I hate the idea of most profesinal sports.
Especialy what are regarded as national games, things like Rugby and Cricket.
It takes the whole pride in playing for your country, and the idea that our team is better than yours away from the game, and simply turns it into a game of "we have more money that you nah nah nah".
And of course it has a follow on effect. Look at Australias recent white wash at the commonwealth games, all becasue per head of population they spend more money on sports trianing than any other country in the commonwealth.
Individual talent and determination are overshadowed by sports people who may have less talent, but becasue they dont have to work full time jobs, and are given the best coaching for free are able to get better results.
They stop playing sport for fun and some national pride and do it solely for the money.
The players then get turned into nothing more than race horses, and are treat and regarded in exactly the same way.
Listen to how team managers, coachs and the media talk about sports stars. Thier no longer people, and members of our country and comunity, but assests and liablities, and super hereos.
The list of negative aspects is huge, and I could fill a whole thread with them, but you get the picture.
It takes a certian chrachter away from sport, a replaces with the endless and ultimatly pointless pursuit of more money.
There are however some sports that need to be profesional, simply becasue of the level of money required to run them.
And these sports have never revolved around national or local pride.
They have always been about the success of individuals or teams regardless of where they are from.
They are the sports of Motor Racing and Yaughting.
When Ferrari wins a F1 championship they don't do it for Italy, they do it for themselves, and the fans that surrport the team come from all over the world.
Its exactly the same when a team wins the Americas cup. None of them are National teams, they may use a countrys name to drum up local surport and sponsorship, but its a Yaught club, not a country that wins the cup. And its the yaught club with the largest number of members, and the best sponsors that is then able to hire the best saliors and boat designers.
Its been this way for as long as then been sailing competition, and its the reason that no matter who wins any large international sailing competition we can always say NZ won, as there will be a Kiwi somewhere in the boat crew, or design team, or coaching etc etc.
Its not a sport that centers around national pride.
And its a sport like motorsport that requires large amounts of money to operate.
Sports like rugby and cricket on the other hand could operate for years on only a small fraction of the budget of a small Americas cup team, and the players would still be good at it, and still be entertianing to watch. You dont need to get paid millions of $ to play rugby, but you do need millions of $$ to design and build a modern yaught or Race car.