How did American sports evolve?
Mostly, those were European practices that had substantially influenced the evolution and development of sports across the United States. Still, Americans invented volleyball and basketball among that are among the most popular team sports today.
In the late 17th century, hunting was rather popular in the colonial Virginia and Maryland. The social activity was brought from England where the then landowners restricted it. In a while, the activity was followed by no less popular horse racing among the then American gentry. In the South, gambling with high-stakes for horseracing determined one’s belongingness to the gentry during the period of 1780-1860. After the end of the Civil War, racing revived in the 1870s in the North. The popular jockey clubs heated rivalry, which enabled to legalize gambling at the track. However, much serious bets were placed off-track through the black market bookees often under the umbrella of criminal organizations. In the 1920s horse racing returned on track and state governments made on-track betting legal. In the 1950s, the sport became the most popular in the United States in terms of attendance.
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"History of Sports in America".
Throughout the 20th century, horse racing and boxing were rated as the most watched sports, though over time their popularity was overshadowed by more attractive individual sports golf and auto racing. The modern sports history of the United States is featured by the evolution of four professional team sports. The top one is baseball, followed by the American football, basketball, and ice hockey in terms of popularity. The large attendance rates are particular to college football and basketball. The United States hosted FIFA World Cup in 1994. The United States qualified to the FIFA finals for seven times, while the US women’s soccer team won the World Cup for three times.
What were the factors that allowed for organized and professional sports to develop?
The decade of 1920-1930s saw the flourishing of athletics across the state universities. The New Deal period of 1933-1939 benefited sports development with the advanced facilities owing to the nationwide relief projects in cooperation with local governments. The recreation and sports programs enabled vast expansion of recreational facilities, athletics infrastructure, and swimming pools. The facilitation of sports development by the federal and state governments enabled to implement all-country relief projects such as CCC, CWA, and WPA. They facilitated close-knit cooperation on all possible levels to ensure the realization of site plans, delivery of equipment and materials as well as workforce to build up substantial sports infrastructure across the states.
City and rural public parks served as perfect places for establishing new recreational and sports facilities rural and urban areas. These projects also aimed to increase employment on local level, and satisfy the growing public demand for bodily fitness and health. President Roosevelt allocated $941 m. on the WPA program alone to ensure the needed amount of recreational facilities, including playgrounds and athletic fields, gyms and swimming pools.
Why did baseball lead the way?
Since the late 19th century baseball has enjoyed the status of the national sport in the United States. Since the mid-19th century, baseball generated a tremendous boom across the New York metropolitan area. In 1856, the domestic media featured the sport as the ‘national game.’ 1857 marks the foundation of the National Association of Base Ball Players, while the first National League was established in 1876.
The growing attendance rates since the mid-1970s explain the overall baseball’s popularity in the United States. In 2000, the Major League Baseball (MLB) established and, being second to none, soon turned into the top league in the USA. American football is only the second top spectator sport, while the average attendance of NFL enjoys the highest rate. Further go basketball and ice hockey.
What was baseball’s attraction to Americans?
Even more than the national sport, over the decades, baseball has turned into the national religion in the United States. The most appealing peculiarity featuring the game is individual focus. As no other team sport, baseball emphasizes individual players through their one-on-one contest on pitch. All roles are individual in baseball, while the tactics of the game necessitates a series of individual acts. In other words, every single act contributes to a team’s overall success. Every baseball player is under rigid statistical scrutiny while everyone’s contribution is of much higher importance than in football or basketball, where all players are interacting with their teammates all the time. By contrast, every baseball player acts on his own.
Baseball has deeply integrated within the American popular culture. It was primarily most popular with white-collar audiences who would afford the tickets at the end of the 19th century. The games were mostly played outside the inner city at daytime, which disabled the attendance of a blue-collar audience. However, in the 1970s, things changed upside down when professional baseball was mostly attended by blue-collar spectators. In 2006, the nationwide polls acknowledged that half of the nation considered themselves as baseball fans. In 2008, MLB’s revenue matched the one reached by the NFL of approximately $6.5 b. The baseball has an immense impact on the American pop culture. In particular, the baseball cap has been the most worn fashion items. Baseball enjoys vast media coverage and advertising industry. The introduction of popular baseball cards in the late 19th century has become the outstanding synergy of sports and advertising industry.
