10/14/2011

Professional Sports

In May 2008, average yearly wages for professional athletes were $79,460 and about 16,500 held jobs as professional athletes and sports competitors.

Is there an economic impact as a result of professional sports?  sports economist Brad Humphreys, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says no.  Humphreys and colleague Dennis Coates, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, haven’t uncovered a single instance in which the presence of a professional sports team has been linked to a boost in the local economy.


Bill Beyers, a professor at UW, says that the economic impact of a professional sports team is only 1/10 of 1%.  He goes on to say, "To justify the expenditure of public money on sports stadiums, politicians across the nation have pointed to the economic benefits of professional sports."


So, what is America's fascination with professional athletes and professional sports?  According to Dev Ashish, it is a combinations of:


Young sports fan gone wild...

Identity

Self-esteem

Escapism                                                          
Eustress

Sense of belonging


Roman gladiator games come to mind here.  Gladiator was typically condemned prisoners, second class citizens.  As Carlin Barton states, “The gladiator, by his oath, transforms what had originally been an involuntary act to a voluntary one, and so, at the very moment that he becomes a slave condemned to death, he becomes a free agent and a man with honor to uphold” (The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster [Princeton University Press, 1993] 15).

Gladiator Arena
When a gladiator had been wounded and wished to concede defeat, he would hold up an index finger.  At this point the crowd would indicate with gestures whether they wished the defeated gladiator to be killed or spared -   “thumbs down” meant kill and “thumbs up” meant spare.  The sponsor of the games typically decided whether or not to give the defeated gladiator a reprieve. If the gladiator was to be killed, he was expected to accept the final blow without crying out or flinching.

Like sporting events in many ancient cultures, Roman gladiatorial combat originated as a religious event. The Romans claimed that their tradition of gladiatorial games was adopted from the Etruscans, but there is little evidence to support this.

In 42 BC, for the first time, gladiatorial fights were substituted for chariot-races in official games. After that in the city of Rome, regular gladiatorial shows, like theatrical shows and chariot-races, were given by officers of state, as part of their official careers, as an official obligation and as a tax on status.

Gladiators were glamour figures, culture heroes. The probable life-span of each gladiator was short. Each successive victory brought further risk of defeat and death.  Modern pop-stars and athletes have only a short exposure to full-glare publicity. Most of them fade rapidly from being household names into obscurity...  but, for the moment...


3 comments:

terry said...

I think people who "need" sports do so because they live the fantasy of being a sports figure themselves. Personally I think sports is a huge drain on our personal and collective pocketbooks

Anonymous said...

Right Terry, especially when cities have to pay the utilities on the sports complex. Do the citizens who are taxed for that get free tickets to games? No.

Go Redskins!

terry said...

GO REDSKINS!