Sports, by their very nature, are physical contests that are pursued for the goal of achieving a specific result. This goal is usually determined by a number of objective measures, such as the time it takes for a person to complete a race or by subjective measures, such as the artistic impression that the competition’s judges make of a sporting event.
Sport, in turn, is a complex social realm that is governed by rules and customs that ensure fair competition and consistent adjudication of the winner. Often these rules are based on the cultural values and traditions of the people who live in countries where the sport is played.
In addition, sport also involves the orchestration of emotions within a context that is designed to elicit and reinforce specific emotional responses from competitors and spectators. This is accomplished by coaches and media pundits who direct their messages and cues to the participants and spectators, respectively.
The emergence and diffusion of modern sports have been closely associated with a complex network of interdependencies that is marked by unequal power relations. These networks and interdependencies are a result of globalization, an increasingly cosmopolitan phenomenon in which people, money, images, and ideas travel rapidly over international boundaries.
In many societies, sports have been a means of developing, nurturing, and refining the sense of national identity. In some instances, however, the association of sports with national identity has been associated with chauvinism and ethnic exclusivity. In other cases, it has strengthened cosmopolitanism and opened up new ways of viewing the world.