Sport development, systems, policies and pathways : an introduction to the special issue

Fundamentally sport development is about participation and promoting the opportunities and benefits of participation. Participation in sport and physical activity spans a wide range of contexts including the wholesomeness associated with the freedom of children’s play to the modification of sport to allow children to be children a little longer. The cycle of participation continues to junior and youth sport, where the rules, regulations and traditions of a sport become the foundation to protecting the “institution” of sport, to participation in senior competitions and ultimately, to elite and professional sport. Sport development research and practice therefore is concerned with all these manifestations of the sport experience. It logically follows that the purview of sport development is quite large and potentially complex. Moreover, it is possible to identify at least five themes that could be used to categorise sport development research. These themes include; policy, development through sport, development of sport, future patterns of sport delivery and marketing in terms of the relationship between professional sport and participation.