500+ Words Essay on Professionalism in Sports
Once, sports were only for individual recreation. But sports have now become professional all over the world. Men who have become proficient in certain games and sports are now using their talent as a sure means of earning a livelihood. Since sports have a spectacular appeal, people are naturally willing to pay for witnessing the exhibition of skill or strength of a sportsman. The footballer, the cricketer, the tennis player, even the boxer and the wrestler have the scope of earning a livelihood by displaying their talent, just as the dancer, the actor, the musician, or any other artist may have such an opportunity.
There is nothing wrong with this tendency. Surely a man has as much right to make a living by his brawn as he has by his brains. Professional sportsmen spend much time and labour in practice to acquire proficiency, just as people of any other profession do. Hence, it is quite reasonable if they try to use their skill to earn a profit.
Yet professional sportsmen were not regarded with much honour in comparison to intellectual professionals in the past. Being non-intellectual, they were relegated to an inferior category. These prejudices, of course, are now dying out. Today, professional sportsmen are paid lump sum amounts in accordance with their skill. And they add to the prestige of clubs or countries aided by the promoters. The conferring of a knighthood on the English footballer Stanley Matthews has removed the last stigma on professionalism in sports. Now we see Sachin Tendulkar in India has been awarded the Bharat Ratna as one of the best cricketers in the world.
Some pose a question about the utility of sports as a profession. Men cannot be bound all the time to their duties in offices, factories, or other working fields. They need some outdoor recreation too. It is good to fill the galleries of a stadium and witness exhibitions of strength and skill by professional sportsmen in a thrilling encounter. Who will deny the social utility of these recreations? The professional sportsman who plays to provide entertainment to spectators really stands on the same level as the professional musician, dancer, or actor does to the audience.
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Nowadays, there are various ways of earning profit for a professional sportsman. Besides his income in the professional line, he poses for advertisements and participates in cinema or TV reels, and thereby he earns a good amount. A cricketer often plays with a logo shirt on him and with the bat or cap bearing the mark of a reputed firm to earn more profit.
However, there are some abuses in professional sports. Those who are parasites of sports, the bookies for example, or the so-called ‘promoters’, are the real villains in the world of sports, especially in cricket. They earn an undue and undeserved middleman’s profit. They have to be ruthlessly eliminated. The Olympics and Wimbledon Tennis do not recognize professional sportsmen or players. But in cricket, there is one class of so-called sportsmen who promote betting and make money out of the spirit of gambling that a capitalistic society encourages. They also tempt and try to corrupt other players. Recently, Sreesanth in the Indian cricket team has been suspended for life for such abuses in the field of sports. We can remember a word in Sachin’s speech in his farewell to cricket that his father advised him to chase dreams, but not to take any shortcut for achieving the dream.