Earning money by playing sport

Professional sports are those in which the participants receive payment for playing, as opposed to amateur athletes. As everything in this world, treating sports as an occupation also has its advantages and disadvantages.
The main good point of taking part in sports professionally is money. In some disciplines -like football, tennis or box - amounts of incomes are extremely enormous. This motivates sportsmen to improve their qualifications and spur amateurs to start treating sport as a future job. Money coming from advertising in mass media and sponsoring helps to invent produce and buy better equipment.
Furthermore it gives the possibility to develop scientifically knowledge about sport disciplines. But, on the other hand, commercialization has often negative influence on athletics. Many organizations and fans see it as an attack on the central ethos of sport. They claim that competitions should be performed for their own sake and for pure enjoyment, rather than as a means of making money. Actually, in great part they are right, because often fair and square competition loses its importance in confrontation with business and cash. That can be observed for instance in selling matches or box fights, or when footballers are not playing in national teams, not to lose money from the club.
Appearance of sport in mass media (for example TV transmissions), caused by a great deal of material profits standing after it, help to promote physical activity and introduce different sport disciplines to larger audiences. However, the increase of professionalism, as well as attempts to resist its spread, has caused major problems for some sports. Few of them (even very interesting) loose popularity due to their not commercial status.
Another advantage of being professional sportsman is fame. Competitors often attain superstar, celebrity status. Sportspeople are well-known all over the world and they also glorify their country and nation. But fame does not always have positive consequences. It affects strongly person’s privacy and is sometimes very burdensome. A lot of sportspeople makes sport their primary career. Lost in rat race, sportsmen often think of nothing but training and tournaments. They happen to omit family or education because of common trips and general life- style. For then, as the sport career is over (often in a relatively young age), they notice that they are lonely and without a job and cannot adapt to normal life. Moreover, when organism is 'congested' by an overmuch effort, joints and muscles get deformed. It can be seen especially in old age, as well as all the injuries repercussions.
Anyhow, sportspeople can feel pride of achievements. Winning makes they think that they leave some memory about themselves for other generations. It gives satisfaction and self-confidence. On the contrary, although many people spend their entire life training, just few of them has got best results and become really famous and rich. Due to the high pressure in the sport community some of the inferior sportsmen try to get better results using neither legal nor healthy methods like steroids or corruption. In addition the other ones suffer from psychical injuries caused by too hard competition, stress and lack of ability to satisfy sick ambitions.
In conclusion, professional sporting has its pluses and minuses, so it's impossible to formulate an unequivocal judgment about it. Therefore, I can only express my subjective opinion on a given subject. Namely: I am not interested in treating taking part in any sport as a way to earn a living. Thus, as I'm not personally engaged, I have nothing against professional sports. And, what's more, I even like to watch them sometimes on television.