Team sport is a sports activity where the fundamental nature of the game or sport makes it impossible or highly impractical to perform the activity as a single-player endeavour. These activities include team-based games and sports such as football, rugby union, cricket, lacrosse, water polo, handball and baseball that have a fixed number of teams competing in an organised competition match.
Participating in team sports allows children to develop social skills such as cooperation, compromise and patience. It also teaches them to work well with others, which can be a valuable lesson for life as they get older and enter the workforce. They also learn how to set and achieve goals, and they become good at problem solving. Children who play team sports often have higher GPAs than those who do not participate in them, and one study found that 97% of team athletes graduated high school — a percentage significantly higher than the national average.
Children who play team sports are also taught how to deal with disappointment. They learn that not every game is going to go their way, and that there will be times when they do not receive the recognition they feel they deserve. This can help them cope with failure in the future, when they may face similar situations at work or in their personal lives.
One of the most important lessons learned from participating in a team sport is that people can have different personalities and opinions, but that these differences must be put aside for the good of the team. This can be a hard lesson for some kids to learn, but it is important to teach them at an early age that working together and putting their differences aside is the only way to succeed. It is also a lesson that can be applied to all aspects of their lives, including work and school.
A team-based approach to sport has some positives, but it can also lead to over-dependence on the most talented players. This can create an environment where star athletes do not receive the attention they need in order to maintain healthy bodies and avoid injury. It can also cause star athletes to comply with the wishes and demands of their coaches, even if they are not in their best interests. This is particularly common in elite level sport, where the egos of the stars can overwhelm the needs of the team.
The dynamics of a team sport depend on the complex interplay between many different factors that influence performance and health outcomes. These include the ability of the team to function as a skillful collective, the individual capacities required for this, and the context in which that capacity is developed. One framework to explore these complexities is praxeological, which focuses on the fast-emerging and dissolving local interactions within which individual athletes aim to achieve specific performance tasks.
Team sports typically have more injuries than individual sports because there are more players moving around the field or court at any given time. This also means that the amount of coaching staff required is greater. This can be a significant expense, especially for smaller teams with limited financial resources.