I've been hearing a lot of frustrated commentary about the 2011 NCAA Basketball Championships, the tournament's general development and evolution over the years, and how the whole experience is being corrupted and sullied by ever-increasing commercialization.
A basic summation is that what was once a pure and exciting sporting event has become ridiculous, driven by the mission of universities to fund their sports programs with more and more money, to attract greater and greater players and make better and better names for themselves, all while religiously avoiding any kind of incentives for the players beyond scholarships.
It's also being argued that despite players' free tuition these student athletes are held to typically lower academic standards by means of pressure from administrations on instructors, all in order to improve team records and increase standings in the "league." Statistics show that no students in any other extra-curricular activities miss (or are excused from) more classes than collegiate athletes.
Why do we require these extraordinarily talented young athletes to attend school at all, if not just to fill the coffers of the institutions? Now add to this that coaches are much more aggressively recruited and far better compensated than the very best, most senior professors in any academic discipline.
Now, let's visit the question of the inequity of resources and facilities in any college or university. When faced with the choice of building a new field house or a new recital hall or a new lecture hall, where do you think the money will go first? Aren't universities supposed to be about education? Why not let professional sporting organizations create more farm leagues to provide more intensive training for athletes, thus allowing schools to reduce administrative costs and tuition prices and provide more opportunities for those who are not athletes and in sore need of education for their work-a-day futures.
Am I trying to suggest that education is not important for athletes? No, I'm really not. But I do think that there are a good number of athletes enrolled in schools with top-tier sports programs who couldn't care less about obtaining a degree. And, honestly, wouldn't now-student athletes better serve themselves by "specializing" in their athletic training without the distraction of classes and homework and more quickly land that multi-million dollar contract with a professional team?
Try as I may, I can find little difference between the corruption of college sports and the greed of professional sports. There may be no football season this year? Horrors!
It may be obvious, but I am no real fan of any sport. I can watch and (somewhat distractedly) enjoy a game now and then, but, in the end I really couldn't give a rat's ass who wins or loses. A pleasant summer's night out at the ball park with a beer and a hot dog, OK!; but sitting in front of a TV or listening to a 24/7 radio gab fest about the "finer" points of sports really isn't for me.
Never having been an athlete of any merit, myself (but knowing many who have), I've always thought that fanaticism over sports was really about having once participated, but no longer being able to -- a sort of romantic, vicarious longing for lost youth. I'm told that I'm wrong on this, but I will say that I can watch an entire golf tournament because I've played the game and both understand and appreciate the skill that goes into putting a small white ball in a hole in as few strokes as possible. Challenge, skill, competition -- I suck as a golfer, but I get it.
I would rather slit my wrists or drive a sharp stick into my eye than watch more than about five minutes of ten men running back and forth and dunking a ball into a basket. Hockey moves too fast for my ADHD brain to follow and I can never find the puck. Baseball is too entirely slow and (sorry) really a game for boys, if you ask me. Football has too many interruptions -- huddle, take positions, snap the ball, throw the ball, gain two yards, stop the clock, start again in about one minute...um, no thanks. It's not that I miss the skill and ability of these athletes, I just don't care enough.
I have been a classically-trained musician almost all of my life. I can play or sing from memory more works of more composers than I could possibly count. I can listen to fifty different orchestras play the same symphony or concerto and never become bored, because I'm pitting the skills of one composer against another, one soloist against another, one horn player against another, etc. An hour-long symphony? An opera? The Bach Mass in b minor? Yeah, count me in. Hell, I'll listen to the entire Neibelung in one marathon session if you ask me to.
So what's my point? My point is that it saddens me that orchestras and opera companies and corps de ballet and choirs and theaters are failing with greater and greater frequency all over the world. These organizations don't get nearly as much corporate sponsorship as sports teams (if any at all, save the chance to slap their name on the front of Orchestra Hall). These highly talented, highly educated, highly dedicated artists aren't paid anywhere NEAR what professional athletes are, and fewer still enjoyed full rides in college. There are no owners of arts organizations -- they're all non-profit. And the government is constantly cutting back on arts funding, funding for arts in schools, etc.
Yes, people will support and pay to see what they enjoy most. I understand (though I can't imagine laying down a couple of hundred dollars for my friend and me to see a game, let alone thousands for season tickets). But I believe the slow death of arts organizations is directly attributable to the dearth of children going into the arts and their subsequent lack of interest in attending performances. The reasons for this are myriad, but mostly due to lack of access or affordability. And, let's face it, we live in a world in DESPERATE need of beauty.
Sure it's true that many foundations and wealthy individuals are quite generous in giving to the arts, but the difference between what arts organizations receive in grants and gifts and sponsorships is so much less than what a corporation will pay to have their logo splashed across the boards or even what they'll spend for that all-important Super Bowl commercial slot. And why? Just so teams can pay their coaches and players' contracts, maintain their stadia, and make sure the owners walk away with a handsome profit, themselves. Yes, empty seats in an opera house clearly beg a question about public desire for the finished product, but even sports events are blacked-out if the stadium isn't sold out.
Really, what does the world gain from bigger, stronger, more talented, more wealthy twentieth/twenty-first century athletes at the cost of many centuries' worth of art? Do I recognize the artistic beauty of Michael Jordon sailing through the air toward the basket, or the poetic swing of Mickey Mantle's bat, or the balletic moves of Muhammed Ali, or the graceful arc of Dan Marino's spiral? Yes, I do. And I'm guessing that an athlete enjoys a career of about twenty to twenty-five years? But an actor, a musician, an opera singer, even some dancers can enjoy a career spanning forty or fifty or sixty years.
Wouldn't it be terrific if every corporation gave one tenth of what they spend on sports event advertising to an arts organization?
Wouldn't it be nice to see more equity between musicians, singers, dancers, conductors, owners, coaches and athletes?
Wouldn't it be great if an orchestra didn't have to fold and put over a hundred artists and administrators out on the streets, while a football team and local, state and federal governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a bigger venue for the sole purpose of increased ticket sales and tax revenues?
Wouldn't it be fantastic if every child was encouraged to artistic study or had enough money to buy an instrument or to take dance lessons?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if I didn't have to be nothing more than a sad, old, artistic, non-athletic dreamer?
No comments:
Post a Comment