Social Issues in Sports

Social Issues in Sports

Sports have been used as a recreational as well as an entertaining aspect of the human life. However, as time goes by, the profession of sports has received great attention following the high income and revenues directed to the players and the club owners directly. Sports can, therefore, be seen to have experienced a paradigm shift in the ways people used to view and value it in the past. There have been changes in the social perspective towards sports with reports of sports viewers going down especially with the popularity of the internet in the society. Similarly, many people argue that sports have turned into a monopoly venture where some people control the way teams play as well as the movement of players through the huge salaries that they offer to these players. The other social issues related to sports is gambling. Many companies have come up hence influencing the outcome of the games.
Social Issues in Sports
Sports has been turned into a monopoly platform where investors and owners use the games for commercial purposes. For instance, the National Football League has been monopolized by the owners setting up rules that control the league and the way players can move from one team to another. Even the teams cannot be relocated from one town to another without paying a huge amount of fees just as seen when a new team wants to join the league (Che & Hendershott, 2009). The huge amount of wages paid to the players makes it hard for them to move out of the league.

The individual owners of the NFL teams cannot sell their merchandise as it is only the NFL Properties that market all the NFL merchandise (Alexander, 2001). NFL also restrict individual teams from negotiating TV contracts, hence controlling the income generated from the television channels as well as other sponsors of particular teams.
Another social issue evident in the current sports is gambling. Many gambling sites and companies have come up to make a killing out of the sporting activities. The majority of people who used to be true fans of sports such as football are now turning into revenue generating activities through the betting. The gambling companies are also using their financial powers to influence the results of the games by match fixing (Hinca IP Pandjaitan, 2011). Indeed, sports is almost losing its values as many people who used to watch television have now shifted to watching videos online with the help of the fast internet that is available in most parts of the word. Commercialization of sporting activities has made the players slavery of the club owners as they are required to abide by the contract provisions that thy sign with the clubs before becoming part of the team.
References
Alexander, D. (2001). Major League Baseball: Monopoly Pricing and Profit-Maximizing Behavior. Journal Of Sports Economics, 2(4), 341-355. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/152700250100200403 Che, Y. & Hendershott, T. (2009). The NFL Should Auction Possession in Overtime Games. The Economists’ Voice, 6(9). http://dx.doi.org/10.2202/1553-3832.1538
Hinca IP Pandjaitan,. (2011). Legal Challenges for the Sports Gambling and Play Manipulation. The Journal Of Sports And Entertainment Law, 14(4), 221-251. http://dx.doi.org/10.19051/kasel.2011.14.4.221