When I was going through various sport blogs and new articles, I didn't have to turn more than a page to stumble upon news on the movement of athletes. Some movements are major ie athletes moving internationally, some not as major ie athletes moving interstate or between clubs, and some movements are minor ie athletes out or in for that season. Regardless, I see a pattern– the themes surrounding the mobility of athletes and others associated with sports, are often (not in any particular order): reason for the move, their rankings, their reputation, their earnings, and what they've achieved for the country, via club or league, they represent. There were also more than once where I came across the word “trade” (Nicholson-Smith 2011), unambiguously used as an adjective before an athlete's name. It is a fact that athletes are being traded and bought by clubs. The commodity here is not the athletes per se, it's their expert-ism in their field, and, to simply put it, what national glory they can bring in for the clubs/country they represent. In exchange for?? I would like to say the common motivation is $$, but I might be over-simplifying it. In search for answers, I browsed a few sports blogs, and found three rather interesting posts:
China quickly becoming Nuggets Far East
Marlins, Omar Infante Discussing Extension
Again, the common themes talked about in the blog posts are the reputation of the athletes, their achievements on behalf of their club/country, their earnings, and their history/future movements.
So back to the question– what are the athletes playing for? Not patriotism, as the athletes mentioned in the blogs were initially of a different nationality. Often they are playing for the social and economic benefits of sport (Klein 2009, 1129). For instance, a developing country like China produces many excellent badminton players who mostly moved to developed countries, to be professionally coached, get paid, and represent their country of residence– opportunities and benefits they would've never received if they had stayed in China. They would've also helped boost the Chinese economy by “sending money home”. Besides helping with the economy, high ranking Chinese badminton athletes who are a national pride, also put China on the map in the badminton arena. However, I don't know enough to say that the social benefits for, say Chinese badminton players, are as extensive as Klein (2009, 1127) has illustrated with Dominican baseball in terms of academy as social capita, but I can't imagine the principles being far off.
I also noticed another pattern: a Chinese badminton player, a Dominican baseball player, and an African-American basketball player. Why didn't Singapore “buy” an African-American badminton player; the Marlins (USA) “buy” a Chinese Baseball player; China “buy” a Dominican basketball player?
Reference List
Badminton Information. 2010. “Olympic hope Li Li walks out on Singapore badminton.” Sports Blog. http://www.badminton-information.com/olympic_hope_li_li_walks_out_on_singapore_ badminton.html.
Kerby, Trey. 2011, September 14. “China quickly becoming Nuggets Far East.” Sports Blog. http://blogs.thescore.com/tbj/2011/09/14/china-quickly-becoming-nuggets-far-east/.
Klein, Alan 2009 "The transnational view of sport and social development: the case of Dominican baseball." Sport in Society 12(9):1118-1131
Klein, Alan 2009 "The transnational view of sport and social development: the case of Dominican baseball." Sport in Society 12(9):1118-1131
Nicholson-Smith, Ben. 2011, September 14. “White Sox Notes: Williams, Quentin, Pierre, Morel.” Sports Blog. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/09/white-sox-notes-williams-quentin-pierre-morel.html.
