ABSTRACT
The history and development of sport around the world reflects our own growth and evolution as people, societies and cultures. Fundamentally, sport consists of a wide variety of physical activities designed to achieve a result, generate a physical feeling or better an opponent, in individual or team competition. Sports often take on unique socio-cultural variations and interpretations. Modern sports began to be commercialized in the 18th century though the period of “take-off” and global expansion dates from the latter 19th century. As sports became activities played and watched around the world, especially since the widespread advent of pay television from the 1980s onward, academic and popular literature on sports in general and individual sports in particular has blossomed. Since 2000, numerous new works have appeared that explore the business of specific sports and their major teams, competitions and events as well as squarely placing such sports in the political economies of the places where they are played.
