Where do you draw the line at “amateur” sports?
August 18th, 2008As an elementary school student in the 1960’s, I can remember my father commenting on the issue that the Soviet bloc athletes were professionals (paid by the state) and that America’s athletes were amateurs. I thought that was unfair until “we” redefined the participation rules and many of our professional athletes were allowed and encouraged to compete in the Olympics, where there are probably few examples of self-supported amateurs competing in any event regardless of the country that the athlete represents.
With the advent of popular marketing, the world has also seen the rise of professional athletes competing in what used to be an amateur-only arena, the Olympics. The first Olympics to allow professional athletes to compete were the 1988 Games for some sports and the 1992 Games for the remainder. It is no coincidence that this era also saw an unprecedented sports marketing boom. The emphasis on professional sports, often to the detriment of amateur sports, has had a trickle-down effect on sports at the college and high school levels.
