Abstract
The article shows, basing itself on tennis, the influence of the changing social attitudes regarding the rank and development of sports disciplines. The question is examined whether tennis in the Federal Republic of Germany has changed from the sport for an élite of the past into a present sport for all.
On the basis of extensive statistical data, being the result of a large-scale empirical survey of the situation in German gymnastics and sports associations an analysis is made of the present social structure of tennis associations. The results indicate that tennis, despite quite obvious structural changes, is still being practiced above all by certain strata of the population. As far as the age and sex structures are concerned it is quite clear that tennis is especially favoured by people between 21 and 45 years, who are often lost for other sports associations and in this manner continue actively to go in for sport, but above all tennis gives women access to sports activity.
A further analysis of tennis practiced within associations deals with "active" and "passive" sports attitudes, interest in information and spectator sport, sociabili ty, participation in the work of the association as elements of the attitude of the members.
The last part concentrates on the structural distribution of tennis associations in the Federal Republic of Germany and the developmental trends for the coming years. One can clearly notice that as far as tennis is concerned it does not follow the general trend towards very large associations.
The costs involved when practicing tennis, first of all investment and organi zational expenditures, connected with a policy conducted by official authorities to promote sport and which in a traditional manner give preference to certain sports disciplines, lead to a situation, where also in the future tennis will continue to belong rather to expensives types of sport. Nevertheless it turns out that the trend towards development of tennis continues, even if obstacles continue to exist and therefore tennis is bound in the near future to become a genuine sport for the people in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.