ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of the development of modern sport, thereby providing the historical background for an examination of several concepts of sports ownership. In doing so, it dismisses the idea that Britain alone invented modern sport and highlights contributions from other nations. Then it considers ownership through control, looking at those who formulated rules and accessed sport via property rights. Second, it turns to sports clubs, a collective agency in sport often owned by its members. Third, it argues that patrons could claim ownership of a particular club or sports event in that without their involvement there would be no sport played by the participants whom they funded. Finally, another group with a claim on the ownership of sport was that of the promoter, a major change agent in the supply of the sports product.
