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Sport as a function system in world society

Abstract This research analyses the system of sport from the perspective of the theories of world society and functional differentiation. In comparison to classical function systems in society such as politics, economy, law and religion, the emergent world system of sport, which only becomes visible around the beginning of the 20th century, is a latecomer and a somehow surprising world system. This article briefly outlines the most important historical preconditions for the emergence of functional differentiation (part I). The core of the argument (part II) tries to identify the major sociological characteristics of the global function system of sport: Its autonomisation as separation from other meaning contexts in society (1); its internal differentiation into subsystems (2); the establishment of its singularity by a function (communication of the achievements of the human body) which it does not share with any other social system (3); binary distinctions as relevant in the differentiation of sport (4); the specificity of the rules and norms of the sport system (5); the Eigenculture of sport and its internal diversification (6); the inclusion of everyone into possibilities of participation in sport (7); the conversational contribution to the constitution of sport as producing a semantics germane to this system (8); interrelations with other function systems, especially the important cases of mass media and the health/illness-complex.