The globalization of sports has changed the face of competition between nations. While the Soviet bloc was a formidable competitor at one point, the Western nations soon caught up with them and began creating state-sponsored sports. The poorer countries were unable to allocate the resources needed to develop athletic talent and were losing their top athletes to the more developed and wealthy nations.
While the aesthetic element of sport remains, the focus of modern sports is more on quantified achievement. The shift in emphasis in modern sports can be seen in the semantics of the term “measure.” Once connoting a sense of balance and proportion, the term “measure” began to denote a numerical measurement. The emotional component of sports is important to understanding how sports fit into the broader social construct of national identity.
As media infrastructures improved, sports became more accessible to the mass public. The media began to recognize the value of sports as a way to create a large cohort of consumers and generate revenue. It also began to focus on sports as a platform to advertise and generate interest in products. The mass media’s presence on sports has shaped the culture of sports.
Games such as football have been played around the world for thousands of years. They began as a way for children to express their physical prowess and compete against each other. Throughout the centuries, games evolved into more organized forms, including cricket.
