ABSTRACT
This chapter sets up the central contention of the book that sports development has lacked a theoretical foundation for its work. It argues that having a coherent and robust theory to underpin sports development policy and practice is not just a nice to have discourse for academic debate but a fundamental prerequisite for effective public policy. In setting up this argument the chapter includes a broad overview of the challenges that public policy ambitions for sport have faced since the Great Britain Sports Council was established in the early 1970s to the present day post London Olympic legacy concerns with sedentary behaviours and increasing levels of obesity. The argument is made that despite large amounts of public investment we have failed to ‘shift the curve’ of participation in sport in England or make significant inroads into structural inequalities. The chapter concludes by introducing the reader to the sporting capital conceptual model and proposing that ‘sporting capital’ offers a new lens on sport behaviours and their determinants that could transform the sporting landscape in England. The universal nature of sporting capital suggests that it could be applied to other developed countries albeit contextualised by their differing socio-economic, political and cultural contexts.
