The Sport Business Solution: The Fourth Place

Abstract

People will spend most of their living days in the first and second place. The family and workplace are important hubs of connection and interaction with others. Until recently the ‘third’ places were (and for most of us still are) the locations where people gather outside the family home and office or factory to satisfy their leisure needs. The sporting meeting place, be it the clubhouse or the football stadium, has always been one of the most important third places in contemporary society. In this chapter we discuss the changing nature of the ‘sportplace’ and ‘sportspace’. We argue that a ‘fourth place’ is emerging in which sport plays a vital part.