Last year’s NBA Finals where the Golden State Warriors beat the Boston Celtics 4-2 in a best of seven game series demonstrated a recent trend of declining viewership in professional sports world-wide. According to TheAthletic.com, Game 1 and Game 2 of this NBA series had the lowest viewership of an NBA Finals series since 2007. Some say that the decrease in sports viewership is because basketball is not as popular as football, the number one watched professional sport in America. However, a CNBC article showed that even viewership for the Super Bowl has gone down every year for the past ten years. The problem is that viewers are getting tired of watching the same old sports year after year.
While various sports have tried everything from incorporating state of the art technology at the New York Mets’ stadium, to streaming games on Nickelodeon like the NFL last year, it is not enough. Personally, I feel that viewers want to see something new, something bigger and better. The most effective way to meet these demands would be to allow professional leagues to maintain and regulate the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), which will bring back the sports entertainment that we have lost.
In sports history, there have been countless occasions of athletes getting caught using PEDs such as Olympic cyclist Lance Armstrong and professional soccer player Diego Maradonna. I understand that they were punished because it was considered cheating at the time and because it was unsafe. However, if professional sports legalized PEDS it would solve these issues. It would not be considered cheating anymore, and the professional leagues would be able to regulate the intake of these PEDS to a safe rate. Allowing athletes to take a certain amount of PEDS legally would control their temptation to take an excessive amount of PEDS illegally.
“Yes, athletes will still try and cheat wherever the line is drawn,” Professor and Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford Julian Savulescu said in an article for Quartz, an online news publication. “But by focusing on measurable physiological parameters, and only using zero tolerance on drugs that are unsafe in any dose, we will have a chance to alter the balance so the rules we do have are enforceable, and it is rational not to cheat.”
Over time, with the legalization of PEDS coupled with the modern day technology that we have access to today, health would not be an issue for legalizing these performance enhancers. With professional leagues regulating drug usage and what is and is not allowed, they would make sure to keep their athletes healthy.
“What if we declared that certain levels of them in the body were acceptable, while excessive amounts would result in penalties?” former U.S. Olympic javelin thrower Kate Schmidt said in an article for the Los Angeles Times. “Athletes could stop experimenting on themselves. It would be safer to take the substances, and with medical monitoring, there would be fewer negative side effects…”
Furthermore, to address the big issue that has come of declining viewership: economics. Athletes such as MLB legend Barry Bonds who broke the record for most home runs in a season back in 2001, was found to be using PEDs and stripped of his legitimacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Whether you agree with this decision or not, it is undeniable that Barry Bonds’ performances were legendary and everyone was tuning in to watch him break records. With the legalization of PEDs amazing feats like Bonds’ could be witnessed every night. Demand for streaming and attending live sports would increase dramatically because athletes would be able to perform physical feats that could never be done before.
“If professional athletes were able to take PEDS I think it would change the athletics world a lot, but in a good way,” senior Ronith Bokkisam said. “To watch my favorite athletes, especially in football and basketball, who are already athletically skilled become way bigger and stronger would be so fun to watch.”
We do not watch professional athletes because they are just like us; we watch them because their skill and physical capabilities are far greater than we could ever imagine ourselves doing. Now it is time to take these capabilities to the next level.
