Sports entertainment is a type of of pop culture entertainment which presents an ostensibly competitive event using a high level of theatrical flourish and extravagant presentation. Commonly, but not in all cases, the outcomes are predetermined. Events which fall under the classification of sports entertainment are generally considered to be low brow forms of entertainment.
Some sports entertainment events are forms of actual sports, such as exhibition basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters association. Others are modifications of sport for entertainment purposes, such as professional wrestling, derived from wrestling, and roller derby, derived from roller skating.
The term came into prominence in the 1980s through its use by Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation, (now World Wrestling Entertainment), in order to avoid governmental athletic regulation, and it is explicitly used in advertisements by the Harlem Globetrotters. Precursors have been found going back to February 1935, when Toronto Star sports editor Lou Marsh described professional wrestling as "sportive entertainment."
While the concept of sports entertainment is generally applied only to modern creations, it can also be applied to traditional public spectacles such as bull fighting or even the gladiatorial fights of the ancient Roman Colosseum.
Monster truck events, and the U.S. television show American Gladiators are contemporary examples of sports entertainment without predetermined outcomes. Robot fighting such as Robot Wars and Battle Bots have been a popular sports entertaiment fad. Televised thumb wrestling such as Thumb Wrestling Federation is also a type of sports entertainment.
Although most sports entertainment is seen as having a niche market, even extremely popular television shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing With the Stars fall into the genre.
Some sports such as mixed martial arts and other combat sports are sometimes considered sports entertainment despite their legitimacy and relative lack of theatrics.
Sports entertainment has a stigma of mindless pop culture, and has been criticized as such in popular media. The film Idiocracy portrays a future where sports entertainment permeates the global culture: the president is an active professional wrestler and capital punishment consists of a combination demolition derby, monster truck event and gladiator duel, and is a highly popular television broadcast. Fiction with a dystopian future setting often portrays deadly futuristic games as popular sports entertainment, including the movies Rollerball and The Running Man and video games such as Smash TV and the Twisted Metal series.
