Sports entertainment
Encyclopedia
Sports entertainment is a type of spectacle
which presents an ostensibly competitive
event using a high level of theatrical flourish and extravagant presentation, with the purpose of entertaining an audience
. Unlike typical athletics
and games, which are conducted for competition
, sportsmanship
, exercise or personal recreation
, the primary product of sports entertainment is performance for an audience's benefit, thus they are never practiced privately.
Commonly, but not in all cases, the outcomes are predetermined (such cases are not considered to be fixed
, however, as it is an open secret
).
during the 1980s as a description for professional wrestling
, although precursors have been found going back to February 1935, when Toronto Star
sports editor Lou Marsh
described professional wrestling as "sportive entertainment."
In 1989, the term was used in a case made by the company to the New Jersey Senate that professional wrestling was "sports entertainment" and thus should not continue to be regulated like a directly competitive sport.
Some sports entertainment events are forms of actual sports, such as exhibition basketball
with the Harlem Globetrotters
association, or football
with the Lingerie Football League
. Others are modifications of sport for entertainment purposes: many types of professional wrestling
, which derived from traditional wrestling
, roller derby
, derived from roller skating
, and more recently the various mascot races
held at numerous Major League Baseball
games in-between innings.
Some forms of sports entertainment involve taking competitive games which are usually considered minor, such as dodgeball
, poker
, or rock-paper-scissors
, and televising them with trumped-up theatrics, such as celebrity
competitors or elaborate audiovisual packages.
portrays a future where sports entertainment permeates the global culture: the president is an active champion professional wrestler and capital punishment
consists of a combination demolition derby
, monster truck event and gladiator duel, and is a highly popular television broadcast. Fiction with a dystopian future setting often portrays deadly futuristic games as popular sports entertainment, including the movie The Running Man
, video games such as Smash TV
and the Twisted Metal
series, and the roleplaying game Shadowrun
, which features Urban Brawl and Combat Biking
Many notable names in the USA openly admit enjoying certain forms of sports entertainment while many others have taken part in it or made paid contributions. Professional basketball player Shaquille O'Neal
has a reputation as a long time pro-wrestling fan and attends WWE events several times per year, and Floyd Mayweather expressed interest in fulfilling a WWE career after he retires from professional boxing
. Chicago Bears
American football
player Brian Urlacher
, who admits to being a pro wrestling fan, made an attempt to leave football to wrestle for TNA Wrestling full time until the Chicago Bears forced him to stop.
The widespread popularity in the United States for the main form of sports entertainment, professional wrestling, has caused politicians to use it to reach voters, particularly young males. President Barack Obama
, Hillary Clinton and John McCain
recorded video messages for broadcast on the WWE to encourage the audience of WWE Monday Night Raw to vote, and George W Bush did a prerecorded video for the WWE's annual Tribute to the Troops show.
Spectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French spectacle, itself a reflection of the Latin spectaculum "a show" from spectare "to view,...
which presents an ostensibly competitive
Competition
Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...
event using a high level of theatrical flourish and extravagant presentation, with the purpose of entertaining an audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...
. Unlike typical athletics
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
and games, which are conducted for competition
Competition
Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...
, sportsmanship
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is an aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors...
, exercise or personal recreation
Recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure and are considered to be "fun"...
, the primary product of sports entertainment is performance for an audience's benefit, thus they are never practiced privately.
Commonly, but not in all cases, the outcomes are predetermined (such cases are not considered to be fixed
Match fixing
In organised sports, match fixing, game fixing, race fixing, or sports fixing occurs as a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. Where the sporting competition in question is a race then the incident is referred to as...
, however, as it is an open secret
Open secret
An open secret is a concept or idea that is "officially" secret or restricted in knowledge, but is actually widely known; or refers to something which is widely known to be true, but which none of the people most intimately concerned are willing to categorically acknowledge in public.Examples of...
).
History
The term was coined by the World Wrestling FederationWorld Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
during the 1980s as a description for professional wrestling
Professional wrestling
Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...
, although precursors have been found going back to February 1935, when Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
sports editor Lou Marsh
Lou Marsh
Lewis Edwin "Lou" Marsh was a Canadian athlete and referee, and one of the pioneers of sports journalism in Canada, working at the Toronto Star for 43 years....
described professional wrestling as "sportive entertainment."
In 1989, the term was used in a case made by the company to the New Jersey Senate that professional wrestling was "sports entertainment" and thus should not continue to be regulated like a directly competitive sport.
Some sports entertainment events are forms of actual sports, such as exhibition basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
with the Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney family.Over...
association, or football
Gridiron football
Gridiron football , sometimes known as North American football, is an umbrella term for related codes of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football...
with the Lingerie Football League
Lingerie Football League
The Lingerie Football League is a women's 7-on-7 tackle American football league, created in 2009, with games played in the fall and winter at NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS arenas and stadiums. The league was founded by Mitch Mortaza...
. Others are modifications of sport for entertainment purposes: many types of professional wrestling
Professional wrestling
Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...
, which derived from traditional wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
, roller derby
Roller derby
Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...
, derived from roller skating
Roller skating
Roller skating is the traveling on smooth surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreation as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. Skates generally come in two basic varieties: quad roller skates and inline skates or blades, though some have experimented with a...
, and more recently the various mascot races
Mascot race
A mascot race is a promotional sports entertainment competition of runners dressed in costumes. It is often a between-innings entertainment at baseball games. Usually the racers are mascots related to local culture or the products of a sponsor...
held at numerous Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
games in-between innings.
Some forms of sports entertainment involve taking competitive games which are usually considered minor, such as dodgeball
Dodgeball
Dodgeball is any of a variety of games in which players try to hit other players on the opposing team with balls while avoiding being hit themselves. This article is about a well-known form of team sport with modified rules that is often played in physical education classes and has been featured...
, poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
, or rock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people. The game is also known as roshambo, or another ordering of the three items ....
, and televising them with trumped-up theatrics, such as celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
competitors or elaborate audiovisual packages.
Perceptions
Sports entertainment has a stigma of being mindless pop culture, in some cases glorifying violence for the sake of entertainment, and has been criticized as such in popular media, often through lampooning: the film IdiocracyIdiocracy
Idiocracy is a 2006 American film, a satirical science fiction comedy, directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews....
portrays a future where sports entertainment permeates the global culture: the president is an active champion professional wrestler and capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
consists of a combination demolition derby
Demolition derby
Demolition derby is a motorsport usually presented at county fairs and festivals. While rules vary from event to event, the typical demolition derby event consists of five or more drivers competing by deliberately ramming their vehicles into one another...
, monster truck event and gladiator duel, and is a highly popular television broadcast. Fiction with a dystopian future setting often portrays deadly futuristic games as popular sports entertainment, including the movie The Running Man
The Running Man
The Running Man is a science fiction novel by Stephen King, first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books...
, video games such as Smash TV
Smash TV
Smash TV is a 1990 arcade game created by Eugene Jarvis and Mark Turmell for Williams. Home versions were developed for various platforms and most were published by Acclaim Entertainment.-Description:...
and the Twisted Metal
Twisted Metal
Twisted Metal is a series of vehicular combat video games published by Sony Computer Entertainment, and developed by various companies during its tenure. The series began on the PlayStation in 1995 and currently features seven games, with an eighth installment currently in production...
series, and the roleplaying game Shadowrun
Shadowrun
Shadowrun is a role-playing game set in a near-future fictional universe in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy fiction, horror, and detective fiction.The original game has spawned...
, which features Urban Brawl and Combat Biking
Many notable names in the USA openly admit enjoying certain forms of sports entertainment while many others have taken part in it or made paid contributions. Professional basketball player Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal , nicknamed "Shaq" , is a former American professional basketball player. Standing tall and weighing , he was one of the heaviest players ever to play in the NBA...
has a reputation as a long time pro-wrestling fan and attends WWE events several times per year, and Floyd Mayweather expressed interest in fulfilling a WWE career after he retires from professional boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
. Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player Brian Urlacher
Brian Urlacher
Brian Keith Urlacher is an American football player for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League . He attended the University of New Mexico, where he was one of the school's most decorated athletes. In addition to setting multiple university records, Urlacher earned consideration for the...
, who admits to being a pro wrestling fan, made an attempt to leave football to wrestle for TNA Wrestling full time until the Chicago Bears forced him to stop.
The widespread popularity in the United States for the main form of sports entertainment, professional wrestling, has caused politicians to use it to reach voters, particularly young males. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, Hillary Clinton and John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
recorded video messages for broadcast on the WWE to encourage the audience of WWE Monday Night Raw to vote, and George W Bush did a prerecorded video for the WWE's annual Tribute to the Troops show.