Sports, Recreation

Standardization and Regularization of Sports

Sports are first and foremost sociocultural activities, because they are an expression of the predominant customs, practices, and values of a given society. In a general sense, the way in which sports are practiced reflects the symbolic and cultural underpinnings of societies. Many ancient sports, for instance, evolved from practices of warfare, survival, celebration, or collective festivities. Sports such as archery, wrestling, and running are modern-day versions of games invented from the day-to-day existence and rituals of ancient communities. Sports such as football (or soccer), rugby, and baseball are forms of play that emerged during specific phases in the cultural development of the societies in which they originated, and, although these sports may have been subject to adaptation over time, they still bear the features of the socio-historical context in which they arose.

What differentiates modern sports from their historical antecedents is the extent to which the practice of sports has been standardized, regularized, and universalized. These overlap and relate to a further important feature of sport in today's context, which is the degree to which it is globalized.

The standardization of sports involves the development of a homogenous set of rules and norms for a particular sport about aspects of participation, penalty, and/or reward that govern the way in which that sport is played and which determine the character of the sport. Even though many of today's major sports originated in specific countries (and mostly in Europe), in the early days they were often played to different sets of rules (or in some instances, unspecified or no rules) in various parts of origin countries. The writing down—or codification—of rules, and the common acceptance of them by their participants, was a process that, for most contemporary sports, started in the mid- to late 19th century. The context for this was the onset of industrial transformation in Europe and its accompanying social and economic impacts. The development of national communication systems through the expansion of railway lines and [Page 1598]postal services was a key element in this. In addition, altering class and demographic structures and changing forms of leisure resulted in a greater number of people participating in sports. At the same time, the prevailing principles of scientism and bureaucratization of the era encouraged the setting up of clubs and higher levels of sport organization to administer the practice of sports as a pastime, including, eventually, the arrangement of competitions. Together, these processes of standardization and regularization determined rules of play but also helped shape values around sportsmanship and participation which today we closely associate with the world's sports.

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