Baseball, basketball, football, hockey—you name it.  The American public is obsessed with professional sports.  There are even millions of fans who tune in every weekend to watch car racing (actually, NASCAR racing is currently one of the fastest growing sport in America). 

           

Today, professional sports make up a multi-billion dollar industry.  It starts with the merchandise, and the television advertisers, and the stadium agreements, and so on.  Its growth has led to an overall increase in sports participation, and the best athletes have become both superstars and role models. 

           

The critics of professional sports cite that they overshadow amateur athletics and encourage young athletes to play for the wrong reason (for money rather than pure enjoyment).   Others note that the current obsession with professional sports is an indicator of mixed-up priorities in society.  In other words, there are more important things to worry about.

           

Granted, the world of sports isn’t quite as innocent as it used to be.  Sports have been around for centuries (even millenniums), and they have always been used as a pure form of recreation.  Over time, the athletes started to get better, the competition started to get stiffer, and the stakes started to get higher.  The truly talented athletes started to be able to play sports, not just for recreation, but for money.  That changed everything.

           

The first major impact of professional sports came in the 1920s.  This happened for two reasons.  First, the economy was going great (the decade was known as the “Roaring Twenties”) and people had more leisure time.  As a result, more people played sports and more people took time to watch them. 

           

The Roaring Twenties also started the spread of mass media.  The average person could follow his or her favorite sports team by picking up the newspaper or turning on the radio.  Mass media made it easy to become a major sports fan without ever having to take off of work and go to a game.

           

But you could go to the games if you wanted to.  In the 1920s, automobiles started to hit the streets like never before.  Families could travel from rural areas to the big city in a matter of hours.  This made it easy to sneak away for an evening to take a trip to the stadium.  Professional sports teams of the time were drawing in record breaking crowds year after year.

           

Once the public had a chance to witness the fierce competitiveness and remarkable talent of professional athletes, there was no turning back.  Even during the Great Depression, when the last thing on most people’s minds was sports, athletes like Babe Ruth were able to inspire and excite people.  It wasn’t until after World War II that professional sports became as influential and widespread as they are today.  That was in large part due to athletes like Mickey Mantle (baseball), Wilt Chamberlain (basketball), and even coaches like Vince Lombardi (football). 

           

Whether it’s good or bad, professional athletics seem to be here to say.  The sports industry has suffered a few black eyes in the past few years (i.e. fights with the fans, steroid scandals, player strikes, disputes over multi-million dollar contracts, etc.).  Nonetheless, fans continue to go to the games, and the popularity of professional sports is actually growing despite the controversy.