A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing and training. In the majority of sports which feature professional players, the professionals will participate at a higher standard of play than amateur competitors, as they can train full-time without the stress of having another job. The majority of worldwide sporting participants are amateurs.
{{short descpromoted to the higher division for the next season, and the worst-ranked team(s) in the higher division are relegated to the lower division for the next season. In some leagues, playoffs or qualifying rounds are also used to determine rankings. This process can continue through several levels of divisions, with teams being exchanged between levels 1 and 2, levels 2 and 3, levels 3 and 4, and so on. During the season, teams that are high enough in the league table that they would qualify for promotion are sometimes said to be in the promotion zone, and those at the bottom are in the relegation zone.
A sports league is a group of sports teams that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an international professional league making large amounts of money and involving dozens of teams and thousands of players.
The Championship, known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a professional rugby league competition. It is the second-tier competition organised by the Rugby Football League, the governing body for the sport in England, and consists of 14 teams, with promotion to the Super League and relegation to the third-tier competition, League 1. The current champions are Toronto Wolfpack. The league announced a two-year sponsorship deal with the bookmaking company Betfred ahead of the 2018 season.
Sport in the United Kingdom plays an important role in British culture. The United Kingdom has given birth to a range of major international sports including association football, badminton, billiards, bowls, boxing, cricket, croquet, curling, darts, golf, fives, hockey, netball, rugby, tennis, table tennis, snooker, squash, and water polo. The standardisation of various sports, such as in rowing, dancesports and motorsports occurred in the United Kingdom.
Sport such as football and wrestling have been popular in Ukraine since the 19th century. Ukraine has benefited from the Soviet Union's emphasis on physical education, and Ukraine was left with hundreds of stadiums, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and other athletic facilities after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine sports or athletic movement was influenced greatly by Sokol gymnast organization that was popular in the Central Europe since the second half of the 19th century.
A wild card is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way, for example by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wild cards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference.
Sport plays a central role in Scottish culture. The temperate, oceanic climate has played a key part in the evolution of sport in Scotland, with all-weather sports like association football and golf dominating the national sporting consciousness. However, many other sports are played in the country, with popularity varying between sports and between regions.
Professional sports leagues are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are one that developed in Europe, characterised by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation to determine participation in a hierarchy of leagues or divisions, and a North American originated model characterized by its use of "franchises," closed memberships, and minor leagues. Both these systems remain most common in their area of origin, although both systems are used worldwide.
A sports club or sporting club, sometimes athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports.
Rugby union in England is one of the leading professional and recreational team sports. In 1871 the Rugby Football Union, the governing body for rugby union in England, was formed by 21 rugby clubs, and the first international match, which involved England, was played in Scotland. The English national team compete annually in the Six Nations Championship, and are former world champions after winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The top domestic men's club competition is Premiership Rugby, and English clubs also compete in international competitions such as the European Rugby Champions Cup. The top domestic women's competition is the Premier 15s.
A comparison of American football and rugby union is possible because of the games' shared origins, despite their dissimilarities.
Union Bordeaux Bègles is a French rugby union team playing in the Top 14, the first level of the country's professional league system. They earned their Top 14 place by winning the promotion playoffs that followed the 2010–11 season in the second-level Rugby Pro D2. Upon promotion to the Top 14 in 2011, they were assured a place in the European Challenge Cup. In 2015, they earned their European Champions Cup place, after winning the European playoffs against Gloucester Rugby in Worcester.
Sport in England plays a prominent role in English society. Popular teams sports in England include football, field hockey, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, and netball. Major individual sports include badminton, athletics, tennis, boxing, golf, cycling, motorsport and horseracing. A number of modern sports were codified in England during the nineteenth century, among them cricket, rugby union, rugby league, football, field hockey, squash, tennis, and badminton. The game of baseball was first described in 18th century England.
A national sports team is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport.
The following is an alphabetical list of terms and jargon used in relation to Gaelic games. See also list of Irish county nicknames
The 2009–11 Super League licences were announced in May 2005 by the Rugby Football League (RFL) as the new determinant of the Super League competition's participants from 2009 in place of promotion and relegation. The licences were awarded after consideration of more factors than just the on-the-field performance of a club in the previous season. After 2007 automatic promotion and relegation was suspended for Super League with new teams admitted on a licence basis with the term of the licence to start in 2009.
Club Atlético del Rosario is an Argentine sports club from Rosario, Santa Fe. One of the oldest clubs still in existence in the country, Atlético del Rosario was a pioneer of football in Rosario, being the first team from that city to play in Primera División, the top division of the Argentine football league system. At international level, Rosario A.C. was also the first team outside Buenos Aires to win an international tournament, the Tie Cup on three occasions. Atlético was also a founding member of the Liga Rosarina de Football, the main body that organised the practice of association football in Rosario from 1905 to 1930.
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league club competition in the Northern Hemisphere. The league has twelve teams: ten from England, one from France and one from Canada.
