that have not fully developed. The pressure of commercialization produces ripple effects in the sporting arena. When it creates attention on specific teams, it pools athletes’ attention towards this team. This creates competition which induces the need to overstretch and use steroids. This produces detrimental and sometimes permanently incapacitating damages which in turn introduce psychosocial challenges.
Conclusion
Sporting has changed dynamically in the past century. The most significant agent of this change has been the financial implication of commercialization. On the positive sense, the notion contributes significantly to the development of talent through enabling purchase of facilities, construction of infrastructure and sponsoring of needy individuals. However, the trend is also marked by detrimental effects on the art of sport mainly marked by drug use, overstretching and misuse of athletes.

References
Furst, R. (1971). Social Change and the Commercialization of Professional Sports. International Review For The Sociology Of Sport, 6(1), 153-173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/101269027100600110
Guo, B. (2006). Charity for Profit? Exploring Factors Associated with the Commercialization of Human Service Nonprofits. Nonprofit And Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(1), 123-138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0899764005282482
Hinkle, J. (1999). Promoting optimum mental health through counseling (1st ed.). Greensboro, NC: CAPS Publications, Inc. in association with the ERIC Counseling and Student Services Clearinghouse.
McAllister, M. (1998). College bowl sponsorship and the increased commercialization of amateur sports. Critical Studies In Mass Communication, 15(4), 357-381. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295039809367055
Striegel, H., Vollkmmer, G., & Dickhuth, H. (2002). Combating Drug Use in Competitive Sports. Journal Of Sports Medicine And Physical Fitness, 41(1), 354-359.
Walraven, M. (2012). The effects of sports sponsorship: A review and research agenda. The Marketing Review, 12(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1362/146934712×13286274424235
Zhen-xi, N. (2006). Study on the Side-effects of the Commercialization on Competitive Sports and the Strategy to Deal with Them. Journal Of Tianjin University Of Sport.
Zhu, Z., WOn, D., & Pastore, D. (2016). The Effects of Attitudes Toward Commercialization on College Students’ Purchasing Intentions of Sponsors’ Products. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 14(3), 177-187.