The question is basically in the title: How have nationally, or even internationally, beloved sports come to an end throughout history?
So I understand this is somewhat of a broad question, but I don't really know enough about dead sports to ask this question without sounding stupid. I know ancient American cultures had some handball based sports that have become the stuff of myth and legend (such as killing the losing team or playing with heads and stuff that I don't entirely buy) and the Romans had their gladiator matches.
But how do these (and other popular sports I've never heard of) usually come to an end? Will it take societal collapse before we stop asking if Player X is better than Jordan? Will people just slowly forget the name "Pele" because too much flopping ruined the sport?
I figured I could use this as a breaking in point to learn about something I've never really studied before and to maybe imagine how today's popular sports may die.
I'm not a historian. But I want to give a reply that is specific from my country, Brazil, so I'll try my best:
Here at the en of the 19th century and up to the beginning of the 20th century, rowing was the main national sport, and this was specially true in Rio de Janeiro, the main city at the time.
There were several competitions, with their results published in the newspapers, and people gathering to watch. It was popular to an extent that most men of my family's previous generation (on both sides) have at some point practiced it.
According to my source, there were 33 clubs in the metropolitan area of Rio in 1900.
In the 20's and 30's, soccer's popularity started to grow, many rowing clubs became also soccer clubs.
With time, rowing declined steadily through the century, losing completely its popularity and soccer rose to the point that we call Brazil "o país do futebol/the nation of soccer".
This is due in part to the fact that rowing was a sport of the elites and soccer is much more accessible to the poorer people of Brazil.
Nowadays it seems that nobody pays attention to rowing anymore, there is no press coverage, no public, and not so many participants. It does not even figure in the top 15 most popular sports list.
Some websites I could find about it in English:
http://inbedwithmaradona.com/journal/2011/3/30/the-turning-point.html
http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/6-2/html/costa%20lima.html
If the reply is not up to the standards of this subreddit, I would be happy to try to improve it.
Edit: From what I've searched, in the state of São Paulo, there was not such a strong transition from rowing clubs becoming soccer clubs as there was in Rio. The main soccer clubs were already born as such there.
Soccer was introduced by the British community, that consisted of expats that mainly worked with the development of railways there.
I apologize for bits where I seemingly get waaaay off track, I just really like this question and want to dissect some of the thoughts and ideas that went into it. (I also sometimes start a point without finishing it, if so call me out on that since I'm just procrastinating from writing what I actually should be now).
You'll see the popularity wax and wane, often with new professional leagues being developed, expanded, contracted, and dissolved. AFL merges with NFL; NFL adopts some of the rules of AFL play. Professional race-walking leagues were popular city entertainment in the 1890s. Canadian Football is created with a larger field and end-zone because the Canadians are too nice to block and hit each other (I kid, I kid, I know it has more in common with the rugby legacy there).
It won't take societal collapse or even the disappearance of a sport for us to stop asking if Player X is better than Jordan. As sports evolve, comparisons are generally made to those athletes who would be best known to a contemporary audience. Sports nuts LOVE quantitative stats, but you can never account for the intangibles that are necessary to compare, say Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1969-1989) to George Mikan (1946-1956). The fact that one Mr. Wilt Chamberlain (1959-1973) played right in-between them and completely changed the rules of the game makes it almost impossible to compare. But that's exactly the nature of the sport. There are so many changes over time; you may only see one or two seemingly-minute NFL league rules changed per year, but when you look at a decade as a whole? Twenty years? Fifty? It may not be a completely different sport, but the type of athlete that excels in that current environment is unique. Jim Thorpe was a hell of an athlete. A goddamn pure athletic specimen, as noted by the (perhaps apocryphal) story of King Gustav of Sweden calling him "the greatest athlete in the world" at the 1912 Olympics. He almost always ends up ranked high in lists of the 20th Century's Greatest Athletes. But you wouldn't hear people say that "Jerry Rice is the next Jim Thorpe." They played in such different environments that it's hard to contextualize how they would each fare in the other's time, playing with each other's rules.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to demonstrate with this is that 1. our view on current leagues/sports is such a narrow scope in the historical picture and 2. most sports now find ways to evolve with the times, lest they become extinct. From my own work on horse-racing, you see regional shifts and popularity spikes, but the sport doesn't collapse. If your question is "how have other sports come to an end?" and not "what are some examples of extinct sports?", then perhaps we could look at horse-racing as an example of how a sport almost came to an end but still hung on (at least in the United States, though I know there was a similar situation in Britain). Reformers of all stripes, religious, moral, city, etc., came together during the Progressive Era and one of their aims was the destruction of the "menace of legalized gambling". Despite backlash and a good fight from the racetrack owners and horsemen, by around 1906, many US states began the process of banning track gambling, and effectively, horse racing in general. After all, the purses and tracks themselves were in part subsidized by gambling money. Without it, the purse size shrinks, horsemen are less willing to travel far for races, and many actually send their horses over to Europe to the British, French, and Russian tracks. That the major horse owners sent their horses to Europe even BEFORE the total abolition of gambling is telling of both just how poor the potential earnings were in the remaining states and how competitive and lucrative the European track was at that time. (Of course the European track scene would be left devastated by World War I as most of the prime thoroughbred race horses transitioned to cavalry mounts.) By 1911, there were only I think three states that allowed race track gambling (Florida, Maryland(?) and I can't remember the last). Most of the major tracks in the cities either converted to provide some other source of entertainment, like early car racing or plane races, or they just shut down, like most of the major New York ones after Governor Hughes signed the Hart-Agnew law. Names like Gravesend, Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and Jerome Park would still have some importance, but it was no longer for the major race tracks they hosted. (Gravesend actually ran the Preakness Stakes for a few years instead of Pimlico.) Horse racing in the major United States cities was effectively dead from about 1909-1918.
So now the question is how did it return? As Mark Twain was once misquoted, "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." The sport itself remained generally the same, but the nature of gambling was what changed in the intervening years. Going from a traditional system of bookmakers to one of parimutuel betting, with attempts at oral betting in-between, professional gamblers and race track owners tried multiple innovative methods to skirt the laws. If the law said that they could not make betting books, then they would simply use a piece of paper and an oral bet. If they couldn't make oral bets, they used parimutuel machines. (Though in some states, there were specific laws mentioning machines, but they were meant for roulette "machines" and applied to parimutuel through vague wording.) Parimutuel betting had been around in the United States since Matt Winn introduced it at Churchill Downs in the 1880s, but it did not really take off until about the time that many states began to allow gambling again, and thus racing. Many of these attempts did end up with the heads of the track meets being arrested, but the cases were tied up in the legal system for years, often making their way to the state Supreme Courts. During these years you also saw the sport move further south to Mexico with major tracks in Mexicali, Tijuana, and Juarez, though that was only the tip of the vice-berg there. In the end though, there were far too many factors as to why the sport nudged its way back to legality for me to mention, often very state-specific, with few I know in that much detail. But a good summation would be that the public demand for racing was still present and once the state laws allowed for it, some but not all of the tracks reopened ready to supply that demand.
Anyway, I hope you could follow my constantly derailing train of thought, but the TL;DR is: Most modern sports don't die as much as evolve. The specifics of the game are different enough that we can't make genuine statistical comparisons between players of different eras, but the fundamentals generally remain constant.
I recently read some article that I wish I could remember more of. Someone found some Civil War-era source that described a sport that modern scholars couldn't identify. It had similar characteristics to some modern sports (if I remembered which, I could probably find the article), but it was different enough that they classified it as a dead sport. That's probably the closest to modern of the unidentified dead sports you are looking for. Can anyone help me with a source for that? As always, for the rest, I could cite sources upon request.
Most sports leading up to pre-Victorian era Britain did not have their rules written down. Most of the evidence we have of these games is either the stadia themselves, abstract references to people playing the games in various writings, or drawings of people playing the game. It is only in public schools in Britain in the late 1700s that codification of rules -- writing them down into concrete rulesets -- really begins. We then see the rise of "clubs" that organize their own teams based on these rules, and the regulatory bodies that rule over all of these groups. This all first happens on a large scale in pre-Victorian Britain (1). These regulatory bodies form the early sorts of leagues we think of today. Once the actual writing down of rules in order to clarify issues with the rules during play begins, we see far less "dying off" of sports that have wide appeal than previously.
There are cases where certain sports in specific cultural settings do not serve their purpose as effectively as other sports do, so they go by the wayside. One example is cricket in America -- baseball is far better at marketing itself (thanks Albert Spalding) than cricket, so baseball gains popularity while cricket fades until those excluded from baseball pick it up. It is still played in America today, although certainly it is a niche sport. There are also sports that exclude many potential players due to class, race, or gender, and so lose a great deal of potential popularity that way. Other examples are defunct leagues with slightly modified rulesets -- the WHL, the ABA, the AFL, the XFL -- that fade because their economies could not support them, although their rules may become adopted by other leagues if they prove to be successful. As mentioned by /u/flightjameson shuffleboard could not coordinate itself properly and so lost any potential popularity it had.
In short, once sports have a codified ruleset, and a centralized regulatory body, it seems unlikely that it would disappear entirely short of worldwide societal collapse. Much more likely is the adaptation and modification of new rules to change the sport into something unrecognizable from years past. One example is the lack of the forward pass in American football until 1906. Another might be the adoption of the 3-point shot in the NBA in (only!) 1979. My personal favorite is goalies in hockey being forbidden from leaving their feet until 1917. Each of these games today would be somewhat unrecognizable to fans from their early days, but they are still the same sport.
1: Holt, Richard. Sport and the British: a Modern History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. p 28.
After writing a reply elsewhere in the thread, I realised that the sport I was referring to has a different aspect which is even more pertinent to the question. Cricket isn't going to die out, but there has been a major shift recently particular in the form in which the game is played.
Traditionally, the game was played over multiple days - four for first class domestic cricket (states, counties etc.) and five for test cricket. Still regarded as the pinnacle of the sport, domestic cricket in this form very struggles for crowds due to it's nature (slower game across working days so beyond the retired attracting a crowd is not easy). Beyond England and Australia (and perhaps to a lesser extent South Africa) test cricket is increasingly poorly attended. Even in the stronghold countries outside of the big series crowds are lower, whilst in England recently games outside of London haven't been as well attended (the England v India test in Southampton last summer for example).
One day cricket has been around for decades in the 50 over a side form, with the match generally taking 8 hours including intervals. Generally the shorter format has been well attended but in a complimentary way in regards to test cricket. A game that finishes in that day obviously has it's advantage that a person can see the beginning and conclusion without having to spend multiple days at the venue. International matches in this format are much better attended across the world, particularly in India - where if anything the aura of hosting matches causes problems as every state/venue wants to host matches as much as possible. Domestically, again there tends to the complement with the longer form as it generally is scheduled for weekends or across the afternoon and evening to allow more people to attend.
Where we have the major change is with T20 cricket. Each side only has 20 overs, so games are over in 3 hours. After being slow on the take-up, the Indian Premier League has become the richest league in cricket by a long way. Each country now has there own league though, and it has led to players from poorer nations (the West Indies particular) almost becoming mercenaries playing across the leagues without playing as much of the other forms.
Now this isn't necessarily an issue - who can begrudge people making the best financially of a limited career span? Where the problem could lie, is that the other forms may be pushed further into the shade by T20 due to the financial incentives. We already have situations where there have been disputes between players and their international boards regarding missing out mainly on playing in the IPL (the most lucrative league) and international matches scheduled at the same time.
There is the potential that this could go further in coming years, particular due to the myopia of the English, Australians and Indian boards who have a stranglehold over proceedings. Pakistan still can't host games due to security concerns (their players are also barred from the IPL because of this), and growing disenfranchisement over the treatment of associate nations such as Ireland who currently are barred from playing test cricket, there is the potential for problems to increase in the future. As mentioned in my introduction - cricket won't die. The way it's being played, however, may well change increasingly over the coming years leading to what was the most important form of the game struggling to exist (at all, or outside of a few countries).
I'd be interested if anyone reading this has anything to add or might disagree with what i'm saying!
Here's a quasi-scientific way to look at it based on a change-over-time basis.
I have two editions of a reference book called The Encyclopedia of Sports, one from 1947 and another from 1975. These books are entirely text and contain mostly the history of the sport considered relevant at the time plus an essay about the rules and the current state of the sport.
For 1947, here were the top 10 sports if counting by the percentage of the book devoted to a particular sport:
Baseball: 9.9% Football: 9.2% Horse Racing: 8.0% (including harness) Boxing: 6.9% Olympics: 2.8% Tennis: 2.1% Ice Hockey: 2.0% Golf: 2.0% Basketball: 1.7% Bowling: 1.6%
And compare that to 1975:
Baseball: 10.7% Football: 8.4% Horse Racing: 6.4% Boxing: 5.1% Swimming: 3.5% Olympics: 3.1% Basketball: 2.5% Bowling: 2.4% Tennis: 2.2% Golf: 2.2%
Notice there is a somewhat decline in both boxing and horse racing. In 1975, Horse Racing had a U.S. yearly attendance of 78 million^(1). By 1997, that was down to 42 million^(1) and was estimated in 2014 to be down to 9 million^(2).
Boxing is a lot harder to quantify due to the nature of the sport and I won't attempt that here.
Professional bowling, although not shown by the page counts above, is also in decline. The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) offered $1.9 million in prizes in 1969^(3). In 2014, the total purse was $3.5 million^(4). However, adjusting for inflation^(5) that represents a 71% drop.
The reasons for these are varied, as horse racing is likely a victim to casinos, boxing by going to a more pay-per-view model and bowling no longer a television commodity.
Another way to look is NCAA sponsorship of particular sports. These sports may seem to be in trouble when comparing the NCAA's numbers of teams from 1981 to 2013^(6):
Wrestling 363 -> 220 Gymnastics (M) 79 -> 17
While others are in a growth spurt:
Lacrosse (M) 138 -> 390 Basketball (M) 741 -> 1,071 Soccer (M) 525 -> 851
It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few decades as baseball seems to be in a small decline, football is more popular than ever but is seeing issues with the safety of the sport, Americans are now willing to watch sports they cannot reasonably attend (EPL). We've also probably hit the saturation point when it comes to what professional and collegiate sports can extract from media sources.
A secondary question: what happened to the racing teams of Constantinople? I know the factional rivalry resulted in some major riots.
Howdy,
A lot of answers here so far have simply named sports or sports leagues. We expect answers here to be substantially more in-depth than that. Please answer only if you are able to do so completely and in-depth. Thanks.
Bicycling, specifically track racing, has all but disappeared from its heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s, entirely due to the rise of the automobile. The American Track Racing Association's website hasn't been updated since 2013. According to this article from 2004, track racing is making a major comeback, so take that for what it's worth (it also points out Madison Square Garden was constructed to host bike races). I believe track racing is more active in other countries and still a fringe sport in the US, but at one time it dominated as a spectator sport.
My source is thisbiography of Major Taylor, the first black cycling champion in the US and I believe the world.
