Terry Mitchell

Why I Hate the Business of Sports



Posted: Monday, April 20, 2009

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

While I've been a big sports fan since my elementary school days, I've never liked the business side of sports, especially of the professional variety. In fact, I believe it has ruined professional sports over the last 25 years. We've seen ticket prices and salaries grow out of control, far beyond the pace of inflation.

Some players seem more concerned about their financial statements than their performance – even when they are on the field or court. There is little team loyalty among players anymore. They seem nothing more than mercenaries whose talent is always on the auction block for the highest bidder.

Team owners range anywhere from the hubristic, who are always trying to buy championships and are never satisfied with anything less, to those who view team ownership merely as a hobby, caring only about the bottom line and nothing about the fans.

Today' sports leagues aren't satisfied with socking it only to those to attend their games. No, they are moving more and more games away from free, over-the-air TV (where sponsors pay outrageous prices for commercials) to expensive cable/satellite channels and packages that are not included in basic tiers. Additionally, the prices they charge for their licensed products are becoming such that average fans can't afford to display their team spirit as much as many of them would like.

And I get so tired of players, coaches, managers, and owners airing personal grievances that should be kept between the parties involved. Some have even been writing tell-all books as a method of publishing their dirty laundry for the consumption by the largest possible audience.

The business of professional sports might ultimately hasten the death of professional sports. That would be awfully unfortunate.
 
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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