1. SOCIETY, SPORT
AND ITS
CONTRADICTIONS:
THE PARADOXES
OF CURRENT
SPORT
Physical Education
YEAR 4

2. SOCIETY, SPORT AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS: THE PARADOXES OF CURRENT SPORT
2
SOCIETY, SPORT AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS: THE PARADOXES
OF CURRENT SPORT
INDEX:
1. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................................3
2. POLITICS AND SPORT .........................................................................................................................................3
3. SPORT BUSINESS ..................................................................................................................................................3
4. ECONOMY AND SPORT.......................................................................................................................................4
5. VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSIONS IN SPORT..................................................................................................4
6. BETS IN SPORT ......................................................................................................................................................5
7. DRUG-TAKING IN SPORT...................................................................................................................................5
7.1. FORBIDDEN SUBSTANCES AND METHODS IN SPORT................................................................5
7.2. CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................5
8. MASS MEDIA IN SPORT......................................................................................................................................6
9. SPORT MAKES AND POPULAR AND PROFESSIONAL SPORT.............................................................6
9.1. SPORT SPONSORSHIP................................................................................................................................6
9.2. THE VALUES OF SPORT SPONSORSHIP.............................................................................................7
9.3. SPORT AND INDIVIDUAL SPONSORSHIPS........................................................................................7
10. ADVERTISING IN SPORT...............................................................................................................................7
11. FREE TIME AND SPORT.................................................................................................................................8
12. PROFESSIONALIM AND SPORT..................................................................................................................8
13. SCHOOL AND SPORT.......................................................................................................................................8
14. WOMAN AND SPORT......................................................................................................................................9
15. SPECTACLE AND SPORT ............................................................................................................................10
16. JUNIOR SPORT AND EARLY PROFESSIONALISM.............................................................................10
17. PARENTS AND SPORT.................................................................................................................................11
18. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................................12

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1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, sport is a sign of quality of our society, sport is a key part of our
21st society with its advantages and disadvantages. In this unit we’ll deal with
some of the most controversial topics in sport phenomenon in society to make
a critical thought about it.
2. POLITICS AND SPORT
At a political level, sport is considered a propaganda tool, the
intention is to produce nationalist feelings, the union of the
group and the search of the identity of a country to create a
feeling of unity. In some countries sport is used as a way of
leaving aside the real problems and of entertaining the
citizenship.
At the same time, the politician tries to associate his image with
a sport success.
On the other hand, sportsmen don’t want to be linked to a
political party or ideology.
3. SPORT BUSINESS
Think about these questions
that everybody has listened to
at any time: ‘do you practice
any sport?’, ‘what do you do
in your free time?’, do you do
any physical activity in the
open air?’ or ‘you should do
sport’.
Nowadays many people have
noticed the importance of the
physical activity, sport or the
necessity of an active practice
to improve our lifestyle. For that reason we do sport: to avoid obesity, mental
problems, to keep fit, to improve our health in a word.
Millions of people throughout the world practice any kind of exercise ( physical or
recreational).
But among all the reasons why human beings devote to physical activity, we must point
out one: the advantages we receive:
 A healthy body.
 The satisfaction of getting new skills.
 A great social contact (it’s easier to meet people, to make new friends…)

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4. ECONOMY AND SPORT
Nowadays, sport is a leading economic activity in Spanish society since it represents
the 1.2 % of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Sport has been always linked and associated to
the legal activity, sport as we know it is also an
economic activity that requires and produces
goods and services. Sport needs facilities and
services which are rather expensive, it also
needs specific material and equipment and it
also needs people who teach sport, computers,
medical assistance, TV satellites… that is, an
economic importance that isn´t very often noticed.
5. VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSIONS IN SPORT
The study of violence is compulsory at this point despite that violence is not a major
issue. It´s remarkable to say that human
actions are influenced mainly by the
environment, that is, the society. The
problem is that the violence always takes
place in socially excluded groups,
therefore, the matter continues unsolved.
For the environmentalists the question is
easy, in those sectors with a higher
economic standard violence tends to be
lower but this is not always in this way
(countries such as Chile or Argentina are
good examples of this).
It´s true the topic is open, maybe the
collective contribution of Biology,
Psychology and Sociology could give us an
answer to this dilemma.
Sports have evolved and it has been
proved that violence is being systematically reduced. The development of sport is a
process of control of violent behaviours which nowadays are synonyms of unsporting
practice.
Then, why are we so worried by the violence phenomenon?
First of all, because the wave of violence around sport causes obvious personal,
material and moral damages. But because of our tolerance towards violence has fallen,
violence is not so extreme and our sensitivity is higher than before.

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6. BETS IN SPORT
Betfair, Bwin or Unibet are 3 of the most
usual bookmakers. Betting on sports in the
Internet is extremely easy: a credit card
and be over 18 are the only requirements.
But this entails that matches are fixed,
there are bent referees or agreements
among the players to manipulate the
scores in a sport competition.
7. DRUG-TAKING IN SPORT
The need of a sportsman to get better
results in his physical achievement at
the expense of his health, the
consumption of prohibited
substances has as aim to train more,
to get his strength back faster and to
obtain a higher result.
In our society, medicines are not only
used to fight illnesses but also to help
in extreme physiological situations
(tiredness, pain, sleep, anxiety…). The
sportman resorts to them to stimulate
himself, make his strength and concentration grow, calm his tiredness…
7.1. FORBIDDEN SUBSTANCES AND METHODS IN SPORT.
This is the group of forbidden substances:
 Stimulants.
 Narcotics
 Anabolic steroids.
 Diuretics.
 Pharmacological substances.
7.2. CONCLUSION
The recreational sport as well as the competitive one have an important role in
current societies.

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8. MASS MEDIA IN SPORT
By means of the mass media, sport has become popular. The king of sports is,
without any doubt, football which is continuously broadcast in radio and TV and
occupies plenty of pages in sport press.
But other sports are getting more importance in mass media: basketball, handball,
cycling, motorcycling….also the Olympic Games or the World Championships. All
this causes that sport is more important every day either in competition or in
leisure.
Mass media exert great influence in the personal opinion of each person.
From the admission of private televisions to the audiovisual world, sport has had a
wide space in all the programs due to the great demand of information about all
competitions.
9. SPORT MAKES AND POPULAR AND PROFESSIONAL
SPORT.
9.1. SPORT SPONSORSHIP
Sport sponsorship represents the 11% of the advertising investment every year.
This implies an investment of 600 million
€. This sponsorship has a few
characteristics that make it different:
 Visibility. It focused
on advertising and marketing. It allows
that the logo of the firm can be seen
everywhere.
 Spectators. Diverse,
numerous and less elitist public.
 Media presence.
Sports are in the media more frequently
than any other activity. Sponsoring a team,
a sportsman of a sport event guarantees
the presence of the logo in a video, in a
photo….
Sport sponsorship can be put into practice in a great number of protagonists:
sports at the junior high level, teams, competitions, federations, events,
stadiums…

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9.2. THE VALUES OF SPORT SPONSORSHIP
These values adapt themselves to the values of the firm, they coincide in many
points:
 A desire of doing better.
 Competiveness.
 Effort.
 Team spirit.
 Work.
 Perseverance.
 Reach the goals.
 Sacrifice.
9.3. SPORT AND INDIVIDUAL SPONSORSHIPS.
Although individual sponsorship is not born from sport sponsorship, it´s true that
in this field we find more individual sponsorships.
Individual sponsorship is found either in team sports or individual ones. The same
firm can sponsor Messi or Michael Phelps (a swimmer).
On the other hand, sport sponsorship must think about getting the highest results
of sportsman.
10. ADVERTISING IN SPORT.
The relationship between
Advertising and sport is so close
that both activities profit each other.
Nowadays there is no sport which is
not sponsored by a firm interested
in the spectators.
o The sponsors
use sport as a way of persuading
consumers who are gradually more
heterogeneous.
o Sport
provides the businessman with a profitable alternative to carry out
advertising campaigns with a multitarget profile.
o It´s possible to choose among sports broadcast in television or in live.
Football is a mass sport, it causes fights among friends, headaches, it´s the
conversation topic in lunches but also it handles a lot of money in our country thanks to
advertising.
From the football shirt to the stadium hoardings, the smartvision system or LEDs
screens, everything is surrounded by advertising. Most times firms resort to these strategies
starred by celebrities: Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafa Nadal….

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11. FREE TIME AND SPORT
Sports are the healthiest option for the human body, to practice them we should
supplement them with another factor, our free time. We must enjoy both. Free time
means leisure and we have to choose what to do: rest, watch TV, do sport…
Sports, if we want to, can take part of our leisure time. Many people think that the best
way of spending our free time is doing any kind of intellectual or physical activity, but
others are sure that this time should be
spent in resting and getting our strength
back for next day.
The most advisable activity to clear our
head is practicing a sport. Physical
activities are essential to any body but
especially to those people who have jobs
with little motor activity. In our free time
we must make our body work after the
inactivity period.
12. PROFESSIONALIM AND SPORT
The sport spectacle entails the
professionalization of the sportsman. He
becomes a star, a worker on many occasions, a
luxury worker. Clubs turn into firms and even
the professional Leagues become super firms.
For example, the NBA comes in 400 million€
every year, it also has 20 important sponsors.
In Spain the professional sport is very
developed in relation to the whole of the sport system. The professionalization reaches
football and basketball but also other sports such as handball, volleyball…
On the other hand, in Spain we like organizing great championships and paying large
amounts of money to sportsmen. For this reason, Spain on many occasions is a
goldmine for many of these sportsmen from other countries.
13. SCHOOL AND SPORT
Within sport we have to consider 3 types of contents: concepts, procedures and
attitudes. In general, students must acquire the most basic aspects of sport and physical
education.
In procedures we include the technical tactical elements of sports.

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Taken into account this, we have to bear in mind that due to the time we have (2 hours
every week), it’s very difficult to make progress in our students in the motor aspect of a
sport.
For that reason, we should provide them with a basic multi sport ….with contextualized
learning situations where they can practice several technical tactical elements.
On the other hand, the introduction to a sport can’t be reduced only to motor aspects
but we also should try to foster an education in values and an improvement of
attitudes.
Among these attitudes:
 Respect to the classmates.
 Be a good winner and a good loser.
 Fair play.
 Cooperation with the classmates.
 Tolerance.
 Respect to the rules.
 Critical attitude towards some high competition behaviours.
We should try that students practice sport out of school and for that, they have to
maintain a good relationship with it by means of positive experiences.
14. WOMAN AND SPORT
In the past, the professional activity of women was reduced to be a housewife, but day
after day they are integrating with the labor market.
Women have had restricted access to sport, for a woman is much more difficult to
devote professionally to sport than for a man. However, there are increasingly more
organizations advocate the gender equality in sport: Olympic Committees, Ministries of
Education…
There are other barriers that have to be overcome: little presence in the mass media,
no economic incentives to invest in female sport, less spectacle of their
competitions…
In the last years, the women participation has grown, but this growth is not reflected in
the management of sport. The IOC is fostering the participation of women in sport
organizing conferences focused on women and sport, establishing new statutes (at
least 20% of the participants in the Olympic Games must be women).
The promotion of female sport is being fostered since childhood with the practice of
any type of sports at schools where there is no distinction between boys and girls.
Besides, the sport is being adopted as a healthy and socializing habit.
The Woman Institute has seen in sport a supporting point in the development of
woman, either as training or as help to solve different social problems (social isolation,
domestic violence, development for physically and mentally handicapped women…)
Obviously, there is much work to do before female and male sport are comparable but
things are changing.

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15. SPECTACLE AND SPORT
The appearance of sport as a mass
spectacle makes the person a passive
subject (spectator) instead of an active
one (sportsman). Sport becomes an
entertainment.
With the arrival of television, sport has
become a huge business of thousands
of millions of euros.
The sport spectacle stimulates the
passivity in spectators who spend long
hours sitting watching a sport. This
makes sedentary people.
The passive spectator identifies himself with the sportsman who admires.
The sport spectacle causes the threat of making our conscience sleepy. There is no time
to participate actively in the building of the human condition because in sport the
spectacle becomes an addictive drug.
16. JUNIOR SPORT AND EARLY PROFESSIONALISM
The problems we have to overcome to become a professional sportsman are gradually
greater:
 Not always sport skills last
throughout the childhood and adolescence.
 The difference between the
recreational model of sport and the professional one.
 Professional sport involves a
greater amount of time devoted to train, economic
income, regularity in competitions…
It´s said that adolescence is the vital stage when more
withdrawals in sport take place. It´s a key moment not
only in the consolidation of personality but also in the
choice of a vocation….
If he continues with his sports stage, he has to leave aside
situations of his age and he has to defend values such as perseverance, sacrifice or
discipline but on many occasions teenagers foster values as the incoherence,
emotional frailty, doubts…
Another aspect is the economic availability; in general, football players come from
humble families. Manu times they lack economic possibilities and even to travel to
train cause within a short term their withdrawal.

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17. PARENTS AND SPORT
Fathers play an important role in the sport training of their children, also the Physical
education teacher or the coach. But what types of fathers can we find:
The fanatical father
He searches for his son’s victory above all. He
doesn’t respect the decisions made by
referees, he uses swearwords and he is
always complaining.
The sporting frustrated father
He tried to excel in a sport but he didn´t
achieve the goal. They use to choose this
activity for their children without taking into
account the child´s likes something that
causes even his rejection.
The trainer father
He wants his son to be a top sportsman, training is the most important activity leaving
aside the pleasure of playing. This kind of training causes psychological and
physiological risks in children.
The manager father
This father offers the sport ´rights´ to a club of sport body.
The indifferent father
The father doesn´t worry about the sport practice of his children. He just enrolls them
on a sports club or they buy them a bike or a pair of skates. His aim is to get more free
time for himself.
The over-protective father
He forbids his children the practice of any kind of physical activity because they can be
hurt. They prefer that his children play computer games at home rather than play in a
court. In a sense, the children can´t play or establish social relationships in group.
The sports father
 He has in mind the sports interests of his children.
 He knows the difference between dangerousness and over protection.
 He practices whenever he can, a physical activity with them.
 He respects referees and trainers´ decisions.
 He makes his child see that the final goal of sport is its socializing aspect.

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 He teaches how to win in a humble way.
 He teaches how to lose.
 He fosters the non violence.
18. CONCLUSIONS
As you can see, the facts of sport and the physical activity is more complex than we can
see in the Physical Education class. It´s a social phenomenon difficult to understand and
that moves a lot of money every year.
It has become one of the most important businesses nowadays.