ABSTRACT
Sport is intensely emotional. The passions it generates account for its centrality in modern societies around the world – the millions spent on stadiums, the high salaries paid to elite athletes, the levels of time and energy many fans invest, and corporate eagerness to capitalize on sport to sell products. Fans experience more intense feelings around sport than around almost any other social activity. This chapter first surveys the theoretical approaches from psychology and sociology that address emotions and sport and then discusses how emotions appear in current writing about the history of sport. The emotional power of spectatorship derives from its social or shared characteristics. Sports broadcasters can develop a deep emotional bond with fans. Governments and social reformers have a long history of promoting sport to potentially problematic social groups in order to teach emotion regulation. Especially in international competitions, sport has long been intimately linked to the growth of nationalism, a phenomenon built on emotional attachment.
