Issues in Sports - Essay Example

An issue in sports is performance-enhancing drugs,  related to medicine and sports. These drugs may be in many forms such as anabolic drugs or steroids, analgesics, diuretics, peptides, glycoprotein hormones, and analogs, as well as stimulants. The most commonly used performance-enhancing drugs are steroids which decrease the recovery time so that the athlete can train harder and for a longer duration. Steroids together with exercise, also “increase muscle bulk, strength and endurance” to optimize the athlete’s performance during training as well as competition (Beashel et al 141).

2. The issue of performance-enhancing drugs has been created in medicine and sport to ensure fair play. It is considered vital that athletes should compete on a level playing field, on equal grounds, with the same advantages and liabilities provided to players from opposing teams. To articulate and enforce the concept of fair play, there are anti-doping policies that prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The use of these drugs goes against the rules of sports and is viewed as cheating (Kayser et al 2).
3. Management of the issue of performance-enhancing drugs is through the “physician involved in the athlete’s health supervision” (Kayser et al 9). The established ethics of the medical profession dictates that the physician’s role should be one of preserving the athlete’s autonomy. This is required to be done by maintaining a balance between ensuring the treatment leads to the highest degree of present and future health, while concurrently permitting the athlete to maintain a preferred lifestyle. Principles of good practice for the role of sports physicians is an ethically rigorous need that has to be fulfilled. For this, employing independent physicians with a status comparable to other sports officials is possibly the best strategy for developing good practice.
4. The ways in which the above management action will affect the sport and society at large is an important aspect of the issue of performance-enhancing drugs. In contemporary times sports are increasingly significant for economic and political reasons. Elite sport is a self-sustaining enterprise, with extensive financial returns from “advertisement, media and audience revenues” (Kayser et al 9). Doping control cannot be considered as an internal matter of the sports community, since considerable public funds as well as governmental resources are provided for sports, for the purpose of health promotion and other sound reasons. Interventions to prevent doping by athletes promote fair play among sportspersons and ensure the good health of the athletes.

Further, the war against the use of performance-enhancing drugs, based on the ethical foundations of sports, is expensive. Thus, it is an issue of public debate. Similar to other ethical policies in society, there is a requirement for mechanisms ensuring accountability of policy to the broader public. Therefore, the initiatives taken against the use of performance-enhancing drugs are beneficial to society at large (Kayser et al 9).

1. One of the important issues related to sports is gambling or betting on the participants’ outcome in various sporting events. Sports betting is generally permitted in many countries, though it may be closely regulated as in the United States. Compared to other countries such as England, sports betting is limited in the U.S. An example of an issue in a sport associated with betting is a threat from both commercial and moral perspectives is: match-fixing (Andreff & Szymanski 40). This refers to the mutual and advanced decision taken by two opposing teams regarding the winning/ losing teams at the end of the competition. This is done to gain and share maximum profits from betters’ investments. In match-fixing, sports agents are frequently involved.
2. Betting on sports can have various harmful and beneficial effects. For example, the betting sector may be willing to pay more to a sports league if changes in game design are made to suit its interests. Secondly, gambling can pose a threat by creating incentives for corruption. Stadium and television demands will decline if sporting action on the field loses credibility. Sponsorship income will be threatened if companies are wary of being associated with cheating. One of the few beneficial effects of betting is that it stimulates interest in the sporting event and athletes’ performance while providing an additional source for generating revenue (Andreff & Szymanski 40).
3. The issue of betting on sports can be better addressed by the government, sports management, or society at large. By establishing suitable policies and laws against sports betting, its integrity needs to be maintained. Only then will unhealthy competition through the use of performance-enhancing drugs, match-fixing, and other adverse aspects be minimized. The public at large should combine efforts to end the practice. Economic analysis can offer solutions for minimizing incentives to cheat for betting gain. It can also be used for highlighting public policy on issues such as “whether corruption will be more severe if sports betting takes place as a legal or illegal activity” (Andreff & Szymanski 40). Not only sports but sports economists are benefited by the existence of wagering markets. A beneficial use of the betting market is that sports economists are able to predict the significance of specific members of the team. Thus, if odds can provide unbiased forecasts of sporting outcomes, they can also be used for generating market-based assessments regarding the importance of certain star players to their team, who are unavailable for particular games.