Sports venues, a journey of denaturation

As a massive social phenomenon, sport offers sociological analysis some highly interesting issues. Its forms, regulations, extension and professionalization have been extensively studied, and their evolution provides many clues to social transformations. Fewer studies, however, have been carried out on its locations. However, the construction of racecourses, gymnasiums, stadiums, swimming pools and the use of various practice areas for competition or leisure are all part of the history of modern sport. This analysis of the gradual development of sports venues is based on eight major processes that overlap and sometimes follow one another. Delimitation, compartmentalization, optimization, standardization, artificialization, confinement, delocalization and, more recently, virtualization, are visible markers of their slow denaturation, which is nothing other than a particular expression of the more global transformation of our lifestyles as a whole.