2015-04-01
425
Football, baseball, and basketball, the most popular sports in America, originated in the United States and are largely unknown or only minor pastimes outside North America. The football season starts in early autumn and is followed by basketball, an indoor winter sport, and then baseball, played in spring and summer. Besides these top three sports, ice hockey, boxing, golf, car racing, horse racing, and tennis have been popular for decades and attract large audiences.
Although many spectator sports, particularly football, ice hockey, and boxing, are aggressive and sometimes bloody, American spectators are notably less violent than are sports crowds in other countries. Fighting, bottle throwing and rioting, common elsewhere, are not the rule among American fans. Baseball and football games are family affairs, and cheerleaders command the remarkably non-violent crowd to root in chorus for their teams.
For many people, sports are big business. The major television networks contract with professional sports leagues for the rights to broadcast their games. The guaranteed mass viewing of major sports events means advertisers will pay networks a lot of money to sponsor the program with announcements for their products. Advertisers for beer, cars, and men's products are glad of the opportunity to push their goods to the mainly male audience of the big professional sports. The networks are glad to attract audiences who might become regular viewers of other programs produced by those networks. The major sports leagues enjoy the millions of dollars the networks pay for the broad-casting rights contracts. Many sports get half of their revenues from the networks.
National Football League (NFL) teams, for example, get about 65 percent of their revenues from television. Team owners usually sign up individual players for lucrative long-term contracts. Star baseball player Kirk Gibson recently signed a three-year contract with the Detroit Tigers for 4.1$ million. More often in the past than now, team owners traded players back and forth as items for barter.
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The commercial aspects of American professional sports can make or break an athlete's career. Young, talented athletes make it to the top because they are exceptionally talented, but not in every case because they are the best. In women's tennis, for example, an ambitious young tennis star must not only possess a winning serve and backhand, she must also get corporate agents on her side. Without agents who attract sponsors and publicity, a player has a very difficult time moving from amateur to professional sports. A talented young tennis player has a much better chance for success if she is also attractive. Tennis sportswear companies pay large sums of money to tennis players who promote their products. Many top players earn more money a year in product- endorsement fees than in prize money. Competition and success in sports, then, is not only a matter of game skill, but marketability as well.
College sports lost its amateurism years ago. Sports bring in money to colleges from ticket sales and television rights, so colleges like having winning teams. The better the team, the greater the ticket sales and television coverage, and the more money the college can invest in athletics and other programs. Football and basketball are the most lucrative college sports because they attract the most fans. Other college sports, particularly women`s sports, are often neglected and ignored by spectators. To recruit student athletes for a winning team, many colleges provide full academic scholarships to athletes.
Notes:
· rioting – (зд.) беспорядки
· to root – (ам.) поддерживать, одобрять
· announcement – (зд.) рекламное сообщение
· revenue – годовой доход
· item for barter – предмет торговли
· endorsement – (зд.) реклама с участием «звезд»
· lucrative – прибыльный
