ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines selected issues arising from the commercialization of sport. In particular, the author explores claims that the commercialization of sport has led to its corruption, then looks at specific issues raised by attempts to "market" sports to a mass audience. Critics of American sport point out that millions of us spend our weekends glued to the television screen, watching football, baseball, basketball, and golf rather than playing a sport ourselves. The distinction between the internal and external goods of sport is central to our concerns in this chapter because the conformity to standards of excellence implicit in various sports creates shared internal goods available to the whole community. One of the principal arguments in favor of the Corruption Thesis is that the transformation of elite sport into a commodity is in conflict with the internal goods that define sport and make it so valuable.
