Századok – 2023

2023 / 6. szám - MECENATÚRA ÉS TÁRSADALMI VÁLLALKOZÁS - Baráth Katalin: Stadionok közadakozásból. A korai sportpályák támogatói az FTC és az MTK történetében, 1909–1912

STADIONOK KÖZADAKOZÁSBÓL

STADIUMS FROM

PUBLIC

DONATION

Supporters of Early Football Grounds in the History of FTC and MTK, 1909-1912 By Katalin Baráth

SUMMARY

Sport as pursued according to set rules and within an institutional framework, especially football, became exceptionally popular in Europe in the early twentieth century, and this popularity created the demand for the establishment of sports institutions detached from the public space of the city, furnished with terraced stands (stadiums), where the multilevel separation and disciplining of supporting groups and players’ society has been going on ever since. Early sports associations channelled this demand into a business form, most frequently its limited company version, so gathering well-to-do supporters, in order to provide the capital needed to construct stadiums from civil sources, which simultaneously served as the basis for bank loans.

The society backing the limited company behind the Ferencváros

Athletic

Club (FTC) and the Hungarian Athletes’ Circle (MTK), and the contemporary foreign cases alike seem to show that donation was chiefly motivated by the hope of indirect gain. This gain could be of various shapes, from the accomplishment of concrete political goals through the strengthening of the identity of a local community, of local patriotism or the image of the city, to the simple satisfaction of the desire to win. This centrality of gain has led the author to favour the concept of social (sports) entrepreneur instead of that of patron in the analysis.

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