Sports

A Brief History of Sports

A brief history of sports can provide insight into how they came to form a significant part of consumer culture. Sports participants, be they novice or expert, and sports spectators, all from a plethora of socio-cultural backgrounds (not just the elites of society), now consume sports in a variety of interrelated ways within a colossal business enterprise. Yet this was not always the case. Various sporting pastimes, which are different from the modern sports of today, have been consumed by different cultures that have defined a number of pivotal epochs throughout history, including Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution. It is during the latter of these, and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain in particular, that the most popular modern global sports, such as boxing, cricket, soccer, rugby, tennis, golf, and many others that dominate our television screens today, were first formally standardized, codified, and eventually spread to the masses. National governing bodies for sports were first formed in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An example is the Football Association (FA), which was formed for the sport of soccer in 1863.

Although originally codified by amateurs of the upper and middle classes, throughout the late-nineteenth century and early twentieth century, working-class members of society began to take hold of modern sports and transform them into professional businesses. For instance, the charging of spectators was already common at soccer grounds in England by the 1870s and the payment of working-class players for time out of work (“broken-time” payments) was becoming common too. This led to the FA being forced to formally legalize professionalism in the sport in 1885 and the first “football league” was established in England in April 1888. This was significant as far as the commercialization of soccer is concerned, as it provided regular matches (rather than cups and knock-out competitions alone) and thus took advantage of the taste for competition and local rivalries among spectators. Commercial considerations were clear in the setting up of the league, as it initially allowed only one club per city in most cases, meaning clubs now represented towns and cities nationally for the first time. This engendered large rises in spectator attendance figures as it also coincided with the growth of working-class political rights involving reforms that led to an increase in wages among the working-class population, especially in the 1890s; the introduction of the Saturday half-day for workers; and the rise of railways built for industry that could be used by fans to travel to away games (before the popularization of cars). Therefore, as David Russell notes, the popularity of soccer among the working classes eventually resulted in the domination of the professional game and the definitive end of the hegemony of amateurism.

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