Alternative Sports

Many sports can be considered alternatives to dominant sport forms, but the term alternative sport has generally been used in sociology to refer to a group of activities that meet a particular set of organizational criteria. Alternative sports initially existed outside of formal sports organizations and participants were primarily young people who, for one reason or another, did not fit into the world of traditional youth sports such as baseball and football. Though they differ greatly from one another, Robert Rinehart (2000) suggests that alternative sports can be loosely defined as: (1) participant controlled and directed, rather than organized through a governing body or other official organization; (2) individually focused, emphasizing personal achievements; (3) focused less on competition than traditional sports; and (4) generally possessing an insider requirement. That is, they are more likely than traditional sports to encompass their own subculture – one that stands in opposition to the dominant culture. In other words, skateboarders, for example, are not just people who happen to ride skateboards, but are ‘‘skaters,’’ expected to participate in a lifestyle associated with involvement in the sport.

Some alternative sports were originally titled ‘‘extreme.’’ This appears to have meant that they involved risk taking that more mainstream sports did not (like BASE jumping or cliff diving). The term was appropriated by the media and applied to any sport that was not generally considered a sports staple on television in the 1990s, and the label has by and large been abandoned by participants and, to some degree, by the media. Increasingly, mass media narratives refer to alternative sports as ‘‘action sports.’’