Yes, they should and they are.
some sports have significant personal equipment and facility costs.. ice hockey, for one. very expensive, even if you're getting all used gear and skates from a used equipment retailer. ice time for training and practices is also not cheap. and then there's also the getting a team and their huge bags of gear from one place to another for games.
I don't even know that this can qualify as an unpopular opinion – not because it's unpopular but because it's so ill-defined that I don't know if it can be called an "opinion". I have literally no idea what it is you want. (Although I also seriously doubt, regardless of what it is, that you'll get any pushback here; you'll likely be preaching to the choir.)
Do you mean, like, for kids to play? For adults socially? Or like professional sports like the world cup?
only college frisbee golf
So if I want to play college frisbee golf for free, I just have to enroll and complete an art history degree (and assume the debt that will be paid in perpetuity)?
Sign me the fuck up.
not an unpopular opinion
Back when I wore an onion on my belt school sports were funded either by the school or the parks and rec department and coaches and refs were volunteers and we were lucky if we got Ecto cooler and a slice of bread.
Did you watch the Wendover video on how private equity is ruining American high school sports?
Can I get a video on what they aren't ruining?
Lobbying for corporate subsidies? I hear that's growing very significantly.
Is there anything that shouldn't be free?
It depends on how it's free and the consequences of not having it, imo. Virtually nothing is truly free in a "costs no effort/resources for humans to make usable" sense after all, so making something free really just means that the thing is subsidized in some way. That isnt necessarily bad. If the the thing is vital to have, it might make sense to spread the cost of acquiring that thing for those who cant afford it among the people that can afford to pay the extra cost (for example, things like programs that provide free food to starving people), both because of the obvious ethical reasons and because desperate people will resort to desperate measures to survive that often cause damage far in excess of the cost of that thing, that society must then pay to deal with anyway (for example, various kinds of theft).
On the opposite end, if a thing is simply impractical to charge a proportionate amount for, such as when a single person uses a very small but nonzero amount of a shared infrastructure, it might cost too much to actually figure out how to make people pay a fair percentage and make more sense to just have society subsidize the costs and recoup them from everyone without considering usage (for example, a person sitting on a bench on city property technically causes some cost in maintenance and installation of the bench, but making someone pay to sit on one is impractical, so it makes sense to make it taxpayer funded and subsidized even if for example, it might not be "fair" if the sitter is from out of town and not paying that tax).
However, you can have a situation where making something free actually just means that people that don't have a stake in that thing are paying a significant cost for other people's usage, and those users are incentivized to use it inefficiently because they dont pay for it, making everyone else poorer on average. For example, if you were to make gasoline free for everyone, then driving a more fuel efficient car, or none at all, doesn't significantly reduce your cost, so people drive less efficient ones and don't have as much reason to avoid driving, making the cost of the subsidy higher per person than if you just had everyone pay for their own fuel, and thus doing this would make everyone (except the oil company) poorer with limited actual benefit.
In general, id think these things even out into something like "necessities and public infrastructure should be as free as possible, while luxuries and non-essential personal property should not be"
Other people's time, the means to do violence, harmful consumer garbage (fast fashion, collectibles, gadgets, etc). Access to all of those things should be restricted and should bear some kind of cost for use to reflect the value of other people's time, the danger of weapons, and the harm of environmental waste.
Especially for kids! After a certain age, it is more about competition than it is for the fun of a team sport. Truly a bummer.
Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/