Governments should spend more money in support of the arts than in support of athletics such as state-sponsored Olympic teams.

Governments should spend more money in support of the arts than in support of athletics such as state-sponsored Olympic teams.

Nowadays. with the development of people’s living standards, people’s need for health and aesthetic taste expands significantly. As for the government, whether to input more on arts or sports is always a debatable problem. Personally, I think financing athletics is more beneficial for the public.

To start with, athletics and activities pertaining to it are crucial for raising people’s awareness of the importance of physical health and therefore trigger the motivation for exercise. Life is replete with evidence to demonstrate this point. For example, NBA is increasingly popular all across the world, where teenagers are the major base of its fans. So it is not surprising to see the increasing number of youngsters enjoy themselves in basketball. Also, basketball games are prevailing in every community nowadays. Admittedly, body fitness is a key element to evaluate the living standard and economic strength of a country. Thus, only when the citizens of a country display a high body constitution can we tell the country becomes strong. The promotion of athletics obviously supports it.

Additionally, athletics and sports games bring a financial return, which is far greater than that from art. It is undeniable that sports games like Olympic games cover a wider range of audiences than art on the ground that art has a relatively higher entry-level. And this determines that art receives narrower sources of income, in other words, a lower rate of return on investment. We can see that the number of art museums or related facilities is far less than that of sports infrastructures such as sports fields and swimming pools. One of the vital reasons is its high cost. This is contrasted with its favorable price and low inflows of people. Compared with Olympics games which may bring thousands of jobs and a huge amount of investment to the city, finance in art seems unnecessary and less reasonable.

In summary, support for sports is wiser for governments not only for this intangible benefit towards people’s physical health but also the great economic return. On the contrary, art-related activities seem less profitable and influential for the public.