James LaFond - Sports - Ritual Hegemony (Myth20c - Ep52)

Sports are a multi-billion industry, commanding their own television networks, smart apps, clothing line endorsements, and even their own dedicated majors in universities. But what is largely a spectator pastime for most today, sports in the past were much more local community activities that one might take part in as an informal gathering, or going back to more ancient times, as part of a tribalistic ritual based on their ultimate origins in warfare, hand to hand combat, and hunting. The very term ‘athlete’ has taken on very materialistic meaning in the age of multi-million dollar player contracts, whereas it has roots in the Hellenic word prize-seeker, awarded only to those whose acts of courage, bravery and heroism credit them with honor. How much a society has advanced, and in many ways declined, can be traced to what degree sports are regarded as heroic to that of merely spectacle.

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Very special guest James LaFond – http://jameslafond.blogspot.com/
James LaFond on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/tabooyou
James LaFond on Twitter – @TabooYou673
Lynn Lockhart & The Crackpot Podcast – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChfybQ3WBKBnCksVkoSmPYg
Books by James LaFond – https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=James+LaFond&search-alias=books&field-author=James+LaFond&sort=relevancerank

with Adam Smith, Hans Lander, Nick Mason, and Hank Oslo
- https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2018/01/10/james-lafond-sports-ritual-hegemony/
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- https://makersupport.com/Myth20c
- http://twitter.com/myth20c
- [email protected]
- http://socialmatter.net
- http://gab.ai/myth20c

— References —

– Cinderella Man, Howard (2005) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352248/
– Miracle, O’Connor (2004) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349825/
– Harvard prof: Public pays 80% of stadium costs, DeMause (2007) – http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2007/10/11/1730/harvard-prof-public-pays-80-of-stadium-costs/
– Moneyball, Miller (2011) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/
– Finally, a history of stadium subsidies in animated GIF form, DeMause (2012) – http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2012/12/04/4180/finally-a-history-of-stadium-subsidies-in-animated-gif-form/
– Retired NFL Players Claim League Illegally Used Drugs to Cover Up Injuries, Dockterman (2012) – http://time.com/106306/nfl-injury-drugs-painkillers-lawsuit/
– The NFL’s Dirty Secret, Bauder (2012) – https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/jul/04/citylights1-nfl-dirty-secret/
– Field Hockey America Vs. Rodeo America: Mapping The Faultlines Of America’s Regional Sports, Fischer-Baum (2012) – https://deadspin.com/5958476/field-hockey-america-vs-rodeo-america-mapping-the-nations-regional-sports-mapping-american-regional-sports
Baseball ProGUESTus: The Secret History of Sabermetrics, Jack Moore (2013) – https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/21234/baseball-proguestus-the-secret-history-of-sabermetrics/
– Which Sports Have the Whitest/Richest/Oldest Fans?, Derek Thompson (2014) – https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/which-sports-have-the-whitest-richest-oldest-fans/283626/
– Growth Effects of Sports Franchises, Stadiums, and Arenas: 15 Years Later, Coates (2015) – https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/Coates-Sports-Franchises.pdf
– America’s Priciest National Pastime, Farren (2017) – https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/articles/2017-07-03/sport-subsidies-are-a-terrible-deal-for-american-taxpayers
– Demographics of Sports Fans in U.S. (2017) – http://demographicpartitions.org/demographics-of-sports-fans-u-s/
– A Guide to Sabermetric Research – http://sabr.org/sabermetrics/single-page