In modern times statistics relating to a players contribution in a game have become increasingly significant and distances, times and heights form the foundation of sports such as athletics and motor-racing. The pursuit of various records has become key to achievement sports as highlighted during the 2001 World Athletics Championships where the IAAF offered a prize of $100,000 for any individual that could break a world-record. The Faster, Higher, Stronger' motto of the Olympics, is also indicative of this ideology.
A number of varying theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain the making of modern sport. Industrial-Society/Modernisation theory states that, in period 1750-1830, industrialisation and urbanisation related societal changes forced sport to change accommodatingly. Guttmann (1979) suggests that with industrialisation came an expansion of the scientific world view' and, as Gruneau (1988) suggests, scientific attempts to understand the natural world more rationally helped to undermine religion and ritual. Guttmann also suggests that as society took a systematic approach to maximising productivity, the same ethic was applied to sporting participation. The development of more regulation, systematic performance enhancement and specialisation likely stems from this. With industrialisation came less discretionary time and control over working hours, lower incomes, higher living costs and little access to open spaces. According to the theory people willingly accepted and made changes and modifications. As time progressed the situation facing the working-classes improved, entrepreneurs began to succeed and a bourgeoisification of society took place. Each class strived to emulate their betters and thus the activities of the upper-classes filtered down. It is widely accepted that entrepreneurs and the church provided opportunities for sporting participation, for example Aston Villa originated as a church team, and according to this theory, these provisions were made for philanthropic reasons.
