Sports club - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A sports club or sport club, sometimes athletics club or sports association is a club

Club

A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...

for the purpose of playing one or more sport

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...

s. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and may play other similar clubs on occasion, watched mostly by family and friends, to large commercial organisations with professional

Professional sports

Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

players which have teams which regularly compete against those of other clubs and attract sometimes very large crowds of paying spectators. Clubs may be dedicated to a single sport, or to several (multi-sport club).

The term athletics club is sometimes used for a general sports club, rather than one dedicated to athletics proper.

Organization

Larger sports clubs are characterized by having professional and amateur departments in various sports such as football (soccer), 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...

, futsal

Futsal

Futsal is a variant of association football that is played on a smaller pitch and mainly played indoors. Its name is a portmanteau of the Portuguese futebol de salão and the Spanish fútbol de salón , which can be translated as "hall football" or "indoor football"...

, cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

, handball

Team handball

Handball is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each pass a ball to throw it into the goal of the other team...

, rink hockey

Roller hockey (Quad)

Roller Hockey is a team sport that enjoys significant popularity in a number of Latin countries. Depending on territories, it is also known as Hóquei em Patins, International Style Ball hockey, Rink Hockey or Hardball Hockey. Roller Hockey was a demonstration rollersport in the 1992 Summer...

, water polo

Water polo

Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...

, rugby

Rugby football

Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

, track and field athletics, 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...

, baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, cycling

Cycling

Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...

, tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

, rowing

Rowing (sport)

Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

, gymnastics

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

and others, including less traditional sports such as airsoft

Airsoft

Airsoft is a sport in which participants shoot round non-metallic pellets launched via replica firearms.Gameplay varies in style and composition but often range from short-term skirmishes, organized scenarios, military simulations, historical reenactments, to competition target shooting events...

, billiards

Billiards

Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...

, orientering

Orientering

Orientering was a Norwegian newspaper which was initially published in December 1952 as an alternative voice. It was absorbed into Ny Tid in 1975....

, paintball

Paintball

Paintball is a sport in which players compete, in teams or individually, to eliminate opponents by tagging them with capsules containing water soluble dye and gelatin shell outside propelled from a device called a paintball marker . Paintballs have a non-toxic, biodegradable, water soluble...

or 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...

. The teams and athletes belonging to a sports club may compete in several different leagues, championships and tournaments wearing the same club colors and using the same club name, sharing also the same club fan base

Fan (person)

A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...

, supporters and facilities. Many sports clubs have an associate system where the affiliated supporters pay an annuity fee. In those cases, the supporter becomes eligible to attend the club's home matches and exhibitions across the entire season, and have the right to practice almost every kind of sport at the club's facilities. Registered associate member fees, attendance receipts, sponsoring contracts, team merchandising

Merchandising

Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer...

, TV rights, and athlete/player transfer fees

Transfer (football)

In professional association football, a transfer is the action taken whenever a player under contract moves between professional clubs. It refers to the transferring of a player's registration from one professional association football club to another. In general, the players can only be...

, are usually the primary sources of sports club financing. In addition, there are sports clubs, or its teams, which are publicly traded and listed on a stock exchange

Stock exchange

A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...

- several professional European football clubs belonging to a larger multistports club are examples of this.

Some sports teams are owned and financed by a single non-sports company

Company

A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...

, for example the several sports teams owned by Red Bull GmbH

Red Bull GmbH

Red Bull GmbH is an Austrian company which sells the Red Bull energy drink. In 2010, more than 4.204 billion cans were sold in over 161 countries. 7,758 employees generated 3.78 billion euros in revenue...

and collectively known as Red Bulls. Other examples of this are the several sports teams owned by Bayer AG and Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

corporations through the TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen and PSV Eindhoven respectively, that originally were works team

Works team

A works team is a sports team that is financed and run by a manufacturer or other business. Sometimes, works teams contain or are entirely made up of employees of the supporting company.-Africa:...

s, the teams owned by the Samsung Group

Samsung Group

The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...

, and the teams owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group

Anschutz Entertainment Group

The Anschutz Entertainment Group is a sporting and music entertainment presenter and a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corporation. It is the world's largest owner of sports teams and sports events, the owner of the world’s most profitable sports and entertainment venues, and under AEG Live the world's...

(AEG). They may compete in several different sports and leagues, being headquartered in some cases across several countries.

Sports clubs around the World

In many regions of the world like Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

, Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

or Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, sports clubs with several sports departments (multisports clubs) or branches, including highly competitive professional teams, are very popular and have developed into some of the most powerful and representative sports institutions in those places. In general, student sports can be described as composed by multisports clubs, each one representing its educational institution and competing in several sport disciplines.

In the United States of America major institutions like The New York Athletic Club

The New York Athletic Club

The New York Athletic Club is a private social club and athletic club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. It was founded in 1868 and currently has approximately 8,600 members.-History:...

, Los Angeles Athletic Club

Los Angeles Athletic Club

Los Angeles Athletic Club is an athletic club and private social club in Los Angeles, California, USA. It awards the John R. Wooden Award to the outstanding men's and women's college basketball player of each year....

or many university athletic programs such as the California Golden Bears

California Golden Bears

The California Golden Bears is the nickname used for 29 varsity athletic programs and various club teams of the University of California, Berkeley...

, Stanford Cardinal

Stanford Cardinal

The Stanford Cardinal is the nickname of the athletic teams at Stanford University.-Nickname and mascot history:Following its win over Cal in the first-ever Big Game in 1892, the color cardinal was picked as the primary color of Stanford's athletic teams...

and Texas Longhorns

Texas Longhorn Athletics

Texas Longhorns athletics programs include the extramural and intramural sports teams of The University of Texas at Austin. These teams are referred to as the Texas Longhorns , taking their name from the Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and are now the...

are good examples of a sports club (see list of College Athletic Programs by US State). However, examples abound of sports clubs that are in effect one sports team. Each team from the NBA

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

(basketball), NFL

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

(American football) or MLS

Major League Soccer

Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...

(association football) American sports league

Sports league

League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...

s, can be called sports clubs, but in practice, they focus solely on a single sport. On the other hand, American varsity team

Varsity team

In the United States and Canada, varsity sports teams are the principal athletic teams representing a college, university, high school or other secondary school. Such teams compete against the principal athletic teams at other colleges/universities, or in the case of secondary schools, against...

s are generally organized into a structure forming a true multi-sport club belonging to an educational institution.

In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, almost all major sports organizations are dedicated to a single sport, with a few minor multisport clubs such as Catford Wanderers

Catford Wanderers

Catford Wanderers Sports Club is on Beckenham Hill Road, behind the large Homebase. It consists of 3 sport sections, Cricket, Tennis and Badminton.- Catford Wanderers Cricket Club :...

. In addition, like in several other countries, many universities and colleges develop a wide range of student sport activities including at a professional or semi-professional level. Fulham F.C.

Fulham F.C.

Fulham Football Club is a professional English Premier League club based in southwest London Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Founded in 1879, they play in the Premier League, their 11th current season...

once ran a professional rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

team and rowing

Rowing (sport)

club, which other football clubs have emulated since. Many football clubs originate from cricket

Cricket

teams. Today, most major cities have separate clubs for each sport (e.g. Manchester United football club and Lancashire County Cricket Club

Lancashire County Cricket Club

Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...

are based in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

).

Many clubs internationally describe themselves as football clubs ("FC" ,"Football Club", in English, "CF", Clube de Futebol in Portuguese and Club de Fútbol in Spanish). Generally, British

United Kingdom

football clubs field only football teams. Their counterparts in several other countries tend to be full multi-sport clubs, even when called football clubs (Futebol Clube do Porto, aka F.C. Porto).

Organization

Sports clubs around the World

See also