financing of sports

"But that reflects the bad side—the fact that much of the US sports success is due to misplaced priorities that begin at the grassroots level. I attended the University of Florida, the alma mater of swimmer Ryan Lochte, who won two golds in London. This is a school that has gone crazy about sports, building a professional-sized football stadium and lavish facilities for its athletes. The university claims that sports is separate and self-supporting but the effect on the campus was debilitating. The school offers easy majors for athletes and fosters a culture of sports being on a par with academics. At times it felt that one was attending a sports school with other majors attached.  Sports has become so consuming in the United States that families spend outrageous amounts of money on children with elite athletic potential. Lochte’s parents had their home foreclosed, while gymnast Gabby Douglas’s mother declared bankruptcy. None of this means Americans are more active or healthy than elsewhere. For most, sports is something to be viewed, or compartmentalized into an activity done on very expensive equipment or in very expensive clubs once or twice a week."