Sport

Sport—loosely defined as the regulated manifestation of competitively based physical activity—is a complex phenomenon that operates simultaneously within numerous social realms (i.e., physical, commercial, media, and political) and can be experienced in a number of different ways (i.e., as participant, spectator, viewer, owner, investor, and worker). Adding to its complexity, sport is also a fluid category whose precise constitution is bound to the specificities of the context in question. Despite this historical and cultural contingency, sport can still be considered a universal practice. Virtually all societies exhibit some form of sporting activity, which, to varying degrees and in varying ways, provides a vehicle for the embodied expression of local identity and difference. Therefore, in deriving from, and contributing toward, the structural, institutional, processional, and behavioral ...