Sports Overruling Our Countries

In the blogging heads video they kept mentioning the fact that international sports shouldn't have any sort of political impact, but they fail to recognize that weather or not it should or shouldn't be happening, it is.

When most people think about the power a country gains based on sports they normally only consider the win or the lose as the important part, which is, but that's just the end of it. A huge honor is held by any country that gets to hold a major sporting event, especially world cups, which is where it all begins.

Getting far enough in a game to possibly hold the world cup in your country is an amazing feat itself. A country gains so much financial stability being able to hold such a large event. I mean, yes a great deal of time, money, and effort is put into every aspect of the event, but the amount of profit made in return is astronomical. It stimulates so much: hotel, food, transportation, clothing, and many other industries. So, without even winning a game, the country that hosts the game gains more stability, which these days could help with political power due to the instability of most countries struggle for money.

Now, the normal, stereotypical point made that international sports effect politics, but they shouldn't. You know, I agree that they shouldn't, but it's not up to an individual to make that decision, its up to the people in each country. I believe the reason that people put so much political pressure associated with sports on players is due to the recognition received for great wins or terrible losses. When players win an international game they are given a formal “thank you” if you will, from the leader of the country most of the time. This shows how much the leaders value the win to help them get ahead of other countries more than anything. If the players are to lose leaders, fans, friends, and family seem to shun them upon return. Many of the players end up retiring because of the embarrassment it cause themselves and their country.

Sports were never meant to cause this much turmoil though. What can we do to fix this growing problem? I feel like in the United States we don't suffer as much of the negative effects of sports competition due to the versatility of sport games. We do not put more pressure on one game versus another. We hold healthy competition between the states in all sports. And yes, a national win is rewarding for the citizens of our country, but not everyone follows the same events closely so its not as big of a deal.

In other countries there is normally one main sport that the country strives to be the best in. For example, many countries are very into soccer and put their live and souls into that game that “defines their country.” Allowing a sport to define your country can be very dangerous and upsetting if/when a loss occurs. Perhaps if pressure was taken off of the players to stand for the country and just play for fun, then these issues wouldn't occur. But the question is once again left in the nations hands, can people allow for this change?

Who really knows? It would take an extreme amount of effort on everyone's part and I think even possibly agreements between each countries leaders. So many wounds between countries would have to be resolved for this to happen. So, I suppose for now, international sports will remain a factor in politics, even though I believe that this existence shouldn't be.