How many Americans spend their Thanksgiving Day watching football? The answer is Millions. Football games have been a tradition of Thanksgiving throughout the years. While high-school students have their own games on that day, many others spend the day at their city’s stadium or in front of television screens, watching a game of NFL or colleges' league while their precious turkey meals are getting prepared at home. I used that example to highlight the importance of the sports in our lives. Even on national holidays like Thanksgiving, American families find sports a rich topic to watch, talk about and gather all together around for some time. “Sports are bigger than life," as an old proverb says (Bradlee). It is something that captures the attention of students at schools and colleges, families at homes, and, of course, it brings millions in audience to media, print and television. Therefore, sports have always been on focus for economic investments, either by public or private sectors. Over the time, athletes have become celebrities. You can find their posters hung on walls of millions of children’s rooms, their advertisements all around the television channels, and their pictures everywhere on billboards around the cities. In other words, they have become a sort of investment for their teams and sponsors as well as the mass media. That is why; many cities have decided to make use of that cash cow. They realized the popularity of those athletes is getting bigger, and they knew that any city that hosts a bunch of those celebrities would attract thousands of fans to watch, meet and cheer for them; something, which would turn a city into a tourist hub with thousands of people going in and out, generating millions in revenues for loc... ... middle of paper ... ... occurred somewhere else around the city. Furthermore, the number of generated new jobs is not big enough to support spending half a billion of the city’s funds in order to establish the new mega project. In addition, the demographic factors and the relation between the city and its surrounding counties will have a call on the feasibility of the project and the projected revenues that may come turning the city into a tourist and sports fans' hub. Perhaps the only proponents for such a project are the local coalition groups that may influence the city to fund the project in order for their businesses to revive and in order to make use of the public funds to create new business for themselves. In sum, publicly financing a new stadium is not recommended, and their effect on the local economy is poor enough not to boost local economies and local government revenues.
Siegfried, J., & Zimbalist, A. (2000). The economics of sports facilities and their communities. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, , 95-114.
The sports franchise gains by reducing the amount of capital that it has to spend in building the new stadium. They receive a new stadium with more seats and therefore they receive more profit. The local businesses gain financially as well with increased traffic of fans who come to the games. More fans means more meals, rooms, and souvenirs sold. In addition, as least at the beginning of the project more construction jobs are created in order to build the new stadium and possibly new jobs are created at the stadium itself. The elected officials is motivated by receiving a good track record of successful referendums, by trying to sell the stadium to the public as something they should really want in their communities. The people who are losing through the outcomes of the new stadiums are those who do not want one in their community. Perhaps people who do not like sports and will never attend a game or people who do not appreciate the added traffic on the roads on game days. These people are forced into paying for something they will never use as well as something they may despise and the added traffic they have to deal with is a nuisance to
American Football is a huge spectator sport where offensive and defensive players will use teamwork and perseverance to try and score more points than their opponent. Football is highly respected in America, where boys will try and pursue the dream of playing in the NFL (National Football Association) someday; but if you look at an average neighborhood, you will find that kids and adults of all ages love to go out and throw around the pigskin. (Lerner and Lerner 275). One thing Americans will take pride in is the college and NFL football teams they root for. People sit down with a beer and talk hours upon hours of football and two individuals can get in a heated discussion in the local sports store of whose sports team is better. Surprisingly enough, one will find the most passionate football players at the high school level. Most boys will start their football career as a young child in football programs such as Pop Warner to get a foothold and to get those involved in teamwork and friendships. These programs are usually the start to someone falling in love with the sport and making it a career choice eight years later. Football is one of America’s favorite sports. When fall season comes around, people across America are placing bets, finding out where that new sports bar is, and buying wide screen T.V’s to watch NFL on Sundays. After their team plays, they will go out and reminisce what happened that Sunday. While thousands of fans are still pumped from the NFL games they watched; small towns across America are getting ready to shut down their shops and restaurants to have the chance to make it to the local high schools football game. Ray Glier, a reporter for the New York Times, writes about football in the small town of Appala...
The precursor to this cost was a decade of skyrocketing salaries and the trend to build huge public ally financed megaplexis to house these professional athletes. The current response to this ostentatious decade is to put forth bills to prevent and/or set limits on public financed projects (Shafroth, 1996). The history of stadiums shows that it was always the norm of publicly building stadiums, however, with the cost of these projects astronomical the public is more skeptical (Rosentraub, 1991). The reason why state and local governments continue to want to finance these stadiums has been much debated. The main debate is one of economic impact. The following two excerpts illustrate this debate:
Abstract: The Stadium construction boom continues, and taxpayers are being forced to pay for new high tech stadiums they don’t want. These new stadiums create only part-time jobs. Stadiums bring money in exclusively for professional leagues and not the communities. The teams are turning public money into private profit. Professional leagues are becoming extremely wealthy at the taxpayers expense. The publicly-funded stadium obsession must be put to a stop before athletes and coaches become even greedier. New stadiums being built hurt public schools, and send a message to children that leisure activities are more important than basic education. Public money needs to be used to for more important services that would benefit the local economy. Stadiums do not help the economy or save struggling towns. There are no net benefits from single purpose stadiums, and therefore the stadium obsessions must be put to a stop.
The phenomenon was mainly caused by a dramatic investment increase or excessive social and psychological expected at the pre-Olympic stage. Normally, it will lead to a waste of infrastructure, facilities idle, the Olympic host city real estate prices fell, and the stock market fell, in part or in overall economic growth slow down after the Olympic Games. According Josh Sanbum’s report “For years, studies have shown that holding the Olympics often has severe negative economic effects on host cities, despite the temporary burst of tourism and global attention. The competition between cities often causes governments to go financially overboard merely to win an Olympic bid. Once construction gets under way, governments often fail to budget properly. And after the Games are over, many cities are left with infrastructure that suddenly has no real use.” (2012).That shows the Olympic Games often has serious negative economic effects on host
My natural highs are sports, music, and spending time with my family. I play soccer and run cross country and track, and these sports help push me to work harder, mentally and physically. All sports are difficult and very competitive, but when you practice and train with determination it will prepare you for your games or races. Sports also surrounds you with many supportive people. You will have coaches that will teach you ways on how to become a better athlete and teammates that will urge you with encouragement. My cross country coach told me that long distance running requires a lot of mental toughness, and when your body is giving up, your brain needs to remind yourself that you need to finish your race. This taught me to never finish half-way
For the past 12 years, I have had the privilege to cheer on many softball teams including my own and others from about my home town. Now that my time as a softball player is coming to an end due to age limits and injuries, I hope to be able to coach at the high school level, and possibly middle school as well. As I consider the game of softball to be a serious sport which requires personal commitment and dedication, my preference is to focus on developing my coaching skills in a high school setting. Softball programs are focused on producing highly skilled athletes and preparing them for the highest levels of competition. As a coach, I will strive to set the expectation levels around the key characteristics of being humble and trusting, while
With over two hundred countries participating, the Olympic Games is easily considered as one of the largest multisport event known to history. The Olympics are held at a different country, and even more rarely at the same city. For a country to be chosen to host the Olympics, the country’s National Olympic Committee (the country’s representatives for the Olympics) nominates a city (from the country they represent) that they think has potential in hosting the Olympics nine years prior to when they wish to host the Olympics. It is a two year process that consists of: Application Phase, Candidate Phase and the Election of the Host City. The country that wins the election is given seven years to prepare for the Olympics. (International Olympic Committee, n.d., p. xx-xx) The hosting country expends billions of dollars, usually money they don’t have, preparing for the Olympics. Then the question is raised 'why would a country go through so much trouble and spend an outrageous amount of money to host this event?' Throughout this discussion paper it will address all the pros and cons for a country to host the Olympics. It will also see if a smaller sports event can produce the same benefits the Olympic offers with less cost and risk.
Over the past twenty years, many things have changed and evolved to impact our economy. From cell phones to music to media, we are all constantly affected. The most influential aspect though, in my opinion, has been America’s biggest game, the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl by all means effects our economies in every way, shape, and form. The sport is one of the most complex social institutions in American Society. Sports effect major institutions of society, including: the mass media, politics, religion, education, and family. The Super Bowl gathers thousands of viewer’s attentions including those who do not usually watch the regular season games.
McFarlane & Freudmann (2013) state two types of infrastructure, underground infrastructure not visible to guest and visible infrastructure that visitors will see. Both are important to a mega event but both require different approaches. The legacy of an event is the key to infrastructure planning, if as mentioned if governments have clear goals for the long term, mega event can be the catalyst for bettering there nations. As stated Brazil and the city of Rio has struggled with poverty, crime and unemployment for a decade. The nation has used the Olympics’ as a way to improve infrastructure and force change. The critical success of a mega event depends on the host nation’s delivery these essential services. Muiller (2016) article “The Mega-Event Syndrome” has a more critical view on past mega events then McFarlane and Freudmann (2013). One such point Muiller (2013) makes is the Athens Olympics, in which Greece lost 3.4% of their gross domestic product the year flowing and left the nation with a legacy of unused facilities and environmental damage. Muiller (2013) outline symptoms to what he calls “Mega Event Syndrome” one of such is the uneven distribution of physical infrastructure and a misallocation of resource in local communities which influence the next point on sociocultural success factors.
While sports for the spectators are merely entertainment, the economics of the industry are what drives businesses to become involved. Sports have become more of a business entity rather than an entertainment industry due to the strong economic perception of the over all industry. There are several instances in which economics may contribute to the effect on the sports industry, such as: the success of a team, the price of a ticket, the amount of money an athlete will make, and the amount of profit a team will make. The success of an...
Every two years the Olympic Games take place on the world’s stage. People are mesmerized as they cheer on their home team. Whether it be the summer or winter games, for two weeks, biannually, people are inundated with the games. But, many may fail to realize the competition and game behind the Games. This is the never ceasing game of the bidding process and subsequent creation and construction of new Olympic venues as newly selected host cities prepare for their opportunity to host the Olympics. But this little known game has only a few select winners, and their prize is not a medal, rather it is huge financial gains. The losers are many, and they are the most vulnerable inhabitants of the city, the poor; they are not simply losing out on a medal, they are losing their homes.
When asked as a class, why do some sports attract more interest than others? I decided to take more of a gender approach to this question to try to find the answer to, why men’s sports are more popular than women’s sports. Men are built more ‘masculine’ which make them better overall athlete’s. Although, women’s bodies were built to be more flexible and elegant to leap across a dance floor or flip over a beam it is just not common that women could tackle one another for the purpose of a sport. This is shown in the common interest in that of women’s gymnastics or volleyball in the Olympics but more interest in men’s track or swimming. Why is it that audiences are more drawn to the super bowl than a cheerleading tournament? In the book, Sporting
Sport, according to the oxford dictionary, can be defined as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Sport may seem like just another, simple five letter word yet it has the power and aptitude to teach humanity such fundamental and intellectual life lessons. In my speech I will explore these vital lessons, such as failure, success, perseverance, teamwork, tolerance, responsibility and discipline by exhibiting how each lesson can be learnt and utilised.