Sport is an essential aspect of modern-day society. Sports has been a uniting factor in many societies. Even though there have been reported cases of discrimination based on races and ethnic groups in the international community, many scholars argue that sports play an essential role in educating, motivating, and sensitizing the society members on the importance of taking care of their skills. Further, sports help human beings to be flexible by losing excess fats and calories. The modern society has been characterized by an influx of fast foods in the international market, which has been associated with many health care conditions, including diabetes and hypertension. One of the significances of sports to culture is that sports embrace cultural values like the accepted social virtues, which can help young people not only develop their expertise in their specialized sporting areas but also sharpen their skills to enable them to have full participation (Wray, 2014). Further, sports have different effects on society. Among them is creating a cohesive community that is ready to undertake the various duties in terms of games and that sports will help in identifying a society’s culture. For instance, in modern society, European countries are known for their expertise and skills in football and basketball. Different teams from the various European nations have won top trophies (Maksachuk, 2012). As such, they depict how the Europeans love their sports, which has even increased their international recognition. Therefore, games have significant impacts on modern-day society as they embrace society’s culture and increase the unity of the states.
Sports constitute an essential part of not only members of the society but also other sporting groups and organizations. Even though they have been effective in motivating the young to use their talents well, it has been on the headlines how sports have been discriminating against some people based on gender and races. Such ideologies and implicate the ideology making process as some people are favored more than others. Therefore, sports might develop around some ideas and can be explicitly be explained through social theory (Wray, 2018: 45).
In studying sports in sociology, scholars argued that some assumptions exist for the development of sport b done in the right way. They stated that for a sport to be developed in an upright manner, those talented in the different sporting activities should be motivated by trying to ensure that they are better than they were sometimes back and that the external rewards should play an essential role in ensuring that their skills are maintained (Maksachuk, 2012). Even they can earn a living from them. Further, the theory connects sports and different cultural beliefs within society.
One of the benefits of sports to society in enhancing unity. People love different games, including boxing, football, baseball, and hockey. Even though they might be having different interests, many people can gather in the stadiums to watch and cheer their teams. Unity is achieved when some international or local organizations use such platforms to create awareness of the different issues in society (Wray, 2014:430). People can be sensitized on the importance of pulling together as a community and ensuring that there is cohesion. Further, trough the sporting activities, culture can be educated on the importance of social virtues. Social virtues are essential for the community to achieve their intended goals. As such, community virtues can be embraced.
The other significance is the spreading of the society’s culture. Different organizations are associated with various sporting activities. For instance, China is known for boxing, while Spain, Britain, and France are known for their expertise in football. On the other hand, the United States of America is recognized through basketball. Such identities, therefore, help the society to trade its culture to the outside world, thus increasing their recognition (Zerubavel, 1996). Different countries and societies have adopted such sporting activities all over the world as a way of helping the young achieve their dreams through their talents.
Further, the initiation of such sporting activities in different parts of the world creates a room for consultation with the big bodies to help in the decisions making process and thus incorporating the decision-making approaches.
There are many effects associated with increased sporting activities in society. Even though there are many positive ones, sporting activities have also led to increased gender and ethnic discrimination in society. Over the past, gender-based discrimination had been on the increase. Women were perceived to be incompetent, and this increased the gap between women in sports and men in sports.
Further, this can be noticed in the modern society as men’s sports are more developed as compared to women. It became apparent that sports increased gender segregation. Therefore, there is a need to embrace the importance of equality in the sporting activities such that even the ladies can get equal participating chances. The other negative factor associated with sports in society is increased ethnicity. Since some organizations are well known for their games, they might not be allowed to participate in the different parts of the world. Such discriminatory factors affect the equal representation of people from other parts of the world.