Millions of children and adults participate in team sports, and the benefits go well beyond physical fitness and leading an active life. According to the Janssen Sports Leadership Center, team sport teaches athletes important life skills including learning new skills, working together, respect, compromise, character and achievement, selflessness and compassion, and appreciating others’ contributions to a common goal; it also teaches patience, perseverance and a sense of group responsibility.
Some sports are considered to be team sports if it is inherently impossible or impractical to execute the game or sport as a single-player endeavor. However, there are some individual sports that involve team elements such as swimming relay races, where there is a maximum of four members to a swim team.
In general, team sports involve teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar item in accordance with a set of rules to score points against an opposing team. This generally involves careful strategic planning, good preparation and a strong mental and physical toughness of the individuals that make up the team.
It is also often seen that teams perform better at home than away, due to being more familiar with the idiosyncrasies of their own stadium, able to adapt to weather and lighting conditions and to have local fans cheering them on. This helps foster a sense of place identity, which is linked to greater job satisfaction and higher academic achievement. Lastly, team athletes learn the value of time – that every moment counts – and this helps them become more efficient and focused on completing tasks.