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Team sport

type of sport

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ216048
Source-derived summary

A team sport is a type of sport where the fundamental nature of the game or sport requires the participation of multiple individuals working together as a team, and it is inherently impossible or highly impractical to execute the sport as a single-player endeavour. In team sports, the cooperative effort of team members is essential for the sport to function and achieve its objectives. The objective often involves teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar object in accordance with a set of rules in order to score points. Examples are basketball, netball, volleyball, rugby league, rugby union, water polo, handball, lacrosse, cricket, baseball, and the various forms of football and hockey. These sports emphasize teamwork, strategy, and coordination among team members while competing against opposing teams to achieve a common goal. Team sports do not include individual or individual-to-team events within a sport.

Distinctions

The meaning of a "team sport" has been disputed in recent years. Some types of sports have different objectives or rules than "traditional" team sports. These types of team sports do not involve teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar object in accordance with a set of rules in order to score points. Overall, the division into team sports and individual sports is not always unproblematic since there are different combinations in the individual sports.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Team sport” as type of sport. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Team, sport and type.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 223-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Team, sport and type providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Team sport”, the useful work is to connect “type of sport” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q216048. The Library of Congress control number is sh2012002377. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Team sport”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Team sport primary sources, Team sport archive and Team research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Team sport”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Team sport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.