Sports and especially those that engage many people tends to bring some aspect of democracy in life. Games make people experience many emotions in their lives. Through the physical exercise that people do when receiving training and losing one plays knowing that they can win or even fail. Players can learn the virtue of cooperation, integration and group awareness among the people. Emotional and collective experience get learned through cohesion among the participants. Sports also helps people learn public democracy and thus enhances the principles of democracy (Lunt, 2014). According to psychology when one is playing no borders exists in terms of language, religion, skin color, religion, and origin. Games bring cohesion through democracy and sense of democracy since it seems based on fair play and respect. The paper will feature an analysis regarding Sandel view of the two selected things that an individual experience when attending any form of sports.

Sports makes policymakers and well-wishers reach people in all categories. Sports education gets taken to people who cannot get achieved through participation in political education. Sports are majorly inclusive, intercultural and participatory. Football to be precise offers fun through the involvement of people in all levels of economic status and race. Once football tournaments are created the organizers make sure that they involve all youths by encouraging them to open up for the opportunities. For example, there are the annual football tournaments held in Australia every year under ‘SIQ’ project, and it aims to connect sports and democracy education (Lunt, 2014). The youths are also allowed to attend some set workshops that educate them on democracy education. Such arrangements inform the youth on social responsibility through democracy.

Sports act in a democratic force in which both talented and untalented individual gets rewarded through entitlement and birth. Sandel argument that sports plays a significant role in a democracy can get linked to the fact that rewards are offered with equality based on whoever wins but not necessarily on the status and income level of participants. in the past one can see the link between sports and equality and connective behavior. Sports brings equality condition since it allows people in all gender to participate in the modern world almost every sport has male and female participants, and this is due to the awareness that have been created by women activists as they try to make women get a place in sports (Lunt, 2014). Leadership development forums have been organized to empower women in sports leadership. In other instances campaigns have been heard where activists fight to ensure equality in the number of women participating in athletics. Despite the present challenges faced when integrating women to sports one can identify significant improvement in the number of women that have administrative roles in sports activities. Sandle is therefore justified to argue that it is rare in the modern world to get women getting discrimination on a gender basis.

Equality in sports gets seen in cases where youths from disadvantaged communities and background can get a chance to participate fully. An excellent example of a program designed to facilitate sporting activities among disadvantaged youths is Charity Street Games whose aim is to offer opportunities to all youths in participating in sports (Wilson, 2014). They offer dances and other sports at the convenience of teenagers. Taking sports to all people shows democracy since the participants feel privileged rather than being left out. Traditionally, only youths who perform well and these from well up families got a chance to showcase their talents through sports. Besides, sports help physically challenged people to participate despite their health condition fully. Government and sports ministries have come up with techniques that encourage the physical challenge to participate in their capacities.

Sports also create a sense of community. People in sports communicate the same language since the common goal is to win the prize. They tend to forget any ties and differences that exist among them until they win — an example of a country unified through sports in Jamaica. The state is well known for criminal cases, but games have acted as a unifying factor in recent years. The sense of community is evident when one nation wins, and people from the country gather together to celebrate, laugh and dance together (Warner et al. 2013). Solidarity is thus achieved, and any form of differences is forgotten once a specific team wins. After the celebration of winning, community members should learn the values and tactics used to bring development in the society. People should learn from healthy competition and later use that to have a common purpose and goal as a community.

The values learned from sports helps people learn basic skills in life which helps them determine the best virtues necessary to bring development and unity in the community (Warner et al. 2013). Sports bring positive linkages among the people which is essential in the lives of people. Sandel was right in justifying the roles of sports by considering its function of creating a sense of unity. In the contemporary world, many people no longer find the benefits of having integration among community members. Sports organizations have in the recent days attempted to come up with means of bringing a sense of community as the community members participate in sports.

Sports make people work in unity to fight against the common enemy. It also makes sure that decisions followed demonstrate that people receive equal treatment at all cost. A challenge to defeat both internal and external rivals becomes the primary goal, and this calls for the need to work in unison. Community members are expected to meet in a specific area as they do their practice. A joint facility could be a field, swimming pool, common balls, and common rules where all community members are supposed to gather and follow respectively. In the case of prize, community members gang up together to take celebration. All the differences are forgotten, and people take the prize as their own (Warner et al. 2013). In other instances, a country celebrates since people do not know the exact person who won but rather the specific country in case of international competition. For a domestic competition, a particular state or ethnic group gets considered as winners but not specific individuals. In other instances, traditional celebration ceremonies are planned to make sure that every community members feels the best of success. All community members in all income levels and gender gets a chance to participate in sports. Physically challenged and people in minority group also interact with others through sports.

In cases of the business part of the business, the issue of democracy is lessened since people’s motive is changed to that of looking for money. Fame and money become the reason behind participation, and this alters the roles that sports is expected to play. Furthermore, community members already know that an individual prize is not genuine and cannot, therefore, celebrate victory in unity (Warner et al. 2013). Sports should not be done to get profits as this hinders the roles with which sports is meant to tackle.

In conclusion, the role sports play in bringing democracy cannot be ignored. Sports play the role of bringing equality and giving a sense of community to the participants. Sports should not be done for business purpose but rather to serve the interests of community members.

References

Lunt, D. J. (2014). Sports and democracy in the Ancient and Modern World by Chrestesen Paul review. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/566626/summary

Warner, S., Kerwin, S., & Walker, M. (2013). Examining sense of community in sport: Developing the multidimensional ‘SCS’Scale. Journal of Sport Management, 27(5), 349-362.

Wilson, B. (2014). Sporting chance for disadvantaged youths. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-26546213