The US spends a shit-ton of money on sports… as long as it’s basketball, baseball, football or soccer. Stadium construction for those sports is breaking records in the US and all of those projects are heavily subsidized. It’s a giant, capitalist industry and as such it is propped up by tax money, lol.
Comment on ```curl -u "lab_tech:olympic_medalist" https://usa-curling.org/podium```
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 20 hours agoWe don’t fund sports for shit. The only thing we fund is the military. We fund the Olympic team because that’s just PR and marketing, but outside of that,you’re on your own.
anyhow2503@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 19 hours ago
Oh, I see. We are talking about different things. I am talking about the US funding sports programs that develop talent and allow amateur athletes pursue sports for a living. You are talking about sports entertainment.
If you are a youth or an amateur athlete, you are all on your own in the American system. Even gold medalists often have to scrape by between Olympics.
Redacted@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
What? No. The highest paid government employee in most states are sports coaches
0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
The highest paid entity in the health industry being health insurance companies doesn’t mean “health” is the main goal.
Redacted@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
The statement was “we dont fund sports for shit” which is false, nice gotcha tho
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
That’s wrong. A big part of the reason why the US dominates in women’s sports generally is because our higher education funding system is based on a bedrock legal principle from Title IX that schools must spend as much on women as they do on men, including in extracurricular activities like sports. So as a result, with college football being a men’s only sport that raises a ton of revenue, a majority of our universities robustly fund women’s sports programs in a large number of sports.
Plus the US has a relatively unique culture of youth sports associated with their school, sponsored by the schools and their funding.
So we do fund a lot of youth and amateur (and semi professional) sports, indirectly through schools at various levels, including through whatever government subsidies and policies affect those schools.