Sport In The United Kingdom

Sport in the United Kingdom plays an important role in British culture and the United Kingdom has played a significant role in the organisation and spread of sporting culture globally. In the infancy of many organised sports, the Home Nations, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland were heavily involved in setting out the formal rules of many sports, and formed among the earliest separate governing bodies, national teams and domestic league competitions. After 1922, some sports formed separate bodies for Northern Ireland, though many continued to be organised on an all-Ireland basis. for this reason, in many though not all sports, most domestic and international sport is carried on on a Home Nations basis, and England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland (or Northern Ireland) are recognised as national entities.

In a small number of sports, these teams are supplemented by high-profile events, featuring a combined team representing one or more Home nations. The most notable examples of such arrangements are the British and Irish Lions in rugby union (and formerly the British Lions in rugby league), the Walker Cup golf team and Great Britain at the Olympics in relation to Olympic sports ordinarily organised on a Home Nations basis.

In other sports, especially individual Olympic sports such as athletics, swimming, cycling and triathlon, or those team sports invented outside the United Kingdom, e.g. basketball, baseball, ice hockey and volleyball, the United Kingdom generally participates as one nation, usually under the name Great Britain or, more rarely as Great Britain and Northern Ireland; the latter is the official name of the United Kingdom's team at the Olympic Games, though it is commonly referred to, not uncontroversially, as the former. Teams rarely, if ever, compete under the designation 'United Kingdom', reflected in the standard abbreviations ''GB'' and ''GBR''.

Overall, association football attracts the most viewers and money, though the nation is notable for the diversity of its sporting interests, especially at the elite level. Great Britain has a special affinity with both Olympic Sport as the only nation to win at least one gold medal at every Summer Games, and with Paralympic Sport as the birthplace of the modern Paralympic movement in Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1948. The capital London was the first city to host three Summer Olympic Games, and the United Kingdom has twice hosted the Paralympic Games, in London in 2012 and in Stoke Mandeville in 1984.

Major individual sports include athletics, cycling, golf, motorsport, and horse racing. The United Kingdom hosts significant major events across many sports annually, which see a seasonal uptick of interest in that sport for the duration of the event. Tennis is the highest profile sport for the two weeks of the Wimbledon Championships, but otherwise struggles to hold its own in the country of its birth. Snooker and darts, too, enjoy period profile boosts in line with the holding of their largest events.The Boat Race in rowing, the All England Open Badminton Championships, Badminton and Burghley Horse Trials in three-day eventing, the London Marathon enjoy similar global renown within their fields, and peak interest for short periods nationally. The Open Championship in golf also peaks periodic interest domestically as the only non-US and oldest Major, but golf maintains a reasonably high profile throughout the year and is a significant social sport.

Many other sports are also played and followed to a lesser degree. There is much debate over which sport has the most active participants with swimming, athletics, and cycling all found to have wider active participation than association football in the 2010 Sport England Active People survey.

History

17th century

Writing about has explained the role of Puritan power, the English Civil War, and the Restoration of the monarchy in England. The Long Parliament in 1642 "banned theatres, which had met with Puritan disapproval. Although similar action would be taken against certain sports, it is not clear if cricket was in any way prohibited, except that players must not ''break the Sabbath''". In 1660, "the Restoration of the monarchy in England was immediately followed by the reopening of the theatres, and so any sanctions that had been imposed by the Puritans on cricket would also have been lifted."Leach (2005a) is a heavily annotated chronology of cricket 1300–1730 and the source for numerous entries here. He goes on to make the key point that political, social, and economic conditions in the aftermath of the Restoration encouraged excessive gambling, so much so, that a Gambling Act was deemed necessary in 1664. It is certain that cricket, horse racing, and boxing (i.e., prizefighting) were financed by gambling interests. Leech explains that it was the habit of cricket patrons, all of whom were gamblers, to form strong teams through the 18th century to represent their interests. He defines a strong team as one representative of more than one parish, and he is certain that such teams were first assembled in or immediately after 1660. Prior to the English Civil War and the Commonwealth, all available evidence concludes that cricket had evolved to the level of village cricket, where only teams that are strictly representative of individual parishes compete. The "strong teams" of the post-Restoration mark the evolution of cricket (and, indeed of professional team sport, for cricket is the oldest professional team sport) from the parish standard to the county standard. This was the point of origin for major, or first-class, cricket. The year 1660 also marks the origin of professional team sports.

Cricket

Cricket had become well-established among the English upper class in the 18th century, and was a major factor in sports competition among the public schools. Army units around the Empire had time on their hands, and encouraged the locals to learn cricket so they could have some entertaining competition. Most of the Empire embraced cricket, with the exception of Canada. Cricket test matches (international) began by the 1870s; the first and most famous rivalry is that between Australia and England for "The Ashes."

Public schools

A number of the public schools such as Winchester and Eton, introduced variants of football and other sports for their pupils. These were described at the time as "innocent and lawful", certainly in comparison with the rougher rural games. With urbanization in the 19th century, the rural games moved to the new urban centres and came under the influence of the middle and upper classes. The rules and regulations devised at English institutions began to be applied to the wider game, with governing bodies in England being set up for a number of sports by the end of the 19th century. The rising influence of the upper class also produced an emphasis on the amateur, and the spirit of " fair play". The industrial revolution also brought with it increasing mobility, and created the opportunity for universities in Britain and elsewhere to compete with one another. This sparked increasing attempts to unify and reconcile various games in England, leading to the establishment of the Football Association in London, the first official governing body in football.

For sports to become professionalized, coaching had to come first. It gradually professionalized in the Victorian era and the role was well established by 1914. In the First World War, military units sought out the coaches to supervise physical conditioning and develop morale-building teams.

Sports culture

British Prime Minister John Major was the political leader most closely identified with promotion of sports. In 1995 he argued:

:We invented the majority of the world's great sports.... 19th century Britain was the cradle of a leisure revolution every bit as significant as the agricultural and industrial revolutions we launched in the century before.

The British showed a more profound interest in sports, and in greater variety, than any rival. This was chiefly due to the development of the railway network in the UK before other nations. Allowing for national newspapers, and travel around the country far earlier than in other places. They gave pride of place to such moral issues as sportsmanship and fair play. Cricket became symbolic of the Imperial spirit throughout the Empire. Football proved highly attractive to the urban working classes, which introduced the rowdy spectator to the sports world. In some sports, there was significant controversy in the fight for amateur purity especially in rugby and rowing. New games became popular almost overnight, including lawn tennis, cycling and hockey. Women were much more likely to enter these sports than the old established ones. The aristocracy and landed gentry, with their ironclad control over land rights, dominated hunting, shooting, fishing and horse racing. Many modern Olympic sports trace their roots back to Britain.

Administration and funding

Political responsibility for sport is a devolved matter. As England has no parliament of its own, the United Kingdom Department of Culture, Media and Sport which is headed by a cabinet minister -though the Minister for Sport and Tourism is not in the cabinet- deals with English sport in addition to United Kingdom-wide sports.

Political responsibility for sport in Scotland lies with the Scottish government Minister for Sport and Health Improvement, currently Jamie Hepburn, though is part of the remit of the Cabinet secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport, currently Shona Robison.

Political responsibility for sport in Wales lies with the Welsh Minister for Health, Wellbeing and Sport, currently Vaughan Gething. The minister sets out the strategic policy objectives for Sport Wales, which is responsible for the development and promotion of sport and active lifestyles in Wales. Sport Wales work closely with the Governing bodies of sports in Wales to whom they distribute government and National Lottery funding, through grants and awards.

Political responsibility for sport in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities, under Minister for Communities Carál Ní Chuilín. Sport NI is administered by the Department for Communities, and is engaged in the development and funding of sporting activity.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance is the representative body for sports organisations in the United Kingdom, including federations, players associations, managers associations and regional organisations.

A large majority of the funding for elite sport in the United Kingdom is commercially generated, but this is concentrated heavily on a few sports. For example, the English Premier League's 20 clubs had an estimated combined turnover of £1.25 billion in 2003–04 according to Deloitte, and British professional football's total income was in the region of £2 billion. Other major sports have a turnover in low nine figures or the tens of millions of pounds. For example, cricket is highly dependent on its TV contract, which was worth £55 million a year for the 2006–09 seasons.

Athletics, and also most sports outside the top ten or so in popularity, are heavily dependent on public funding. The government agency which funnels this is UK Sport, which has affiliates in each of the home nations, for example Sport England. These agencies are also responsible for distributing money raised for sport by the National Lottery. In 2005, when it was announced London would host the 2012 Games, UK Sport announced funding plans which were more focused than ever before on rewarding sports which have delivered Olympic success, and as a corollary, penalising those which have not. UK Sport also provides money for the recreational side of the main team sports, even football.

Other sports benefit from special financial provision. British tennis is subsidised by the profits of the Wimbledon Championships, which are in the tens of millions of pounds each year. Horse racing benefits from a levy on betting.

Popularity

A 2003 MORI poll found:

Sports media

The British media is dominated by United Kingdom-wide outlets, with local media playing a much smaller role. Traditionally, the BBC played a dominant role in televising sport, providing extensive high-quality advertisement, free coverage, and free publicity, in exchange for being granted broadcast rights for low fees. ITV broadcast a smaller portfolio of events. In the early 1990s, this arrangement was shaken up by the arrival of pay-TV. BSkyB based its early marketing largely on its acquisition of top division English league football, which was renamed The Premiership as part of the deal. It has subsequently acquired many more top rights in other sports. However, Sky tends to focus on competitions which can fill its specialist sports channels on a regular basis, and many events are still shown on free to air television, especially annual and quadrennial events, such as Wimbledon and the Olympics which are wholly or partially protected for free-to-air broadcast by legislation; such events are commonly referred to in the media as listed events or Crown Jewel events, and often have a particular position within national culture. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each have their own feeds for BBC1 and BBC2, allowing the BBC to opt out of the United Kingdom-wide programming to show a match in that area. This is often used when all four nations have an International football match on the same evening, but can also be used to show minority interest sports in the country where they are most appreciated (for example BBC One Scotland may show the shinty cup final, while BBC One Wales shows a rugby union match, e.g. a URC match between two Welsh sides). In Scotland, the BBC also operates BBC Alba, a Gaelic-language channel which often broadcasts Scottish sports fixtures, benefiting from the generally lower fees required for minority language broadcasting rights. S4C enjoys the same role in Welsh-language television, and TG4, an Irish language station from the Republic of Ireland but widely available in Northern Ireland by agreement performs a similar role.

In 2006, the Irish company Setanta Sports made a major