Profiting some more from the society ?
The more
they hold
tournaments like these, the more their products sell. If that be the case, the meaning of
corporate social responsibility (CSR) doesn�t only mean to give �some of the profits back to
society�, it rather means �profiting some more� from the society
Ekram Kabir
The adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by companies could be seen in terms of their willingness to do exactly what the consumers pay for - by making the business more successful and more competitive. Through this process, one can boost the organisational goals.
Companies contribute a lot of money in games and sports as part of their CSR initiatives. But, many would question their objectives -is it mere promotion of sports or just enhancing ones organisational goal? Some corporate gurus say that both can be true.
There is no dearth of sports fans in tile world who set up their schedules according to the dates of important sports tournaments, who read sports pages everyday, and tune in to sports shows on television and radio to learn more about their favourite sports personalities.
Sports are enjoyed by millions of people all over the world. Sports industry is a big business. An estimate says total revenues generated by sports in the US and Canada (from ticket sales to purchases of sports equipment) were more than $881.5bn in 1995, and rose to $160bn by the turn of the century.
It was estimated that, by 2000, North American firms were spending $13.8bn on advertising through sports alone while global sports advertising reached $430bn. The television rights to the US National Football League for 1990-1994 earned NFL $43.6bn.
Nikes total sales in the US were $4.73bn iii 1994. $600m came through Michael Jordan branded basketball shoes alone. In 1993, Nike spent almost $90m on advertising and marketing.
Football is often branded peoples game, yet for many, attending any, premiere tournament is simply beyond their means. The Chelsea versus Aston Villa game in England at the beginning of 1996-1997 season witnessed some 28,000 attendants, each attendant paying 20. There was no concession for children either-they also paid 20.
On 14 September 1996, The Guardian carried a report on the finances of Englands biggest club, Manchester United: Of United 60m turnover last season, 23 came from one surprising source: merchandising everything from replica shirts and videos to books and lamps. Uniteds Magazine is the biggest selling sports monthly in UK with a circulation of 140,000 copies. In Thailand, it sells 40,000 copies per month in Thai language. Its first print in Norwegian recently sold out 9,000 copies in a week. On 16 September 1996, The Independent reported that the income from satellite television alone meant that Englands Premier League clubs would earn 670 in between 1996 and 2001.
JVC, Fuji and Canon, each sponsored USA 1994 to the tune of 20m. Sony Creative Products had exclusive marketing rights to the Soccer World Cup 1998 finals and Dentsu controlled a 49 per cent stake in ISL worldwide - the marketing arm of FIFA. Such is the relationship between sports-corporate business and CSR.
But experts think there is another hidden relationship. As England progressed towards the semifinals of Euro 1996, The Financial Times carried out a survey of big business reaction to the euphoria sweeping England. Jeff Forest of Sheffield based in Tempered Spring reported: Englands performance has given people a lift. A happy workforce is a better workforce. Peter Louce, manager of an automotive plant, believes that a run of England victories will lead to higher productivity.
For a vast majority, sport is something they enjoy. It serves as it essential escape mechanism in their lives. For some it can become the means of clambering out of poverty. For others, participation in sports gives dignity to life. For millions of people sports seem to provide an escape from the drudgery of everyday life. For many more, watching sports, either live or on television, provides a release from work pressure and a sense of identification with an individual or club which seems to provide meaning to their lives.
Leisure is seen by many as, something distinct from work, something to be earned as recompense for a fair days work. Now wouldnt putting money in games and sports be commodifying and distorting the desire for escape and real human contact, which draws people to sports in the first place? For instance, one of the often-quoted enjoyments of attending a football or a cricket match is being part of the crowd. Yet, at its best, a crowd cannot be a substitute for the genuine fraternal feelings of human beings. Liberated human beings, who are also autonomous individuals, can only develop these feelings. JM Brohm in his Sport: A Prison of Measured Time wrote: Sport restores to mankind some of the functions which the machine has taken away from him, but only to regiment him remorselessly in the service of the machine.
Sports, despite the perception of participants and spectators, come under the realm of unfree activity. The rationality of production, based on commodity exchange, reduces all individuality to a minimum. It organises and controls people not only in their work but also in their leisure.
Another expert said: Amusement in advanced capitalism is the extension of work. It is sought after by those who wish to escape the mechanised work process in order to be able to face it again. The promise of sport is the liberation of the body, he said, humiliated by economic interests, the return to the body of a part of the functions of which it has been deprived by industrial society.
Sports ideology, like all ideologies, conceals the real structure of productive and social relations. This ideology makes people believe that sportsmen and sportswomen are free and equal. This ranks them into different grades and categories. The hero, according to this ideology, is one who is self-made, who achieves great heights on the basis of his/her merit and through his/her own efforts. The message that is being transferred to people is that anyone can make it to the ton.
The reality, however, is different. Teenagers, who become professional football players, are not necessarily the best or most talented players. They are often those that are most prepared to accept the tight discipline and intensive training demanded of them. Discipline and training in modern sports often equal a massive distortion of the human body, which can lead to all sorts of horrors.
In a powerful indictment of the world of womens gymnastics and figure skating, Joan Ryan reports in The Guardian of London: What I found was a story about legal, even celebrated child abuse. In the dark troughs along the road to the Olympics lay the bodies of the girls who stumbled on the way, broken by the work, pressure and humiliation. 1 found a girl whose father left the family when she quit gymnastics at the age of 13, who scraped her arms and legs with razors to dull her emotional pain and who needed a two-hour pass from a psychiatric hospital to attend her high school graduation.
Such is the condition of these girls who broke their necks and backs, who so desperately seek the perfect, weightless gymnastic body that they starve themselves to death. Others become so obsessive about controlling their weight that they lose control of themselves instead. There are cases that are sexually coaches.
Now, what is CSR to like JVC, Fuji and Canon? Arent they selling more, say, television, sets, when they are contributing money in a world-cup tournament? Contributing money, even in the Olympics, in this manner oily, shows that they have a definite objective in mind.
The more they hold tournaments like these, the more their products sell. If that be the case, the meaning of CSR doesnt only mean to give some of the profits back to society, it rather means profiting some more from the society.
The writer is a journalist
