On the commodification of sport

The quaestores of modern times use health, religion, and access to sports and art just like those of the Middle Ages used salvation: to exploit people by pricing what they value too high.

Jonathan R Goodman writes in Aeon:

It was in 2012 that Major League Baseball ran an ad showing generations of parents sharing the beloved American pastime with their kids. But it was already too late: in 2012, the average price for tickets to the World Series was nearly $1,000 – compared with just $2 for the same seats in 1963. Cost for two to attend even a run-of-the mill baseball game in 2016 is nearly $80, what with $6 per beer, almost $5 for a hot dog, and $16 to park the car.

Using baseball’s cultural status to exploit fans is part of a long, dark trend: the tendency to milk the masses for what ostensibly belongs to everyone. In the Middle Ages, quaestores (pardoners) granted followers of the Catholic Church indulgences, which were believed to lessen the punishments of one’s sins. At first, indulgences were given for acts of piety and prayer but, over time, were sold by members of the Church for money. This practice became so common, and the prices so extreme, that the Protestant Reformation was, in part, galvanised by Martin Luther’s outrage at this industry of the Church.

The unaffordability of salvation continues to this day.

Full article here.

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