Pro–am (or pro/am, pro am, ProAm; a contraction of professional–amateur) refers to a sporting event where both professional career athletes and amateurs compete. It could also refer to a collaboration between professionals and amateurs in a scientific discipline such as astronomy.

Overview

In reference to individuals, the term also has another meaning: it implies someone that is intermediate, indeterminate or fluctuating between amateur and professional status, an idea more related to the similar socio-economic term " amateur professionalism". A common synonym for this version of pro–am is

semi-professional Semi-professional sports are sports in which athletes are not participating on a full-time basis, but still receive some payment. Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team, but generally at a consid ...

(semi-pro). Thus has the term proam long had various meanings and significances, depending upon the sport in question. Those who play at a highly competitive and strongly skilled level, but are not paid, are often called pro–ams. The term is also applied to competitors who do get paid in some events (e.g., tournaments with a cash prize) but who do not make a full-time living at the activity. In sports with a highly regulated system of professional qualifications and limitations, it may be applied to competitors whose careers move between professional and amateur status with their performance in any given season or string of seasons. As an adjective, the term may also refer to an open contest or series of contests (e.g., "pro–am tournament", "pro–am tour") in which professionals and amateurs compete without distinction; those limited to "professional–amateur" players and barring full-time pros; or those of a semi-professional or minor league level, short of the top competitive ranks in the sport. Pro–am competition is especially common in golf, and in track and field. Cue sports is another field in which pro–am play is common; an example in the open, mixed-play sense is the

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eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a ...

. And in

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

, the International Open Series was a no-pros tour and a proving ground for amateurs aspiring to official pro qualification. Minor League Baseball, and its conceptual equivalents in other sports such as the AHL in North American ice hockey and

Conference National The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-profes ...

play in English football, can also been seen as a form of well-organized pro–am play in the semi-professional sense. There are also a few pro-am tennis events, such as the annual Necker Cup organized by

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

, where tennis pros are invited to compete against amateur enthusiasts. In

dance sport Dancesport is competitive ballroom dance, ballroom dancing, as contrasted to social or exhibition dancing. In the case of Para dancesport, at least one of the dancers is in a wheelchair. Dancesport events are sanctioned and regulated by dancesp ...

, pro–am provides an opportunity for an amateur to take part in competitions with a professional partner. In this case, the teacher is usually also the dance partner. All of the most relevant international dance sport associations, including the

World Dance Council The World Dance Council Ltd (WDC), is a registered limited company, the legal successor to the ''International Council of Ballroom Dancing'', and was established at a meeting organized by Phillip J. S. Richardson on 22 September 1950 in Edinburgh, ...

, World DanceSport Federation, and International Dance Sport Association, offer pro–am competitions as parts of their international events. The world's oldest dance competition, the

Blackpool Dance Festival The 8-day Blackpool Dance Festival is the world's first and most famous annual ballroom dance competition of international significance, held in the Empress Ballroom at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, England since 1920. It is also the largest bal ...

, featured its first pro–am event in 2014. Chains of franchised pro–am studios, like the Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire studios, are found nationwide in the United States. Pro–am dance sport has also started to break ground in Europe, with studios such as Agens Pro–am (Germany), and ProAm-Tanzen (Austria).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pro-Am Sports terminology Amateur sports Semi-professional sports

Overview

See also

References