Sociology Of Sports Sociology Essay

In my opinion, the study of sociology of sports is important. Sports play a role in almost everyone’s life, whether they notice or not. At some point in our life we are all either athletes, past or present, fans who watch every game or just tune into the big games, or we are so opposed to a sport that we make an effort to avoid it. Professional athletes are commonly seen as role models, good or bad, and have a huge effect upon the generations that looks up to them. Sports have the ability to shape a person’s life and bring change to communities, and if other social phenomenon such as politics, immigration, and disasters are acceptable subfields of sociology to fund and study, then I certainly think the sociology of sports is a justifiable

The Olympic Games bring worldwide attention to the nation and city hosting the games, while being a major opportunity for revenue, these events come at a hefty cost to the host nation. The Olympic Games offer a host of social aspects to be discussed. The International Olympic Committee, or IOC, cracked down on gender discrimination for the London games in 2012, which marked the first time all countries competing had at least one woman (Rosewater, 2012). The IOC has been breaking gender and racial ideologies to give everyone a fair chance to compete. This problem was solved by threatening to ban countries that would not allow women to compete. Rio de Janeiro just hosted the most recent Olympic Games which came to a close last week. The Rio games struggled financially due to Brazil’s political and economic woes, but despite the finances, the games gave everyone something to talk about. The Rio games also exhibited ablest ideologies when funds allocated to the Paralympic Games were taken to fund the regular Olympic Games, leaving countries scrambling to find ways to get their athletes to Rio (Associated Press, 2016). This raises the question of why were the able-bodied athletes more deserving of these funds than the disabled athletes. The problem arises because of our current mentality and how we view disabled people in general. We tend to view them as lesser than us simply because they are