Since Cesar the original stating stuff to the effect that developing gladiatorial events in the Colosseum is rather cool for keeping most people happily concentrated on stuff that doesn’t really matter, I think a certain usage of sport* by politicians and power people has a certain documented evidence.
(* Gladiatorial games are indeed neither sport nor do not really matter as they required death and injuries to be sustained. However, am using them as equivalents based on the times – eg, mass support for a sport – rather than drawing a moral equivalence. Mind, death in sporty activities was much more common in the, err, “good old” days..)
With the money involved in contemporary mass-sport. When people are prepared to spend $2billion on a basketball team (LA Clippers), or even pay a few million pounds for a player to kick a ball every so often in some rainy field that no one has heard of, I wonder whether we can not do slightly socially helpfully with the money*.
(* This does not mean am altering the idea of “numerical exchange – eg money – is an exchange media for poor people”. Am simply asking whether it might not be interesting, as long as money/numerical-exchange-media is used, why not use it playfully in sports that, afterall, supposed to be a play?)
Lets say that team X from err Brighton can pay players, buy new ones for X million pounds. (The Brighton Err Team of all sport) This money comes from – or based upon – the supporters’ outlay, TV revenues, advertising, etc.
Can we not say that instead of buying a player* and paying Z amount of pounds to be pocketed by certain individuals, the outlay involved could be used for social, cultural and charitable ranges that depend of the Err Brighton team’s supporters concerns?
(* Perhaps the amounts used for paying players to do their stuff could be similarly altered so that the vast majority of it goes to supporters’ concerns, and the actual player gets an average of how much supporters earn themselves?)
Perhaps this way, the sport might stop hiding its general political linkage of lead keeping and controlling a population? Also, it might be interesting with a process of sport success and gaining fan-base linked to attempts to benefit* the actual lives of people involved?
(* benefit might seem like a positive idea to begin with, and turn a bit sour later.. Perhaps “Alter” or “Change” should be used. It might be that a certain supporters groups would rather fancy donating the money to some racist bastards, or some capitalistic maniac, etc.. – However, the issue for me is that of having an open link between politics and sports and and evolutionary process as to how resources from that link can be employed by the people involved. This does not presume people do not make mistakes. The opposite. Perhaps it does presume that people can learn from mistakes..)