Sports

Definitions
Sports: activities involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or
team competes against another or others
Singapore - includes:
Government (relevant ministries such as Ministry of
Culture, Community and Youth, Ministry of Education, Ministry of
Health, as well as governmental organisations/statutory boards such
as Health Promotion Board)
Sportsmen
Schools and teachers
Parents
Students
Sports - includes:
Competitive Sports
External: International/Regional (eg. YOG, Asean
Games, Olympics)
Internal: Inter-School/National (eg. National Inter-School
Track and Field Championship, S-League)
Recreational Sports
In schools (eg. PE lessons)
In the community/neighbourhood
Commercialisation of sports includes the following but not limited to:
Marketing (i.e. branding, television ads)
Sports betting
Basically monetising it for maximum economic returns
Moral: holding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct.
Performance enhancing drugs: substances used by
athletes to improve their bodily strength, stamina or endurance
Doping is the act of administering said drugs.
Duping is the act of deceiving someone.

Evidence
Benefits of Sports Commercialization
Worth a lot of money in the market
Extremely high salaries of top sportsmen: Gareth Bale,
300 000 pounds a week, bought for record 85.3 million pounds
EPL clubs transfer spending in the 2013 summer
transfer window was 450 million pounds (SGD$900m)
Top five leagues in Europe (EPL, La Liga, Serie A,
Bundesliga, Ligue 1) spent almost 2 billion euros on players alone in
the 2013 summer transfer window
The revenue generated via advertising, ticket sales etc is massive.
Many companies giving endorsements to sportsmen,
making sports events an advertisement for companies e.g. Coca-
Cola during 2010 World Cup
Tennis player Roger Federer's 10-year deal with Nike is
worth more than $10 million annually
 Manchester United signed a 7-year contract with
Chevrolet worth in the region of $200 million
Countries bidding to host the World Cup, Olympics and
other sporting events as an economic boost e.g. Tokyo 2020
In Formula One, talented drivers like Heikki Kovalainen
and Timo Glock are being dropped in favour of drivers who bring
sponsorship from large companies to the team, such as Van der
Garde and Max Chilton.
Otherwise unrelated businessmen invest in sports
because the see it is a profitable industry e.g. Roman Abramovichs
takeover of Chelsea
Commercialisation of sports has enabled many people to participate
in otherwise unaffordable recreational sports, secured jobs, enabled retired
athletes to supplement meagre post-career earnings. It has improved the
economic standards of many (ex-)sports stars as they are constantly paid
for their appearance at matches, and for advertising their brand even after
they have retired.
Ensures widespread popularity of certain sports, via media
broadcasting and advertisements. This has made it bigger, more covered,
more popular, allowing football to reach out to the masses.
Commercialisation to a certain extent might even cause matches to be of
a higher entertainment value.
Consumers respond well to the sponsorship so long as it is clear that
the sponsors are contributing to the organization of the Games or to the
support of the athletes training.
The commercialisation of sports because it alleviates the economic
burden of hosting sporting events. With more fundings available, the
organisers can focus on bringing out the best of the sporting excellence
and spirit. On the other hand, the negative influence of commercialisation
of sports can be diminished by ensuring that sponsors not only gain profits
for their companies, but also contribute to the organisation and finance of
the event.
Tourist industry: such events increase awareness of the host city and
region as a possible tourist destination, or when such events provide a
large number of jobs, helping to ease unemployment.
For example in Atlanta, an investment of $2 billion was
made in Olympic-related projects between the 1990 Olympic
announcement and spring 1996. As a result, over 580 000 new jobs
were created in the region between 1991 and 1 997.

Harmfulness of Sports Commercialization

Destroys what is left of the spirit of the sporting organisation and
even the sport itself, and thus causing sports, especially football, to be
equivalent to a game of chess dominated by the pawn-controlling major
companies
Investment of billions is at the cost of the clubs very
heritage, spirit, and name
 The financing of sport by government subsidies or by wealthy
private ownership/investment can cause amateur sport to suffer financial
neglect
Joe Johnson moved from a West Conference Finalist
team to one of the worst teams of NBA because they could offer a
much higher wage
In Formula One, talented drivers like Heikki Kovalainen
and Timo Glock are being dropped in favour of drivers who bring
sponsorship from large companies to the team, such as Van der
Garde and Max Chilton.
Tennis player Roger Federer's 10-year deal with Nike is
worth more than $10 million annually
Gives certain MNCs a disproportionate amount of economic power,
as compared to host nation
FIFA vs. Brazil

Sports In Singapore
Singapore is becoming an increasingly popular venue for
international friendly football matches to be held.
Hosted Juventus Football Club which played against a
Singapore Selection side in August 2014.
Will be hosting another high-profile football match
between Japan and Brazil in October 2014
"This game between Japan and Brazil will bring some of
the world's best players to Singapore and it fits exactly with the
Sports Hub's mission to bring world-class events to the world-class
venue."
Boost Singapores sporting reputation in the
international arena
Encourage Singaporeans to be more interested in
sports by staging top-class sports matches in Singapore.
New fee structure was benchmarked against other government-
subsidised efforts to ensure that the sports facilities remained affordable to
everyone
Increased affordability and accessibility of sporting
opportunities in Singapore.
Promotes locals to engage in sports with the incentive
of having to pay a much lower price (than foreigners) for booking of
sports facilities.
Singapore Sports Council has changed the fee
structuring of the booking of sports facilities, with locals and PRs
having to pay an estimated minimum amount of $5 less per
booking.
Singapore Sports Hub: Singaporeans and
permanent residents (PRs) will pay S8 an hour during peak
hours for the use of badminton facilities at the OCBC Arena,
compared to foreigners who will have to pay $13 an hour.
Singapores national movement for sport,
ActiveSG, provides $100 to all members for expenditure on
 sports-related activities, such as gyms and pools. This
initiative has contributed to an estimated increase of 20% in
gym and pool visitorship. Statistics also reveal that more
than 60 per cent of ActiveSG members, who receive 100
ActiveSG dollars upon signing up, have gone on to use their
credits.
Should you have approached any local sport enthusiast less than a
decade ago, they wouldnt have fathomed the possibility of Singapore
playing host to such world-class sporting events.
Change in mindset from a nation less focused on sports
to a nation looking to develop itself into a regional and international
sports hub.
Contributed by major sporting events in
the past 5 years.
Singapore Grand Prix
Singapore Open
Youth Olympic Games
Singapore has come to value sports and its positive
impacts. Evidenced by upcoming state-of-the-art infrastructure and
a g owing community of sports enthusiasts
Redefining Singapore as a global destination for sports
Under the new scheme, 10 to 20% of curriculum time will be set
aside for outdoor education in primary and secondary schools. Also, by
2017, all schools would have implemented the one-hour increase in PE
curriculum time to two hours per week.
Reason for revision: Allow students to understand more
about the environment as they learn to navigate, assess risks and
make decisions about their own safety, while enjoying the outdoors.
Provide skills for students to apply them in future.
Significance: This highlights the constant review of
current sports schemes so as to cater to the changing climate in
which children are growing up in.
Singapore Sport Council mentioned that one of the aims behind
their strategies is to get more people to win more medals. Now, Mr Heng
Swee Keat, Education Minister, announced that all secondary school
students will also have to take part in at least three intra-school
recreational sports competitions.
Mr Heng said that It is about the discipline and
courage that competition requires ... and working hard to overcome
them. It is also about the resilience and strength of character.
Significance: Shift from competitive nature of sports to
a value-added recreational experience, so as to enjoy the process of
participating in sport.

Sports as a source of tension

Sports can be used as an aggravating factor to spike tensions
between countries, especially if the countries had already been facing
political tension
 Conflict between Honduras and El Salvador in 1970.
Violence broke out over a World Cup qualifying match, taking place
during an already heated international dispute, and this was
considered to be one of the aggravating factors of the brief war, also
known as the 100 Hour War.
Tension in the non-political sense
At the December 2001 Champions League match
between AS Roma and Liverpool in which four Liverpool fans were
stabbed.

Doping: Yay or Nay?

Yay Nay

Allows athletes to push the boundaries
of their human body
Sports should be about the natural
talent and ability of the athlete,
instead of the technology and drugs
that the athlete takes, and the doctors
and nutritionists that the athletes
have. Drugs are against the spirit of
the sport as they taint its purity

Humans have been taking chemicals
that enhance their athletic
performance since time immemorial
Ancient Greeks ate
sesame seeds
Norse warriors ate
hallucinogenic mushrooms to
enhance performance
The show and the celebration of
human physical achievement is what
makes sport enjoyable to the public.
It becomes a
celebration not of human
physical achievement, but of
human intellectual
achievement, of who can design
the best drugs.

Disadvantages poor nations. Far from

creating a level playing field,
legalisation would tilt it in favour of
those athletes from wealthy countries
with advanced medical provision and
pharmaceutical industries. Athletes
from poorer nations would no longer
be able to compete on talent alone.

Harms the human body of the

athletes. What is the point of chasing
milliseconds of a world record, if there
is long term harm to the body?
.
Athletes Pay
Too Much Just Right/Too Little

One should be paid according to the What they do is entertaining to

jobs economic importance and the millions of people and millions of
value to society people are willing to spend money to
 Sports do not serve do what they do
a tangible positive impact on
society the way that other
professions such as teachers
and doctors do teachers and
doctors directly benefit people
Firemen,
policemen and soldiers are
risking their lives to fight for
their countries and yet they are
only paid meager salaries
Some sportsmen do not deserve their
rewards because they are do not have
sportsmanship and are not good role
models
Tiger Woods
infidelity
Lance Armstrongs
doping scandal
Not unethical
because society has, in effect,
caused the athletes high
incomes by paying to watch
them play
What 80 000
people in Camp Nou every week
to watch Barcelona play
matches
A few hundred
million people watched the
2002 World Cup Finals around
the world
(WEAK) There are only a few
superstar, highly-paid athletes,
compared to many more ordinary
teachers and policemen
It is not true that ALL sportsmen are
being paid too much. There are still
significant numbers of sportsmen who
are paid regular wages
According to
salary.com, average salary of
professional athlete ranges from
$18100 to $40000 a year
Few sportsmen actually make it to the
top, and how much the top sportsmen
deserve to be there, because they are
superior to so many others
Only 0.03% of all
college basketball players play
professionally in NBA
Tremendous effort put in by sportsmen
to achieve their current success
deserves these tremendous rewards
Risk their health
and lives to entertain people
and to push their physical
boundaries
High physical toll
during training, little or no break
during off season
 Constant fear of
being replaced
Many professional
athletes have health problems
once their career has ended

Ex-
professional basketball
player Bill Walton has had
numerous surgeries since
his career ended
Make huge
personal sacrifices for their
training
Sacrifice most of
their quality time with parents
and friends to train, even
training during the off season