I’ll make what I hope to be an uncontroversial statement: sports are massive force for good in society.
Not uncontroversial at all, I’m afraid. I’ll contest this strongly. If it’s team sports (e.g. soccer, American football, hockey, etc.) you have in mind, then I think they are detrimental for participants (due to the quite horrifying prevalence of traumatic brain injuries), and a massive waste of resources as spectator events (think of the astronomical salaries of professional athletes in these sports; the cost of stadiums—so often subsidized by taxpayer money; etc.). (There are other downsides to team sports, but these two quite suffice to oppose them.)
Didn’t mean to suggest that there were no downsides, which these definitely are. What is the counterfactual though? What are we realistically doing with all of this energy and money that has more positives and fewer negatives?
What is the counterfactual though? What are we realistically doing with all of this energy and money that has more positives and fewer negatives?
Almost anything else.
What we are doing with the energy: hiking, weight lifting, jogging, running, swimming, paintball, parkour, you name it, really just almost anything else.
What we are doing with the money: seriously? This is an actual question? Alright: building housing, improving public transport, doing more street cleaning, lowering taxes… There are so many better things we could do if we suddenly had a big pile of money available that I feel rather strange having to type all of this out.
Sorry, my comment was too vague and led to misunderstanding. What I mean is that even if we got rid of sports we are still going to have these same impulses and preferences—humans have tribalistic tendencies and like to cooperate on competitive physical activities (as we did when hunting/gathering for millions of years). We can quibble about what counts as a sport or athletic event - swimming and running are individual but we still do relays and compete against each other as schools/countries, I would say paintball is a sport, parkour is a grey area maybe—but there is nothing stopping these things from being more popular than they are right now, except for the fact that lots of people really like team sports and want to spend their money/time on them. It’s not like if we banned sports people would start using that money for infrastructure—aside from publicly funded stadiums, which I don’t see as a massive issue in the grand scheme of things, and ignores the fact that sports/stadiums do contribute jobs/money to the economy (see the Lebron effect) - most of the money that goes to sports is private.
Team sports are easily accessible and fun in a way that the other activities aren’t. Hiking, paintball, parkour, and all the other activities you mention are great but many people across the world can’t do these things because of where they live or financial reasons (why poor kids the world over play basketball/soccer and not any of the activities you mention). I think you are underestimating the amount of fun, happiness, physical/mental health that sports produce, not to mention the millions of jobs that are related to sports and the multitude of indirect positive economic/social effects.
millions of jobs that are related to sports and the multitude of indirect positive economic/social effects
You can say that about almost anything, including activities that are clearly detrimental on the margin. The military-industrial complex also produces millions of jobs. The corrections industry (i.e., prisons) employs hundreds of thousand of people. So does the advertising industry. These are not good arguments in favor of any of these sectors.
amount of physical/mental health that sports produce
You would need to specifically argue that the positive health effects of sports outweigh the negative health effects of sports-related injuries. This is by no means obvious. TBIs are horrific, and they’re not even the only category of life-destroying injury that one can easily receive while engaging in e.g. soccer.
there is nothing stopping these things [running, paintball, parkour, etc.] from being more popular than they are right now, except for the fact that lots of people really like team sports and want to spend their money/time on them
Well, except for the fact that they don’t make very good spectator sports, and therefore it’s unprofitable to invest gigantic sums of money in marketing them to the public, as is done with the more popular team sports. That is rather a confounder, I think.
publicly funded stadiums, which I don’t see as a massive issue in the grand scheme of things, and ignores the fact that sports/stadiums do contribute jobs/money to the economy (see the Lebron effect)
Indeed? But:
While proponents may talk about a multiplier effect, several theoretical and empirical studies of local economic impact of stadiums have shown that beliefs that stadiums have an impact that matches the amount of money that residents pay are largely unfounded. The average stadium generates $145 million per year, but none of this revenue goes back into the community. As such, the prevalent idea among team owners of “socializing the costs and privatizing the profits” is harmful and unfair to people who are forced to pay for a stadium that will not help them.
Further, a study by Noll and Zimbalist on newly constructed subsidized stadiums shows that they have a very limited and possibly even negative local impact. This is because of the opportunity cost that goes into allocating a significant amount of money into a service like a stadium, rather than infrastructure or other community projects that would benefit locals. Spending $700 million in areas like education or housing could have long-term positive consequences with the potential for long-term increases in the standard of living and economic growth.
(Note the suggestion that the tax money be instead used for, yes, infrastructure.)
But many economists maintain that states and cities that help pay for new stadiums and arenas rarely get their money’s worth. Teams tout new jobs created by the arenas but construction jobs are temporary, and ushers and concession workers work far less than 40 hours a week.
Furthermore, when local and state governments agree to pony up money for stadiums, taxpayers are on the hook for years — sometimes even after the team leaves town. St. Louis, for example, is still paying $6 million a year on debt from building the Edward Jones Dome, the old home of the Rams that opened in 1995, despite the team’s move to California. The debt is financed by a hotel tax and taxes on “game day” revenues like concessions and parking.
The new report links the subsidization of new stadiums to higher poverty rates and lower median incomes in their home cities, and it found that most NFL cities fared worse by both measures after paying for a new stadium.
There is, however, a “strong consensus” among economists that publicly financed stadiums are not worth their price, and the benefits stadiums bring do not align with their costs. Baade pointed to some of his earliest research, which found that cities that pursued what he called a “sports development strategy” indeed performed worse on a host of economic measures than similarly sized cities that did not build new stadiums to keep or lure pro teams.
Since 2000, 28 new major league1 stadiums have been built costing over $9 billion dollars. More than half, over $5 billion, of the costs of the new stadiums were funded using public dollars.2 In Utah, 4 stadiums have been built since 1991 costing $386 million in today’s dollars; $200 million (in today’s dollars) of that total was paid out of the coffers of Utah cities, Salt Lake County and the State of Utah.3 Across the nation, franchises have argued that building a new stadium will lead to economic development in the form of increased incomes, jobs and tax revenues. However, the preponderance of academic research has disputed these claims. This article looks at the benefits and costs of building a stadium and discusses why the economic development argument has failed to stand up to academic scrutiny. Stadium-seeking franchises are now shying away from making economic development claims in light of the strong research findings.
This is a clear way in which popular team sports are substantially detrimental to the quality of life of millions of people (a cost that, as usual, falls primarily on people of lower tiers of socioeconomic status). Eliminating this massive waste of taxpayer funds, and redirecting said funds to more productive purposes, would be a great boon to the economies of all the locales mentioned in these articles/studies, and would benefit many more people than the stadiums do.
Not uncontroversial at all, I’m afraid. I’ll contest this strongly. If it’s team sports (e.g. soccer, American football, hockey, etc.) you have in mind, then I think they are detrimental for participants (due to the quite horrifying prevalence of traumatic brain injuries), and a massive waste of resources as spectator events (think of the astronomical salaries of professional athletes in these sports; the cost of stadiums—so often subsidized by taxpayer money; etc.). (There are other downsides to team sports, but these two quite suffice to oppose them.)
Didn’t mean to suggest that there were no downsides, which these definitely are. What is the counterfactual though? What are we realistically doing with all of this energy and money that has more positives and fewer negatives?
Almost anything else.
What we are doing with the energy: hiking, weight lifting, jogging, running, swimming, paintball, parkour, you name it, really just almost anything else.
What we are doing with the money: seriously? This is an actual question? Alright: building housing, improving public transport, doing more street cleaning, lowering taxes… There are so many better things we could do if we suddenly had a big pile of money available that I feel rather strange having to type all of this out.
Sorry, my comment was too vague and led to misunderstanding. What I mean is that even if we got rid of sports we are still going to have these same impulses and preferences—humans have tribalistic tendencies and like to cooperate on competitive physical activities (as we did when hunting/gathering for millions of years). We can quibble about what counts as a sport or athletic event - swimming and running are individual but we still do relays and compete against each other as schools/countries, I would say paintball is a sport, parkour is a grey area maybe—but there is nothing stopping these things from being more popular than they are right now, except for the fact that lots of people really like team sports and want to spend their money/time on them. It’s not like if we banned sports people would start using that money for infrastructure—aside from publicly funded stadiums, which I don’t see as a massive issue in the grand scheme of things, and ignores the fact that sports/stadiums do contribute jobs/money to the economy (see the Lebron effect) - most of the money that goes to sports is private.
Team sports are easily accessible and fun in a way that the other activities aren’t. Hiking, paintball, parkour, and all the other activities you mention are great but many people across the world can’t do these things because of where they live or financial reasons (why poor kids the world over play basketball/soccer and not any of the activities you mention). I think you are underestimating the amount of fun, happiness, physical/mental health that sports produce, not to mention the millions of jobs that are related to sports and the multitude of indirect positive economic/social effects.
You can say that about almost anything, including activities that are clearly detrimental on the margin. The military-industrial complex also produces millions of jobs. The corrections industry (i.e., prisons) employs hundreds of thousand of people. So does the advertising industry. These are not good arguments in favor of any of these sectors.
You would need to specifically argue that the positive health effects of sports outweigh the negative health effects of sports-related injuries. This is by no means obvious. TBIs are horrific, and they’re not even the only category of life-destroying injury that one can easily receive while engaging in e.g. soccer.
Well, except for the fact that they don’t make very good spectator sports, and therefore it’s unprofitable to invest gigantic sums of money in marketing them to the public, as is done with the more popular team sports. That is rather a confounder, I think.
Indeed? But:
(from https://econreview.berkeley.edu/the-economics-of-sports-stadiums-does-public-financing-of-sports-stadiums-create-local-economic-growth-or-just-help-billionaires-improve-their-profit-margin/ )
(Note the suggestion that the tax money be instead used for, yes, infrastructure.)
(from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/public-money-used-build-sports-stadiums )
(from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taxpayers-nfl-stadiums_n_55f08313e4b002d5c077b8ac )
(from https://gardner.utah.edu/_documents/publications/finance-tax/sports-stadiums.pdf ) [PDF]
See also:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/
http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/content/professional-sports-stadiums-subsidized-public-funds-it-fair-taxpayers
https://www.sportscasting.com/taxpayer-money-billion-dollar-stadiums/
This is a clear way in which popular team sports are substantially detrimental to the quality of life of millions of people (a cost that, as usual, falls primarily on people of lower tiers of socioeconomic status). Eliminating this massive waste of taxpayer funds, and redirecting said funds to more productive purposes, would be a great boon to the economies of all the locales mentioned in these articles/studies, and would benefit many more people than the stadiums do.