The notion of sports as a public good

Comments

• Klinotaxis

  2017-03-01 01:06:42

  kill living beings
  

  who thinks they're a public service? i know how much the food costs at the stadium
  
• Anonus

  2017-03-01 01:07:03

  I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat

  It's one of those unspoken but palpable notions
• Sredni Vashtar

  2017-03-01 01:08:17

  “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”

  Is it?
  
  I mean besides tourist money and the like.
  
• Klinotaxis

  2017-03-01 01:09:59

  kill living beings
  

  i mean they're definitely big in society. you got presidents throwing the first pitch and all. but it's super commercial. people even know the super bowl for its commercials
  
• Anonus

  2017-03-01 01:12:04

  I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat

  I'm talking about the notion of collegiate/professional sports as a source of school/civic pride, and how professional sports franchise owners will often threaten relocation if they don't get shiny new publicly-funded facilities
• Tachyon

  2017-03-01 01:19:38

  ^{i will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch}
  

  i guess it encourages kids to exercise?  that's healthy
  
  mostly i think it's just economic, games attract tourists
  
• Tachyon

  2017-03-01 01:20:59

  ^{i will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch}
  

  also i guess there's just the culture of cheering on your country's athletes, so it gets wrapped up in patriotism but i don't think there's any reason for that besides convention
  
• Obā-san

  2017-03-01 01:24:27

  
  

  the general argument made is that sports draw in revenue both directly and through bringing customers into the area
• Obā-san

  2017-03-01 01:24:54

  
  

  not to say that I'm sold on the notion that this is the most efficient way to do this
• Calica

  2017-03-01 01:29:00

  Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.

  it's a bad keynesian multiplier argument, yeah
• Tachyon

  2017-03-01 01:39:07

  ^{i will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch}
  

  Calica said:

  it's a bad keynesian multiplier argument, yeah

  
  please can you elaborate on this?
• Calica

  2017-03-01 02:27:50

  Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.

  roughly, the idea behind all stimulus is that when you give a bunch of people a bunch of money (more money than previously) for whatever reason, they'll spend it and give more money to other people, who will etc etc etc my econ 101 class spent several weeks explaining geometric series about this.  in the case of stadia there's also the part about bringing a bunch of people to your place but that's more zero-sum.

  
  

  the problem being that in the case of stadia, the actual numbers suck.
• Bee

  2017-03-01 02:33:57 edited 2017-03-01 02:37:21

  Even the NCAA admits athletics programs are usually a massive drain on education and subsidies.

  
  

  That's not to say schools seeing a net monetary loss on any given program is bad -- a lot of expenses are worth it -- but the specific bloated shitshow that school sports have become kiiiinda is.  I'd be quite willing to call it an outright public bad, because that crap vacuums up funding.