Sports And Music In The Bahamas
Let's take sports and music as they exist in the Bahamas post high school. (This is from occasional personal observation and not from any systematic study.)
We have musicians who play in front of the public, or who would like to, complaining on a fairly regular basis that the financial rewards are too small and that they are not respected enough and etc. (I am not in any way saying that these points are completely invalid.)
We have athletes who also play in front of the public. Basketball, baseball, soccer, American football, cricket, and possibly others. As far as I know, none of these local athletes gets paid.
(We do have local athletes who go abroad and play professional sports to be sure.)
My guess is that local musicians earn more on average by "making" music than local athletes doing their thing. I don't recall local athletes complaining in the same way the musicians do. They seem to be playing for the love of the sport. I am sure some local musicians also play for the love of the music.
What is your take on this "situation" in your country?
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Interesting observation. I assume you're talking about people playing sports for spectators. In the US many thousands of people play sports for spectators and get paid nothing directly (the best of these are paid indirectly through scholarships). There is a very small amount of complaining, especially considering the large number of spectators and danger, relative to musicians.
I wonder if one difference is that in many sports, being among the best is fairly objective, and if you are among the very best of the best, you can get a very highly paid job in a professional league (even if it means going to another jurisdiction). In music the best is less objective and there is no formalized structure like a league in which the best will stand out -- orchestras might be an exception? I bet there is less complaining among orchestral players than other musicians -- they know that if they are among the very best of the best, they can get a job with an orchestra (again, even if it means moving) -- and most sports and orchestral players know very well that they aren't among the very best of the best.
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