Sports Connects Society and Culture

The history of sports goes back 3000 years. In the past sports also includes the practice for war and coaching as a hunter. The first Olympic games in 776 BC included events like chariot races, wrestling and javelin throwing. Greeks were the first one who introduced sports to the world. Sport gathers people from around the globe regardless of their colour, religion and cast. Sports itself can relate various aspects, say, politics, health, education, media, and the economy. With time, many advancements occurred in technology and well as sports.

This recreational activity has now been turned out to a business. The human perfecting activities is now such a field where one player plays according to the money.

Sociology of sports describes the relation between society and sports. Sociology of sports emerges from the 19th century. Every single thing demanded a change with time. Social and cultural assumptions were taken to make amendments to the sports. Such kind of theories analyzes the problems of the sports and the community around them.

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Four major theories can be used to study sports.

Some Sociological Paradigms

Structural-Functional Perspective

Health: Sport plays a role in maintaining one’s body, character, strong mind, and discipline in life. Every sport has its players which works together as a team to attain a goal. Thus players in the team are interconnected with each other. Sports provide a helping hand in sustaining a peaceful, active and robust society. Sports motivates you to live a healthy life and physically fit. It just not keep you fit but provides thousands of opportunities across the world.

Publicity: You will often find some colleges and universities which try to build a reputation. They advertise their institutions to raise money and value in the market from sponsors. Many students are recruited based on their athletic capabilities, this will not only diminish the requirements or standards but fleeced the athletes shortly.

Politics: Sports are not just games anymore. They have become a business now. A large business with larger profits and great influence. In the sports, circle celebrities are born which implies a great abundance of wealth and honour. sometimes Political leaders become the part-owner of the team to make their investments and thus spoils the fun of the game. Many athletes join political parties as well.Sports have also been used in promoting peace in every country.

Economy: Sports play an essential role in the economy of the country. The decrease in public subsidies for stadium leads to falling. Terrorist attacks on international players cause fear in them and thus they do not like to play in other countries. Money spent on buying the tickets, sports equipment etc leaves a great impact on the economy of the country. Corporations use to spend a huge amount of money on advertising and sponsorship in sports events such as FIFA, WORLD CUP and OLYMPICS.

Countries have suffered great loss in their economy when the WORLD CUP or OLYMPIC comes to a finish. Recently In Pakistan due to coronavirus, many international players left the Pakistan Super League(PSL) game. And not just the Pakistan suffered loss but as well as other countries like japan, china, Russia when they decoded Olympics are not going to hold this year due to corona outbreak.

Conflict perspective: In the past with a small human group there was not any existence of class but as the time passed many people separate them from the other people and thus classes began to formed in the society. This division showed its impact on sports too. Nowadays sports have become a competition which causes every individual to win for a certain goal. Players come against each other leaving violence and anxiety. Sportsman now plays for the money leaving a painful impact on the community.

The society has organized itself according to wealth. There are many such games which divides society into classes. Skiing, golf , sailing etc are not affordable for every person thus the upper-class people take full advantage of it. Here such kind of sports reflects the social standing.