Monday Musings (on Tuesday...) - the impact of sport?

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a great time in Vancouver and Whistler.  Vancouver really seems like a great city (I was only there for a week...) - I couldn't live there because of the rain, but aside from that, it has an awesome feel - very creative, well thought out...

In some ways, Vancouver reminds me a lot of Sydney.  Part of that is them both being harbour cities, part of it being cities that have recently hosted Olympics - which has a big impact on infrastructure - but there's also a sense of being focused, strategic, thinking ahead, with room for people to experiment and a big focus on public art.

Many people have commented that Toronto (where we live) and Melbourne are also very similar cities and I would agree.  They are culturally diverse cities, lots of distinct neighbourhoods, different emphasis on culture - food, music, cafes, ...

As I walked around Vancouver, one thought started to percolate in my mind... the impact of a sporting culture on a city.  Again, Melbourne and Toronto are very similar in that sport is front and centre.  For Toronto, it starts (and for some, ends...) with the Leafs, but there's also the lesser impact of the Raptors, the Blue Jays, the Rock, ...  In Melbourne, the glorious colosseum that is the MCG and the place of the AFL is at the heart of the sporting and city landscape.

Sure, Vancouver and Sydney have sporting culture as part of them - the Canucks, the NRL - but to me, the city doesn't live and die on the basis of the success or failure of their teams (riots after losing the Stanley Cup aside, of course...)

The question that I really mused on was whether sport, if it has too big a place of influence in a city, actually becomes a distraction from other things - art, in particular.  I'm not at all saying that there is no public art in Toronto or Melbourne, but it certainly doesn't have the same level of prominence as it seems to in Vancouver.  I'm also not saying sport is inherently evil - anyone who knows me knows I definitely don't have that perspective...!  And as I said, I absolutely want to acknowledge that I have not lived in 3 of those 4 cities and the one I have lived in, I've only been here for 2.5 years.  However...

What impact do you think that sport has on a culture (positive or negative)?
Do you think it's possible for people to be so distracted by sport that it takes away from other priorities - other forms of culture (art, in particular), strategy, forward thinking, ...
Does sport in any way act as a (negative) distraction for you - taking you away from other things you should be giving attention to?