In recent years, a number of retired sports stars have found employment as television presenters. Does this trend suggest that opportunities to succeed in the media are equal?

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

In all forms of media, but especially television, each sport with a medium or above fan base has at least one program discussing them or featuring recent events, for example Wimbledon coverage or Grandstand. In the most part, not just the pundits, but also the presenting in dominated by the ex-sport stars themselves.

In the following essay I will discuss the positives and negatives of this situation, evaluating to what degree this is fair. Not only will this focus on equality (clearly the underlying theme of the essay) but also rights to the jobs and justice as ‘Justice is a way of parceling out rights equally’ (Nozick and Steiner).

With full equality comes problems, for instance the economics of the country could suffer. As most people would want the best jobs, that earn the most money, none of the menial jobs would get done and goods that Britain needs to produce would not get made. This cannot be allowed to happen and therefore ‘equal opportunity was never meant as a soilution to the problem that some people have jobs while others don’t’ (Cavanagh, M, p119). It is just that in some professions people argue the situation is to un-equal.

Hohfelds theory gives us rights through the choice and benefit model, whether those who have worked towards goals have the right to them or those who need things have the rights. Choice theorists believe what people want is of primary value, if a sport star for example wants to go into sport presenting when he or she has finished their career they should be allowed to. These athletes have given their lives to their chosen sport so should now get the choice if they want to continue earning money in that field. For instance Gary Lineker, being injured early in his career, needed a change of jobs to keep earning a living and became presenter of Grandstand in which he has since become very successful

Benefit theorists are in direct confliction with this, they believe we should look out for the weak and the choice theorists don’t give enough support to those who need help from the better off. In this situation therefore, benefit theorists would argue that not everyone, in fact most, cannot choose to be professional athletes like Gary Lineker. There are some who have studied to be presenters and in the media circle who now need to get jobs in that market as that’s where their skills lie. Athletes such as Lineker and snooker player Steve Davis have made lots of ...

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The main principles of Justice are to give the greatest benefit to those least advantaged, helping those at the bottom. For example Rawls agues the disadvantaged should be helped. He believes talent or intelligence are not criteria for distribution, and just because someone has an advantage they were born with does not mean they should excel at the expense of the disadvantaged.

This means the arguments for justice can be very similar to those for choice and benefit theories; Nozick and Steiner’s distribution according to desert rewards those who are considered to deserve the good. This can include talent, as with the retired sports stars for they know the game inside out so would be a useful person to have discussing it. But it can also reward need. In this situation, for most sports stars, the jobs connected to their sport would be the best way of earning money after retirement. Barry Mcguigan for example made some money from boxing, but he didn’t manage to keep it leaving him down and out. He can be considered disadvantaged as his career ended leaving him with little ability to earn money. Here Nozick and Steiner’s ‘distribution according to need’ strongly argues boxers such as Mcguigan need careers after their chosen sport simply to survive. His main, profitable skill is boxing so now that he cannot do it any longer surely its fair he earns a living from evaluating others boxing on a program viewers want to watch him on.

This argument however works equally in favor of the trained presenters getting the jobs instead of the retired stars. Mcguigan may need the money but he has already had the chance. Justice can be argued that those who have been specifically trained should get the jobs; they have spent their time learning how to do it and equally need the money, often more. These new presenters are talented, need the jobs just as much and are disadvantaged as they are not already famous or in the industry.

The theory of equality itself is that everyone should start off under the same rules with equal rights to everything. This however is not the case, even if all people did begin equal, what people put value in (i.e. sporting success or beauty), effort and choices all end up putting people on different levels. Some people therefore are much more advantaged physically and can become athletes, automatically putting them in the sporting world; equality theorists believe it is our job to equal things out.

Rawls is a little to extreme to apply to television presenting as his theories but the point is still there that just because your talented in one area you shouldn’t be put on a new level. People who were not successful in the genetic lottery should be helped to, this can clearly be applied to the success sport stars receive because of their bodies, not something everyone can choose.

Dworkin is similar Rawls, all should be treated with the same rules, Dworkin however places a much higher value on ambition rather than endowment. People should receive equality of resources not welfare, with society rewarding those with the ambition, those who make the effort. In the context of this essay therefore the sport star would be the one who benefits. They can be seen as making a huge effort and having the determination to succeed in an entirely competitive world, they therefore should get the job over someone who hasn’t shown the same level of ambition or effort in their life.

Cohen however finds this harder; he argues that ambitions and endowments are difficult to evaluate and to distinguish between. Ambitions are integrally related to endowments, those with intelligence and talents might have more ambition, just as much or they might have less, we do not know. As with Dworkin, the reason people do well is responsibility of choice. Sport stars are people who have a talent, the reason they do well is because they do not squander it, they make the right choice to do well in their life. The reason people are unsuccessful is down to irresponsible choices or sometimes bad luck. Sport stars therefore should get jobs in presenting if they chose to try that career and are good at it, at the same time however the successful do have a responsibility to those who are unsuccessful because of bad luck. Everyone in that situation should have an equal right to welfare and resources. This argues that sports stars should not just get the presenting jobs automatically, sometimes a retired star is better, sometimes the trained present will be more deserving of the success, each individual is different.

As with the others, Rae we all begin with begin with an opportunity to equal means, but he believes this will lead to unequal prospects. He argues making merit a criterion for success will cause peoples differing talents and intelligence to make prospects for success unequal. Because some are much better than others in any given area (in this case sporting knowledge and ability) they will have the ‘unfair’ advantage to do well in such careers at the expense of the disadvantaged that don’t have those talents. This however, also means the people who get hired, for jobs such as sports television presenters, will be the people who are best for the job. Retired sport stars know their game through and through and this added level of knowledge puts them on a better standing, they can give more information and perhaps pass on a love of the sport which got them to where they now are. This therefore argues compared to someone just trained in presenting, sport stars are those who should be presenting the program as they can give more to the people watching.

Despite this argument there are still successful programs like Soccer A.M which are not presented by stars and are still very popular, on the whole however with most current sports programs show a definite trend in using ex-stars to front the programs. Perhaps this is because the television companies believe the celebrity of the star will attract viewers, perhaps they feel the stars know all about the sport and so can present and discuss it better. Whatever the reasons there are many strong theories and arguments for both sides, showing the situation could be both fair and unfair in places it just depends on personal views on ambition, talent and choices.