By: Anav Chopra
Over the course of history, sports have helped develop a sense of healthy competition and entertainment in society. Today, sports are a key component of our culture. Whether it be by developing physical and social skills in earlier years of life, such as through pee-wee football, or watching your favorite sport on T.V. while you cheer on your favorite team, sports are all around us.
Around the world, there are mega sporting events taking place, such as: the Summer and Winter Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, and World Cups. Many cities eagerly host these events in hope of funding for new infrastructure, community involvement, and a boost in tourism. For many cities, the chance to host a sporting event means an improved economy and a better life for their citizens.
However, past experiences have showed that host cities do not always gain the benefits that they had hoped for. Rather, these events leave severe environmental consequences. These consequences include the pollution from the building of all the new stadiums and facilities as well as when the event is actually taking place. As an enthusiastic football and basketball fan, this news was quite the eye opener.
Carbon emissions that boost climate change are a major factor of events’ ecological footprint. Some organizations implement policies for the carbon emissions generated by an event. However, in a time where global warming is becoming more and more prevalent, do these “policies” truly provide comfort? Moreover, these calculated large emissions of carbon do not even start to account for the tons of trash and food waste, energy consumption to power the stadium and hotels, or water consumption for the fields, pools, and even the toilets.
One research study conducted by professors in the United Kingdom looked to estimate the ecological footprints of a major sporting event. The event they used as their case study was the Football Association Challenge Cup Final (English domestic football). The factors assessed while calculating this footprint included transportation, food and water usage/waste, as well as infrastructural developments.
“The study found that the average attendee generates a footprint seven times greater than an average person living an average lifestyle. The reason for this drastic increase is due substantially due to transportation. The consumption of food and drink, and the energy and resources required to produce that food and drink, makes up the next largest part of the footprint.” (Forbes)
Due to the stadium that the event took place in being extremely old, the stadium itself did not have an immense impact to the result. However, stadiums will not always be this old. As technology in our society is being innovated everyday, the demand for stadiums that will attract large sports teams high. These stadiums are now offering state of the art facilities and technologies that no team wants to give up. For example, in the NFL, there have been at least eight new constructed stadiums in the last 15 years. (Football Stadium Digest)
Lastly, the opportunity and excitement that comes with hosting a mega sporting event leads to cities relaxing their rules for development and preparation. This may be because of the short amount of time given to prepare for hosting the event, or it may be that cities receive lots of pressure to satisfy their expectations for the event.
Sports are definitely a vital part of our culture. They are integrated into many people’s daily lives. However, we cannot continue to let the pressure of extravagance get in the way of the Earth’s wellbeing. Is there any way to bring more awareness to this issue? What can we do to decrease a sporting event’s ecological footprint? Do you believe that the change that is necessary will be implemented in the near future?
29 comments:
I am a huge sports, but i never really thought about the environmental impact huge sports events have. The more I read on, the more i agreed with and realized what was being said. I feel like one way that we can bring more awareness to this issue is to control big sporting events. For example, there will be be proctors during these events. These proctors can make sure a person do not cross his limit while at these events. This restriction would help reduce the ecological footprint people have during these sporting events, and it would raise awareness to the issue. Now that I know of this problems, I definitely want to be part in the change that is necessary, but i think that change in the future will not come. There are many simple things humans can do to help the Earth such as stop using plastic straws and carpool, but they don’t want to make these simple changes in their lives. When it comes to important things like sporting events that they love, i strongly believe that they wont make the necessary change because sporting events are too important for people, and they wouldn’t want to change or restrict them in any way.
A possible way to bring awareness to the waste that exists in sporting events, is posting signs around the building encouraging more sustainable options: supplying environmentally friendly transportation options, decomposable food containers, and recycling and compost bins. Supplying more environmentally options and making awareness of the effect of ignoring these options, I believe more people will make better choices and reduce the footprint of the sporting event. These changes should be required by law to make sure that they are put into effect. I like to believe that change is coming, but I also understand that the ease of using less environmentally friendly options. Companies and sporting bodies will protest these changes and lobby to stop them, but I believe they are necessary and hopefully will be put into effect. If the fans make their opinion known and refuse to attend if changes are not made, then I think change will happen.
In a world where sports is widely popular and promoted, I feel it is going to be very hard to stop the continued growth of these stadiums. Sports has been one of the longest occurring traditions and holidays that nearly every country in the world share, and even unifies them through major sporting competitions such as the olympics. While it may benefit the economy for many reasons, there are ways to encourage people to help benefit the environment while also enjoying watching or playing in their favorite sports. We can help reduce emissions by building more ecology sustainable stadiums that use alternative energy sources, and possibly even use proceeds from games and events to help pay for the protection of the environment. Another way to promote thIs, is possibly adding reminders in commercials and on the Jumbotron during games or even adding posters around the stadium reminding people to properly throw trash away or donate to environmental causes. Simply adding easier and accessible trash cans could help this too. I feel there are many ways we can help eliminate the large ecological footprints we leave when we attend these events.
In todays society, sports define a community and play a huge role in bonding and creating relations. One of the most generic easy to start a conversation with someone new is “oh did you hear about that team” or “who are you rooting for”. With sports popping up in almost all conversations, this is the most effective way to spread awareness about the issue. When one refers to a specific team or sporting event, wouldn’t it be easy to also bring up the problem of our environment suffering at the hands of the big events. This might not make an impact right there, but the more that person thinks about that sport, the more he will remember the link you created. I do believe that its important address this issue due to the emergence of new sports. Our love and enthusiasm for all types of sport is not going away any time soon and in fact with new innovations, it is increasing and moving faster than ever. Hence the need to brung awareness to this problem and find solution is a big step towards world sustainability.
Communities must absolutely work together to hold large sporting companies accountable for the large amount of emissions they produce. Though these events are a large part of our world culture, there is nothing saying that we cannot allow these and do so in a sustainable way. Some possible ways to lessen the ecological footprint of these stadiums could be providing more sustainable transportation, selling food and drinks out of environmentally friendly cups and plates, and increasing the amount of recycling these facilities do. Also, it is possible that the country or cities themselves could implement an emissions tax in order to decrease the likelihood of them keeping up such unsustainable practices. As these sporting stadiums contribute a large amount to the growing carbon emissions, they should pay for the harm they do.
Though I am not a huge fan of sports, I understand cultural and environmental impact they have. For mega sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, World Series, or Olympics, having local campaigns about their footprint could bring some awareness to the issue. In addition, taxing attendees for unsustainable practices, such as excessive private transportation, purchase of plastic water bottles, and use of plastic bags, can bring help bring attention to the issue. For fans at home, commercials between game breaks are popular, and a beneficial means to present a sustainability campaign. Bringing awareness of the issue to fans won’t solve the problem, but they can become more educated. Although I hope change will come in the near future, I think that a significant environmental event will have to occur before actions are taken.
I have never been a big sports fan myself, but growing up my father would tell me about the incredible impact on the economy and all around improvement of a city that can be gained from widely popular events such as the ones you’ve mentioned, and he would always hope Dallas would be next in line for the Super Bowl each year. I have been aware of positive impacts for some time, but the gravity of the danger that wide scale sporting events carry just recently struck me. I was really shocked hearing that the average football game attendee has an ecological footprint up to seven times as large as the average person. I think through encouraging remote enjoyment of these sports and broadcasting environmental warnings on these widely popular programs would be instrumental in reducing the dangers that sports can have on the environment.
I enjoy playing and watching sports. I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood the impact these stadiums had on our environment until now. I think to raise awareness we can put up flyers around the city or hang them up during sports events. At stadiums we can make sure to have an equal ratio of recycling bins to square feet of the stadium. That way people are more prone to using it when it is close by. We can use reusable or recycle-friendly items at stadiums instead of plastic. We can also create a better transportation system. In downtown Dallas there is a train station where people can easily hop on and off. In big cities, carbon tax is also a possible solution. These solutions can help lessen the ecological footprint. I believe that the change will only be implemented if more people speak up about how it is affecting our environment. We have to spread the word to start change!
As expressed in this blog, sports entertainment is a huge part of or culture and its popularity will likely continue increasing. Therefore, it is important to seek different methods to host sporting events that would minimize its ecological footprint. We could spread awareness about this issue by having announcements during commercial breaks directed towards sports fans. In addition, sporting event directors could encourage the proper disposal/recycling of food products and packaging at events. Governments could also impose legislature that would limit the carbon emissions generated by stadiums. Communities can organize public transportation routes to get to the event’s destination several days before the event. This would decrease the ecological footprint because it may prevent more people from taking their own transportation to these events. Since it is likely that the popularity of sporting events will continue to grow, it will become necessary for changes in how sporting events are hosted to occur in order to lessen the damages on the environment and continue the hosting of these events in the future.
Although I do enjoy watching sporting events with my family, I was unaware of the great environmental impact they have. I have learned from school and news sources that sporting events are a large source of economic revenue because of the tourism they bring to the hosting country. However, the negative side of the story is scarcely told. I think that sporting events have large cultural importance and can't be taken away, however, I think that implementing campaigns to conserve the environment during such events would be a step in the right direction. This could be by means of PSAs during advertisements or offering more environmentally friendly food and beverages.
While the obvious solution may seem like we need to eradicate sports events completely, it's just bizarre to think about living in a place where world sports events don't exist. Sports events have created an environment where people from different parts of the world and people from different cultures are able to bond over a common interest. Instead of making sports events go away, we need to do our job as humans on this planet and make sports events more ecologically friendly. Whether that's recyclable trash, or being more strict or regulating reusable cups and dishes available for purchase at the sports venue could make a big impact on how much trash and carbon emissions we are producing during these global gatherings.
One way to bring more awareness to this issue would be to set up advertisements in the stadiums before the games. These advertisements would serve as propaganda to show the negative effects of travel to sporting events. One way to decrease a sporting event’s ecological footprint would be to only allow travel into games via public transportation. So a mass transit to these games could reduce the amount of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Thousands of cars driving and polluting the air would be reduced to 10-20 trains or busses that go back and forth to pick people up. I believe that a change is necessary and if it isn’t, it has to be. As an avid soccer fan, it does surprise me that there is such a huge ecological footprint for a sporting event, but there is a change that needs to happen.
Personally, I do not follow sports. Despite not being a fan, I understand the excitement and spirit that comes with cheering on one's team or watching as a goal is scored or points is earned. I have news articles and been aware of the almost mass migration thet takes place during large sporting events, but I had never really considered it's detrimental environmental effects. If mass public transportation such as buses or shuttles, or even carpooling was well organized for the fans, it would significantly cut don of the carbon emissions per person. A high number of cars on the road not only increases the carbon footprint of the person attending the event, but also the carbon footprint of everyone else stuck in traffic. Once people area the stadium, they are pretty much stuck there for the rest of the game. By selling food in recyclable containers and selling sustainably-made merchandise, stadiums are forcing people to choose more environmentally friendly options while they are there. Another possible solution is to have players themselves promote environmental sustainability as it would cater to the audience of sports fans. This would show a large number of people that being green is the true goal. Although extremely large sports events don't happen too often, I definitely think that changes should be made in the future to help the environment.
Sports have a larger cultural and social impact than most think, a sport can often an important aspect of a nation's identity. Cricket is a vital part of many commonwealth countries and I'm pretty sure El Salvador's and Honduras almost fought a war over football (soccer in America ig). However, I think that the problem here isn't sports but the rush to "industrialize" or modernize in certain developing nations. These countries are currently industrializing at a rapid dangerous pace. When Britain first industrialized, the environmental damage was monumental. The streets were filled with smog due to the smoke from factories and vehicle emissions and sewage along with industrial waste were rampant throughout major rivers and streams. Therefore, we must take precautions in order to ensure that during the process of "modernization" nations do not endanger their citizens or irreparably damage the environment like the countries that industrialized in the past.
Undoubtedly, sports are a very popular form of entertainment, for me as well. I agree that these large sporting events can be destructive to the environment. However, sometimes these events can hurt the citizens of the location as well. In 2016 Brazil hosted the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, despite the country’s relatively fragile economy. It spend millions of dollars preparing for the events, building stadiums, hiring companies, and creating jobs. Despite the small boom in the economy, once the games were over, these jobs were lost and these stadiums became unused and fell into decay. Citizens were furious why their government spend so much money on these games, instead of reducing poverty in the city. Homeless citizens began to occupy these unused stadiums and conditions worsened. If Brazil had correctly accounted for these factors, this event could have had less of an impact on both the environment and the quality of life for its citizens. Countries must extensively plan for sports events to reduce energy consumption and waste in order to leave a smaller carbon footprint and not harm their citizens.
Sports transcend all cultures. Whether you live in the United States or in Russia, the love for sports is mutual. Because sports have a global impact and influence on us, it is imperative that we are informed about the environmental impacts that sporting events can have. In order to have more eco-friendly sporting events, it is highly applicable that concession stands sell more environmentally friendly foods and materials. This could have a significant impact on the local environment of that sporting event. Last year, over 16 million fans attended NFL games during the regular season, and each team welcomed an average total of more than 521 thousand spectators to their home games across the season! Just imagine if sporting events sold more environmentally friendly foods and materials to these fans. Unlike many other solutions, I believe that this one can be easily achieved with little to no drawbacks.
With the Olympics coming up very soon, promoting awareness of this issue could be extremely effective. The Olympics are watched globally, and having advertisements explaining the way national sports gatherings are only expediting the process of environmental destruction would effectively spread the word across the world. Actually decreasing a sporting event’s ecological footprint is another issue altogether. Methods to do so may include using more environmentally friendly plastics or biodegradable materials to contain food, merchandise, etc. It would also make sense to offer more public transit to decrease the potentially huge amount of carbon emission from thousands of cars. These ideas should hopefully be implemented soon.
I did not think that sports events would have such a large impact on the environment, but thanks to your article, I now know that they do. I think many people do not know the effects of sporting events on the environment because they aren’t changing their ways. By educating the many sports fans about this issue, we may find a solution. The best way to do deliver this information is to announce it at sporting events or on commercials for sporting events. This way, the audience that can actually do something about the environmental effects will be the only ones that receive the information and they will make a difference. As for possible solutions, sporting events could contain less parking lots in close proximity to them so that the consumers are forced to use alternative, more environmentally friendly methods of transportation more.
Wow! This article really introduced me to a problem that I didn't even know existed (or at least not big enough to be considered a problem). There definitely should be more awareness to this issue, and maybe we can help spread the message by portraying these problems in advertisements on the sports programs because most likely, the people who would most likely feel compelled to vouch for action would be sports viewers themselves. Also, I think that in order to decrease a sporting event's ecological footprint, people could provide more clear and organized options of public transportation with maybe some game/sports benefits (like discount of the food, tickets, etc.) to encourage this behavior. However, I am not sure how to solve the environmental food problem. I do believe that the change that is necessary will be implemented in the near future as humans become more aware of their environmental impacts from their everyday functions (which is a trend that has thankfully increased in popularity over time).
As an avid basketball fan myself, this article really did surprise me. I did not realize that even sporting events were something we need to consider when assessing our impact on the environment. However, there are ways we can combat this problem. One “simple” way would be to get everyone to just watch the games on their computer and couch, like I do. Unfortunately, stadiums and many sports games are too big of an event and attraction for people to give up, so we must use more creative solutions. Building more environmentally friendly stadiums, such as ones that use renewable energy, would make a big difference, as well as improving sustainable transportation for people traveling to the stadium. As the world attempts to move towards more sustainable living, hopefully stadiums will not be left behind.
While I enjoy watching sports, it has never really occurred to me that sports itself can have a huge environmental impact. I realized that there is a huge issue with the amount of waste that is produced by these stadiums along with the vast amounts of space and resources necessary to build it in the first place. It seems that finding a way to build sustainable stadiums is important for the continuation of sports if bigger and better stadiums ever want to be made. I am not really sure how this would work especially because it would take a vast amount of innovation to find a way to reduce the waste revolving around people and the waste caused by construction, so these areas would be the main challenge for designers.
Being a sports fan myself, it’s always nice to relax on a Sunday afternoon watching football or any sport of that sort. This lifestyle is very common for the average American, and with that said it’s very important to our culture. Taking this away from our lives would be drastic and many would not be happy about it. Though, there comes the conflict of entertainment and environment, as you stated. To me, this doesn’t shock me, because it seems to be a common trend that if us humans want to seek better lifestyle then it comes at the cost of the environment. However, this does raise alarm to me, as to what my choice would be and what to push for. I love the wildlife and agriculture, but it’s hard to give up Sunday night football as well. A solution? The most probable answer is to push for careful construction. When building large stadiums, workers consider it’s position relative to the city, public transit areas, and places that would make it easier for people to arrive to the game. Though, I feel like they should consider where they’re building it in consideration to the wildlife. If the workers have to chop down hundreds of trees in order to build a certain stadium, then we should probably avoid doing that in the future. A plain area with hardly any sign of a habitat would be most ideal for building a stadium and I believe that would be a major contributor to help this conflict.
I feel like sometimes I forget how much of an impact sporting events have on the environment. There is so much waste associated with stadiums and ballparks. I feel like a solution to this would be to build eco friendly stadiums that help the environment. Another idea would be to stop televising games hence erasing the need for giant stadiums. However his is not sustainable.
Personally, I never thought about the devastation environmental consequences of sporting events. I always thought they had the same ecological footprint as any other event, but it makes sense major sporting events exceed the regular amount. Just recently for the Super Bowl in Miami last week, multiple airlines added dozens of extra flights just for the event, making the event responsible for more emissions. Additionally, the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games had airlines utilizing their largest but least fuel-efficient aircraft just for the event. Passenger traffic surged which also accounts for the event’s ecological footprint. A solution to decreasing an event’s ecological footprint is to use more environmentally-friendly items, such as disposable cups and plates for food. A majority of sporting events use plastic items. While sporting events could be purely broadcasted on TV to reduce the ecological footprint, it wouldn’t be as fun as watching it in person.
When thinking about sporting events, environmental consequences do not typically come to mind. However, after reading this insightful blog post, I am now thinking about sporting events with a different mindset. Thinking about the major sporting event that placed last week, the Super Bowl, all that comes to mind now is the impact on the environment that this event had. The examples of these sporting events and their environmental impact could go on and on. As a solution, we should use recyclable eating utensils such as plates and forks. Also, where stadiums are built could have a positive impact on the environment.
As an adamant non sports fan, I've always wondered why people put so much effort into building large gorgeous arenas that may be down at the end of year. The amount of energy required to keep the air cool for the players down on the field and the crowd sitting hundreds of feet above. The information you quoted is very compelling, and information needs to be spread to bring awareness to the issue, but as always, we can't simply shut sports off for the rest of time. I recommend re-using arenas and other spaces as much as possible. As a person very ignorant to sports, I would say that many colleges and previously established sports arenas already contain adequate playing space and that the Olympics doesn't NEED a new arena every four years. Perhaps all the fossil fuels burned in transportation from swimming pool to soccer field to baseball diamond would balance the carbon footprint made from raising new structures every time, but I do not see this as very likely.
More awareness can be brought to this issue by setting up advertisements in the stadiums before the games. These advertisements would be able to display and show the negative effects of travel to sporting events. The ecological footprint of sporting events can be reduced by only allowing travel into games through public transportation. As a result, a mass transit to various sporting events have the ability to reduce the amount of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere. Thousands of cars driving and polluting the air would be reduced to a limited number trains or busses that are go back and forth and pick large amounts of people up.
Sports are a big part of our culture. However, there are many downsides that come with major sporting events, including harm to the environment. I believe different arenas for the Super Bowl or something should be reused, instead of being built and then leaving to collect dust. Additionally, posters about the environmental effect that sports have should be posted so people who attend a sporting event are made aware of how their actions change the world around them. For people at home, ads explaining the same thing should be aired. There should be more talk about how sporting effects effect the environment, and efforts to reduce pollution and similar things should be taken. Yes, sports are fun, and they make life exciting, but are they really worth it in the long run?
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