society sport and its contradictions

SOCIETY, SPORT AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS: THE

PARADOXES OF CURRENT SPORT

Physical Education

YEAR 4

SOCIETY, SPORT AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS: THE PARADOXES OF CURRENT SPORT


INDEX:

1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................................3

2. POLITICS AND SPORT...........................................................................................................................................3

3. SPORT BUSINESS.....................................................................................................................................................3

4. ECONOMY AND SPORT.........................................................................................................................................4

5. VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSIONS IN SPORT....................................................................................................4

6. BETS IN SPORT.........................................................................................................................................................5

7. DRUG-TAKING IN SPORT.....................................................................................................................................5

7.1. FORBIDDEN SUBSTANCES AND METHODS IN SPORT.................................................................5

7.2. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................................5

8. MASS MEDIA IN SPORT........................................................................................................................................6

9. SPORT MAKES AND POPULAR AND PROFESSIONAL SPORT..............................................................6

9.1. SPORT SPONSORSHIP..................................................................................................................................6

9.2. THE VALUES OF SPORT SPONSORSHIP..............................................................................................7

9.3. SPORT AND INDIVIDUAL SPONSORSHIPS.........................................................................................7

10. ADVERTISING IN SPORT.................................................................................................................................7

11. FREE TIME AND SPORT...................................................................................................................................8

12. PROFESSIONALIM AND SPORT....................................................................................................................8

13. SCHOOL AND SPORT.........................................................................................................................................8

14. WOMAN AND SPORT........................................................................................................................................9

15. SPECTACLE AND SPORT...............................................................................................................................10

16. JUNIOR SPORT AND EARLY PROFESSIONALISM..............................................................................10

17. PARENTS AND SPORT...................................................................................................................................11

18. CONCLUSIONS...................................................................................................................................................12

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1. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, sport is a sign of quality of our society, sport is a key part of our 21st society with its advantages and disadvantages. In this unit we’ll deal with some of the most controversial topics in sport phenomenon in society to make a critical thought about it.

2. POLITICS AND SPORTAt a political level, sport is considered a propaganda tool, the intention is to produce nationalist feelings, the union of the group and the search of the identity of a country to create a feeling of unity. In some countries sport is used as a way of leaving aside the real problems and of entertaining the citizenship.

At the same time, the politician tries to associate his image with a sport success.

On the other hand, sportsmen don’t want to be linked to a political party or ideology.

3. SPORT BUSINESSThink about these questions that everybody has listened to at any time: ‘do you practice any sport?’, ‘what do you do in your free time?’, do you do any physical activity in the open air?’ or ‘you should do sport’. Nowadays many people have noticed the importance of the physical activity, sport or the necessity of an active practice to improve our lifestyle. For that reason we do sport: to avoid obesity, mental problems, to keep fit, to improve our health in a word.Millions of people throughout the world practice any kind of exercise ( physical or recreational).

But among all the reasons why human beings devote to physical activity, we must point out one: the advantages we receive:

A healthy body. The satisfaction of getting new skills. A great social contact (it’s easier to meet people, to make new friends…)

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4. ECONOMY AND SPORT

Nowadays, sport is a leading economic activity in Spanish society since it represents the 1.2 % of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Sport has been always linked and associated to the legal activity, sport as we know it is also an economic activity that requires and produces goods and services. Sport needs facilities and services which are rather expensive, it also needs specific material and

equipment and it also needs people who teach sport, computers, medical assistance, TV satellites… that is, an economic importance that isn´t very often noticed.

5. VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSIONS IN SPORT

The study of violence is compulsory at this point despite that violence is not a major issue. It´s remarkable to say that human actions are influenced mainly by the

environment, that is, the society. The problem is that the violence always takes place in socially excluded groups, therefore, the matter continues unsolved.For the environmentalists the question is easy, in those sectors with a higher economic standard violence tends to be lower but this is not always in this way (countries such as Chile or Argentina are good examples of this).It´s true the topic is open, maybe the collective contribution of Biology, Psychology and Sociology

could give us an answer to this dilemma.Sports have evolved and it has been proved that violence is being systematically reduced. The development of sport is a process of control of violent behaviours which nowadays are synonyms of unsporting practice.

Then, why are we so worried by the violence phenomenon?

First of all, because the wave of violence around sport causes obvious personal, material and moral damages. But because of our tolerance towards violence has fallen, violence is not so extreme and our sensitivity is higher than before.

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6. BETS IN SPORT

Betfair, Bwin or Unibet are 3 of the most usual bookmakers. Betting on sports in the Internet is extremely easy: a credit card and be over 18 are the only requirements.But this entails that matches are fixed, there are bent referees or agreements among the players to manipulate the scores in a sport competition.

7. DRUG-TAKING IN SPORT

The need of a sportsman to get better results in his physical achievement at the expense of his health, the consumption of prohibited substances has as aim to train more, to get his strength back faster and to obtain a higher result.In our society, medicines are not only used to fight illnesses but also to help in extreme

physiological situations (tiredness, pain, sleep, anxiety…). The sportman resorts to them to stimulate himself, make his strength and concentration grow, calm his tiredness…

7.1. FORBIDDEN SUBSTANCES AND METHODS IN SPORT.This is the group of forbidden substances:

Stimulants. Narcotics Anabolic steroids. Diuretics. Pharmacological substances.

7.2. CONCLUSION

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The recreational sport as well as the competitive one have an important role in current societies.

8. MASS MEDIA IN SPORT

By means of the mass media, sport has become popular. The king of sports is, without any doubt, football which is continuously broadcast in radio and TV and occupies plenty of pages in sport press.But other sports are getting more importance in mass media: basketball, handball, cycling, motorcycling….also the Olympic Games or the World Championships. All this causes that sport is more important every day either in competition or in leisure.Mass media exert great influence in the personal opinion of each person.From the admission of private televisions to the audiovisual world, sport has had a wide space in all the programs due to the great demand of information about all competitions.

9. SPORT MAKES AND POPULAR AND PROFESSIONAL SPORT.

9.1. SPORT SPONSORSHIP

Sport sponsorship represents the 11% of the advertising investment every year. This implies an investment of 600 million €. This sponsorship has a few characteristics that make it different:

Visibility. It focused on advertising and marketing. It allows that the logo of the firm can be seen everywhere.

Spectators. Diverse, numerous and less elitist public.

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Media presence. Sports are in the media more frequently than any other activity. Sponsoring a team, a sportsman of a sport event guarantees the presence of the logo in a video, in a photo….

Sport sponsorship can be put into practice in a great number of protagonists: sports at the junior high level, teams, competitions, federations, events, stadiums…

9.2. THE VALUES OF SPORT SPONSORSHIPThese values adapt themselves to the values of the firm, they coincide in many points:

A desire of doing better. Competiveness. Effort. Team spirit. Work. Perseverance. Reach the goals. Sacrifice.

9.3. SPORT AND INDIVIDUAL SPONSORSHIPS.Although individual sponsorship is not born from sport sponsorship, it´s true that in this field we find more individual sponsorships.Individual sponsorship is found either in team sports or individual ones. The same firm can sponsor Messi or Michael Phelps (a swimmer).On the other hand, sport sponsorship must think about getting the highest results of sportsman.

10. ADVERTISING IN SPORT.

The relationship between Advertising and sport is so close that both activities profit each other. Nowadays there is no sport which is not sponsored by a firm interested in the spectators.

o The sponsors use sport as a

way of persuading consumers who are gradually more heterogeneous. o Sport provides the businessman with a profitable alternative to carry out

advertising campaigns with a multitarget profile.o It´s possible to choose among sports broadcast in television or in live.

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Football is a mass sport, it causes fights among friends, headaches, it´s the conversation topic in lunches but also it handles a lot of money in our country thanks to advertising.

From the football shirt to the stadium hoardings, the smartvision system or LEDs screens, everything is surrounded by advertising. Most times firms resort to these strategies starred by celebrities: Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafa Nadal….

11. FREE TIME AND SPORT

Sports are the healthiest option for the human body, to practice them we should supplement them with another factor, our free time. We must enjoy both. Free time means leisure and we have to choose what to do: rest, watch TV, do sport…Sports, if we want to, can take part of our leisure time. Many people think that the best way of spending our free time is doing any kind of intellectual or physical activity, but others are sure that this time should be spent in resting and getting our strength back for next day.The most advisable activity to clear our head is practicing a sport. Physical activities are essential to any body but especially to those people who have jobs with little motor activity. In our free time we must make our body work after the inactivity period.

12. PROFESSIONALIM AND SPORT

The sport spectacle entails the professionalization of the sportsman. He becomes a star, a worker on many occasions, a luxury worker. Clubs turn into firms and even the professional Leagues become super firms. For example, the NBA comes in 400 million€ every year, it also has 20 important sponsors.

In Spain the professional sport is very developed in relation to the whole of the sport system. The professionalization reaches football and basketball but also other sports such as handball, volleyball…On the other hand, in Spain we like organizing great championships and paying large amounts of money to sportsmen. For this reason, Spain on many occasions is a goldmine for many of these sportsmen from other countries.

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13. SCHOOL AND SPORT

Within sport we have to consider 3 types of contents: concepts, procedures and attitudes. In general, students must acquire the most basic aspects of sport and physical education.In procedures we include the technical tactical elements of sports.Taken into account this, we have to bear in mind that due to the time we have (2 hours every week), it’s very difficult to make progress in our students in the motor aspect of a sport. For that reason, we should provide them with a basic multi sport ….with contextualized learning situations where they can practice several technical tactical elements.On the other hand, the introduction to a sport can’t be reduced only to motor aspects but we also should try to foster an education in values and an improvement of attitudes.Among these attitudes:

Respect to the classmates. Be a good winner and a good loser. Fair play. Cooperation with the classmates. Tolerance. Respect to the rules. Critical attitude towards some high competition behaviours.

We should try that students practice sport out of school and for that, they have to maintain a good relationship with it by means of positive experiences.

14. WOMAN AND SPORT

In the past, the professional activity of women was reduced to be a housewife, but day after day they are integrating with the labor market.Women have had restricted access to sport, for a woman is much more difficult to devote professionally to sport than for a man. However, there are increasingly more organizations advocate the gender equality in sport: Olympic Committees, Ministries of Education…There are other barriers that have to be overcome: little presence in the mass media, no economic incentives to invest in female sport, less spectacle of their competitions…In the last years, the women participation has grown, but this growth is not reflected in the management of sport. The IOC is fostering the participation of women in sport organizing conferences focused on women and sport, establishing new statutes (at least 20% of the participants in the Olympic Games must be women).The promotion of female sport is being fostered since childhood with the practice of any type of sports at schools where there is no distinction between boys and girls. Besides, the sport is being adopted as a healthy and socializing habit.

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The Woman Institute has seen in sport a supporting point in the development of woman, either as training or as help to solve different social problems (social isolation, domestic violence, development for physically and mentally handicapped women…)Obviously, there is much work to do before female and male sport are comparable but things are changing.

15. SPECTACLE AND SPORT

The appearance of sport as a mass spectacle makes the person a passive subject (spectator) instead of an active one (sportsman). Sport becomes an entertainment.With the arrival of television, sport has become a huge business of thousands of millions of euros.

The sport spectacle stimulates the passivity in spectators who

spend long hours sitting watching a sport. This makes sedentary people.The passive spectator identifies himself with the sportsman who admires.The sport spectacle causes the threat of making our conscience sleepy. There is no time to participate actively in the building of the human condition because in sport the spectacle becomes an addictive drug.

16. JUNIOR SPORT AND EARLY PROFESSIONALISMThe problems we have to overcome to become a professional sportsman are gradually

greater:

Not always sport skills last throughout the childhood and adolescence.

The difference between the recreational model of sport and the professional one.

Professional sport involves a greater amount of time devoted to train, economic income, regularity in competitions…

It´s said that adolescence is the vital stage when more withdrawals in sport take place. It

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´s a key moment not only in the consolidation of personality but also in the choice of a vocation….

If he continues with his sports stage, he has to leave aside situations of his age and he has to defend values such as perseverance, sacrifice or discipline but on many occasions teenagers foster values as the incoherence, emotional frailty, doubts…

Another aspect is the economic availability; in general, football players come from humble families. Manu times they lack economic possibilities and even to travel to train cause within a short term their withdrawal.

17. PARENTS AND SPORTFathers play an important role in the sport training of their children, also the Physical education teacher or the coach. But what types of fathers can we find:

The fanatical father

He searches for his son’s victory above all. He doesn’t respect the decisions made by referees, he uses swearwords and he is always complaining.

The sporting frustrated father

He tried to excel in a sport but he didn´t achieve the goal. They use to choose this activity for their children without taking into account the child´s likes something that causes even his rejection.

The trainer father

He wants his son to be a top sportsman, training is the most important activity leaving aside the pleasure of playing. This kind of training causes psychological and physiological risks in children.

The manager father

This father offers the sport ´rights´ to a club of sport body.

The indifferent father

The father doesn´t worry about the sport practice of his children. He just enrolls them on a sports club or they buy them a bike or a pair of skates. His aim is to get more free time for himself.

The over-protective father

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He forbids his children the practice of any kind of physical activity because they can be hurt. They prefer that his children play computer games at home rather than play in a court. In a sense, the children can´t play or establish social relationships in group.

The sports father

He has in mind the sports interests of his children. He knows the difference between dangerousness and over protection. He practices whenever he can, a physical activity with them. He respects referees and trainers´ decisions. He makes his child see that the final goal of sport is its socializing aspect. He teaches how to win in a humble way. He teaches how to lose. He fosters the non violence.

18. CONCLUSIONS

As you can see, the facts of sport and the physical activity is more complex than we can see in the Physical Education class. It´s a social phenomenon difficult to understand and that moves a lot of money every year.

It has become one of the most important businesses nowadays.

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