Putting Sport on the Map: The Structure of Global Sport

As the previous chapter outlined, the beginnings of sport were deeply rooted in ritual pastimes, military service and political distraction, and formed an indistinguishable interrelationship with the social constructions of the communities in which the sport was played. The economic benefits of sport were quickly pursued, as the emotional attachments people made with some sports grew, until they were themselves an indispensable element in the socio-sport alloy. The inevitable outcome was the development of a sport-based industry. Table 3.1 summarises the development from local sport to global sport, along the lines of the civilising process discussed in the previous chapter, and with consideration of the dominant means of international communication and relationships. The road to global sport marks the changing role of sport in society, and it provides the building blocks of the sport industry as we know it today. An industry can be defined as a group of organisations that produce products or classes of products that are close substitutes for each other.1 The sport industry therefore consists of those organisations producing sport-related products that may be substitutable. Within the sport industry, however, there are different groupings of organisations that produce similar sport products.