It’s definitely been a rough year for sports. We’ve had to adjust our whole style of writing for 2020. We never thought we would be writing articles like this one even back in December of 2019! We were sitting there writing out our cute christmas cards, or maybe receiving a christmas party invite. January came and then February, and even then, we thought it was going to be a pretty normal year. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, it seems. Many localities are starting to open again for major sports again, bit by bit. The only thing really still 100% restricted as of this writing are things like combat sports. While we may not be able to have full stadiums for a while yet, workarounds are bring brought into effect and things are slowly starting to improve. A Welcome ReliefWe here at the Sports Economist think that this can’t happen too soon, to be honest. We don’t want people to go crazy and take undue risks, but we feel strongly that sports can go on with the proper protections and precautions. And we also strongly feel that there are lots of benefits to the regular practice of sports for society in general. We would never have had this website if we didn’t feel that way. So why is it so important that sports come back? Work It OutWe are physical creatures. We need to be physically active. This goes from the major leagues in every sport right down to the smallest ad hoc neighborhood game. For one thing, this is going to help us keep our bodies in good shape and our immune systems on point, perhaps at a point where we may need it the most! Also, the value of spectating major sports in society is highly undervalued, in the opinion of The Sports Economist. People need outlets like these in any healthy society. Some people would like to look down their noses at people who watch sports as people who are wasting their time, but I think that these lockdowns have given us ample time to understand what function sports have played in our society, and how important they really are. The Social ElementSports also serve to bring people together, on so many levels. They bridge social, economic and racial divides and help remind us of what unites us. As well as being physical creatures, we are social creatures. And at the end of the day we need to be treated as such, or other consequences will definitely ensue. We are going to make a prediction here. As sports slowly return to normal (or at least some semblance of it as we knew it), people’s moods are going to improve. Incidences of substance abuse, depression, and violent behavior all over will being to decrease. And we will slowly discover what it means to be human again. |