The Recreational Aspect of Sports throughout History

Abstract

The reflection offered in this article regards the question whether, especially today, sport can be considered as a game. If, on the one hand, language itself brings the two phenomena into relation, sport-game, the emergence of professionalism and of the business dimension can lead one to regard sport distant from the economy. The analysis offered here focusses itself especially to the peculiarities of sport in the context of a broader notion of game, looking at certain of its constitutive elements: rules, competition, the overcoming of limits, etc. It goes on to examine the relationship, present from antiquity, between sport, professionalism and business, showing that the recreational dimension is never completely eliminated and that it remains intact as an essential component of such activity.