Amateur sports

Common card · No. 266941

Amateur sports are sports in which participants generally compete without receiving payment for their participation. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing and training. In many sports which feature professional players, professionals generally compete at a higher level than amateur competitors, although the distinction is not universal. Most people who participate in sports worldwide do so at a non-professional level. Amateurism was a strongly defended ideal in 19th-century sport, particularly among the upper and middle classes, but it declined during the 20th century as professional sport and commercialisation expanded with the continuing growth of professional sport and the increasing commercialisation of amateur and collegiate sports, and is now retained as a principle by relatively few sports-governing organisations, even though some organisations continue to use the word...

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