Sport as a social phenomenon: the main development phases in the sociology of sports

The author explores the history of the formation of sociological research of sport as a social phenomenon. The author notes that the study of sports has a sufficient research tradition. As a result, it is possible to consider the selection of the sociology of sports as a separate topic within the framework of sociological science. The analysis of the peculiarities of the development of sports studies allowed the author to define the main phases in its evolution. They include pre-scientific (amateur) phase (late 18th - 19th centuries); initial phase (late 19th century - 1st half of the 20th century); preparatory phase (1950s - mid 1960s); institutional phase (1965 - second half of the 20th century); and a modern phase (second half of the XX century - up to the present). The author analyzed the main works of some English, American and European sociologists.