Why are sports today not as important as they were in ancient Greece?

Why are sports today not as important as they were in ancient Greece?


Sports in ancient Greece were very important, because the Greeks were fiercely competitive,and sporting events were immensely significant to them.. They were obsessed with sport. in 'The Naked Olympics' Tony Perrotett writes:

'Any excuse was good enough to hold a sports meet. The Greeks held races and athletics at weddings and at funerals. They took wagonloads of athletic equipment with them on military campaigns. And they compteted at the myriad religious festivals that punctuated the annual calendar in this era before weekends. The Olympics were born from one of these cult occasions.'

It was the ambition of every Greek male to be a top athlete. The financial rewards could be enormous.Perrottet writes:

'Most Greek festivals lavished victors with monehy and presents, which allowed a rising young sports star to support himself entirely by athletics. A hopeful might startout picking up the relatively modest prizes at local events, and savign enough to travel to the more prominent and lucrative annual games in a great city like Megara, Boeotia or Athens. Awards in Athens, for instance, totaled an estimated US $600,000 in today'ss terms. A teenager who won the sprint took home fifty amphorae of olive oil, which he wsa then able to sell (a hefty haul, today worth perhaps $45,000), the winner of the men's footrace racked up twice that. Wealthy cities in Asia Minor like Ephesus and Pergaumn wouldoffer enoughj for a victor to buy a small villa. There were over two hundred of these so-called prize games, which provided material awards, around 150 BC - under the Romans, the numbers doubled - and professional athletes could accrue vast private fortunes touring the Mediterranean from one high-budget event to the next.

The next level for aathletes were the Sacred Games - the Big Four, held one per summer in rotation. Three of these four national events, at Nemea, Delphi and Corinth, were on a par in prestige; they awarded symbolic wreaths of celery, laurel, and pine respectively. But they were only a springboard to the true finale, the Games of Zeus at Olympia. The creme de la Creme would step forward from around the Greek world to face off in the Peloponnessus; no matter how many lesser victories an athlete had racked up, the Olympic Games were the ultimate challenge. And although the top prize was theoretically just an olive wreath, it brought many earthly rewards. Every city in Greece promised generous cash prizes to an athlete who brought home an Olympic crown: fringe benefits might include trimuphant parades, lifetime seats at the amphitheatre, generous pensions, civic positions, free meals - not to mention the undying respect of one's peers.'