ABSTRACT
This chapter recognises that sports, lifestyles and alternative cultures have attracted a considerable degree of attention, not least because they have offered a popular alternative to mainstream sport. The arrival of new alternative sports, in the broadest sense of the word, continues to pose new questions, raise new issues and demand new notions of explanation. These sports also necessitate an ongoing evaluation of the real social choices that are offered by new developments and whether they are, for example, characterised by colonial powers, world markets and transnational companies. The thirst for risk, uncertainty, adrenaline rushes, chance and the quest for excitement are not new, but the limits and possibilities presented by sport, lifestyles and alternatives in the twenty-first century are also matched by unpredictability, uncertainty and a new set of parameters facing people today. The chapter asks and answers the question: 'Why are people and/or groups looking for new social forms of sport today'.
