[__P]

... I'm pretty sure that is not the purpose of sports. The purpose from my perspective is: Advertising, Gambling, and entertainment. Since when has it been at all about exercise? Defensive Linesmen are hardly a "healthy exercise" motivation.

Sports that have little to do with exercise:

- Racing (Horse, car, hound)

- Chess

- MMA (While they are super fit, it isn't "healthy")

- Boxing

- Bowling

- Sumo (nothing healthy there)

... The list could go on, but I think I've made my point.

[rwallace]

Okay, to clarify:

The purpose of sport for the companies that make money from it is, well, making money, and that's from advertising, gambling and entertainment, as you say.

But society grants sport a lot of tolerance and even encouragement that it does not grant to other such profit centers. What is the motive for society to do this? Answer: it dates from the time when sport was healthy exercise. Now that the ratchet of ruthless negative-sum competition has turned sport into something that does more harm than good, this social tolerance is highly inappropriate, and it should be revoked.

[blumkvist]

You are mixing pro sports with people playing casually. Pro sports is about players pushing themselves to the limit for the audience's entertainment. Modern day gladiators. You think of society like some noble, all-knowing and wise entity. It is not, I'm sorry to tell. Modern day gladiator games is all there is to it and the crowd loves it.

Panem et circenses.

[rwallace]

That's because reality mixes them. If it was just a case of professional sports ruining a few hundred lives for entertainment like in the decadent years of the Roman Empire, well that would be bad but on the basis of sheer numbers it would be small potatoes compared to things like a million deaths a year from road accidents or the major powers treating Syria and Ukraine like puppies fighting over chew toys, so I probably wouldn't bother to comment. But it's creeping into the general culture. For example: how many Americans have played football at least for a while in school? Now consider that everyone who plays American football suffers irreversible brain damage, and the total harm becomes substantial even on the scale of bad things happening in the world at large.

[Brakenshire]

Boxing, Football/Soccer, Rugby (which was the precursor to American Football), and so on, were all codified and set up as formal sports to fulfill explicitly moral/social/physical purposes. And for a long time, they had rules banning professional participation, in an attempt to avoid the sort of problem's we're discussing, and protect the sport's role within society.

[barry-cotter]

>And for a long time, they had rules banning professional participation, in an attempt to avoid the sort of problem's we're discussing, and protect the sport's role within society.

I have never heard of any rules against professionalism in soccer, or even norms about it. Boxing has always been a sport where the very best were pros. The gentleman's code bit was in the rules against biting, eye gouging or using your legs. Even rugby is at best half true. Rugby split into union and league over professionalism. I believe union in France akways had sh shamateurs as well. I don't know enough about American Football to comment but what I do know about American sports culture does not incline me to believe there was ever a ban on pro play.

Insofar as I'm familiar with a sport you're wrong on all counts except rugby union.

[blumkvist]

I agree about the purpose of pro sports. Thinking otherwise is like believing in unicorns. I am astonished by how out of touch with reality some people are.

Most of the sports you listed require tremendous exercise though. Especially car racing. Fighting sports... don't know why you list them at all. Even chess requires a broad exercising regimen.