ABSTRACT
Putting today’s sophisticated sports event industry into historical perspective is important if an understanding of how modern-day sports events are governed and structured is to be achieved. The importance of organized sport in early Greek, Chinese and Egyptian cultures, for example, has ultimately led to what exists today, an industry that consists of a multilevelled range of events, varying in scale from the locally to the globally significant. This chapter briefly considers a historical perspective and moves on to dissect the industry into various components by considering the importance of the industry at large, not simply from an economic viewpoint but also its social, political and technological impact. Then the different scales of event, event ownership and governance and event formats, including competition structures, are discussed. It is people that are at the heart of all industries and so, finally, the role of the event manager is considered.
