A sports club, athletics club or sports association is an eclectic institution oriented to multiple sports, which fields many teams and in several sports, working under the same umbrella organization. In a larger sense, it may also refer to any sports institution, even those that have only one sports team or a single sports department. In order to differentiate a single-sport institution from a multi-sport one, the term multi-sport club is used. The term athletics club is usually unambiguous.

Examples abound of sports clubs that are in effect one sports team. Each team from the NBA (basketball), NFL (American football) or MLS (soccer) North American sports leagues, can be called sports clubs, but in practice, they focus solely on a single sport. On the other hand, North American varsity teams are generally organized into a structure forming a true multi-sport club belonging to an educational institution.

Football provides an interesting contrast between nations. There are many clubs named "FC"/"CF" (English: Football Club/Portuguese:Clube de Futebol/Spanish:Club de Fútbol). Generally, British football clubs field only soccer teams; examples include Chelsea F.C., Newcastle United F.C and Celtic FC (although its full name was until 1994 The Celtic Football and Athletic Company Ltd.). Their counterparts in Latin countries tend to be full multisports clubs; examples in the Iberian Peninsula include the FC Porto, Boavista FC, and CF Belenenses in Portugal, and Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona in Spain.