Sport, market overreach, and the liberal art of separation

I argue that one of the chief social and political problems that plague Western liberal democracies is the encroachment of market norms and their trademark good money into every facet of the lives of its citizens. Sport is no exception in this regard, in which economic considerations of profitability too often get the first and last word on how it is treated and conducted. As a consequence, the norms, standards of excellence, and goods internal to sport are subordinated to the private preferences of market actors, who shape them to further their own economic ends with scant regard for the distinctive role they play in the practice of sport itself. I argue the way to remedy such market overreach is to rely on the true-and-tried liberal device of what Walzer calls the ‘liberal art of separation’. I put Walzer’s art of separation to use by drawing a line between the market and sport beyond which the market is not allowed to tread. The purpose of drawing such a line is to ensure that the special non-instrumental logic and social goods of sport are not co-opted by market norms, which not only have no intrinsic connection to sport but jeopardize its perfectionist character.