Sports through the years.

The way we play sports has changed a lot over the years. In the past, sports were mostly about physical fitness and competition. Now, they are also about entertainment and business.

The development of sports has been shaped by many factors, including social, economic, and political changes. For example, the industrial revolution led to the increased popularity of team sports, as people had more free time and money to spend on leisure activities. The rise of mass media in the 20th century made sports more widely available and increased their popularity. And the globalization of the 21st century has created new opportunities for athletes and sports organizations.

Despite all these changes, one thing has remained constant: the human desire to compete. This desire has driven the development of sports and will continue to do so in the future.

Sports have come a long way since their humble beginnings. What started as simple games and activities has evolved into a global industry that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. And as sports have grown in popularity, they have also become more sophisticated, with professional athletes and teams competing at the highest levels.

Today, sports are a big part of our culture and society. They bring people together and provide entertainment and excitement. They also teach us valuable lessons about competition, teamwork, and perseverance. As we look back on the history of sports, we can see how far they have come and how they have had a positive impact on our lives.

Modern sports have very big impact on our society. They have interacted on salaries, integration, big business, politics and many others.

As a part of the stream of business into sports, another change has been the influx of money, which many believe has become obscene and wrong. However, the fact of the matter is that when somebody is "The Best in the World" at anything, ordinary people want to watch or see those people perform - whether they are actors, musicians or athletes. As much as people decry the high salaries and excess of sports, the spectators and consumers of sports make it possible. Past the issue of public perception, however, there lie more serious issues. Like all things in life, when big money and business are involved, the opportunities and temptations to cheat or do whatever it takes to get ahead increase. In sports, this often involves performance enhancing drugs or gambling.

We will examine how sports embraced (or at least shoe-horned) integration, looking at Willie O'Ree playing hockey for the Boston Bruins, Prentiss Gault, a football player at the University of Oklahoma, Kenny Washington, the first African-American to play in the NFL, the whole-scale, and early, integration by the NBA, soccer's struggle to this day with racism, particularly in Europe, and, perhaps most famously, Jackie Robinson's entrance into baseball.

It is also impossible to talk about modern sports without considering the heavy influence of business. Sports and business have become forever linked, even in college, which is supposedly played by "amateurs" and not "professionals," despite the fact that the coaches and athletic directors make as much as their counterparts in the professional leagues. From sports on television to sponsorships to naming rights on stadiums, the history of the business of sports reveals that business tied itself to sports more and more in the latter half of the 20th century, really ramping up in the 1970s and onward.

Along with an increase in influence over popular culture has come an increase in political influence. This can include athletes using their fame to run for office, office-seekers using athletes to boost their candidacy, boycotts to boost causes - most famously the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and most recently the immigration law passed in Arizona - and using sports as a way to reach certain demographics.

There is, however, a downside to the use of sports in politics. This ranges from terrorists using the sports to gain exposure for their cause - most famously at the Munich Olympics - to countries using sports as a way of trying to demonstrate that their specific ideology is better than another, notably in Soviet Russia.

In conclusion the sports have enormous influence on our history. Without it our world would be a darker and more cruel. We would have lose one of the best ways to entertain ourselves in our modern society.