The Sports Industries

F. The Sports Industries

Sports in themselves can serve many beneficial, rational functions. They can encourage men (and women) to use their bodies in powerful, dynamic, vibrant ways. They can provide "safe" opportunities to challenge one's restimulation around abilities and perceived limitations, and to act on the basis of power.

They give us opportunities to see men being courageous and inspiring. They can be an attractive, safe channel for exercise and the development of skills, an environment for making new friends, and a way to express a sense of community and cooperation.

However, sports have been saddled by the oppressive society with an intense burden of "competition," which tends to put every male in the position of being a potential antagonist to every other male. This situation has been exposed as a training ground for preparing young males for their roles of killing or being killed as soldiers in war and preparing males to participate in the class society (in which they are expected to compete with each other for economic survival and advancement).

The sports industries are directly exploitative of, and damaging to, the men who participate in them. They actively exploit men of color (especially black and Latino men in the United States) as profit-making devices for professional team owners and sports-equipment manufacturers. In addition, they create and support undisguised models of greed. They prey upon and manipulate the economic desperation of young males in lower-income communities, encouraging an irrational consumerism based on manipulated "loyalties" and symbols. Sports are presented as "the way out" of poverty for many young males, ignoring the development of the complete person in deference to the athletic performance, taking the "best" and discarding the rest. Even the "chosen ones" are themselves discarded as soon as they no longer serve their function as audience-drawing athletes. The huge amount of money involved in major professional sports is used to justify men destroying their physical and emotional health.

In some countries the sports industries serve to perpetuate sectarianism and nationalism (Catholic versus Protestant, England versus Brazil, etc.), encouraging the use of sports as yet another arena for inter-group antagonisms to be acted out and maintained.

The sports industry also acts to drain off men's intelligence and to keep men muddled and confused, frustrated and passive. Men have a spontaneous desire for personal meaning, non-material-based success, and human satisfaction. Their efforts and strategies would certainly fuel social change of a profound character if encouraged and directed. Instead men's vigor and passion are drowned in pseudo-emotions and drained off in pseudo-emotional release, by being induced to identify with "our team," "our hero," and the violent expressions on behalf of "our" symbol against "their" symbol.

In addition to organized team activities, there are other "manly" recreational activities set up by the society to distract men from meaningful activity and distort men's relationships to each other and the
world. Among these are gambling and recreational hunting.

GOALS

We need to transform organized sports from a greed- and profit-based activity centered around the false goal of "winning" against another human being, into an activity based on cooperation, overall human unity, mutual respect, and fun.

STRATEGIES

a) Teach and organize around the notion of sports as a means for men to challenge each other to grow in skill, to deepen and strengthen relationships across "differences," to keep "play" in their lives, and to encourage the care and enjoyment of their bodies. Clarify sports as an excellent channel for enjoyment of supportive striving, inspiration, and the mutual achievement of excellence. Encourage and incorporate discharge as a natural component of any sports activity.

b) Intelligently revise competition in the direction of men's being of assistance to each other. Transform or eliminate all sports activities which involve men brutalizing each other or themselves. Expose the connection between the ruthless competitive mentality presently encouraged by the sports industries and the preparation of young males to kill or be killed in war.

(c) copyright 1999
Rational Island Publishers
Reprinted on this site with permission of the copyright owner.

Table of Contents