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January 20, 2012
The Big League Lie: Do Sports Really Matter to Your Community?
Aaron Gordon recounts the story of how one man fooled a city with the promise of professional basketball.
The Good Men Project
by Aaron Gordon
Kids playing stickball on the street. Arguing about last night’s game with your barber. Whatever it is, so many of us consider sports to be a fundamental aspect to a healthy community. Not only do we believe this, but it makes sense, too. Our surroundings, both physical and intangible, are part of who we are. Professional sports teams are part of our identity as well, so we conflate professional sports with other aspects of our community. But this is wrong, and smart businessmen have learned to exploit the error.
Local elites socially construct ideas such as community self-esteem and community collective conscience to help them reap large amounts of public dollars for their private stadiums. That quote comes from the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, published in 2002, four years before the Atlantic Yards project was approved, and before the documentary Battle For Brooklyn was filmed. After attending a screening of the film and speaking with the directors, I now see the notion of professional sports as a community entity isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous.
Posted by eric at January 20, 2012 12:18 PM