Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Week 10: Sport, Religion and Professionalization


The definition of religion is difficult to define as many people have different perspectives and idea of what religion is, what constitutes a religion and what should or can be considered a religion. My definition of religion is a shared set of beliefs, values and ideas to a higher power. As a result, sport encompasses this definition, both in the engagement of professionalized sports, and the actual participation in sports. Sports allow for one to share a sense of community with other individuals who share the same beliefs, values and ideas. In addition, in sports there is an altruism component of giving back to the community and sports is used as a platform to raise awareness about other issues.
However, for professional sport players I think one’s sport becomes less spiritual and religious as one may forget about the love of the sport and lose the essence of why one loved it. Instead, the sport becomes about money, fame and celebrity of participating in the sport and becomes redundant due to being ones occupation. For example, in the NBA (National Basketball Association), NHL (National Hockey League) and NFL (National Football League), there was a season of lockouts because of a dispute about the division of revenue amongst the players and owners. As a result, the love and connection to the sport was lost and it became about the business aspect of the sport instead of the emotional.

No comments:

Post a Comment