For Floyd Mayweather to bet on baseball games and make it public about the money earned on the bets may be just a gimmick to be in the news but how much it hurts the finer aspects of money in sports may not be entirely appreciable.
In pure economic terms, sports still do not contribute to the development of an economy and are mainly categorized as entertainment. As an important part of civilized lives, sports forms perhaps the most influential entertainment that helps us grow healthy and provides icons for the younger generation. However when it comes to icons who derogate the concept of sports to the levels that Floyd Mayweather is pulling down to as a celebrity boxer, it is high time that the constructive minds put their heads together to evaluate the larger impact of such irresponsible behavior.
As a sports icon, Floyd Mayweather is an idol for not just thousands who dream to become professional boxers but also to a whole lot of young Americans who dream of making big in their lives and becoming rich. In the following text, we shall try to analyze the impact of such actions in broader terms.
Today the economies that are facing recessionary trends are mainly those economies that have long grown out of the primary and secondary industries. Activities such as trading, travel, tourism, insurance, banking and entertainment form the core of their GDP?s. Betting is the worst of the entire entertainment sector. As economies grow, these sectors too grow big in a bubble and it?s natural that when the bubble bursts, it opens the scars of reality for the next generation to bear.
At a time when the American heads should get together to find lasting solutions to the root causes of recession, irresponsible acts like those of Floyd Mayweather are serving as huge advertisements for the unproductive sectors such as gambling. It gives an impression to the younger generations that they can be rich by just doing nothing and gambling on sports. No casino would want to tell you this but the fact is that the sum total of all gamblers is always negative.
No economy can grow intrusively on gambling alone. Casino islands can survive only because the people placing the bets are the foreigners who travel to these resorts. Besides Floyd never tells us how much he would have lost on betting on other occasions.
It would better he mentioned the amounts lost too in order to provide a chance to the impressionable kids to think twice about the impact of such actions. By having an outstanding of more than USD 3.4 million and claiming to have spent more than 13 million on a recent buying spree, this guy is seriously hurting the road to recovery if at all there is one for the world?s largest economy.
There could be the argument of the ?A Lily of a day is fairer far in May? where the beauty of a short life and the joy of living to full is more important that living a long dull age but Lilies were never used to build houses, bridges or nations. This is more concerning if the person involved is someone as iconic as Floyd Mayweather. Its true that Mayweather Sr. has predicted that Floyd will end up on the streets broke if he didn?t change his spending habits but its equally true that if Floyd, JR., does not change his habits, he would be influencing many more less talented and less privileged but equally impressionable youngsters into the spiraling hole of high spending in an irresponsible manner, perhaps the last thing that a nation reeling under the stress of high unemployment would ill afford to have.
Fighting in Red, Blue and whites is not the only thing fans expect from their heroes ? behaving responsibly and leading by example is what they love in these role models for.
One of the very basic step that the authorities should take is to limit the people eligible to gamble or the amount that they can put on the table to try their luck.
People with clear tax paid incomes would do well for a start, not more than a percentage of their incomes may be allowed as bets or people who could be bad examples to the general masses.
Purists will complain that this is curtailment of the freedom of the people?s rights but if this is not enforced, people like Floyd Mayweather will only end up making many more young Americans believe that gambling is the only easy way of getting rich.
Boxing experts believe that once Floyd has blown up his fortune, lost heavily in bets, paid his children?s mother in battery case or if he is directed to pay a huge compensation to Manny Pacquiao for defamation, he will be forced to take up the super fight offer. If things happen as these people expect, it will be one of the worst turn of events in the life of the undefeated champion.
Floyd may come out of his financial quagmire through a fight with Manny but it still will be an unwanted example for the thousands of fans who unquestionably follow their sporting heroes footsteps.
