If you thought it was a dubious enterprise for me to start blogging about sports and faith, the joke's on you! I just got a big-time ally on my side! No less than Pope Francis agrees with me!
No, not exactly, but he did make an interesting statement on the subject of athletes and exploitation to a group of officials connected with the Olympics. It was not at all inconsistent with the public profile the Pope has projected so far, but perhaps issued in a venue to which some might not pay attention.
What I find interesting (and sympathetic) about the statement is that Pope Francis kept his focus on the potential for exploitation of the individual athlete in the name of profit, to state it simply. The Olympics "movement" was an interesting realm into which to venture, as one in which high-stakes commercialization and potential profit for individual performers in the form of endorsement deals is a recent development, in my lifetime at least (I'm not that old). Given the tone of his remarks, I'd imagine the Pope could have a field day with the system of intercollegiate athletics in the United States (just think how many people are attending or watching college football games as I write this on a Saturday afternoon) and its labyrinthine rules about financial benefits mostly being denied to the athletes (once described as "student-athletes," mirroring the "amateur ideal" that used to rule the Olympic movement, in theory) participating in sports that move dumpster-loads of money around. Talk about a system that "reduces athletes to mere trading material," to borrow Francis's words.
This is not a plea for paying college athletes. I have a dumpster-load of doubts that any such system can be achieved with anything like equanimity and justice in the divine sense. For example, somehow I doubt that the field hockey team, even a national-championship level team, is going to benefit much from a system of paying collegiate athletes. American systems of remuneration just don't work that way. While athletes may well be easily exploited by large financial systems in just about any sport (read this long-form piece on the financial travails that beset most boxers to get an idea of such systems at their worst, abetted by the athletes' own failings in that case), athletes are also capable in some cases of playing the system. What are the chances that Johnny Manziel, just to take one example, will be at all content with receiving the same stipend as a reserve point guard on Texas A&M's women's basketball team? I'm not seeing it. From there you get into quagmire pretty quickly. And if Alex Rodriguez (and his agent, Satan) aren't engaging in a massive game of playing the system right now, you can eat my hat.
Of course, the athletes are not the only potential victims of exploitation in any system. The previous post on this blog delved into the machinations behind the Atlanta Braves' sudden announcement of a move to suburban Cobb County (Part 2 of that post is still going to come). Stadiums of course don't build themselves, and at least for now Cobb County is apparently on the hook for about two-thirds of the projected costs of construction. While I'd be deeply pleased if those Cobb County politicians who ran this deal to get the team were going to reach into their own pockets to pay the county share, I'm not holding my breath. Somebody is going to pay for it, whether it be Cobb residents in the form of whatever taxes are imposed, or visitors to the area in the form of hotel taxes or meal taxes. I suppose it is possible that Cobb is the ultimate suburban paradise with no poor people, no hunger, no struggling schools and underpaid teachers and such, but I've never heard anybody describe it that way. Somebody is going to get stuck with it.
Indeed the whole system of remunerated athletics depends on somebody being willingly stuck with it. Collegiate athletes at least get the chance at a (quite expensive these days) college education as part of their deal, though an awful lot of them seem to find that unimportant. Pro athletes take on a lifetime of pain in many cases as the payoff for their years of participation (and I'm not even talking about the CTE issue in football); playing any sport at a high level extracts a toll on even the healthiest of athletes. Fans get, I suppose, an outlet for emotional investment, a sense of tribal identity, a steady diet of unscripted drama with the ending unknown, or an experience potentially shareable by the whole family, among other things. If either party decides the price is too high, they do have the option of walking away, or (as fans) not walking up in the first place, i.e. not buying tickets or merchandise or watching games. (Fans of the Tampa Bay Rays excel at the former.)
Still, I applaud Pope Francis for recognizing the impact of commercialized sport and its moral implications in society. Perhaps I'll talk to him about a guest blog post in the future.
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