Sports in the USA

Krasnoyarsk State University

“Law Faculty”

Comparative Law Department

Report

Sports in the USA

Done by: Popov Dmitry

Law 17

Krasnoyarsk 2002

2

Introduction 3

A SPORTS-LOVING NATION 4

MEDIA COVERAGE 5

PRIVATE AND INSTITUTIONALIZED ACTIVITIES 5

AMERICAN SPORTS 6

VIOLENCE AND SPORTS 7

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS 7

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS 8

COLLEGE SPORTS 9

STUDENT ATHLETES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE 10

WINNING 10

Sports: Colleges and Universities 11

Kinds of sports: 13

BASEBALL 13

BASKETBALL 15

Sources 19

Introduction

Americans pay much attention to physical fitness. Many sports and sporting activities are popular in the USA. People participate in swimming, skating, squash and badminton, tennis, marathons, track-and-field, bowing, archery, skiing, skating etc. But the five major American sports are hockey, volleyball, baseball, football and basketball. Basketball and volleyball have been invented in America.
There is a large choice of sports in America. This can be explained by the size and variety of the country. Another reason of the popularity of sports is the people’s love of competition of any kind. One more reason is that Americans use sports activities for teaching socials values, such as teamwork and sportsmanship. All this explains why Americans have traditionally done well in many kinds of sports.
Every high school offers its students many sports, such as wrestling, rowing, tennis and golf. There are no separate “universities” for sports in the USA. Students of any higher educational establishment are trained in different kinds of sports. Many colleges and universities are famous for their sports clubs. There are sports facilities at every school.
Some americans like active games, and others like quite games. I think that quite games, as golf and crocket, intend for rich elite people. Most popular games in the USA is hockey, american football, baseball, basketball. Popular among americans are NHL games. In NHL games play our compatriots: Feudorov, Yashin, Bure brothers. They are ones of the best players in NHL.

American football is like a rugby with kicks. Every player can beat another one. I think american football is one of the rudest games in the world.

Baseball is played with wooden bat and hard ball. It's called "typical" american game.

Basketball is one of the most spectators game in the USA. It's my favourite game too.

Some unusual kinds of sports originated in America. They are windsurfing, skate-boarding and tradition. Triathlon includes swimming, bicycling racing and long-distances-running. Now these are becoming more and more popular in Europe.

Sports is a part of life of an average American.

A SPORTS-LOVING NATION

Whether they are fans or players, the millions of Americans who participate in sports are usually passionate about their games. There is more to being a baseball fan than buying season tickets to the home team's games. A real fan not only can recite each player's batting average, but also competes with other fans to prove who knows the answers to the most obscure and trivial questions about the sport. That's dedication. Dedication short of madness is also what inspired hundreds of thousands of football fans to fill Denver's stadium in dangerously freezing temperatures, not to watch an exciting game but just to demonstrate team support in a pre-Superbowl pep rally, days before the actual contest. And it is with passion that Americans pursue the latest fitness fad, convinced that staying fit requires much more than regular exercise and balanced meals. For anyone who claims a real desire to stay healthy, fitness has become a science of quantification, involving weighing, measuring, moni-toring, graph charting, and computer printouts". These are the tools for knowing all about pulse and heart rates, calorie intake, fat cell per muscle cell ratios, and almost anything else that shows the results of a" workout.

MEDIA COVERAGE

The immense popularity, of sports in America is indicated by the number of pages and headlines the average daily newspaper devotes to local and national sports. The emphasis on sports is evident in local evening news telecasts, too Every evening fox five to seven minutes of the half-hour local newe show, the station's sports analyst, whose territory is exclusively sports, reports on local, regional, and national sports events.

Television has made sports available to all. For those who cannot afford tickets or travel to expensive play-offs like baseball's World Series or football's final Superbowl, a flick of the television dial provides close-up viewing that beats front row seats. Although estimates vary, the major networks average about 500 hours each of sports programming a year. Recently, the emergence of several cable channels that specialize in sports gives viewers even more options. The foremost of these channels, ESPN, runs sports shows at least 22 hours a day and is now received by 37 million American homes, or nearly half of the 86 million homes with television sets.

PRIVATE AND INSTITUTIONALIZED ACTIVITIES

Opportunities for keeping fit and playing sports are numerous. Jogging is extremely popular, perhaps because it is the cheapest and most accessible sport. Aerobic exercise and training with weight-lifting machines are two activities which more and more men and women are pursuing. Books, videos, and fitness-conscious movie stars that play up the glamour of fitness have heightened enthusiasm for these exercises and have promoted the muscular, healthy body as the American beauty ideal. Most communities have recreational parks with tennis and basketball courts, a football or soccer field, and outdoor grills for picnics. These parks generally charge no fees for the use of these facilities. Some large corporations, hospitals, and churches have indoor gymnasiums and organize informal team sports. For those who can afford membership fees, there is the exclusive country club and its more modern version, the health and fitness center. Members of these clubs have access to all kinds of indoor and outdoor sports; swimming, volleyball, golf, racquetball, handball, tennis, and basketball; Most dubs also offer instruction in various, sports and exercise methods.

Schools and colleges have institutionalized team sports for young people. Teams and competitions are highly organized and competitive and generally receive substantial local publicity. High schools and colleges commonly have a school team for each of these sports: football, basketball, baseball, tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, and track, and sometimes for soccer, swimming, hockey, volleyball, fencing, and golf. Practices and games are generally held on the school premises after classes are over. High schools and colleges recognize outstanding athletic achievement with trophies, awards, and scholarships, and student athletes receive strong community support.

AMERICAN SPORTS

Football, baseball, and basketball, the most popular sports in America, originated in the United States and are largely unknown or only minor pastimes outside North America. The football season starts in early autumn and is followed by basketball, an indoor winter sport, and then baseball, played in spring and slimmer. Besides these top three sports, ice hockey, boxing, golf, car racing, horse racing, and tennis have been popular for decades and attract large audiences.

VIOLENCE AND SPORTS

Although many spectator sports, particularly pro football, ice hockey, and boxing, are aggressive and sometimes bloody, American spectators are notably less violent than are sports crowds in other countries. Fighting, bottle throwing, and rioting, common elsewhere, are not the rule among American fans. Baseball and football games are family affairs, and cheerleaders command the remarkably non-violent crowd to root in chorus for their teams.

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS

For many people, sports are big business. The major television networks

contract with professional sports leagues for the rights to broadcast their

games. The guaranteed mass viewing of major sports events means advertisers

will pay networks a lot of money to sponsor the program with announcements

for their products. Advertisers for beer, cars, and men's products are glad of

the opportunity to push their goods to the predominantly male audience of

the big professional sports. Commercial businesses enjoy the publicity which

brings in sales. The networks are glad to fill up program hours and attract

audiences who might perhaps become regular viewers of-other programs

produced by those networks, and the major sports leagues enjoy the millions

of dollars the networks pay for the broad-casting rights contracts. Many sports

get half of their revenues from the networks. National Football League (NFL)

teams, for example, get about 65 percent of their revenues from television. The

networks' 1986 contract with the NFL provided" each-of the 2g teams in the

league with an average of $14 million a year. -

"Just as in any business, investments are made and assets are exchanged. Team owners usually sign up individual players for lucrative long-term contracts. Star quarterback Joe Namalh was invited to play for the New York Jets, one of the NFL teams, for $425,000 in 1965. Coveted baseball player Kirk Gibson recently signed a three-year contract with the Detroit Tigers for $4.1 million. More often in the past than now, team owners traded players back and forth as items for barter.

Any business' operator hopes to get a good deal. However, the network sports industries have not been faring well lately. They have experienced financial setbacks mainly caused by the oversaturation of sports programming on networks and compering cable channels. Networks claim they are now losing money on once-lucrative telecasts. Ironically, the slump in business is occurring at a time when sports shows are drawing larger audiences than in recent years. Part of the problem is that advertising costs got too high, and the industries mat traditionally Duy ads beer ana car companies are not paying the high prices. Networks, dependent on advertising for revenue, are hoping that the market will change before they have to make drastic reductions ir sports programming.

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

The commercial aspects of American professional sports can make or break an athlete's career. Young, talented athletes make it to the top because they are exceptionally talented, but not in every case because they are the best. In women's tennis, for example, an aspiring young tennis star must not only possess a winning serve and backhand, she must also get corporate agents on her side. Without agents who line up sponsors and publicity, a player has a very difficult time moving from amateur to professional sports. To get the endorsement of corporate advertising sponsors, a talented young tennis player has a much better chance for success if she is also attractive. Sales-conscious tennis sportswear companies pay large sums of money to tennis pros who promote their products. Many top players earn more money a year in product-endorsement fees than in prize money. Competition and success in sports, then, is not only a matter of game skill, but marketability as well.

COLLEGE SPORTS

College sports lost its amateurism years ago. Teams and events are institutionalized and contribute to college publicity and revenue. Sports bring in money to colleges from ticket sales and television rights, so colleges like having winning teams. The better the team, the greater the ticket sales and television coverage, and the more money the college can channel back into athletics and other programs. Football and basketball are the most lucrative college sports because they attract the most fans. Other college sports, particularly women's sports, are often neglected and ignored by spectators, the news media, and athletic directors who often disregard-women's sports budgets and funnel money for equipment and facilities into the sports that pay. On the other hand, top college teams get a lot of attention. In 1986, the Division 1 college football programs had a budget of nearly $1 billion, while entertaining millions of spectators and television viewers.

STUDENT ATHLETES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

To recruit student athletes for a winning team, many colleges are willing to go to great lengths, providing full academic scholarships, to athletes, and sometimes putting the college's academic reputatiori at risk. The tacit understanding shared by college admissions directors as well as the potential sports stars they admit is that athletes do not enroll in college to learn, but to play sports and perhaps use intercollegiate sports as a springboard for a professional career. The situation often embarrasses college administrators, who are caught between educational ideals and commercial realities, and infuriates other students, who resent the preferential treatment given to athletes. Of late, some universities, such as the University of Michigan, have initiated support programs to improve academic performance and graduation rates of athletes.

WINNING

Increasing commercialization of college sports is part of a larger trend. American sports are becoming more competitive and more profit-oriented. As a result, playing to win is emphasized more than playing for fun. This is true from the professional level all the way down to the level of children's Little League sports" teams, where young players are encourag'ed by such "slogans as "A quitter never wins; a winner never quits," and "never be willing to be second best." The obsession with winning causes some people to wonder whether sports in America should be such serious business.

Sports: Colleges and Universities

The athletic programs of American

colleges and universities have come

in for a great deal of criticism

but there does not seem to be

a chance to alter the system.

James A. Michener gives background

information and comments on the problems.

First, the United States is the only nation in the world, so far as I know, which demands that its schools like Harvard, Ohio State and Claremont assume responsibility for providing the public with sports entertainment. Ours is a unique system which has no historical sanction or application elsewhere. It would be unthinkable for the University of Bologna, a most ancient and honorable school, to provide scholarships to illiterate soccer players so that they could entertain the other cities of northern Italy, and it would be equally preposterous for either the Sorbonne or Oxford to do so in their countries. Our system is an American phenomenon, a historical accident which