The common impression that sports are for physical fitness and entertainment, has now been upgraded to include all kinds of financial, commercial and business transactions in all aspects of the sports. In most popular sports, players are merely the front of the game, and even these players are sponsored for huge amounts by large organizations from all countries. Each item of clothing that the sports people wear is sponsored by some organization. Apart from the players, most popular sports are mega-events.
Event management involving huge amounts of money is the usual practice. Anything that you can touch, see, hear, or even feel, has some monetary transactions behind it. Contracts are awarded for everything. Media blitz ensures that adequate hype is created, so that organizations come forward to advertise, and bring in the big bucks for advertising. All media channels are exhausted to their limits, starting from the local newspapers and television, all the way to international levels. Many viewers depend on http://www.direct.tv to provide them their daily sports shows. People just go berserk trying to buy tickets before they get exhausted. It is not uncommon for people to pay huge premiums on the tickets, since they did not make it to ticket counter in time.
Students might be provided special leave, just to witness the sports in television. The elderly may just shrug and wonder what the noise is all about. Behind the scenes is where the big action always happens. Bookies of all kinds seem to become active well in advance of the sports, and people start prowling the streets to bet on their favorites. This seems to happen in many countries, if the media reports are to be believed. Countries that do not allow such activity in sports, often catch and punish such people. There are often reports of match fixing, which also seem to involve huge money. It seems that all popular sports are now merely a play of money.