Sport in the United Kingdom
The rules and regulations devised at English institutions began to be applied to the wider game, with governing bodies in England being set up for a number of sports by the end of the 19th century.
BSkyB based its early marketing largely on its acquisition of top division English league football, which was renamed The Premiership as part of the deal.
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each have their own feeds for BBC1 and BBC2, allowing the BBC to opt out of the United Kingdom-wide programming to show a match in that area.
Proposals to have the United Kingdom (designated by the IOC as Great Britain) take part in the 2012 Summer Olympics with men's and women's teams were not supported by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish football associations.
Rugby league draws healthy crowds in its heartlands in Yorkshire and North West England, and is popular with armchair sports fans nationwide.
Invented in England, bandy has been virtually unknown in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century, but this hockey sport played on ice with rules similar to football has been taken up again.
Other British basketball players who have played in the NBA include Chris Harris, Steve Bucknall, James Donaldson, John Amaechi, Robert Archibald, Ndudi Ebi, Michael Olowokandi, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Kelenna Azubuike, Byron Mullens, Ben Gordon, and Joel Freeland.
[42][43] As with the NFL and American football, the NBA has arranged regular season matches in London for several years now, the most recent being a 2018 game between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers at the O2 Arena.
Though in 2012, Stern went on to say that of the sites suggested only London and Berlin had arenas of the standard expected in the NBA, while Spain's and Italy's domestic leagues had become increasingly popular.
A 2018 piece on the web outlet of US sports media giant ESPN explored why British basketball has so far failed to develop players to the degree of countries such as France, Germany and Australia.
Speedway motorcycles use only one gear and have no brakes and racing takes place on a flat oval track usually consisting of dirt or loosely packed shale.
Traditionally Britain was strongest in men's athletics, especially middle-distance running in which Roger Bannister, Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram were global stars, but over the last 20 years success has been achieved in a wide range of events and British women have closed the attainment gap on the men, seeing particular success in heptathlon with major titles for Ennis, Denise Lewis, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Louise Hazel and Kelly Sotherton.
The reasons for this include: the fact that football now offers a relatively large number of sportspeople the chance to make the sort of income traditionally only available to world boxing champions, reducing the incentive for athletic youngsters to accept the greater risks of a boxing career; the acquisition of the rights to most major fights by Sky Sports, which means that fewer boxers become national figures than in the past; and the knock the sport's credibility has taken from the multiplicity of title sanctioning bodies.
The amateur sport is steadily recovering from a decline that reached a peak in the late 1980s, with dramatic increases in boxer numbers driven by recent GB podium squad success, most notably at the London 2012 Olympics.
While the Tour de France was consistently popular with a niche television audience on Channel 4, the sport was clouded by doping allegations and lack of mainstream interest.
In addition to Wiggins, Froome and Thomas, other British riders to enjoy a significant level of success included road sprinting legend Mark Cavendish, elite climbers Adam and Simon Yates.
Major names in the roster included the likes of Bradley Wiggins, Edvald Boasson Hagen and the 2010 British men's Road Race champion, Geraint Thomas.
Other British golfers to have appeared in the top 10 in the 21st century are Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and Justin Rose, all from England and Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland.
The governing body of the sport is the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), which invests the vast profits from the tournament in the game in the hope of producing British champions, but a string of revamps of the coaching system have failed to raise the standard of LTA-trained players.
Outside of Wimbledon fortnight tennis's profile in Britain is low, and since the 2007 retirement of Rusedski and Henman is now largely dependent on Murray, the current UK number 1.
[61] The British Triathlon federation manages the GB team at both the elite and age-group level with performance centre's in Bath, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Loughborough, Nottingham, Stirling.
Global champions for Great Britain include Simon Lessing, Tim Don, Leanda Cave, Helen Jenkins, Non Stanford, Alistair Brownlee and his brother Jonny, Vicky Holland, Alex Yee and Georgia Taylor-Brown.
There has been significant improvement since 2012 under Bill Furniss, former coach of double Olympic and world champion Rebecca Adlington, which saw a record four gold medals in the swimming pool at the 2020 Olympic Games, led by legendary breaststroke sprinter Adam Peaty, and relay stalwarts James Guy and Duncan Scott, who became the first British Olympian ever to win 4 medals at a single games (1 gold, three silver).
The sport's profile is highest during the Commonwealth Games, when British swimmers, swimming for their home nations, have their best chance to win gold medals, and during the Olympics.
However, its popularity has waned somewhat since 1985, when nearly a third of the British population watched the conclusion of the celebrated Dennis Taylor versus Steve Davis World Championship final even though it ended after midnight.
Popular at the same time as snooker, with stars such as Eric Bristow, Jocky Wilson and John Lowe, darts also suffered a decline before the PDC revolution, led by entrepreneur and manager Barry Hearn helped turn the sport around financially and organisationally.
There are many other sports in which Britons compete, sometimes with success, but which do not receive much attention outside a small number of aficionados except during major events such as the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, or when a British athlete does something extraordinary such as breaking a world record.
[citation needed] The sports in which the British team has won most medals in recent Summer Olympics include rowing, sailing, cycling, and athletics.
In the early 20th century, the United Kingdom had some of the largest sports facilities in the world, but the level of comfort and amenities they offered would be considered totally unacceptable by modern standards.
By the time West Ham moved in, the capacity was reduced to 60,000, and the track remained in place, with movable seating added to allow optimal configurations for both athletics and football.
