Football as a Public Good?

** Heard this idea before? I´d only been introduced to it recently, but I realize the question of sport as a public good has been on the periphery of (mostly academic) debate for the last 15+ years.

What are public goods?

⭕ Must have social benefit for a community as a whole.
⭕ Are undepletable.
⭕ Non-excludable and available to everyone.
⭕ One person’s enjoyment of the good does not diminish the ability of others to enjoy the same good.

** Do you think that football could be considered a public good?

⚽ Would it change the way we design football programs, train athletes, own and run clubs, consume media, govern the sport, invest and give to it etc.....?

Two (of the many!) considerations that I see as current barriers to embracing or re-imagining football as a public good:

🚩 We live in a society where we have been conditioned to pay for a restricted / paywall product or service, but less conditioned to pay for things that are free and hugely enriching to our lives.

🚩 Public good implies that there should be some sort of public ownership.

I´m a big fan of this concept of Football as a Public Good. We certainly see countless examples of it across Football and Football for Good today, but I don´t think we are there as a sport as a whole. That would need the entire ecosystem thinking and talking about defining / re-defining football in this way.

#Football #PublicGood #Community #Society #Ownership #Thoughts