The History of Some of Our Most Popular Sports

The modern sports industry is one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. Indeed, the popularity of sports today may have many people convinced that things like soccer, boxing, and volleyball are relatively recent games. However, historical and archeological evidence suggests that these games date back much further than many might assume. In this article, we’d like to discuss the origins of some of our favorite sports.

Soccer – Possibly Ancient Origins

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world right now. There are close to 4 billion fans following soccer matches in the world today. What is even more impressive is that the number grows each time the FIFA World Cup comes around. Though it takes place every four years, the World Cup remains the most watched sporting event.

Naturally, soccer is also a huge hit at online sportsbooks. In 2024, the primary way that most people wager is online. Gone is the need to leave your home if you are interested in placing football bets, as they are freely available online. This new digital technology may have forced many to forget that soccer is a game that stems from the ancient world.

• Cuju

In Ancient China, athletes and citizens played a game called cuju. The sport consisted of 12 players kicking around a leather-bound ball, with the intent of scoring goals. According to Chinese folklore and mytho-history, the game Cuju was created by a semi-mythical emperor, who also introduced herbalism and medicine to the Chinese people. Variations of cuju were played in both Japan and Korea.

• Episkyros

The ancient Greeks are the progenitors of many of our favorite sports today. It is perhaps episkyros that served as an influence on the modern day games of football, soccer, and rugby. The game seemed to have involved kicking, grabbing, and throwing a ball through a goal, with the intent to rack up points. Tackles, shoves, and pushes were an aspect of the game, which we still see today in American football and rugby.

Historians can, and do, draw a lot of similarities between cuju, episkyros, and modern day soccer. However, the game as we know it today was created and codified in Victorian England. In the mid-19^th century, a council codified the official rules in an English university. Though the rules have changed significantly, the game remains quite recognizable.

Boxing – Possibly Prehistoric Origins

When it comes to combat sports, there is nothing that even touches boxing. MMA may have gotten close several times, but never has a mixed martial art fight surpassed the most notable boxing matches. Modern day boxing’s success stems from the sport’s rediscovery during the Victorian Era. However, the actual history of boxing dates back to the ancient world.

According to several reliefs and written records, boxing was one of the Ancient Greeks’ favorite sport. In fact, it was a staple of the original Olympics, which also included discus, javelin, and wrestling. Philosophers and historians from ancient Greece have written extensively about boxing and boxers, which is how we know that the sport was a massive success.

But, Ancient Greece is not the origin of the sport. In fact, the first recorded mention of boxing comes, not from Greece, but from Egypt. In Egypt, boxing was a popular pastime for citizens, and was thought to soldiers as a discipline. However, though written records do point at Egypt as the origin of boxing, historians have put forth an alternative theory.

Many believe that boxing and wrestling are sports that have survived since the prehistoric era. So the fact that they are still popular enough to spawn video games today is impressive. Any martial artist knows that martial arts are comprised of two primary styles: striking and grappling. The essence of boxing is striking, and seeing as how throwing a punch is not all that difficult, many historians believe that our prehistoric ancestors discovered boxing by sheer happenstance, during tribal squabbles or mid-combat.

Horse Racing – Since Horses Were First Tamed

The domestication of horses was a massive leap forward for humanity. Not only did they vastly improve transportation, which led to mass migrations and the proliferation of humanity, but they also had a huge impact on agriculture and animal husbandry. What many don’t think about is that the domestication of horses was also the first step in creating horse racing.

Evidence suggests that horse racing was done as early as the first Mesopotamian civilizations. However, our understanding of Ancient people’s horse racing practices mostly stems from Egypt. Not only did the Egyptians race horses, they also introduced chariot racing to the world, a sport which quickly became a huge hit in the Mediterranean.

In Ancient Greece, chariot racing quickly became the most popular sport, or at least one of the most popular. By the time the Roman Empire rose to power, chariot racing had spread throughout the Mediterranean, and was a huge part of Roman and Greek culture. It remained incredibly successful for centuries, eventually losing momentum with the fall of the Byzantines.

As the Byzantine empire collapsed, horse and chariot racing lost popularity. That is until the Victorian Era, when the English rediscovered horse racing. They codified new rules, and put in place a lot of protections that had previously not existed. In other words, the modern iteration of horse racing, like boxing and soccer, can be traced back to the 19^th century. However, the actual origins of the sport date back 6000 years in humanity’s past.

A Brief Discussion of MMA

Apart from the three sports we’ve discussed in this article, there are quite a few other games that are older than you think. For example, mixed martial arts is often called the combat sport of the 21^st century. The reason for this is simple; MMA has just recently attained international levels of success. However, this has led many to believe that the sport is a recent creation.

In truth, the Chinese, the Greeks, and even the Romans of the ancient world practiced various different versions of MMA. Some included a sport which combined grappling and striking, while others were tournaments which allowed the athletes to show off their various martial arts, and how they would interact with each other.