Sport is rapidly evolving to become one of the most sought-after industries for jobs these days as competitive leagues, tournaments and cups are springing up all over the world.
And while students graduate exclusively in sport-related programmes from some of the top colleges, there exist a few jobs in sport that simply make you scratch your head and wonder why they haven’t become obsolete this late into the 21st century.
It's time to acknowledge that humans have evolved significantly in the last few decades and the advent of technology has helped us in those areas by leaps and bounds. And with that mutual growth, why are there still some jobs - the 'jobless jobs', if you will - that people are offered to in the sporting world?
Here's looking at five of those sport-related 'jobless jobs' that shockingly still exist in today's world:
#5 The Step-checking referee at Long/Triple Jump Events
Let's start small, the whole point of the person sitting on a chair to check if someone overstepped from a patch of area isn't just inefficiency, it's daylight robbery.
At a time when we have an abundance of technology to do just that, why do we insist that the job be done by a person? Football uses it for goal-line technology, tennis has been using it for years and only a fraction of that set-up would work much more efficiently in long/triple jump events.
Even the Olympics still employs a person to do it, as if they don't trust a camera and a computer to tell them such a simple piece of information. Dont worry, lads, it's not like the system will turn on you and favour certain athletes.
#4 Ball-Changing Umpire in Cricket
As if cricket wasn't a pampered sport already, ICC and all leading cricket organisations across the world still insist on employing a person to carry a box of balls on to the field when needed.
Probably the least 'team' sport the world continues to pour millions over, cricket has the knack of producing jobless jobs that do the same thing the sport does: encourage procrastination.
When there are multiple umpires on the field, why can't one of them simply walk a little, given they don't do much of that in a game at all, and go and bring a new set of balls the bowlers can choose from? It's because of jobs like this that the New York Times can claim that the 'gig economy' is a lie.
#3 The Shuttlecock Changer in Badminton
Much like the point before, is there a need for a person to be employed in the badminton industry to just sit on a chair and change the shuttlecocks when needed.
It isn't their decision on when the bird needs changing, it's the referee's, so why can't he just have some of those fancy rolls that the birds come in, in the first place, just placed in a downward position near his high stool?
Leave it to the players to come in and take the birds when the referee asks them to, it's not like that they have to walk hundreds of meters to do so. They can just take a couple of new ones every time they come to wipe off their sweat and take a sip of water.
The shuttlecock changer is possible one of the most jobless job in the world.
#2 Golf Caddies
Wikipedia defines a golf caddie as someone who provides 'moral support' for a golfer - the greatest misdirect of a person's actual job and one befitting a con.
A caddie's responsibility is to carry the golfer's cart all around the fairway and why the golfer can't do it himself, we'll never understand. It's not like the kit's heavy, it's all in the skill.
And while they spend thousands and thousands of dollars in learning and playing golf, they can manage to just carry around their own kits, and pick and choose the sticks that could work best, themselves.
Being a caddie is definitely the most glamorous jobless job ever.
#1 Lifeguards at Olympic Swimming Events
Imagine the amount of trauma Michael Phelps goes through every time he takes to the swimming pool. There's all sorts of thoughts going through his head, how his opponents are, how hard he needs to perform to win and the huge chance that should things fail to go to plan, he could drown!
Except, NOT!!
The Olympics - the largest and most prestigious sporting event in the world - requires the presence of professional lifeguards in all of their swimming events. That's not just offering a job to someone, it's basically offering them free money to sit on a chair and wear flip-flops.
That's the most jobless job in the world. You're at a swimming pool where your job is to save the lives of professionals who are doing what they do best and are definitely better than you at it. Staying afloat is all they've trained for, their whole life and to expect a professional swimmer, let alone the best athletes in the world who participate in the Olympics, to drown in a swimming pool that's usually just 16 feet deep is just blatant ignorance.
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