![Youth-soccer-indiana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Youth-soccer-indiana.jpg)
Sport pertains to any form of
competitive
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
physical activity
Physical activity is defined as any voluntary bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure.Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health, 2009. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland. Accessed 13/ ...
or
game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and
skills
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...
while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases,
entertainment to spectators.
Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve participants' physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in
teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as
racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a ''match'') is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide
tie-breaking methods
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests.
General operation
In matches
In some situations, the tiebreaker may cons ...
to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a
tournament producing a
champion. Many
sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular
sports season, followed in some cases by
playoffs.
Sport is generally recognised as system of activities based in physical
athleticism
Athletics is a term encompassing the human competitive sports and games requiring physical skill, and the systems of training that prepare athletes for competition performance. Athletic sports or contests are competitions which are primarily based ...
or physical
dexterity, with major competitions such as the
Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition. Other organisations, such as the
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
, preclude activities without a physical element from classification as sports.
[ However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ]ARISF
The Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation constituted through and recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The ARISF's members are international sports ...
) recognises both chess and bridge as ''bona fide'' sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi, and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.[
Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or ]customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news
Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the ...
. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport
A spectator sport is a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its competitions. Spectator sports may be professional sports or amateur sports. They often are distinguished from participant sports, which are m ...
drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. The frequency of sports bet upon varies by culture, with the vast majority of bets being placed on association football, American football, basket ...
is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.
According to A.T. Kearney
Kearney is a global management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. Kearney has consistently earned top places among global management consulting firm rankings, such as Vault's Consulting 50 and ''Consulting'' magazine' ...
, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013. The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.[
]
Meaning and usage
Etymology
The word
sport
comes from the Old French ''desport'' meaning " leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".
Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise. Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.
Nomenclature
The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms.
Definition
The precise definition of what differentiates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF), which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports
Equestrian sports are sports that use horses as a main part of the sport. This usually takes the form of the rider being on the horse's back, or the horses pulling some sort of horse-drawn vehicle.
General
* 4-H
* Equitation
*Horse show
* Iceland ...
, and more), and is therefore the ''de facto'' representative of international sport.
GAISF uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:[
* have an element of competition
* be in no way harmful to any living creature
* not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
* not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.
They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as ]rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions of ...
), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).[
The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports. Whilst GAISF recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.
There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called ]esports
Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
(from "electronic sports"), especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations. According to Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."
Competition
There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or GAISF. [
Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the ]Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
include all forms of physical exercise, including those competed just for fun.
In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.
In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age). The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by a panel of judges, and therefore subjective. There are many shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where victory is assigned by judges if neither competitor has lost at the end of the match time.
History
Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China
Sport in China has been long associated with the martial arts. Today, China (including mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau) consists of a variety of competitive sports. Traditional Chinese culture regards physical fitness as an important charact ...
as early as 2000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zoorkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills. Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo
Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...
and jousting. The traditional South Asian sport of kabaddi has been played for thousands of years, potentially as a preparation for hunting.
A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia
The name Olympia may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games
* ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
.
Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought motorised transportation and increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sports people should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.
Fair play
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.
Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
Cheating
Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure fair play, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.
Participants may cheat in order to unfairly increase their chance of winning, or in order to achieve other advantages such as financial gains. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports events creates a motivation for match fixing
In organized sports, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a match with the intention of achieving a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, ...
, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome rather than simply playing to win.
Doping and drugs
The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.
All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.
Violence
Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.
Participation
Gender participation
Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness
Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of Outline of sports, sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate ...
. Despite increases in female participation during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrolment figures between male and female players in sports-related teams. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics.
Certain sports are mixed-gender, allowing (or even requiring) men and women to play on the same team. One example of this is Baseball5
Baseball5 (B5) is an internationally played safe haven game with many of the same rules as baseball and softball, which is governed alongside those sports by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).
The game revolves around two teams ...
, which is the first mixed-gender sport to have been admitted into an Olympic event.
Youth participation
Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness
Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of Outline of sports, sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate ...
, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion
A concussion, also known as a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), is a head injury that temporarily affects brain functioning. Symptoms may include loss of consciousness (LOC); memory loss; headaches; difficulty with thinking, concentration, ...
. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey. Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.
Disabled participation
Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by people with a disability, including physical
Physical may refer to:
*Physical examination
In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally co ...
and intellectual disabilities
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...
. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of people with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as ''adapted sports''. However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for people with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.
Spectator involvement
The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport
A spectator sport is a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its competitions. Spectator sports may be professional sports or amateur sports. They often are distinguished from participant sports, which are m ...
.
Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast media including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view
Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast.
Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guid ...
television broadcast. Sports league and tournament are two common arrangements to organize sport teams or individual athletes into competing against each other continuously or periodically.
It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain events. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final
The 2011 Cricket World Cup Final was a One Day International (ODI) match played between India and Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, India on Saturday 2 April 2011. The culmination of the tenth edition of the World Cup, it was the firs ...
attracted an estimated audience of 135 million in India alone.
In the United States, the championship game of the NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
, the Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.
Super Bowl Sunday is a ''de facto'' national holiday in America; the viewership being so great that in 2015, advertising space was reported as being sold at $4.5m for a 30-second slot.
Amateur and professional
Sport can be undertaken on an amateur, professional or semi-professional basis, depending on whether participants are incentivised for participation (usually through payment of a wage or salary). Amateur participation in sport at lower levels is often called "grassroots sport".
The popularity of spectator sport
A spectator sport is a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its competitions. Spectator sports may be professional sports or amateur sports. They often are distinguished from participant sports, which are m ...
as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run into millions of dollars.
Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport
Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing ...
. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practised a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby. From 1971, Olympic athletes were allowed to receive compensation and sponsorship, and from 1986, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics, with the exceptions of boxing, and wrestling.
Technology
Technology plays an important part in modern sport. It is a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), and it is used in others to improve performance. Some sports also use it to allow off-field decision making.
Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine-tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear
Competitive swimwear refers to the swimsuit, clothing, equipment, and accessories used in the aquatic sports of swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, triathlon, and water polo.
Some swimsuits are designed specifically for swimming competiti ...
. Sports engineering
Aerobics engineering is a fast growing field of engineering which encompasses the design and production of sports equipment and facilities, performance measurement and athletic feedback systems, and the study of kinematics, dynamics and biomec ...
emerged as a discipline in 1998 with an increasing focus not just on materials design but also the use of technology in sport, from analytics and big data to wearable technology. In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules that are set to control the impact of technical advantage between participants. For example, in 2010, full-body, non-textile swimsuits were banned by FINA, as they were enhancing swimmers' performances.
The increase in technology has also allowed many decisions in sports matches to be taken, or reviewed, off-field, with another official using instant replays to make decisions. In some sports, players can now challenge decisions made by officials. In Association football, goal-line technology makes decisions on whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not. The technology is not compulsory, but was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup
The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...
in Brazil, and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup
The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup was the seventh FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international soccer championship contested by the women's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament was hosted by Canada for the ...
in Canada, as well as in the Premier League from 2013–14, and the Bundesliga from 2015–16. In the NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
, a referee can ask for a review from the replay booth, or a head coach can issue a challenge
Challenge may refer to:
* Voter challenging or caging, a method of challenging the registration status of voters
* Euphemism for disability
* Peremptory challenge, a dismissal of potential jurors from jury duty
Places
Geography
*Challenge, C ...
to review the play using replays. The final decision rests with the referee. A video referee (commonly known as a Television Match Official or TMO) can also use replays to help decision-making in rugby (both league
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
Sports
* Sports league
* Rugby league, full contact footba ...
and union). In international cricket, an umpire can ask the Third umpire for a decision, and the third umpire makes the final decision. Since 2008, a decision review system for players to review decisions has been introduced and used in ICC-run tournaments, and optionally in other matches. Depending on the host broadcaster, a number of different technologies are used during an umpire or player review, including instant replays, Hawk-Eye
Hawk-Eye is a computer vision system used in numerous sports such as cricket, tennis, Gaelic football, badminton, hurling, rugby union, association football and volleyball, to visually track the trajectory of the ball and display a profile o ...
, Hot Spot
Hotspot, Hot Spot or Hot spot may refer to:
Places
* Hot Spot, Kentucky, a community in the United States
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Hot Spot (comics), a name for the DC Comics character Isaiah Crockett
* Hot Spot (Tra ...
and Real Time Snickometer
Snickometer, commonly known as Snicko, is a system used in cricket to determine whether the ball edged the bat, for a potential dismissal such as a catch or leg before wicket. It does this by showing a frame-by-frame replay of the footage of the ba ...
. Hawk-Eye is also used in tennis to challenge umpiring decisions.
Sports and education
Research suggests that sports have the capacity to connect youth to positive adult role models and provide positive development opportunities, as well as promote the learning and application of life skills
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...
. In recent years the use of sport to reduce crime, as well as to prevent violent extremism and radicalization, has become more widespread, especially as a tool to improve self-esteem
Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth or abilities. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie (2007) d ...
, enhance social bonds and provide participants with a feeling of purpose.
There is no high-quality evidence that shows the effectiveness of interventions to increase sports participation of the community in sports such as mass media campaigns, educational sessions, and policy changes. There is also no high-quality studies that investigate the effect of such interventions in promoting healthy behavior change in the community.
Politics
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
used the 1934 FIFA World Cup
The 1934 FIFA World Cup was the second edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It took place in Italy from 27 May to 10 June 1934.
The 1934 World Cup was the first in w ...
, which was held in Italy, to showcase Fascist Italy
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...
. Adolf Hitler also used the 1936 Summer Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
held in Berlin, and the 1936 Winter Olympics
The 1936 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IV Olympic Winter Games (german: IV. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known as Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 ( bar, Garmasch-Partakurch 1936), were a winter multi-sport event held from 6 to 16 ...
held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen (; Bavarian: ''Garmasch-Partakurch''), nicknamed Ga-Pa, is an Alpine ski town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the seat of government of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (abbreviated ''GAP''), in the O ...
, to promote the Nazi ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other " undesirables". Germany used the Olympics to give off a peaceful image while secretly preparing for war.
When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.
In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football
Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...
, hurling
Hurling ( ga, iománaÃocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of p ...
, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported Association football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42, is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park
Croke Park ( ga, Páirc an Chrócaigh, ) is a Gaelic games stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Named after Archbishop Thomas Croke, it is referred to as Croker by GAA fans and locals. It serves as both the principal national stadium of Ireland and he ...
while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.
Sport and politics collided in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli Olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.
A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses. Also, when Washington Redskins win their final game before an election, then the incumbent President is more likely to win, and if the Redskins lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the Redskins Rule The Redskins Rule is a spurious relationship in which the results of National Football League (NFL) games correlated strongly with the results of subsequent United States presidential elections. Briefly stated, there was a strong correlation betw ...
.
As a means of controlling and subduing populations
Étienne de La Boétie
Étienne or Estienne de La Boétie (; oc, Esteve de La Boetiá; 1 November 1530 – 18 August 1563) was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet and political theorist, best remembered for his intense and intimate friendship with essayist ...
, in his essay ''Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
The ''Discourse on Voluntary Servitude'' (french: Discours de la servitude volontaire) is an essay by Étienne de La Boétie. The text was published clandestinely in 1577.
The date of preparation of the ''Discourse on Voluntary Servitude'' is un ...
'' describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them.
Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvellous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.
During the British rule of Bengal, British and European sports began to supplant traditional Bengali sports, resulting in a loss of native culture.
Religious views
Sport was an important form of worship in Ancient Greek religion
Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been ...
. The ancient Olympic Games
The ancient Olympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ ἀγῶνες; la, Olympia, neuter plural: "the Olympics") were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. ...
were held in honour of the head deity, Zeus, and featured various forms of religious dedication to him and other gods. As many Greeks travelled to see the games, this combination of religion and sport also served as a way of uniting them.
The practice of athletic competitions has been criticised by some Christian thinkers as a form of idolatry
Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼà Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the A ...
, in which "human beings extol themselves, adore themselves, sacrifice themselves and reward themselves."[''Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives'', Nick J. Watson, ed. (Routledge: 2013), p. 178.] Sports are seen by these critics as a manifestation of "collective pride" and "national self-deification" in which feats of human power are idolized at the expense of divine worship.[
Tertullian condemns the athletic performances of his day, insisting "the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry." The shows, says Tertullian, excite passions foreign to the calm temperament cultivated by the Christian:
]
God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness and sensitiveness. ... Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them – the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.['']De spectaculis
''De Spectaculis'', also known as ''On the Spectacles'' or ''The Shows'', is a surviving moral and ascetic treatise by Tertullian. Written somewhere between 197 and 202, the work looks at the moral legitimacy and consequences of Christians attendi ...
'' Chapter 15.
Christian clerics in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement oppose the viewing of or participation in professional sports, believing that professional sports leagues profane the Sabbath as in the modern era, certain associations hold games on the Lord's Day. They also criticize professional sports for its fostering of a commitment that competes with a Christian's primary commitment to God in opposition to , what they perceive to be a lack of modesty in the players' and cheerleaders' uniforms (which are not in conformity with the Methodistic doctrine of outward holiness), its association with violence in opposition to , what they perceive to be the extensive use of profanity among many players that contravenes , and the frequent presence of gambling, as well as alcohol and other drugs at sporting events, which go against a commitment to teetotalism.
Popularity
Popularity in 2018 of major sports by size of fan base
A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant p ...
:
See also
* Outline of sports
* List of sports
* List of sportspeople
* List of sports attendance figures
* List of professional sports leagues
* New Media and Sports
New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...
Related topics
* Athletic sports
* Animals in sport
* Combat sport
* Disabled sports
* Electronic sports
* Fan (person)
A fan or fanatic, sometimes also termed an aficionado or enthusiast, is a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for something or somebody, such as a celebrity, a sport, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a movie, a vid ...
* Handedness#Advantage in sports
* International sport
* Lawn game
* Mind sport
* Motor sports
Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of tw ...
* Multi-sport events
* National sport
* Nationalism and sports
* Olympic Games
* Paralympic Games
The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...
* Physical education
* Physical fitness
Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of Outline of sports, sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate ...
* Spalding Athletic Library
* Sponsorship
* Sport in film
* Sport psychology
Sport psychology was defined by the European Federation of Sport in 1996, as the study of the psychological basis, processes, and effects of sport. Otherwise, sport is considered as any physical activity where the individuals engage for competi ...
* Sports club
* Sports coaching
* Sports commentator
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...
* Sports entertainment
* Sports equipment
* Sports fan
A fan or fanatic, sometimes also termed an aficionado or enthusiast, is a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for something or somebody, such as a celebrity, a sport, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a movie, a vid ...
* Sports governing body
A sports governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function.
Sports governing bodies come in various forms and have a variety of regulatory functions. Examples of this can include disciplinary action for rule i ...
* Sports injuries
* Sports league attendances
This article lists the attendance of many sports competitions around the world, based in some cases on the number of tickets sold or given away, rather than people actually present. The list is almost exclusively stadium field and indoor arena b ...
* Sports marketing
* Sports nutrition
Sports nutrition is the study and practice of nutrition and diet with regards to improving anyone's athletic performance. Nutrition is an important part of many sports training regimens, being popular in strength sports (such as weightlifting and ...
* Sports terms named after people
This is a list of eponyms in sports, i.e. sports terms named after people.
American football
*Cleveland Browns: The Cleveland Browns were named after their first coach, Paul Brown. Brown would later become the first coach of the Cincinnati Benga ...
* Sports trainer
Athletic training is an allied health care profession recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA)"What is an Athletic Trainer?". The Board of Certification Website. 2003.
Athletic training is also recognized by the Health Resources Serv ...
* Sportsperson
* Sportswear
* Sunday sporting events Sunday sporting events were not usually played until the early 20th century. In North America, they were prohibited due to blue laws at first, but then cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati later decided to legalize them. Other cities such ...
* Team sport
* Underwater sports
* Women's sports
* Water sports
* Winter sport
Sources
References
Sources
* European Commission (2007), ''The White Paper on Sport''.
* Council of Europe (2001), ''The European sport charter''.
Further reading
* ''The Meaning of Sports'' by Michael Mandel (PublicAffairs, ).
Journal of the Philosophy of Sport
* Sullivan, George. ''The Complete Sports Dictionary''. New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1979. 199 p.
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Main topic articles
Books about sports
Social gatherings
Culture