Funding for the arts versus sports

Grantanow

There are few votes in museums and the arts so money tends to go towards sports which get a lot of press and TV coverage.

this is so inredible when a recent report historicengland.org.uk/research/heritage-counts/heritage-and-society/social-cohesion/ said that

The relationship between the historic environment and social capital was demonstrated in a recent study by Mak et al (2023), which found that people living in places with greater historic built environment experience higher levels of personal relationships, social network support, and civic engagement.

The report said that this was as important in socially deprived areas as more affluent areas. Recently people flocked to events organised for the festival of Archaeology and in Spetemebr Open hOuse weekend will have people flooding to visit historic properties that are not usually open to visitors.

These days museums are always packed.

That’s true David49, but why is it so disproportionate?
The Times article cites a cost of £22 million for training 10 people specifically for the Olympic sailing event, the same sum as the annual grant to the Royal Opera which employs 2000 people and puts on 500 performances a year. Is this disparity really justified.

Yes of course I should have said opera productions rather than performances.

There are few votes in museums and the arts so money tends to go towards sports which get a lot of press and TV coverage.

I think that taking the money out of arts and sport would be likely to make really good artists of all sorts and really good sportsmen more likely to percolate to the top. Too much funding can be stifling too...

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This might be helpful regarding sports funding in U.K.

Added to this he National Lottery puts in additional funds.

winterwhite

Ted Heath comes to mind re your first para, MOnica.

I think part of the answer must be that success and failure in sport is easily measureable - anyone can see who's won a race - whereas no two critics agree on an opera performance.

Also because sport is more easily taught in class size groups in schools than art or music.

No, great singers are widely recognised as are really good performances. Sometimes there are disagreements and sometimes there are agreements that certain productions are dreadful.

We were at the Gilbert and Sullivan Festival at Buxton Opera House last week (it has more opera performances each year than the London Colisseum), I have just been reading some lovely reviews of the performances we saw.

The number participating in sports has increased and reaches far more people across the age profile, that aside what constitutes “art” is not seen by many as worthwhile entertainment.

Ted Heath comes to mind re your first para, MOnica.

I think part of the answer must be that success and failure in sport is easily measureable - anyone can see who's won a race - whereas no two critics agree on an opera performance.

Also because sport is more easily taught in class size groups in schools than art or music.

Happiness and enjoyment is underrated.

Britain has always been anti-intellectual. Arty-farty types are derided and made fun of.

DH is an engineer and also loves opera, real serious opera as well as operetta. He has been a performer, director, producer, musical director, and audience and studied for degrees in it in his free time. Yet throughout his 40 years of working, he never let anyone at work know what he did in his free time. he would have been laughed at, it would have been suggested he was gay (homophobia). If we talk arts it is dismissed as belonging to the privileged and the sexually ambivalent.

You see it even on GN, read keepingquiet's post. I f anyone admits to a 'high' cultural interest and it will immediately be suggested that they must be privileged. have a talented sportsman in the family and it is something people congratulate on, have a talented artist or performer, and again this suggestion is that the child is a child of privilege.

Until the country, including 'privileged' government members of all parties can see that a healthy mind is needed in a healthy body and encouraging the arts is as important as encouraging sport, our talented and creative people will come second to the sportsmen, creativity will be stifled.

I agree there is a terrific imbalance here. Maybe as a society we fear creativity and where it could inevitably lead? Seeing people run faster and score more goals is not a threat to the establishment in the way creativity and the arts can be.
Better to keep poor people out of it and leave for those with a vested interest- that's my take on it.