Sport doesn’t need taxpayer help
By Katie Llanos-Small, August 24th, 2008
Team New Zealand flittered $130 million on its failure in Valencia last year, and more than a quarter of that came from the Government.
In John Key-ese, that’s equal to about 3,217,350 blocks of cheese the government could have given to hard-working families. Instead they preferred to blow the $33.75 million on a rich white man’s sport.
Granted, it is a national fixation, this sport thing. New Zealanders are sadly obsessed with whether “our” boat will sail a little bit faster, “our” team will tackle slightly more adeptly, or “our” rowers will paddle in a slightly more manic frenzy than their opponents.
Right now, we’re consoling ourselves with the fact that we’ve got the second best Beijing medal tally on a per-capita basis. Soon, predictably, will come the fixation with “our” poor overall Olympic performance.
This is not a sleight on the Olympic competitors themselves. (Ever since I read Tessa Duder’s Alex in Rome as an eight year old, I’ve thought it would be a hell of a lot of fun to compete in the Olympics). The best of luck to them.
But we should remember that sport is business; just another money maker for the entertainment machine. And a pretty big business, at that. Consider the inflated price tags that come with TV rights, sponsorship, advertising and player salaries.
The taxpayer shouldn’t be giving these money-making machines more moolah to play with their overpriced toys, even if the Government can commission pretty studies to make it look worthwhile.
Other posts by Katie Llanos-Small
August 26th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I disagree - sport is not only business. Yes, sport that we see on TV or in the news is little more than a money making mechanism by the time we are exposed to it. But there are huge benefits from sport to many people that have absolutely no profit related to it.
For me sport is a fantastically productive way to gain emotional, health and social benefits, with better return than many other common emotional, health, and social providing mechanisms.
Exposure of sports, and showing that we as a country can be competitive on an international level has the effect of encouraging people to partake of said sport. While I have zero personal interest in our ‘national’ sports, I can see how they gain their social acceptance from how competitive we see ourselves to be internationally. Unfortunately, professional (business) orientated sports don’t have the same motivators as amateur sports.
I think that the greatest benefit to our nation that can come from sport would come from a focus on the amateur rather than the professional, or ‘business’ aspect. Where I would agree with you Katie is that NZ as a nation should not be contributing to the professional aspect of a sport, but to the amateur aspect.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Tim,
Amateur sport is definitely to be encouraged, but throwing massive amounts of money at professional sport doesn’t necessarily serve that purpose. The most popular physical activities amongst young people are swimming and soccer, and amongst adults swimming and golf - not areas where the nation excels on the global stage.
Cheers,
Katie