Sports are a group of competitive physical activities that are designed to improve participants’ fitness, skill, and mental well-being. They can also provide entertainment for spectators, and in some cases remunerate athletes for their performance.
The development of modern sports can be seen as part of a larger process of globalization, which involves the creation of a global economy and a cosmopolitan culture, as well as the migration of people, ideas, and money around the world. These patterns of international economic, political, and cultural influence are influencing the ways that athletes, coaches, and fans experience sports.
In the past, sports were a form of autotelic physical contests, in which people engaged in competition for fun and to enhance their own strength and stamina. They were a social activity, too; in addition to providing a means of improving strength and speed, sports helped develop social interaction skills.
Emotionality in Sport
The emotions that are associated with sports are a result of athletes’ evaluations and expectations of their performances as well as their perceptions of the judgments of others. Athletes experience a range of feelings, from anticipation before a game to postgame ecstasy when they achieve a victory.
They are scripted, or orchestrated, by the subcultures of individual sports, and athletes vary in their internalization of these scripts. These rules help structure the emotional experience of the sport subculture, and they also help define the roles that players, coaches, and fans have in the sports culture.