The Effects of Animal Cruelty Allegations in Sport
Animals have played a major role in sport, whether it has been for legal or illegal purposes. The organisations involved include rodeo, greyhound and horse racing have strict animal welfare policies in place to prevent animal cruelty allegations. However, controversy on this issue never far away and is brought about by animal rights organisations such as PETA, SAFE and SHARK. They claim that the techniques employed in these sports constitute animal cruelty. The sporting organisations claim that there is no information to support the claims made by animal cruelty organisations and that there information is based on propaganda. These are a major source of entertainment and they provide huge media and sponsorship deals. The negative side of this is that media coverage is the main stream of promotion for sports involved. Articles that are negative are more likely to influence the opinions of others than that of positive articles, which has the potential to damage the reputation, image and popularity of an organisation. In turn this has an effect on attendance, merchandising sponsorship and endorsement deals as organisations involved do not want to be seen as supporting animal cruelty.
