Embracing Doping in Professional Sports

Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) have been a subject of major concern in pro sports leagues around the world. With the exposure of the Russian doping program at the Olympics, accusations of doping against high profile NFL athletes such as Peyton Manning, and the revelations about Lance Armstrong, doping has caused controversy in recent years. But these conversations assume that doping is naturally a bad thing by “tainting” the sportsmanship and gamesmanship around pro sports. I still believe that high school, collegiate, and amateur sports should be “clean” from PED use. However, PED use in professional sports actually equalizes the playing field while bettering the progress of professional sports.

Sports are not the meritocracy we believe them to be. While the average American adult male is 5’9” (National Center for Health), the average NBA player is 6’7” (Seat Smart). Hard work still counts—especially at the high school level—where there is a greater disparity in ability, coordination, and work ethic - but there is no denying that genetic advantages inherently color professional sports. Authors like David Epstein and Malcolm Gladwell have penned volumes exploring the subject of genetic advantages in sports. We have been conditioned to believe that sports ought to be meritocracies, where skill outweighs genetics, socioeconomic circumstances, and a host of other factors. We stigmatize PEDs because we believe that they give certain athletes access to something that others don’t have access to, thereby creating an artificial advantage. This ignores the fact that professional sports are already littered with artificial advantages. In addition to genetic advantages, many professional athletes use other controversial methods of getting ahead. Despite the health risks, and the varying levels of access to it, the NFL has no policy against using painkillers. In his memoir Slow Getting Up, former NFL tight end Nate Jackson described a disturbing image in the Broncos locker room of trainers passing out needles for Toradol injections like candy. He becomes hooked and addicted to the drug, just as many of his teammates do. Compared to athletes who were unable to obtain access to Toradol or similar drugs, Jackson has an artificial advantage. Yet, there is no rule against that unfair aid. In 2008, Speedo created a full-body LZR swimsuit for swimmers at the Beijing Games. 98 percent of medalists in that year’s Games wore the suit. In fact, the suit was so successful that an unprecedented number of records fell in that games (Scientific American). Immediately after the swimsuit was banned, race times fell back to their normal ranges. Nevertheless, the lucky athletes who were able to obtain the suit in 2008 reaped mind-boggling benefits and advantages that none of their predecessors or successors, and many of their peers were unable to get. The care and treatment that a multi-millionaire athlete can afford to provide for him or herself is much different than that of a minimum-salary player who could be cut on any given day. In a world of professional sports so muddied by unfair advantages and disadvantages, there often seems to be only one solution. Bleacher Report found in interviews with anonymous NFL athletes that they estimate anywhere between 10 and 40 percent of current NFL athletes use Human Growth Hormone (HGH), just one type of PED. Quarterback Brady Quinn put the number closer to 50 percent.

But instead of thinking of PEDs as a method of cheating, we should instead view them as tools of a professional’s trade. PEDs do not simply give an athlete more muscle mass. An athlete has to work to develop that mass, albeit at an easier rate than non-users. But if athletes doped universally, then they no longer would have the restrictions of genetic disadvantages. Doping allows athletes to overcome many of the disadvantages they would otherwise face.

Of course doping is not healthy; professional sports by nature are not healthy. Former professional athletes of all sports complain of chronic pain, depression, and many other real and serious problems. 40 percent of NFL athletes suffer from the brain injury chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) (Washington Post). A Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University study found 96 percent of NFL athletes studied had CTE (Frontline). Professional sports—especially the violent ones in which PED use is most rampant—are by nature harmful, and the decision to enter them comes with the understanding that one’s body is being put at risk to serious injury. With the understanding that professional sports are unfair and dangerous, PED use comes as a tool that is no more dangerous than the nature of intense, professional sports, and that helps to balance the literal and metaphorical playing field.

Pro sports teams and leagues are listed as entertainment businesses for a reason. When people watch Sunday Night Football or Christmas NBA games, they want to be entertained. By legalizing PED usage in professional sports, athletes would be better equipped to entertain consumers. I for one, want to see swimming records broken. I want to see David Ortiz hit 100 home runs. I want to watch Richard Sherman break 4 seconds in the 40. I want to see Stephen Gostkowski nail a 105 yard field goal. That would be so much more entertaining than what is in pro sports now, and the primary purpose of professional sports is entertainment.

Save the sanctimony of sport and the playing for the love of the game for amateur sports. Professional sports are an entertainment business, and PEDs are the best way to create a true meritocracy in sports while maximizing entertainment.