Читать книгу Alternative Models of Sports Development in America. Solutions to a Crisis in Education and Public Health онлайн
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In simple terms, amateurism in sports means participation as an avocation rather than a profession, and not getting compensation for playing a sport or using one’s “athletics skill (directly or indirectly) for pay in any form in that sport.”4 This definition has been expanded over the years to include preventing athletes from capitalizing on their commercial utility, such as endorsement opportunities, to the level of receiving any benefit, no matter how small, such as a free meal, as a violation of their amateur status. Amateurism eventually evolved into an ideal that many supported as a way to separate educationally based sports and Olympic sports from the perceived scourge of money and professionalism.
In this sense, amateurism’s last stand is taking place in the sports development educational model of the United States, as it really does not exist anywhere else in the world. The Olympic Games long ago dropped the façade of amateurism in its competitions starting in 1988, against immense resistance.5 Many thought that bringing in professional athletes to the Olympics would stain their purity and even that they would eventually cease to exist, yet it is virtually nondebatable that the Olympic Games are now as popular as ever, even while using overtly and well-compensated professional athletes. The feared demise of the games did not happen, and television rights and sponsorship fees are at record highs (Zimbalist 1999).