Sports and the economy

Sports are an American past time. They help to alleviate the pain that today's society faces by allowing people to focus on other things than what's going on in the world. In fact the Olympics were created to rekindle the human spirit regardless of race, nationality, or economic status. I was reading through ESPN the Magazine and discovered a news portion that stated that the federal bailout plan gave NASCAR $100 million dollars in relief over the next 15 years. David Stern the commissioner of the NBA stated earlier that 9% of its players would be cut because of economic factors. I don't tend to think of the sports market as one that is losing money because of the economy but it does make sense. Sports is a business like any other in many aspects than not. The fact that the federal government is providing NASCAR with such large amount of money says something about the importance of sports to the American culture. Granted that NASCAR is not as popular as some other sports a statement is still made.