Sports and money

This subject has been broached increasingly over recent decades. The amount of money in sport. This includes not only the pay, salary, or whatever it is called, but the sponsorship, advertising, personal appearance add-ons.

We are talking about previously unimaginable amounts of money now being commonplace. Sportsmen and women, earning in excess of 50-100 million pounds before they are 25 years old.

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Sport

 Formula 1 carFor thousands of years sport has been considered as activities for people to: enjoy, relax with, do for fun, bond people(teams), for exercise, for health, among others.

Sport now has taken on the mantle of big business. Listen to the words used today to describe sport, and you might be mistaken for thinking that you are at a business conference. Franchise, Brand, CEO, merchandising, label, image rights, advertising, floatations. In America sports such as the NFL, and the NBA are unashamedly called franchises. Read more

Footballer or rich?

Park footballBeing English, I grew up playing football. Nothing unusual about that. Millions of boys were the same as me. Playing in the park, playing for teams, supporting a team(usually a top team, if you were from a small town. I supported Liverpool, and I am not a Liverpudlian).
This was what most boys did(girls did not play then, for all you PC brigade). It was life. Driven by 2 things; desire, and positive peer pressure. The thought of being left out was not something anyone wanted to experience. What were you to do when all of your friends were playing? This is how serial killers are made!!!!(my attempt at humour).

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More is not better.

Medal TableAs we reach another closing ceremony for the latest ‘Greatest show on Earth’ ,the Olympics have provided some remarkable sporting achievements by athletes from all over the world. Records have been broken, new sports have been introduced, negatively, there have also been scandals relating to doping, and problems beset some of the the venues.

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Olympic Gold or another perk?

Gold medalThe news has been dominated in recent months by the upcoming Olympic games. The Olympics is a truly global event. From the beginning of the games which starts several months before the actual  sporting events, with the lighting and carrying of the Olympic torch(which I was fortunate enough to see while travelling in New Delhi in 2004), through to the 2 weeks of competition. Fast forward to the present. Does the Olympic Games still retain its status as the no 1 global sporting event? Read more

Come on you Brexitland!!

England 1- Iceland 2Come on you Brexitland!!!

We can all agree that the face of football changed many years ago. The dominant forces of yesteryear have been replaced in part, by upcoming nations, who until recently had no footballing heritage.

Fast forward to Euro 2016. The European Championships have always pitted the big boys against each other with the exception of a few 2nd tier nations.
The France’s Germany’s Spain’s, Italy’s and er..er. England’s of this world, are considered the ‘big boys’ but in recent years things have changed due in a large part to the influx of players from the smaller nations into the biggest leagues in Europe. The Bundesliga, Serie A, Le Ligue 1, La Liga, The Premier League, all have players from ‘less known’ nations.

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