Once the Cheering Stops: The Life of a Retired Pro-Athlete

The ESPN 30 For 30 videos are extremely interesting to me, and I have watched nearly all of them because of the way in which they present unique perspectives about famous events, people, and phenomenons in sport culture. The video "Broke" details the fiscal rise and fall of many prominent athletes, exposing the disconnect between what they expect financially and what actually occurs. The NFL seems to be the worst organization in regards to its players going broke only several years after they retire. This issue stems from a variety of different issues, including the lack of financial education received by the players, agent salary, the high pressure to live up to sports culture normatives/dreams, the players' respective backgrounds and friends, injuries incurred while playing, and so on. These many factors all act together in a ferocious manner and cause the mysterious phenomenon of multi-millionaire professional athletes going bankrupt decades before most people even retire.

I have been aware of this issue for quite some time, and have had discussions with friends in the past about how every athlete should be required to either hire a financial manager, be provided with one, or set aside a certain percentage of their pay for the long haul. The NFL is an extremely dangerous game that can leave its players physically, mentally, or emotionally crippled. All of this is gro

wing apparent over time as more and more players speak out, not to mention the near billion dollar lawsuit that the NFL paid out to former players. In the case of injury I think it should be required that the league itself pays for its injured players healthcare for life.
The other ways in which professional athletes go broke are harder to fix, especially the mentality that they will be rich one day as a pro athlete and will be able to help out all of their family and friends. Many athletes are told this since childhood and use it as motivation to succeed, and then believe that they owe all of their friends something in return. It is hard to criticize this generosity, especially given that fact that I have no idea what it's like to grow up in poverty, but the NFL and other organizations must teach the players to look out for themselves first. In addition to this, the NFL must take care of its players by not only just educating them, but by protecting them against agents and providing special assistance to players from low-income areas. The NCAA should also absolutely allow any athlete who left college early(without a degree) for the pros the opportunity to come back and finish their degree, honoring their initial scholarship. This would provide these athletes with more opportunities after they finish their usually short playing careers.

Sport, Politics and the Olympics

     Perhaps the most obvious example of politics and sports colliding can be traced back to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, deemed the "Nazi Games." Despite the obvious tensions, these games boasted the highest number of countries participating up until that point. In addition, they were the first Olympics to receive live coverage on television despite poor coverage. Despite the political differences, U.S. Olympic Committee head Avery Brundage supported Germany hosting the games and famously stated that "politics has no place in sport" (jewishvirtuallibrary.org). 

      As mentioned in Chapter 9, "Hitler turned the 1936 Games in Berlin into a propaganda show to legitimate Nazi Germany" (Eitzen & Sage 206). This violates every sensibility of the games, specifically concerning Eitzen & Sage's 5 political uses of sports. The most apparent of the 5 uses that Hitler's Germany violated is #1, as the Olympics were used as a launching point to legitimize Nazism and its hateful rhetoric. Although the Nazi party was influential in Germany, there were obviously many dissidents in the host country as well as worldwide. The Nazi party itself, thus can be considered a political dissident despite their obvious power. Germany attempted to disallow Jewish and Black people from participating, which pertains to #3 or denying certain nations the attempt to participate by the host body. Germany eventually caved under mounting global pressure, and allowed everyone to participate while removing derogatory signs. Numbers 4 & 5 on the list were also evident, as many nations considered boycotting the Games for political reasons (and some athletes did) as it was evident that the entire political organization of the 1936 Olympics was operated by the heavy handed Nazi regime. 

     Based on my research, it is hard for me to agree with the statement that "Sport is pure and devoid of political interference," despite the best intentions of the U.S. and other nations involved. The fact that the developing climate in Nazi Germany alienated Jewish and Black athletes had an effect on the sports themselves, as many athletes chose to boycott the games and the U.S. even pulled several of its Jewish sprinters in an attempt to save Hitler from embarrassment. Even today, the anti-gay rhetoric in Russia spearheaded by Vladimir Putin will likely effect the games despite the U.S.'s best efforts to minimize it. Organizing world-wide sporting events will ultimately always be influenced by the political climate of the time. I would argue that the effect of politics on the Olympics has been minimized to a certain extent over time, but it is impossible to completely eliminate political interference. 

     I have included this picture of former President George W. Bush as a visual example to help illustrate my point that sports and politics go hand in hand in the Olympics. It serves more of a symbolic purpose, as obviously Bush wasn't interfering in this picture but he is still a powerful political figure posing with Olympic athletes during the Beijing Games. This is fairly common in the Olympics, and shows the political interest in sports.  

George Bush at Beijing Olympics with U.S. Women's Volleyball players Treanor & Walsh.
Source: Telegraph.Co.UK