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Lesson 4: Amateurism and Professionalism in Sport

What Can Pro Sports Learn From the College Model?

Amateur sports can be idealized as having qualities that are more beneficial to society than those of professional sports. The NCAA has been an example of elite-level amateur sports in the United States, and we’ll discuss that in another lesson – so do not focus on the NCAA for this exercise, which is designed to have us focus in general terms on amateur sport. Instead, we’ll use the Gaelic Athletic Association ( GAA ) in Ireland as an example of a league that is held up as an example of amateur virtue.

Read about the Gaelic Athletic Association.

Gaelic Athletic Association website
Figure 4.3. About the GAA website.

 

Watch the short BBC video below.

GAA - What Professional Sports can Learn from Amateur Games
 

Consider these questions for our discussion.

  • What are the virtues of amateurism?
  • Does it really contain qualities that are lost in professional sports? 

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