A Result of the Commercialization of Sports Hurt the Sentiment of the Game and Sport Lovers - Research Paper Example

 Introduction It has been since the very ancient age when sport was in its years of formation that sports showed signs of having commercial components in the very process of its operation. Even if we go down to the early ages, for instance to 590 BC, we find enough of evidence that the athletes used to get financial rewards had they achieved a victory in the Olympic Games (Harris, 1964). However, if things are viewed critically and analytically it will appear that the influence of commercialization, rather, elements of commercialization on sports had not been so much massive that the term commercialization of sports appeared to be much relevant and contemporary. In its formative years people could hardly think of taking sports as a means to earn their livelihood. Neither did they prepare themselves with the aim that they would become sportsmen so that they can fend for themselves and for their families. Rather it can be said that sports was one of the best and most important one among the elements of public and social entertainment. When it comes to the matter of the beginning of commercialization of sports, there are certain things that should be taken under consideration. Globalization of sports is one of the most important factors that have contributed profusely to the commercialization of sports. Even if we do not take into account the rapidity of the globalization of sports in the modern times, and take into account the slow process of the spread of the popularity of the games and sports in the past, we can well find out that the ways in which people enjoy themselves in the process of enjoying the games and sports activities at different level, and the ways in which their enjoyments have been exploited, the seeds of commercialization of sports become very much prominent. (Horne, Whannel and Tomlinson, 1999, p.22) Such enjoyment of the sports by the people and the exploitations of the enjoyments have really become considerably important for the history of society, irrespective of its particularity about its location. History of Commercialization of sport A considerable number of instructional treaties have been found to have been published in the sixteenth century, which in due course followed into a long tradition of material that concerned the courtly etiquette. It is true that most of these instructional treaties used to address the upper class people or the ‘gentlemen’ exclusively. Again it has also to be admitted that these treaties can be viewed as the “precursors of present day enquiries into the social science of sport, recreation and leisure” (Wigglesworth, 1989, p.1). However, it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century that materials on the games of sports played in the newly popular public schools started appearing. It was since this time that the events in the world of games and sports came to be a part of the academic discussion. Growth of the activities of sports commenced in a systematic manner only in the nineteenth century. It has to be noted that though the practice of games and sports during this time had been brought about by a number of factors including the social, political and also economic ones, the cultural factors contributing to the growth of the popularity of games and sports were still quite rare, if not totally missing. It was only in the last decades of the nineteenth century and especially in the twentieth century that sports started being commercialized in a way that was quite obvious and prominent. However, though the growth of the rate of commercialization of sports was quite notable, it was not to important an affair that deserved important discussion. It is true that a number of sportsmen in almost all parts of the world made much money by dint of their performance in their specific fields of specialization. The number of examples of people taking up sports or athletics as profession had increased to a remarkable extent. But this tendency of taking up sports as a career was not so prominent as it is in the modern times. The last two or three decades have witnessed such type of growth in the process of the commercialization of games and sports that has never been found in the previous time. The improvement in the fields of games and sports in the last three decades is really huge. One most interesting thing about the different games and sports in the last three decades in all over the world is that they are no more played or run by the amateurs as they used to be in the past. Instead, they started being played mostly by professionals and run by organizations that soon turned to be huge moneymaking industries (Slack, 1997). Sport today is, there should be no denial to this fact, a big business. What is even more important is that fact that big businesses have get themselves involved with the sports sector remarkable in the past two or three decades (Slack, 1997). Let us have some examples. Athletics and almost all the other sports have become marketable commodity today. There is, now, nothing unusual to the fact that different sports teams are traded on the stock market. The most important factor that needs special mention is that sponsorship rights at the major sports events can cost an immensely huge amount of money. The network television stations pay a huge amount of money so that they are permitted to broadcast the sports events. There is also no scope for denying the fact that merchandising as well as licensing of the sports goods happens to be one of the major and most lucrative multinational businesses in the world. An introspective study of the entire affair, as it appears in the present times, it would not be quite tough that sports has not only become a business that made to adapt to the position of becoming market oriented for entertaining as well as exploiting the consumers at the same time, but also an instrument that makes use of the sports management teams that improve strategies for exploiting sport that has already become a growing industry (Churchill, 2008). Let it be explained. The athletes as well as the sportsmen in the present times get paid to train. On the other hand, the components of the sports management teams, such as the managers or the directors are viewed as instruments for running the sports in an organized way. The dissemination that sports, especially sports professionalism take into account has resulted in a new era of strategies being heralded. These strategies are, now, made to serve the purpose of exploiting the customer to the largest possible extent and make the maximum profit. An athlete or a sportsperson in the modern times can earn more if he or she can make strategic use of the sponsorship and contribute an addition to the basic wage. Let us now analyze the different factors that have contributed to the commercialization of sports that has led sports to emerge as one of the biggest multinational businesses in the world. It has already been stated that sports and professionalism were not associated with each other till the 19th century. Even though professional sport began to exist, it started facing problems and hindrances mainly because of the lack of proper organization. What the concept of organization as related to the world of sports in its being commercialized takes into account are mass production, rapid transportation, technology being improved and, most importantly, industrialization (Churchill, 2008). The means that the professional sports clubs used to resort to in order to organize their events was to involve a large number of people who would have time to devote for watching the sports events and have money to afford to do so. What is even more important is that the existence of a number of such professional sports clubs was quite necessary so that they could generate competitions among each other. Means of public communication was quite mandatory to serve this purpose. In the initial stage the newspapers had played an immensely important role to serve this purpose. In the later stage radio and television came to be of a greater help. The advent of the internet and its growing accessibility to the common people has taken the entire affair to a new dimension. Role of the governments and academic factors in Commercialization of sport Considering the position that commercialization of sports has reached at present, there is no scope to deny the fact that such growth of sports commercialization would not have been quite possible had there been no contribution on part of the governments. While sports has been in its process of becoming one of the major industries, the governments also have been found to be implementing various commercialization strategies on sports so that they can capitalize on the sports industry’s immense potential to grow. In the last three decades the governments in most of the countries, especially those that are renowned for their expertise and mastery in various fields of athletic and sports activities, have made huge investments in both national as well as grass-root level in order to encourage the increase of participation and ensure a vast expanse of sports as a professional sector. So far as the role of governments in commercializing sports is concerned, it must be admitted that they have well recognized the prospective profit that they can make by exploiting the present trends in the different fields of sport. One of the means to ensure the expected profit is to make use of the various education programs and the academic courses. The emergence as well as the rapid growth of the academic interest in the business and management of sports has concerned different issues related to the effectiveness and efficiency of the managerial practices relating to the world of sports. The studies in such fields tend to discuss the necessity of improving the managerial practice and also the functioning processes of the organizations. Chelladurai and Madella (2006) studies that degree programs in sports management are offered in more than two hundred universities in North America alone. It has also been revealed that the sports manages has come to be one of the fastest growing areas in the academic field (Chelladurai and Madella, 2006). The number of such universities in all around the world is not at all ignorable. Rather, the statistics can reveal such a large number of such institutions that they it can amaze any person. The huge number of such universities and institutions in almost all parts of the world testify to the fact that the students of the present generations are finding immense interest in the subjects related to the sports management. In order to gain such highly recognized degrees the students pay for the courses that they pursue. The main drive that works behind their spending money and pursuing the different sports managerial courses is that they are sure to become some kind of sports professional or the other. However, whatever kind of professional they may become; there remains little doubt that they would hold a post that would provide them with lucrative compensation and highly honorable status in the society. Individuals pursuing the sports management courses would go into the professional areas of sport, where they can find themselves placed in any post, may be as a psychotherapist or even as a sports development officer. Whatever the gain the students or the individuals van achieve, there remains little doubt that the government receives a considerably high amount of revenue by making the universities and the institutions offer such highly recognized degrees. If things are viewed from this perspective, the different sports services and also the sports goods turn out to be a type of commodities that can be subjected to the market forces as the other commodities, goods or services are. The management of a sports organization, in the present times, is often considered to be of immense social value since it carries out the technical functions in order that the general interests of the sportspersons, employers, spectators and the sponsors are well taken care of. Again, the managers of the sports organizations see to the functionality as well as the rationality of the entire management system of the organization, and thereby, they also become quite important figures. If the points discussed above and the results are taken into account, it appears to be quite obvious that it is at the cost of the expenditure of people or the individuals in general that sport is commercialized. However, Trevor Slack observes that “such approaches do little to challenge the virtue of commercialization and the managerial actions that have portrayed this process as a socially desirable and unproblematic practice. Also they do little to demonstrate the negative side of this drive toward rationality, or present new and challenging ways of thinking about the business side of sport” (Slack, 1997). Managerial system of the sports organizations, marketing and sponsorship It has, by now, been already clear that sports being extremely organized in the last three decades, the importance of the managerial system of the sports organizations is immense. Again, it has also to be accepted that among the strategies that the management system of the sports organizations resort to, marketing is a very vital one since it is almost impossible to raise sufficient amount of funds if the marketing processes conducted by the sports organization is not effective and efficient. So far as the voluntary sports organizations are concerned, there are, primarily, two levels in which marketing as a managerial activity is conducted. The first level takes into account the marketing of a specific sport to the most potential participants. The young children who are tremendously interested in that particular field of sports are generally thought to be the most probable target since they can be easily tempted to take up the sport. The second level of marketing involves the marketing of the properties of the organization such as events that it holds, name or logo, or even the athletes or the sportspersons who happen to be the members of that particular sports organization. The marketing of the sportsperson playing for the sports organization is carried out by finding a lucrative and profitable corporate sponsorship. Corporate sponsorships in its involvement with the sports organizations are often thought to be quite constraining since they have frequently been found to have turned out to be very fickle as sources of funding. For instance the change in the position of the CEO in the sponsoring corporation or a change in the strategic direction of the sponsoring company may have such impacts that the funds may be withdrawn. Moreover, the involvement of the sponsoring corporations or companies seldom has long term stability. There is also another factor that needs to be discussed in this factor. The corporate sponsors that provide the sports organizations with due funds as decided in the contract between them, do have expectations of a significant degree of commitment and a considerably good performance form the sportspersons or the athletes who participate in the sports events that such corporations sponsor. In such cases the interest of the participating athlete or the sportsperson comes to be subordinate to the desire of the sponsoring corporation. At times the monitory amount that the athletes or the sportspersons are lured with for performing in the sports events that corporations sponsor, make the participants ignore their injuries if they have any. When it concerns the young athletes or the sportspersons, there have been numerous instances where they have put aside their studies in order to earn the lucrative amount of money that sponsoring corporations offer to them either for performing or just as appearance fees, in case the sportsperson is too popular. Such incidents also affect the mentality of the players to play for the country or the organizations. Rather, they appear to represent the corporation that provides money for them. B. Kidd observes that the expectations of the sponsoring corporations have “become so commanding that they, in effect, have blocked the expression of the older, humanistic amateur based aspirations of Olympism and other similar values” (Kidd, 1988, p.302). Role of the media in Commercialization of sports Let us now have an overview of hoe the media has contributed to the process of the commercialization of sports. There is little scope for refuting the fact that media is always endowed with a typical commercializing power that can serve a lot in helping the establishment as well as organizing of sports in any part of the world. An example can be cited here. It was only after the publication of the league table by the press that the CCC or the County Cricket Council came to be established. An organized competition in English Cricket was also started by the Marylebone Cricket Club in the year of 1894. What gain has the media achieved by contributing to the commercialization of sports? It would be really quite foolish an idea to think that the media is not facilitated by the popularity that the sport events have. It is since the early years of the nineteenth century that the media has been utilizing the immense popularity that certain sports events as well as a number of sports personalities carry with them. The field of sports and games is a constant source of news for the media ever since the two have been associated with each other. Modern media houses even go to the extent of investing on or, at times, owning not only players or athletes but also teams and even stadiums. The media has often been found to have targeted the most gifted sportspersons, and by dint of their inventing on them, they can make those players try the hardest in bettering their performances and also appearing in more and more sports events. In this respect the media come on the same platform as that of the sponsoring corporations. What is even extraordinary is that fact that the media and even the corporate sponsors, especially the private sponsors of the players or the athletes have control on their public appearances apart from the sports events. Why is it that media is thought to be the most important element in helping sports being commercialized? It needs a little bit of discussion. It is needless to mention that people in general are crazy about some game or the other. What they are even crazier about are the star sportsmen or athletes. It may be a cricketer or a soccer star or the tennis queen that some groups of people or the other are talking about. The most interesting thing is that the media plays a great role in creating and nurturing this craze among the fans of the sports teams, organizations or clubs. Even the popularity of certain clubs, especially the tension concerning the ever established rivalry between two particular sports teams or organizations are mostly created or, at least, much inspired by the media. The more people are interested the more they would subscribe the media products to keep themselves well informed of the every details of the player they are fan of or the club they support. The media also use the personal life of the players to increase the revenue that the sale of their products generates. It is in this process of the games and sports and the sportspersons and athletes being popularized by the media that commercialization of sports come to be commercialized much faster with a new dimension. The people from whom the media generates their revenue suffer the expenditure in such a way that they are hardly aware of the entire process. Publishing sensational news related to the sports events or the internal affairs of the popular sports organization or even to the personal affairs of the sportspersons is one of the most effective weapons that the media makes use of. Professionalization and Commercialization of sport Professionalization is one of the factors that contribute a lot to the commercialization of sports. The increase of professionalization in the last three decades is quite remarkable. One very unique thing about commercialization of sports and the professionalization in the field is tat they evidently appear to be interdependent. The extent to which sports have come tome commercialized, the aspirant sportspersons find a number of basis on which they can think of taking up sports as their profession. Again, with a huge number of athletes and players being interested in taking sports as their profession the world of sports becoming enriched since the chances of better performance in the field or on the track gets increased to a large extent, resulting in the increase of the popularity of the game. Involvement of the women in sports activities It becomes quite necessary as well as quite relevant to mention the involvement of the women in sports activities, serving the commercialization of sports in ways more than one. Most interestingly, it is in the past three decades the number of the woman participants in the field of games and sports have increased remarkably. It has not only added to the number of the individuals involved in the sports activities, but also played an important role in increasing the popularity of the games by making the target audience of the spectators interested more. The number of woman participants in the management of the sports organizations has also increased notably in the last two decades. Till the 1990s there was no woman who had been appointed in any post of the management body of any of the sports organization (Creedon, 1994). However, in the recent years women have been found to have held higher posts in both sports media and sports management, adding to the popularization and the commercialization of sports to a larger extent. Discussions It is true that the improvement of the commercialization of sports indicates, if things are viewed materialistically, at the fact that sports has been made a commodity that make the fans and the public in general part from their hard earned money. Now the point is to decide if this is negative or positive. When it becomes evident that people are spending more since games and sports and athletics have become commodities for sale, the commercialization of sports appears to have negative results. Especially, if the way that media uses the sensational news items for increasing the sale of their products, and thereby, adding to their revenue, it may seem to many that the media is badly exploiting the sentiment of the sports lovers. Moreover, when the government is found to have devised plans for facilitating the commercialization of sports and using it for adding to their wages by indirectly exploiting the money of the individuals who are tempted to pursue a sports management course for attaining a highly recognized degree, there remains little doubt that commercialization of sports in nothing but an instrument for the sports organizers, media houses and the governments to extract money from the citizens of any level. Yet, if one sticks to this point only, it would be too rigid an idea to cherish. Things can be viewed if some different perspectives, and in that case the commercialization of sports will appear to have such positive results that the negative aspects can be ignored, if not completely flouted. Let us come to these points one by one. It is true that the media is using the commercialization of sports for its own purpose. Is not there any gain for the consumers whom the media houses target? Are not they entertained by the way the news items are presented to them through different mediums? There are lots of other forms of entertainments that these people can resort to. And, in that case too, they have to spend money. Therefore, if they are interested in sports, and if they get entertained by the products or services offered by the media, there seems to be nothing severely harmful. It is true that money is being spent, but they are hardly being wasted since any form of entertainment costs. It really feels bad to think that the governments are facilitating the commercialization of sports, and also are making use of it by getting people tempted in some way or the other. Is it really true that the government is exploiting the individuals who get interested in achieving a highly recognized degree and get a lucrative post in the sports management body? The students interested in acquiring a highly recognized degree that would provide him or her with a job that will add to the societal status that he or she belongs to, will pursue some other courses if the sports business and management courses are not there. And it is not to be denied that pursuing those courses is not at all quite remarkably cheap. Moreover, the formation of the management body of the sports organization and the increase of the scope for studies to specialize in the related fields increase the chances of the individuals getting jobs of their choice and satisfaction. Conclusion The discussions so far had made it clear that the rate of commercialization of sports has got through a revolutionary increase. It is true that sports being turned into a commodity as a result of the commercialization of sports hurt the sentiment of the game and sport lovers. It also cannot be denied that the commercialization of sports is exploiting the people in some way or the other, especially to speak of the media. Again, it has also to be admitted that the exploitations are not at a level that can be stamped as harmful or dangerous or alarming. The way this ‘commodity’ is used, it is still not stripes of its power of entertaining people. Rather the entertainment processes have been modified. With the change of time, social values do change and has to change. Therefore, the commercialization of sport that adds to the employment scopes, and entertains the people in multiple ways cannot be considered to be pushing us away from the social values. References 1. Churchill, G. 2008, ‘The Influence of Commercialization on the professionalization of Sport’, Sociology, available at: http://s.scribd.com/doc/3927334/Commercialisation-in-Sport (accessed on February 23, 2009) 2. Chelladurai, P. and A. Madella, 2006, Human Resource Management in Olympic Sport Organization, Human Kinetics 3. Creedon, P. 1994, Women Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values, Sage Publications 4. Harris, H.A. 1964, Greek Athletes and Athletics, Westport 5. Horne, J., Whannel, G. and A. Tomlinson, 1999, Understanding Sport, Taylor & Francis 6. Kidd, B. (1988). The elite athlete. In J. Harvey & H. Cantelon (Eds.), Not just a game: Essays in Canadian sport sociology (pp. 287-306). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. 7. Slack, T. 1997, ‘Studying the Commercialization of Sport: The Need for Critical Analysis’, De Montfort, University, Bedford, UK, available at: http://physed.otago.ac.nz/sosol/v1i1/v1i1a6.htm (accessed on February 23, 2009) 8. Wigglesworth, N. 1989, The Evolution of English Sport, Routledge Read More