Bruno Deshayes Copywriting Blog

After bungee jumping, mountain biking, parachuting what will people think of next? What is the motivation behind all this?

Is people self-esteem so low that if they don't make it to the Guinness Book of Records they feel like a nobody? Has reality TV challenged the weak that they are indestructible? Are people so bored stiff with their lives that they want to finish with a bang?

The amount of injuries in sport is a worrisome trend - not just for star players but for mundane fans who make the bulk of knee replacement surgery. Just like dentists who invest their earnings in shares of candy and chocolate manufacturers, orthopedics surgeons might be shareholders in sport fixtures and TV channels.

When sport met marketing and money, sport ceased to be sport. Instead it is a trend setter, an arena where champions are made and worshipped, a religion of achievers for achievement's sake, a cosy fraternity of eternally young folks who produce wealth for themselves, their doctors, coaches and their sponsors.

Our forefathers moved from an agricultural society to an industrial society. We in turn have moved from a service industry to an entertainment industry. Marketing used to be about finding out what people really want and giving it to them. When that became overcrowded in every market segment the next stage is to create your own market niche out of nothing.

Sport is the perfect playground for this. Create your own sport and promote it until you get a critical mass of followers. Connect a kite to a surf board and call it kitesurfing. Aficionados spare no expense in buying up the right high-tech gear to be seen in the right places with the right crowd.

If you end-up in hospital then you will have the right story to tell and you may ask your boss to sponsor the next event.

Bike riding is a prime example where an ordinary bike costs $150 but an impressive cycling machine can tally over $10,000 and it does not even have a rear vision mirror!

Like other religions sport is a way to keep your mind off the problems you can't tackle (like a divorce, a lingering court case, a disabled child) and allow you to live in a made-up world where you can make your own rules.

The only problem is that is never satisfies. Even those who make it to the pinnacle of their endeavour do not stay there for very long. Why so many star players fall into drugs, adultery, gambling, match fixing or else? Is that really the role models we want to show our children who do sport at school? Should professional sport be banned so that those champions can also have a regular job like the rest of us and donate their sponsorship fees to charity?

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