Sport in the Ancient World

Coakley addressed a few games that were especially popular at the time, wrestling, boxing, javelin, discus throwing, foot racing, archery, and long jumping were all popular in Ancient Greece.  The most popular ones were especially wrestling and foot racing as we saw in the YouTube videos for Ancient Greece.  However in Ancient Rome, the games were more used for training soldiers that doubled as spectacle for the Roman people.  There was a big focus on creating and honing individual skills that would be used in battle, according to Coakley.  As far as the characteristics, the Greeks were very particular about the time and place of the olympiad games.  The games had to take place after the third or fourth full moon after the summer solstice.  Modern sports are often controlled by some sort of bureaucracy that makes the rules and any changes to the game or the rules. In ancient times it is best to look at the Greek games in which they had what they called a 'gymnasiarc' that was in control of each gymnasium in each Greek city.  These gymnasiarcs would act as the bureaucracy and adjudicate the rules and the games.  In Roman sports they an official governing body known as the guild of athletes that adjudicated the rules of the game and even established what tools would be used in each game or what the the athletes would wear. In the beginning the games took place for a single race, as years went on they got more and more elaborate to more chariot races and even to boxing and wrestling (Guttman).  The games started and ended with elaborate festivals to celebrate the games and the athletes and especially the athletes that won.  Based on the explanation you can infer that these games often played a role more in the lines of entertainment than some religious ceremonies at all.  The entertainment was generally for the upper class while the lower class men would compete.
The Roman games however mocked the Greek games because they took place, as previously mentioned, as a preparation to war or to train warriors.  In Roman society gawking over Greek games was considered agains the views of the nobility (Guttman).  As far as sport as religion, in comparison to modern sport the Roman model is more akin to the sports we now see (Guttman).  The Romans even saw their games a possible ulterior to war.  The Greek olympiad games and the Roman war training games were often seen as games for lower class.  There were certain games that were more aristocratic, such as tennis and bowling.  From the Guttman reading in Greek games like tennis and bowling the government ruled them as only available to aristocrats and nobleman.  These games were considered for such nobility that gender did not matter anymore.  Furthermore, there were many women that were actually considered to be far superior than some men at the game.  These were really the only games that women could participate in, most games in Greek and Roman cultures were exclusively created by and played by men.  Considering specialization/professionalism of the athletes it was highly recommended and pushed for in Greek sports.  However, in Roman sports they thought professionalism in a sport dampened the building of an all-around person.