Australian rules football
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See also: Australian rules football and Football
Unlike other sports, Australian Rules football has not resisted becoming a professional sport.
Although the sport began as amateur competition, the Australian Football League is an elite professional league and has been for nearly 80 years since its initial formation as the Victorian Football Association and then the Victorian Football League in 1897. The league changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1990 amid the increasing professionalism and national expansion of the game. The increasing popularity and membership of clubs saw players being paid large sums until a salary cap and national draft system was put in place by the league during the 1980s to keep clubs competitive in a national competition. Some Australian state leagues, particularly South Australia (SANFL), Victoria (VFL) and Western Australia (WAFL) pay players professional wages. Leagues in other states are often only semi-professional.
[edit] Auto racing
[edit] Baseball
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See also: Major League Baseball
[edit] Basketball
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See also: National Basketball Association
Invented in the 1890s in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first professional basketball leagues emerged in the 1920s in the United States. Prominent among these were the American Basketball League, which formed in 1925, and the National Basketball League, which was launched in 1937 by General Electric, Firestone and Goodyear as a way to improve their national profile.[5] In 1946 the Basketball Association of America was founded by the owners of major sports arenas, particularly the Madison Square Garden. The BAA later merged with the NBL in 1949 to become the National Basketball Association, the preeminent league in the world with 29 teams in the United States and one in Canada.
[edit] Leagues outside of the United States
In the last several decades, professional basketball has become truly international. There are now leagues in more than fifteen countries, including China, Australia, Turkey, and the Phillipines.
[edit] Billiards
[edit] Bowling
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See also: Professional Bowlers Association
[edit] Cricket
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See also: World Series Cricket
[edit] Cycling
[edit] Football (soccer)
The governing body of UK Football is The Football Association (FA), founded for men in 1863 and including women beginning in 1969 (See history of Football). In its early years football was mainly played on amateur basis. This was to change with the inauguration of the FA Cup competition in 1871. To do well in the competition clubs started to compete with each other to attract the best players. The players would be offered financial inducements to play. For example "boot money" was a term where cash (typically a half crown (12-and-a-half pence)) was placed in players boots after a game. The payment of inducements was possible because a successful team could be expected to generate considerable income for a club from tickets sold to supporters to watch matches. Although inducements were paid they were not direct payments because initially the FA was completely opposed to professionalism, as personified by Corinthians F.C. By the mid 1880s this position was no longer tenable and professionalism was legalised in 1885. In 1888 thanks to the introduction of professionalism a new format for competition between the clubs was possible and The Football League was introduced to help further the commercialisation of football.
In 1904 the FA introduced maximum wage in 1904 to try to reduce competition between clubs. Maximum wages would last until the 1960s with players negotiating collectively through the Player's Union. There was also a complicated transfer system for players in England, which was challenged by George Eastham who won a ruling in the English High Court (Eastham 1963: 146) which ruled that the transfer system was "an unreasonable restraint of trade". In the 1977/1978 season 'freedom of contract' between players and clubs was introduced. This allowed players playing for English teams to negotiate wages close to their real market values. It also introduced the players agent as an important figure into English football to represent the interests of players.
In December 1995 the European Court of Justice upheld a ruling in favour of Jean-Marc Bosman. The court ruled that the football transfer rules overseen by UEFA were in breach of the European Union law on the free movement of workers between member states. As a result of this: "the European Union demanded that regulations concerning players' transfers and limitations on foreign players be amended almost immediately". (www.fifa.com). This forced UEFA to scrap the remaining restrictions on the ability of players and clubs to negotiate contracts with the each other. However UEFA is working with FIFA to try to find ways to re-introduce restrictions to help clubs and the sport of football in third word countries. On Thursday 21 April 2005 UEFA's 52 member federations unanimously approved a rule designed to increase the number of locally trained players. UEFA's chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson was reported by CNN to have said that some of the major clubs in Europe like Chelsea F.C. and FC Barcelona were not happy with this rule and he didn't rule out the possibility of a court challenge.
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References
[edit] Football (American/Canadian)
Rugby football in Canada had its origins in the early 1860s, and over time, a unique code of football known as Canadian football developed. Both the Canadian Football League (CFL), the sport's top professional league, and Football Canada, the governing body for amateur play, trace their roots to 1882 and the founding of the Canadian Rugby Football Union (later reorganized as the Canadian Rugby Union). In 1909, the Grey Cup was donated by the then Governor General of Canada Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, to recognize the top amateur rugby football team in Canada. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the two senior leagues of the CRU (the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union and the Western Interprovincial Football Union) gradually evolved from amateur to professional leagues, and found they had less and less in common with the amateur leagues, and consequently in 1956 formed a new umbrella organization, the Canadian Football Council. In 1958, the CFC left the CRU altogether and was renamed the Canadian Football League. By this time, teams from the amateur Ontario Rugby Football Union had stopped challenging for the Grey Cup, and ever since, it has been exclusively awarded to CFL teams. Since 1965, university teams have competed for the Vanier Cup.[6]
[edit] Golf
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See also: Professional golf tours
[edit] Ice hockey
Ice hockey is played on ice with a three inch (76.2 mm) diameter rubber disc called a puck between two teams of skaters consisting of a goaltender, two defence players and three forwards. The game is played all over North America, Europe and in many other countries around the world to a greater or lesser extent. It is played with two teams, while 5 skaters and 1 goalie are allowed on the ice at a time. In NHL rules, the periods are 20 minutes long.There are three periods.
The 64-member governing body is the International Ice Hockey Federation, (IIHF). Ice hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics since 1924, and was in the 1920 Summer Olympics. North America's National Hockey League is the strongest professional ice hockey league, drawing top ice hockey players from around the globe. The NHL rules are slightly different from those used in olympic hockey.
Ice hockey sticks are long L-shaped sticks made of wood, graphite, or composites with a blade at the bottom that can lie flat on the playing surface when the stick is held upright and can curve either way as to help a left- or right-handed player gain an advantage.
There are early representations and reports of hockey-type games being played on ice in the Netherlands, and reports from Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century, but the modern game was initially organized by students at McGill University, Montreal in 1875 and, by two years later, codified the first set of ice hockey rules and organized the first teams.
[edit] Rugby football
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See also: History of rugby league, History of rugby union, and Football
In 1893, Yorkshire rugby football clubs complained that southern (gentlemen) clubs enjoyed over-representation on the RFU Committee and that committee meetings took place in London at times which made it difficult for northern members to attend. By implication they argued that this affected the RFU's decisions on the issue of "broken time" payments to the detriment of northern clubs who at the time made up the majority of English rugby clubs. ("Broken time" payments involved a proposal put forward by Yorkshire clubs that players receive a payment of six shillings when they missed work due to match commitments.) When the RFU voted down "broken time" payments, widespread suspensions of northern clubs and players began.
On August 29, 1895 representatives of the northern clubs met in the George Hotel, Huddersfield to form the "Northern Rugby Football Union" (usually termed Northern Union or NU), a professional body which played an "open" code of rugby which became known as rugby league. The dispute about payment also affected soccer and cricket at the time. Each game had to work out a compromise; Rugby proved the least successful at doing this. Over a century would elapse before Rugby Union became an "open" code and would allow players who had played a game of rugby league (even at an amateur level) to play in a Union game.[citation needed]
[edit] Tennis
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Gambling
Some sports developed as professional sports so that betting could take place. The pressures of potential loss of bets encouraged the emergence of champions and their incentivisation -- often with money.
[edit] Horse racing
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See also: Horse racing
[edit] Boxing
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See also: Boxing
[edit] Wrestling
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See also: Wrestling
[edit] Blood sports
The sports of cock-fighting and similar sports.
