By utilising revised definitions of commercialism, sports products and entrepreneurship, it is argued that sport in Europe has had a long association with commerce, one dating back to Antiquity. It is shown that this relationship involving spectator products, player products, professional participants and associated economic activity such as gambling, construction and sports tourism continued through Medieval times, the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment (and beyond). A discussion considers the chronology of commercialism in sport, the role of capitalism and how sport commercialisation relates to Guttmann’s theory of modernisation in sport.

This is an accepted manuscript of a book chapter published by Bloomsbury in A Cultural History of Sport: Volume 6: A Cultural History of Sport in the Modern Age on 28/01/2021. The published version can be accessed here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-cultural-history-of-sport-9781350024106/ The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.

This article argues that sport and commerce have a long historical relationship and challenges Asian sports historians to search for similar connections in the non-western world by using new definitions of commercialisation and entrepreneurship.

By the application of new definitions of commercialisation and entrepreneurship, it is argued that sport in Ancient Greece and Rome was associated with significant levels of commercial activity. This included regular organised events, large-capacity sports stadiums, professional athletes with trainers and free agency, sports tourism, and gambling on sport. Those providing sport and sport-associated products ranged from petty businessmen, who sold food, drink and accommodation to sports tourists, to the state provision of mass-spectacle sporting events. Although much of the sport provision was not profit-oriented, those who funded games, chariot-racing and gladiatorial combat in the hope of securing prestige and political influence can still be considered sports entrepreneurs as they acted a change agents on the supply side of sport.

The International Journal of the History of Sport (IJHS) began life in 1984 as the commercially produced British Journal of Sports History (BJSH). Indicative of the pressure he was under was his failure to correctly identify the starting dates of BJSH and IJHS when reviewing the progress of IJHS in 2006. Ultimately some leaked emails brought matters to a head and in late 2013 the Editorial College and the publishers agreed that his relationship with the journal had become irrevocably dysfunctional and, while continuing to acknowledge his role in establishing IJHS, he was informed that all links would be severed. As part of its international remit, IJHS published translated abstracts in several languages but the author made non-English abstracts online only as he felt they took up too much space in the journal. The author did little to assist IJHS in terms of social media.

Asia, the largest continent, is now reinstalling itself as the most important region in the world, a position it occupied for thousands of years. However, much of its sporting history – indeed any ...

This study offers a tripartite approach to the analysis of the transition of two football clubs, one in England and the other in Scotland, from their beginnings as recreational football clubs to them becoming significant sports businesses by 1914. First, an environmental review assesses external themes and the economic factors that shaped change; second a transformational review looks at the dynamics of becoming a business; and, finally, an organizational review examines the internal characteristics of the clubs as businesses.

Preface: Three Decades Later: Reflections on Historians, Entrepreneurs, and the Sport Industry Stephen Hardy 1. Entrepreneurship, Sport, and History: An Overview Dilwyn Porter and Wray Vamplew 2. Opportunistic, Parasitic, Strategic, Symbiotic: Entrepreneurship and the Business of Sport Dilwyn Porter 3. The Commodification of Sport: Exploring the Nature of the Sports Product Wray Vamplew 4. The Patricks's Hockey Empire: Cultural Entrepreneurship and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, 1911-1924 John Wong 5. Entrepreneurship in an Amateur World: The Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland Mike Cronin 6. Sport and the New Culture of the 'Second Golden Age': Amsterdam's Sporting Entrepreneurs in the 1880s and 1890s Nick Piercey 7. New Competitions and Contracts: Sports Entrepreneurs and Litigation from a Historical Perspective Steve Greenfield 8. Designing Diana: Female Sports Entrepreneurs and Equestrian Innovation Erica Munkwitz 9. Opportunities for all the Team: Entrepreneurship and the 1966 and 1994 Soccer World Cups Kevin D. Tennent and Alex G. Gillett 10. Social Change, Astro-Turfs, and Entrepreneurial Activities in the Context of German Non-Elite Football: The Example of Lower-Division Club BSV Bielstein Kristian Naglo

This chapter considers three main aspects of sport and industrialization. First, it challenges the conventional wisdom that the British Industrial Revolution was the catalyst for the development of modern sport in Britain and that subsequently Britain’s industrialization led to the cultural export of sport to the rest of the world. In doing so it critiques Guttmann’s theory of modernization in sport; unravels the various influences of industrialization, urbanization, and commercialization; and notes several different models of sport development that emerged around the world. Second, it examines the economic history of sport becoming an industry itself, looking at equipment manufacture, gate-money spectator sport, the role of the professional player, and the various objectives of the entrepreneurs involved. Finally, it considers sport in the industrial workplace, particularly the motives of employers who provided sports facilities for their workers. It emphasizes that sport was often offered to both male and female employees.