History and Growth of Sport in the Twenty First Century

Sport is defined as any physical activity which involves a level of physical competition, for instance netball or tennis. Many forms of outdoor sporting activities and some games are also classed as sports. An individual who performs at an elite level in a particular sport may be called a professional in that sport. The word sport itself is also used sometimes to describe a recreational activity. When applied to the world of professional sport, it usually signifies competitive athletics.

Sport in the modern sense is generally regarded as having emerged from or around the 20th century. Sports which are considered as such in the modern era are football (football being the most popular in the English speaking world), baseball, basketball, American football and Australian football. In the English speaking world, soccer has enjoyed something of a following since the mid-twentieth century, although basketball and hockey were earlier played with objects other than a ball. Rugby Union was a late comer to the sports world, coming onto the scene in the early Twenty-First Century, although North America and some parts of Europe had been playing organized sports like baseball and rugby long before the Industrial Revolution. Modern sport in the modern era includes ice hockey, ice dancing, fencing and motor-bike racing.

Cricket has enjoyed something of a status within the world of sports in the modern era, even though the term cricket itself does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. It is one of the two international sports competitions that are played between teams of different countries in a tournament or match. The other sport that is often referred to as “Cricket” is tennis, although in the UK, “soccer” is usually used to refer to any kind of sport involving people on a racetrack. British television viewers have become familiar with the names of some of the players who play in the sport, most notably Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen. Both of these men have won the governing body of cricket, the England and Wales Cricket Board, several times.