Basketball

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
– Karl Marx, The Manifesto of the Communist Party

Last year, Reggie Miller criticized Kevin Durant’s decision to join the Golden State Warriors in order to win a championship. While many others made similar critiques, I find that Miller reveals a broader issue in professional sports. Miller expresses this point through the article’s title, “Kevin Durant Traded a Sacred Legacy for Cheap Jewelry.” Framing his critique through the sacred (legacy) and the profane (cheap jewelry) reveals what I see as two inter-twined, mutually-dependent yet contradictory elements that structure professional sports.

Click here to read the full article...

The migration of professional athletes has entered the news once more in recent weeks. In Chinese association football (soccer), quotas on the number of foreign athletes permitted on the pitch have been implemented to curb the boom in spending which has attracted players such as Carlos Tevez, Oscar, Hulk, Asamoah Gyan and Graziano Pellè to the Chinese Super League. In further high profile news, freshly inaugurated President Donald Trump’s use of executive orders to restrict the movement of people from predominantly Muslim countries could affect the movement of athletes into the North American territory.

Click here to read the full article...