Sports in the CSA and USA.

What if the Confederacy remains independent. How would it effect sports. At first it might not be that big of an impact, but how would it affect baseball and college football, and other sports? What sports would be popular in the new CSA? Would they have pro leagues? Would the North still have segregation in baseball (probably, I know, but maybe not).
 
Butterflies might prevent American football from developing altogether.

I disagree, because American Football developed in New England and the East and migrated West. Perhaps the southern football cultures as we know them would have changed along with much of the sport culture for example, but not necessarily the development of the game itself.

And we also have to consider how these separate nations develop over time in the equation, and how these nations change in the equation over time and how the people change over time. There's a lot that would be different about the game and its development would have changed, but eliminated entirely is a near impossibility.
 
The only way to tell is to trace cultural development of the two countries from the POD.

For example: if the CSA allies itself with Britain and France, it makes sense to me that the Confederate elite would gravitate towards British and French sporting codes - cricket, rugby and soccer for example - while rejecting Americanized versions, like baseball and what would become American football.

On the other hand, poor Confederates and slaves might take up Americanized codes, as a reaction against the elitists/slave masters. In secret of course - how many masters would allow the human beings they own and treat as property to play the sport(s) of their mortal enemy?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The only way to tell is to trace cultural development of the two countries from the POD.

For example: if the CSA allies itself with Britain and France, it makes sense to me that the Confederate elite would gravitate towards British and French sporting codes - cricket, rugby and soccer for example - while rejecting Americanized versions, like baseball and what would become American football.

On the other hand, poor Confederates and slaves might take up Americanized codes, as a reaction against the elitists/slave masters. In secret of course - how many masters would allow the human beings they own and treat as property to play the sport(s) of their mortal enemy?

I disagree. One of the reasons football is so popular around the world is that it's so simple. All you need is a flat surface and something to kick. And the rules are simple: get the ball in the other team's goal and you get one point. It's about as far from an "elitist" sport as is possible to get.

Interesting idea: a footballing culture developing among Southern slaves in a CS victory TL...
 
I disagree. One of the reasons football is so popular around the world is that it's so simple. All you need is a flat surface and something to kick. And the rules are simple: get the ball in the other team's goal and you get one point. It's about as far from an "elitist" sport as is possible to get.

Very true; compare this with more complicated sports like rugby and golf or tennis. Even Baseball can't quite match soccer in the simplicity department.

Interesting idea: a footballing culture developing among Southern slaves in a CS victory TL...

Yes, indeed, providing that the planters would even allow such.....which some might not.....:(

Edit: Oops. Looks like BrianD beat me to it.....:eek:
 
After looking at these answers, I wonder if a divide kind of emerges. Your rich planters and professional class in the cities plays more refined sports like Rugby or Cricket, while poor whites play baseball and create their own type of football. I've heard this happened in a lot of countries. For example, I've heard in england that Rugby Union (probably the most popular type of Rugby worldwide) was played by rich men, where as Rugby League and to some extent Soccer were more working class sports played by factory workers in the north of England. I've heard this also happened in Australia, though it was more based on ethnicity. The British played Rugby Union and Cricket while those who were Irish and other ethnicities played Aussie Football (i know a lot of it is Geography too. I know Aussie football is played more in the west). So this could be what happens in the South.

As for the North, I think it develops same as in OTL. Baseball still is segregated, but integration would happen after World War 1. Granted there wouldn't be as many blacks, so it might not be as much of an issue
 

Kaptin Kurk

Banned
I wonder if there might not be some sort of slave league in the south, where football is even more brutal, and "entertaining" but it's okay because only chattle people are involved. "Mandingo" football in the South, as it were....
 
I disagree. One of the reasons football is so popular around the world is that it's so simple. All you need is a flat surface and something to kick. And the rules are simple: get the ball in the other team's goal and you get one point. It's about as far from an "elitist" sport as is possible to get.

Interesting idea: a footballing culture developing among Southern slaves in a CS victory TL...

I'll give you association football but I'll still hold to my point on the sports of the oppressors being rejected by the oppressed.
 
After looking at these answers, I wonder if a divide kind of emerges. Your rich planters and professional class in the cities plays more refined sports like Rugby or Cricket, while poor whites play baseball and create their own type of football. I've heard this happened in a lot of countries. For example, I've heard in england that Rugby Union (probably the most popular type of Rugby worldwide) was played by rich men, where as Rugby League and to some extent Soccer were more working class sports played by factory workers in the north of England. I've heard this also happened in Australia, though it was more based on ethnicity. The British played Rugby Union and Cricket while those who were Irish and other ethnicities played Aussie Football (i know a lot of it is Geography too. I know Aussie football is played more in the west). So this could be what happens in the South.

As for the North, I think it develops same as in OTL. Baseball still is segregated, but integration would happen after World War 1. Granted there wouldn't be as many blacks, so it might not be as much of an issue

Brunohusker's points pretty much echo my own.

CS aristocracy = polo, cricket, golf, tennis, union, horse racing (field hockey?)
CS slaves/poor whites = soccer, league, American football, baseball, basketball

Do we realistically assume there will be some form of middle class?
 
Brunohusker's points pretty much echo my own.

CS aristocracy = polo, cricket, golf, tennis, union, horse racing (field hockey?)
CS slaves/poor whites = soccer, league, American football, baseball, basketball

Do we realistically assume there will be some form of middle class?

I think there might be, but it's small. If it does exists its in cities like Charleston, Atlanta, New Orleans. Maybe parts of Texas where slave agriculture wouldn't be able to take hold (such as central and west texas. I doubt they'd have slaves in ranch country. They might escape). But yes, most will be poor. But they could care less until things get really bad.

I like the point about brutal slave sports. Maybe the also invent some form of wrestling or boxing where slaves fight each other as well.
 
Brunohusker's points pretty much echo my own.

CS aristocracy = polo, cricket, golf, tennis, union, horse racing (field hockey?)
CS slaves/poor whites = soccer, league, American football, baseball, basketball

I can't see cricket being played in the CSA at all, in the the 19th century Cricket wasn't an upper class pursuit, the sport had upper class and lower class elements. In the West Indies, slave owners and their friends would provide the batting component of the team while the slaves would provide the bowling component. This meant that when practiceing a slave could throw a hard leather ball at his owner without consequences. If this sounds farfetched, back then bowling was considered akin to manual labour.
As for sports played by slaves and poor whites, I doubt that soccer and rugby will feature as well, if the sports aren't already established then how do they arrive? In OTL Europe's poor huddled masses didn't arrive in Charleston but in New York, so without an influx of migrants then I would imagine the sports played in the CSA in the 1890s will be the sports played in the Southern USA in the 1850s. It is in the USA proper that sports familiar today will develop and spread as per normal. These sports will eventually travel south but they could be retarded by the hostility of the CSA. The big driver of sport in the CSA would probably come later with the advent of International sports in the 20th Century. Even then I can see the issue of race in the CSA retarding the development of sport overall.
 
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frlmerrin

Banned
Cricket was a very popular game in OTL USA until around the turn of the 19th/20th Century when the British cricketing authorities decreed that only the Imperial Dominions, some colonies and India would be allowed to play test cricket. This excluded the USA from the international game and was a huge (deliberate) snub to the game in the USA and rather unsurprisingly interest in the game declined rapidly in the USA.

Thus if the British cricket authorities were that petty about Yankees playing 'thier' game I would not expect them to treat 'slavers' whatever thier class any better. Cricket will not be a major game in the Confederacy.

Association football might be popular with the black slave population but I cannot see it flourishing as a spectator sport, large crowds of black slaves in an emotional state would be too much of a security risk for the state.

I can see prize fight boxing between black slaves as a major spectator sport possibly to the death, if one leans towards thinking the Confederacy remains a pretty unpleasant place.

Rodeo will be popular in Texas and the Arrizona Territory.
 
I can't see cricket being played in the CSA at all, in the the 19th century Cricket wasn't an upper class pursuit, the sport had upper class and lower class elements. In the West Indies, slave owners and their friends would provide the batting component of the team while the slaves would provide the bowling component. This meant that when practiceing a slave could throw a hard leather ball at his owner without consequences. If this sounds farfetched, back then bowling was considered akin to manual labour.
As for sports played by slaves and poor whites, I doubt that soccer and rugby will feature as well, if the sports aren't already established then how do they arrive? In OTL Europe's poor huddled masses didn't arrive in Charleston but in New York, so without an influx of migrants then I would imagine the sports played in the CSA in the 1890s will be the sports played in the Southern USA in the 1850s. It is in the USA proper that sports familiar today will develop and spread as per normal. These sports will eventually travel south but they could be retarded by the hostility of the CSA. The big driver of sport in the CSA would probably come later with the advent of International sports in the 20th Century. Even then I can see the issue of race in the CSA retarding the development of sport overall.

Then in that case do you see them changing sports. Like lets say football spreads south. Would the game change in the south compared to the north? I think its a given baseball is played since it had already spread south before the civil war (Henry Chadwick, a promoter of baseball before the civil war in otl was actually in Richmond when the war began spreading baseball). Could you also see a sort of cold war in the olympic era? Maybe the CSA allows blacks to play after getting their butts whooped by the USA in track and basketball.
 
Would sports (both in the sense of popular and lucrative) come to mean team games as exclusively as it did IOTL? How far along were the elites in buying into the 'playing fields of Eton' ethos?

The rural CSA would have some traditions of its own that could be used in building identity. IIRC horse racing and steeplechasing were big among the elites, while riflery contest, wrestling, boxing and cockfighting were more broadly popular diversions. A lot of the CSA is good horse country, where raising racehorses would carry far lower opportunity costs for the landowning gentry than in England. Equestrian sports could also become a popular cultural link to the western parts of the country. Cockfighting might even be embraced as something uniquely Southron and attain a controversial status similar to bullfighting in OTL Spain.

The CSA would also, of necessity, be a highly militarised society. They would need the firepower to defend themselves against a vengeful north, the strategic footprint to keep unwilling fringe territories under the thumb, and a militia force to quickly and decisively deal with slave insurrections. That makes it likely that every white male of military age would not only get some training - and more the more complex and physically demanding the modern battlefield gets - but would eventually be required to participate in reguilar exercises and/or musters. I envision something of a bastaredised Swiss model, where the federal government maintains fortress artillery and a navy of sorts, the states have standing forces ("permanent militias" or "state guards" or whathaveyou) and all citizens are liable for duty at need. That would certainly encourage competitive behaviour in related activities: track and field, martial arts, riflery &c. It would be in the interest of the states to organise and popularise such competitions.
 
I can see prize fight boxing between black slaves as a major spectator sport possibly to the death, if one leans towards thinking the Confederacy remains a pretty unpleasant place.

Rodeo will be popular in Texas and the Arrizona Territory.

Much as I despise the CSA I can't see widespread boxing matches to the death there. Slaves were expensive and such things would almost certainly rile the slave population. Boxing matches to the death didn't happen before the war and are no more likely to happen after the war.

The CSA will get AZ the day after Hell freezes over and not before. The North was adamant about stopping the South from spreading westward and the South doesn't have the manpower to hold it.
 
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