Bread and Circuses II
Trevor’s post titled Sports Leaders and Servant Leadership covers a topic I had a hard time passing by with out some additional comments. So here they are.
Reading the welcome posted at the top of this Servant-Leadership Blog, holds the key in determining if professional sports is about servant leadership. “Do those served grow as persons, do they while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” There are some individual athletes that can be servant-leaders, but lets face it the professional sports industry is not about helping sports fans to grow in their humanity.
When I watch the commercials that appear during the sporting events, the message I get is that sports fans should drink more beer, watch more TV, and their love life’s will flourish. The newspaper articles that cover professional sports like the one Trevor discussed on Kobe Bryant, or the article in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune with the headline “Vikings’ Moe Williams Pleads Not Guilty in Boat Sex Case”, play on the sex and violence entertainment combination guaranteed to bring money to those promoting the ventures. That concept might explain why global big business is trying to cash into the sports craze by buying up Brazilian Soccer teams as discussed in today’s Christian Science Monitor article titled “Will Big Money Change The Score In Soccer.” If anything, the professional sports industry is all about what servant-leadership is not.
What troubles me the most about professional sports is how our public servants promote the idea that professional sports are indeed about serving the common good. The typical argument that politicians use to promote the idea of using tax money to fund sporting arena’s is that sports brings jobs to the people, grow the economy, and improve the quality of life for all. (Refer to the to the press release from Anoka County Minnesota’s proposal to build a tax payer funded stadium for the MN Vikings for an example of this.) What these pro-sports politicians don’t like to talk about is how diverting this money into stadium projects in reality simply diverts money away from projects that really are about addressing the common good.
He also goes on to talk about today’s bread and circuses, “Much of our bread, as it were, goes, not to keep the masses peaceable, but to a fairly small elite, including the fabulous compensation paid to corporate chief executives and star athletes and entertainers. And circuses abound, too. While our nation’s largest true circus (the stadium at the University of Michigan) holds but 105,000 citizens—less than half the 250,000 capacity of the Circus Maximus—television screens bring sports and entertainment to worldwide audiences that reach into the billions.”
Although Mr. Bogle’s talk was in regards to what was wrong with the investment industry, his introduction reflected well on where our priorities lay today. Bogle reminded his audience that, “the Roman Empire had dissolved. Constantinople had fallen, the fruitful provinces overwhelmed by the Vandals; Britain was lost; Gaul had fallen; and the brutal Goths had conquered Rome itself”.
So what have we learned from history?
Reading the welcome posted at the top of this Servant-Leadership Blog, holds the key in determining if professional sports is about servant leadership. “Do those served grow as persons, do they while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” There are some individual athletes that can be servant-leaders, but lets face it the professional sports industry is not about helping sports fans to grow in their humanity.
When I watch the commercials that appear during the sporting events, the message I get is that sports fans should drink more beer, watch more TV, and their love life’s will flourish. The newspaper articles that cover professional sports like the one Trevor discussed on Kobe Bryant, or the article in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune with the headline “Vikings’ Moe Williams Pleads Not Guilty in Boat Sex Case”, play on the sex and violence entertainment combination guaranteed to bring money to those promoting the ventures. That concept might explain why global big business is trying to cash into the sports craze by buying up Brazilian Soccer teams as discussed in today’s Christian Science Monitor article titled “Will Big Money Change The Score In Soccer.” If anything, the professional sports industry is all about what servant-leadership is not.
What troubles me the most about professional sports is how our public servants promote the idea that professional sports are indeed about serving the common good. The typical argument that politicians use to promote the idea of using tax money to fund sporting arena’s is that sports brings jobs to the people, grow the economy, and improve the quality of life for all. (Refer to the to the press release from Anoka County Minnesota’s proposal to build a tax payer funded stadium for the MN Vikings for an example of this.) What these pro-sports politicians don’t like to talk about is how diverting this money into stadium projects in reality simply diverts money away from projects that really are about addressing the common good.
While discussing my concerns with a good friend about the state of sports and how our “state” likes to provide funding for them, he introduced me to the term “Bread and Circuses”. John C. Bogle, founder and former chairman of The Vanguard Group gave a great overview of this term in a speech he gave on the state of investments.
Mr. Bogle desribed "Bread and Circuses" as follows, “during the first half of the first century, the Roman emperors kept their popularity high and their populace peaceful by providing what we today cynically call bread and circuses. Bread was the free grain, given each month to the plebeians. Circuses were the shows—the chariot races, the gladiators, the sporting events, the theatre—that took place in the great hippodromes of the Roman Empire. Those stadiums dotted the empire from Constantinople to Britain. The largest was the Circus Maximus in Rome, which seated a mere 250,000 souls. During the first three centuries A.D., actors and athletes became glamorous public heroes, garnering great wealth and political influence. Bread and circuses proved a winning formula, and the Roman Empire reached its pinnacle.”
Mr. Bogle desribed "Bread and Circuses" as follows, “during the first half of the first century, the Roman emperors kept their popularity high and their populace peaceful by providing what we today cynically call bread and circuses. Bread was the free grain, given each month to the plebeians. Circuses were the shows—the chariot races, the gladiators, the sporting events, the theatre—that took place in the great hippodromes of the Roman Empire. Those stadiums dotted the empire from Constantinople to Britain. The largest was the Circus Maximus in Rome, which seated a mere 250,000 souls. During the first three centuries A.D., actors and athletes became glamorous public heroes, garnering great wealth and political influence. Bread and circuses proved a winning formula, and the Roman Empire reached its pinnacle.”
He also goes on to talk about today’s bread and circuses, “Much of our bread, as it were, goes, not to keep the masses peaceable, but to a fairly small elite, including the fabulous compensation paid to corporate chief executives and star athletes and entertainers. And circuses abound, too. While our nation’s largest true circus (the stadium at the University of Michigan) holds but 105,000 citizens—less than half the 250,000 capacity of the Circus Maximus—television screens bring sports and entertainment to worldwide audiences that reach into the billions.”
Although Mr. Bogle’s talk was in regards to what was wrong with the investment industry, his introduction reflected well on where our priorities lay today. Bogle reminded his audience that, “the Roman Empire had dissolved. Constantinople had fallen, the fruitful provinces overwhelmed by the Vandals; Britain was lost; Gaul had fallen; and the brutal Goths had conquered Rome itself”.
So what have we learned from history?
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