Violence and Sports
...ns with his eyes closed. Michael Jordan is the greatest man to ever walk across the hard wood floors of professional basketball, but to be paid $63 million in one season is almost sickening. Football players aren’t any better but are a little different when it comes to why they are paid so much. They have a lot more at stake when they go out on to the field to do battle. They have to consider the possibility of getting injured at any time because of the violent nature of the sport. They are paid to be big, mean, fast, and ruthless out on the field against men just as big and ruthless as themselves. Kevin Green, a defensive linebacker said “ It is true that we are getting paid outrageous amount for what we do out on the turf, but we are the most likely to get hurt in all professional sports. We want to make sure we get what we need before we get out of the league.”(O’Hara, 12) That is the typical mindset of pro football players. The signification of the relation between violence in pro sports and the money the athletes make is summed up in this quote: “The economic incentive to win forces players to develop a win at all cost attitude. Players no longer play simply for the love of the game, but rather play for the tremendous amount of wealth that can be attained by winning.” (Rowe) The fans of professional sports are expecting more from the players, and when they feel that the performance from their team is inadequate, they get violent. Most people know of the incidents that occur from European and South American soccer games. The fans of these soccer games have fights regularly over arguments that are provoked from one team winning and one team losing. There have also been cases as extreme as death for another fan or even a player. “…on May 29, 1985 when two fans turned an argument into a full scale riot, as the Italian fans tried to storm the English stands in the process they knocked down a cement wall killing 39 people. In result of this some teams had to ban their own fans from attending the home games.”(Hazleton) Violent fans happen in any sport, not just soccer. The National Hockey League (NHL) had an unfortunate event in the early 1990’s. “Take for example, the Montreal Canadians, who had just won the National Hockey League championship after their June 7 Stanley Cup final victory over the Los Angles Kings. Almost immediately after the game, a rampage started in the streets of Montreal. For over two hours, people were turning over cars, setting fires, and smashing store windows with big stones. The damage was estimated at about $10 million.”(McGurgan) Drinking is an activity that provokes the fans to act in a violent nature. There is a new crackdown on drinking at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs. They have beefed up security to keep people in the cheap seats from moving into the lower box seats. “Season-ticket holders will be responsible for the actions of anyone using their seats. But the biggest changes are in beer sales. The Cubs will reduce the number of beer vendors by 10 percent; make them stop selling in the middle of the sixth inning, a half-inning earlier than before; and allow vendors to stock up only halfway for their final trip through the stands. It is all, as the letter says, because ‘the poor decision of one fan resulted in an event that was embarrassing for all of us.’”(Chicago Times) The incident that the reporter was talking about was that of a Chicago Cub fan that took the hat from Chad Kreuter, when his Los Angeles Dodger’s were playing against the Cubs. “Ron Camacho, one of three men arrested for disorderly conduct during last week’s fight at the Cubs-Dodgers game, has filed a lawsuit against both teams seeking more than $400,000. Chad Kreuter and other Dodgers jumped into the seats and “strangled, punched, slapped, pushed and kicked Mr. Camacho,” the suit says, injuring his neck, arms, torso and face and causing him ‘severe pain and suffering and emotional distress.’”(Chicago Times) This event may or may not have been prevented by the selling of alcoholic beverages, but it does portray the violent nature of the pro athletes and the fans of pro sports. These crazed fans need to stop their violent nature before more people are injured and killed. Society has a lasting effect on how professional sports should be played, and the general attitude is the acceptance of violence because the pro sports generate too much money to do without it. Violence and pro sports have coexisted for a long time. Violence occurs by the athletes while they are playing their sport and off the field as well. One such incident on the field occurred in the NFL in 1977. The Cincinnati Bengals were playing the Denver Broncos, and a player from Denver struck a player from Cincinnati in the back of the neck. “Mr. Hackbart later felt great pain and, after seeing a doctor, learned that he had a serious neck fracture. In Hackbart vs. Cincinnati, the trial court ruled that intentional injuries incurred during a game should be outside the framework of the law.”(Rowe) With the increase in society taking a stand against violence, pro sports have become an area where some feel that the violent acts such as the hitting and fighting that occurs should be eliminated. Most people in our society, however, believe that you cannot change something that has been around for so long because it would change the aspect of the game to something completely different. The reasons that the violence is occurring in sports are due to six theories according to John Schneider. “The violence in sport mirrors the violence found in society, violence as the result of economic incentives, the influence of crowd behavior on player violence, genetic causation for player aggression, learning theory and player aggression, and psychological stress and player violence” (Lapchick 230). The theories of sport mirroring society, violence as a result of economic incentive, and the influence of the crowd behavior are the theories that I feel are responsible for the increasing violence in sports. In events such as hockey games, wh...