After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Identify the conditions under which commercial sports emerge and grow in a society.
• Explain how class relations are related to the growth of commercial sports in societies and around the world today.
• Identify economic and ideological reasons why sports have become so popular in society today.
• Explain how the corporate branding of sports is related to the establishment of ideological outposts around the world today.
• Identify the impact of branding on the Paralympic movement over the past two decades.
• Explain how commercialization affects the rules, culture, and organization of sports.
• Distinguish differences between aesthetic orientations and heroic orientations, and explain how these orientations are influenced by the commercialization of sports.
• Identify the major sources of income for the owners of professional sport teams.
• Identify differences in the legal status of professional and amateur athletes in both individual and team sports.
• Identify patterns in the income received by professional and amateur sports, and explain why the range of incomes received by athletes is so great today.