ABSTRACT
Norbert Elias was a true pioneer of the sociology of sport and leisure, but he did not approach the topic uncritically. Contrary to what many may believe, sport is not an autonomic environment, and neither is the sociology of sport and leisure. The specificities hereto have already been addressed elsewhere (Van Gestel, 2007, pp. 53–55). What is important to state and reinforce here is that studies in the social sciences that involve sport have, just as any other academic discipline, the task to bring to the fore knowledge that was not there before or to evaluate it. But even this does not bring out the extent of the importance of this particular field of enquiry as a relatively autonomous discipline. It has to be asked, just as Norbert Elias did, under which circumstances and in which types of social structures people take up more or less parts of their time to partake in sport and leisure, either as participants or spectators.
