The media, sports and economics of Great Britain

Sport in the Great Britain

Sport in the United Kingdom plays an important role in British culture. The United Kingdom has given birth to a range of major international sports including: association football, rugby (both unionand league), cricket, netball, darts, golf, tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash, croquet, fives, bowls, modern rowing,^[1] hockey, boxing, water polo, snooker, billiards, and curling.
This has meant that in the infancy of many sports, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland formed among the earliest separate governing bodies, national teams and domestic league competitions. After 1922 some sports formed separate bodies for Northern Ireland though some continued to be organised on an all-Ireland basis.
In a small number of sports, these teams are supplemented by high-profile events featuring a combined team representing one or more nations.
For information on sports in a British home nation you may wish, therefore, to consider reading the Sport in England, Sport in Scotland, Sport in Wales or Sport in Northern Ireland articles, or the Sport in Ireland article where appropriate.
Overall, association football attracts the most viewers and money though the nation is notable for the diversity of its sporting interests, especially at the elite level. Major individual sports include athletics, golf, cycling, motorsport, and horse racing. Tennis is the highest profile sport for the two weeks of the Wimbledon Championships, but otherwise struggles to hold its own in the country of its birth. Snookerand Darts, too, enjoy period profile boosts in line with the holding of their largest events. Many other sports are also played and followed to a lesser degree. There is much debate over which sport has the most active participants with swimming, athletics, cycling all found to have wider active participation than association football in the 2010 Sport England Active People survey.
Cricket
The Ashes urn, competed for between Australia and England in cricket
Cricket had become well-established among the English upper class in the 18th century, and was a major factor in sports competition among the public schools. Army units around the Empire had time on their hands, and encouraged the locals to learn cricket so they could have some entertaining competition. Most of the Empire embraced cricket, with the exception of Canada.[4] Cricket test matches (international) began by the 1870s; the most famous is that between Australia and Britain for "The Ashes."