SPORTS

Professional sports are those in which the participants receive payment for playing, as opposed to amateur athletes. As everything in this world, treating sports as an occupation also has its advantages and disadvantages.

The main good point of taking part in sports professionaly is money. In some disciplins -like football, tennis or box - amounts of incomes are extremaly enormous. This motivates sportsmen to improve their qualifications and spur amateurs to start treating sport as a future job. Money coming from advertising in mass media and sponsoring helps to invent, produce and buy better equipement. Furthermore it gives the possibility to develop scientifical knowledge about sport disciplines. But, on the other hand, commercialisation has often negative influence on athletics. Many organisations and fans see it as an attack on the central ethos of sport. They claim that competitions should be performed for their own sake and for pure enjoyment, rather than as a means of making money. Actually, in great part they are right, because often fair and square competition looses its importance in confrontation with buisness and cash. That can be observed for instance in selling matches or box fights, or when footballers are not playing in national teams, not to loose money from the club.

Apearance of sport in mass media (for example TV transmissions), caused by a great deal of material profits standing after it, help to promote phisical activity and introduce diferent sport disciplines to larger audiences. However, the increase of professionalism, as well as attempts to resist its spread, have caused major problems for some sports. Few of them, even very interesting (ex. English cricket), loose popularity due to their not commercial status.

Another advantage of being professional sportsman is fame. Competitors often attain superstar, celebrity status. Sportspeople are well-known all over the world and they also glorify their country and nation. But fame does not always have positive consequences. It affects strongly persons privacy and is sometimes very burdensome. A lot of sportspeople makes sport their primary career. Lost in rat race, sportsmen often think of nothing but training and tournaments. They happen to omit family or education because of common trips and general life- style. For then, as the sport career is over (often in a relatively young age), they notice that they are lonely and without a job and cannot adapt to normal life. Moreover, when organism is 'congested' by an overmuch effort, joints and muscles get deformated. It can be seen especialy in old age, as well as all the injuries repercusions.

Anyhow, sportspeople can feel pride of achievements. Winning makes them think that they leave some memory about themselves for other generations. It gives satisfaction and self confidence. On the contrary, although many people spend their entire life training, just few of them has got best results and become really famous and rich. Due to the high pressure in the sport community some of the inferior sportsmen try to get better results using neither legal nor healthy methods like sterids or corruption. In addition the other ones suffer from psychical injuries caused by too hard competition, stress and lack of ability to satisfy sick ambitions.

In conclusion, professional sporting has its pluses and minuses, so it's impossible to formulate an unequivocal judgement about it. Therefore, I can only express my subjective opinion on a given subject. Namely: I am not iterested in treating taking part in any sport as a way to earn a living. Thus, as I'm not personally engaged, I have nothing against professional sports. And, what's more, I even like to watch them sometimes on television.