[Aurornis]

I actually wish non-sports people would care less about sports, too.

Because the decisions should be left to those of us playing the sports. Not bystanders trying to impose their own agendas on to activities they don't even participate in.

[genthree]

Strongly agreed. I think there was ever a good reason for this to be a topic outside those with a direct interest in various sports governing bodies. Those should be making these decisions. It's deeply stupid that this has become a major point of contention up to the federal level of government.

[zahlman]

>Because the decisions should be left to those of us playing the sports.

You can make the decisions, but you can't make the audience (a much larger body of people, who overwhelmingly do not participate in the sport, at least not competitively) agree with (or care about) your decisions or reasoning.

[LanceH]

And money from non-sports people should be left with the non-sports people.

[renewiltord]

This is, in general, a good idea. Nostalgia etc. and some kind of misguided paternalism causes us to “fund” sports when really all of this stuff should have to just pay for what it is. The market economy is a good way to allocate things so that you don’t end up with a $40k/yr income person paying taxes so that rich people get tennis courts in Russian Hill. We should probably just have market functions for most things.

The government doesn’t have to leave the sphere. It just has to manage the market. For instance, a specific amount of space in a park could be allocated to dynamically priced programming. This could be auctioned on an annual basis with teardown costs pre-allocated. Then you don’t have the argument over whether tennis or pickleball. It could be cricket or sepak takraw for all we know.

Proponents of various sports could group together to share the space. This is obviously far superior to the communist style committee allocation.

And obviously the government should not fund sports. Creating the environment where sports funding can occur by ensuring a framework for contracts and so on, yes. But actually deciding that baseball or football or basketball need to be played is patently ridiculous.

[songshu]

Yes, putting out cones. Bending over, laying down a cone, taking five steps, laying another. Hard work. Meanwhile Malcolm Gladwell changes his mind about it. Put out some cones, Malcolm!