Watching a baseball game every player is wearing oakley sunglasses, arm sleeves, evoshields, phiten necklaces, and nice cleats. When I watch football games the players all wear gloves, visors, arm bands, and again nice cleats. In basketball all the players are wearing headbands, armbands, shooting sleeves, and of course nice shoes. Sports players are too focused on their appearance instead of focusing on how hard they play. This starts at too young of an age where they focus on style instead of playing the game hard. All of the coaches and fans would rather see the the players play hard instead.

The appearance focus starts at too young of an age. The youth sports players watch the professionals with all their accessories and think that is how I will become a pro player. “If they look like that I want to look like that.” is the thoughts. This is not the case though. The precedent set by the pros was a harmful to youth sports. It develops into them focusing on style

Nowadays in sports everyone cares about having cool shoes or cleats. The standards for getting shoes have changed because of this. Buyers used to buy their shoes on the fact that they were comfortable. Now people buy them on the basis of how they look. All the players have too many accessories as well. All the arm sleeves, eye protection, and bands have gotten out of control. Baseball players in my opinion are the worst. They all have two hundred dollar sunglasses that are on their hat half the time. Why do they need such expensive sunglasses? If they do get them why not actually use them. The players are too focused on how they look.

Players need to just play the game hard. The game used to be played the right way. They are payed to play not to focus on their appearance. With their sponsors they are marketing for their sponsorship deals. Sure they are paid to wear that company’s product, but it is taking away from the game. When they focus on their appearance they are marketing for their sponsors. The money they get from marketing is all they care about. Contracts are what they should be focused on. If they play good their contract bonus will probably be worth more money than sponsorships. The players don’t even need their sponsorships with their seven and eight figure contracts. Scouts and coaches don’t really care about appearance, they care about hard work and dedication.

When college coaches recruit they aren’t looking for the flashiest guy out there they are looking for the best player. Most high school and college players who know they are good quit focusing on working hard to get better. Instead they start focusing on how they look so they think they are cooler. Scouts don’t like these types of players. They like the guys that play hard. Players with excessive accessories seem stuck up.

Like I’ve said many times players are too focused on their appearance. In sports there are no more Walter Paytons or Nolan Ryans who just play the game hard. These bad things start too early where players are focused style instead of hard they are playing. This also hurts how they are viewed by others including coaches. We don’t want to see cool cats with all their accessories we want to see dogs who just play.