Government involvement in sports especially at youth and amateur level should be eminent. Across all the countries in the world, various governments have been involved in various investments to sports and this has had several positive impacts in such countries. Sports investment has proven to be the best investment any government can make as it produces high returns. A country’s profile is raised when the government invests in high performance sports and competition is on international level. Not only does the government benefit, but also are its citizens. Mass participation reduces various health problems which are eminent among the citizens such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Conversely, the participation of the government to youth sports has been low mainly because of lack of unity among various systems of sports like sport ministry and recreation. This paper covers the article ‘Putting public law into private sport’ and discusses the reasons why government should not stay away from sports.
Government can be involved in sports at youth and amateur levels through several means which may be either desirable or undesirable to various institutions mandated to conduct various sport activities. The desirable means are those that are aimed at promoting the youth sports such as supporting sport activities through funding such as financing stadium and using tax dollars to provide sports in public schools and universities. The availability of several educational institutions promoting youth sports makes United States a unique country. Other desirable government involvement in sport is the enactment of laws that aim not at regulating games but promoting youth sports industry and they include baseball’s antitrust exemption, restrictions of betting other antitrust laws aiming to create the national football league. The undesirable activities that associate government with youth sports and that is rejected by both the sports league and administrators is laws aimed at regulating the function, composition or management of programs of sport (pg.687).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Government being involved in sports will also ensure that the sports in schools are more organized and defined to help nurture talents in the youths and amateur level in the best way possible. This can be achieved through the formulation of laws that define the sports function in schools; both the public schools and universities. The best understanding is that the relationship between the government and sports of the youths is that the government should allocate funds to help finance sport activities and formulate laws that privilege sports league and regulators. On the contrary, the laws should not be used to directly regulate the sports activities or managing athletes. Such laws limit the nurturing of talents among youth sports, be it in soccer, athletics, baseball or even basketball. The formulation of such laws is currently seen in the structure of all sport levels in the United States especially at youth and amateur context where they are referred to as “wild west.”
The general opinion that government should stay out of sports is generally based on the old view that sport activities are of individual and private pursuit and that the games are not commerce to be regulated by the government. This is not true because the lack of government participation in sports especially in youth and amateur levels have really reduced the quality of sports and there is no international competition by the US youths. Government staying out of the youth sports has led to poor management of sport activities by the sport leagues and administrators. This is clearly reflected in the structure of the youth sports and the management of athletes. The lack of ‘ministry for sports’ in US clearly indicates the level of isolation of the government from youth sports and this has led to no competitive sports opportunity for the youth. Youth and amateur sports participation has been left as a choice for individuals in the private sector. It is therefore very difficult to tell the number of children engaging in competitive sports and this indicates the lack of seriousness when there is no government involvement in sports activities (pg.688).
Government should again participate in youth and amateur sports to help ensure that safe and ethical sporting is observed by ensuring that there is no use of performance enhancing drugs. With no government involvement, the use of drugs that enhance youth or amateur performance in sport activities or the use of prohibited methods of enhancing sports performance has been rampant. This can be achieved by constituting institutions that provide drug tests on athletes such as the United States anti-doping agency (USADA). This act has been successful in ensuring that competitions in various sports activities are fair to all the participants. The anti-doping agency (USADA) has also come up with punishments for those found violating such rules; including jail terms or bans from participation in any sports activities. The agency has also adopted methods that enhance performance in sports activities which are considered illegal and which may lead to bans if found to be used during sports events (pg.691).
Lastly, the private sector cannot cover all the youth sports programming and hence it is the mandate of the federal and state governments to direct more regulatory attention towards the sporting activities involving the youths by mandating and allocating funds for broad based youth sports activities to help fill the gaps left by the private sector (pg.738). The congress and state governments can rethink of the deference given to sports programs in various schools. Although sports programs which are education based should not be considered as in the commercial category, government should consider effective ways that allow such sports programs to be used in the public interests. Example is the case of sports being found to be beneficial to the health of children and it is majorly determined by the income of the family to allow the children to participate. Full participation of youths in such sports programs can be achieved by provision of intramural sports program instead of varsity by the federal and state governments.
In as much as there are several reasons for the government not to stay away from sports activities especially for youths and amateur levels, there is also a reason for the government to stay away from sports. This is so because of the negative impacts that such activities have on the lives of the youths. At such an age, there are inherent risks for the youths to suffer various injuries when participating in sporting activities and the government has no control or measures to prevent such injuries. The best option the government has is to ban such sports programs or to stay away from the activities. Youths at adolescence stage are vulnerable to traumatic and other overuse injuries. Research shows that increased youth involvement in the sporting activities have increased the injuries related to sporting activities to 2.6 million casualties between the ages of 5-24. With no legal laws to prevent such injuries, increased participation of the youths in more sporting activities increases the risks of suffering from more injuries. The governments, both the federal and state, should therefore stay away from youth and amateur sports program.
In conclusion, it is pretty clear that there are several reasons for the government not to stay away from youth sports. A lot of benefits will not only occur to the youths themselves, but also the government as its profile in the international level will be good and admirable. Nurturing young talents of the youths will help save them from being involve in criminal activities such stealing, use of drugs or even murder. Again, the federal and state governments’ involvement ensures availability of funds to facilitate sports programs for the youths. Besides funding, the formulations of laws that regulate the sporting activities by the government ensures fairness in sporting competition and prevent the use of prohibited drugs that enhance performance or even methods that facilitate performance. I can strongly support that government should not stay away from sporting activities.
Reference
Koller, D. L. (2015). Putting Public Law into Private Sport. Pepp. L. Rev. , 43 , 681.
