Financial Analysis of Ladbrokes - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2563 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Argumentative essay Level High school Did you like this example? Title: Financial Analysis of Ladbrokes 1) Ladbrokes is the worldà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s leading fixed odds betting company. The company was established as a partnership in 1886[1]. The business listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1967. The company also diversified into hotel business by opening hotels and purchasing Hilton International Hotels in 1987. In 2006, Hilton International was sold to Hilton Group and now Ladbrokes plc focuses on betting business only. Ladbrokes reaches its customers through the following four core routes: 2,500 betting shops spread over UK, Ireland, Jersey and Belgium[2]; Website and telephone betting for European players; Casino à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Recent entrant; and Vernons Pools à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Football pool operator The business faces numerous competitors in different segments. They are few large operators of betting shops but Ladbrokes group is a well established leader. The most volatile business segment is the internet betting which was impacted by the change in US laws which made internet betting illegal and this action might be followed by other European countries. Football pool business is declining in its share and chances of its revival are less. The company faces following main risks: Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Financial Analysis of Ladbrokes" essay for you Create order Internet betting. US has already made internet betting illegal. It is expected that some of the European countries are also thinking of making it illegal because ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s a loss to their tax revenues. Foreign exchange. As Ladbrokes plc has customers across Europe, strengthening of Pound against Euro will lower its revenues and profits in Pounds. Interest rate. Increase in interest rate will reduce profits in terms of higher interest payments and increase in expenses linked to retail price inflation like employees salaries. High losses in some championship due to adverse winning by clients. The latest full year accounts are available for the year ended 31 December 2005. Appendix I shows the summary financials. The profit and loss results compare the change in financials over the year from continued business only to give a better idea about future prospects and valuation. The revenue from continued operations increased by 13.6 % to  £11,505 million. EBITDA is low because winnings are distributed from revenues only. Profit after tax increased 2.5 % to  £196 million. The total number of outstanding ordinary shares is 628.13 million[3]. Ladbrokes share price is 452.25 pence[4] giving it a market value of  £2.84 billion. Ladbrokes share price has moved upwards significantly in the last four months on back of grant of new licences to open betting shops across Europe and good trading for the ten months ended 31 Oct 2006. Profits from the continuing operations increased by 5 % in the ten months period ended 31 Oct 2006[5]. With a 5 % increase in pro fits, the expected annual profits would be around  £210 million from the continuing operations. Market capitalisation of  £2.8 billion will result in price to earning ratio of 14. 2) Appendix II shows the different sources of finance for the year ended 31 December 2005. 52.3 % of assets are financed by liabilities and remaining by shareholders funds. Only 10.8 % of assets are financed by the current liabilities indicating more reliance on long-term liabilities. Ladbrokes had borrowings of  £1,285 million with most of that in non-current liabilities. But the company had  £926 million of cash and cash equivalent in terms of short-term investments. The net debt of Ladbrokes was only  £359 million. Gearing ratio = Net debt / (Net debt + Shareholders funds) = 359 / (359 + 2595) = 12.2 % Ladbrokes financial gearing is very less and with assets in terms of betting shops, there is not significant fear of bankruptcy. The current financi al gearing ratio would be different because of sale of hotel business which constituted a significant part of the assets. Appendix III shows the 5-year dividend history of Ladbrokes. Though there was no change in earning per share, the dividend was increased by 8 % in the year ended 31 December 2005. Even though the earnings per share dropped in years 2003 and 2002, dividend was maintained. Most of the managements donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t cut dividend immediately because it can give strong negative signals about future expectations. Even tough earnings increased rapidly in 2004, the dividend wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t increased by the same because of two likely reasons. First, previous dividend to earnings ratio was more than 1 and by keeping dividend growth low management had a chance to bring it below 1. Second, it may not be possible to grow earnings so fast in future and hence a smaller growth in dividend in future may again lead to negative share price reaction. Cost of capita l The effective interest rates for current and non-current borrowings were 1.07% and 5.80% respectively[6]. Weighted average cost of debt, Rd = 4.59%. Cost of equity capital = Re = Rf + Be*(Rm à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Rf) Risk-free rate, Rf = 4.88 %[7] (10-year yield on UK gilt) Expected market return, Rm = 12.5 % Beta = Be = 0.99, as calculated in question 4 Re = 4.88% + 0.99*(12.5% 4.88%) = 12.42% Cost of capital = R = Rd*(1-T)*D/(D+E) + Re*E/(D+E) Where E = Shareholders funds =  £2,595.2 million D = Debt =  £1,285.6 million T = Tax rate = 30% Cost of capital, R = 9.37% Appendix IV shows the working capital analysis. Current liabilities are more than covered by current assets. Also there is no change in quick ratio in the year ended 31 December 2005 because of no inventories in the betting business. Ladbrokes has nil debtor days in 2005 due to the nature of the business. Trade creditors are also very low. 3) Main type of mar ket efficiencies are as follows: Strong form of efficiency. Share prices reflect all information and so no excess returns can be generated. Semi-strong form efficiency. Share prices adjust quickly to publicly available new information. Weak-form efficiency. No excess returns can be earned by using investment strategies that are based on past movement in share prices. It however allows for excess gains based on the fundamental analysis. Stock Market Efficiency is important for listed firms where managers are different from owners. An efficient stock market means that the information is available to all concerned parties in timely manner so that no single party can make undue gains from it. This gives confidence to shareholders that they will not be taken for a ride by the management. To test SME, we find abnormal price movements and then check if any important announcement was made by the company on that day. Abnormal share price movements were the difference between the daily return on the share price and the expected daily normal return. Expected normal return is calculated by using beta of the share. If no news was announced on that day or after the close of previous day, then abnormal share price movement doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t reflect SME. An index with all companies in the market is very cumbersome to maintain. An index covering a broad range of companies representing various business sectors would g ive a good indication of the market movement. We have used FTSE 100 index as the benchmark index as all major companies are represented in it. Abnormal return = Share return à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Beta * FTSE return The top five absolute abnormal returns based on the above formula were observed on the following dates: 12 Jan 2007 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Abnormal excess returns of 2.31% 20 Dec 2006 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Abnormal excess returns of 2.39% 16 Nov 2006 Abnormal excess returns of -4.98% 24 Aug 2006 Abnormal excess returns of -3.63% 16 Jun 2006 Abnormal excess returns of -3.05% We looked at the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Financial Timesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Investegateà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ website for the articles. Financial Times website gives company news along with its analysis of the announcements. Investegate website gives all the regulatory announcements. 12 Jan 2007 No special announcement in Investegate website. Rumour of private equity interest in Ladbroke on Financial Times[8]. This shows that some people had more news than others and hence absence of market efficiency. 20 Dec 2006 No news on either Investegate or Financial Times and hence absence of market efficiency. 16 Nov 2006 Release of trading statement on 16 Nov 2006 showing 5 % growth in profits[9]. As markets move after new information and price incorporate news within the day, presence of semi-strong form of efficiency. 24 Aug 2006 Interim results for six months showing growth in profits by 12.3%[10]. Price incorporated most of the news on the same day; presenc e of semi-strong form of efficiency. 16 Jun 2006 No news released and hence excess returns do not support stock market efficiency. The above excess share price returns in Ladbrokes show that the market is a weak-form of efficiency in case of Ladbrokes. 4) Market risk, also known as the systematic risk, is the residual risk in the market that canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t be associated with any specific company. Market risk arises from the macro economic factors like GDP, change in inflation and movement in interest rates and affects all companies. Since market risk is the residual risk, it canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t be diversified by forming a portfolio of companies. Beta of a company is the measure of movement of its share price against the market movement. The movements of share price and market are captured by the returns in share prices and market index. For this study, we have assumed FTSE 100 index to represent the market as a whole. Academics suggest use of five yea r data for calculating beta of a company. But in case of Ladbrokes, such share movements are not available because it sold a large part of its business in early 2006 and it changed dramatically the risk profile of the company. Hence it would be incorrect to use the five year period in calculating beta. Post demerger of its hotel business, Ladbrokes plc shares were listed on 18 April 2006. We have used the month end share price and FTSE 100 index returns for calculating beta. The monthly returns of Ladbrokes share price are calculated by comparing the share price with the share price at the end of previous month. Same process is repeated for FTSE 100 index (see Appendix V). A graph is plotted with Ladbrokesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ share price returns are plotted on the Y-axis and FTSE 100 index returns are plotted on the X-axis. Linear regression is used to plot the least square line and the slope of the line gives beta. The slope of the line plotted using least square method gives beta . Regression analysis of share returns on index returns is also shown in Appendix V. Beta value = 0.98 The beta of 0.98 means that the share price of Ladbrokes changes in a very similar manner to the changes in the FTSE 100 index. Adjusted R square of 0.28 indicates that 28 % of the share price movement is because of market movement. The adjusted R square value is low because of two abnormal readings in the month of July 2006 and Jan 2007. Also since the period of analysis contains only 9 readings, the abnormal readings of July 2006 and Jan 2007 had a major impact on adjusted R square value. We also look at the ratio of monthly returns of Ladbrokesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s share price to the monthly returns of the FTSE 100 index. The beta is taken as the ratio of the monthly share returns to monthly index returns. Then we take the average of monthly betas to find out the beta for the period. Appendix VI shows the values of betas from May 2006 to January 2007. Beta value = -1.0 1 The value of beta from the above method is totally opposite to the value obtained using regression. This is because of two abnormal reading in July 2006 and January 2007. If we take out January 2007 reading from the above group and take the average from May 2006 to December 2007, beta is 1.01. This value is comparable to the value obtained in the regression analysis. We take average of the above two values à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 0.98 and 1.01 as the beta, 0.99, of Ladbrokes. 5) Portfolio effects There are two types of risks associated with every share. First is the systematic risk which is form the macro factors affecting any economy like GDP and movement in interest rates. All shares are affected by changes in above factors. Second is the specific risk which corresponds to the factors affecting only that particular share like change in competition, change in regulatory laws affecting the sector in which the company operates. Because all companies face systematic risk, it canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t be diversified. But different shares can face different movement in their share prices at certain time due to various specific risks. Portfolio effect tries to capture the correlation between different share prices. It may happen that some shares have negative correlation to the market and hence may balance the high volatility in earnings. A portfolio formed out of different asset classes or shares may reduce the volatility in price changes and increase the reward to risk ratio. 6) We now once again at the stock market efficiency. Since the idea of stock market efficiency was floated, many researches have been done. Academics have also pointed out to seasonal anomalies like January effect to counter market efficiency. Also studies show that stock returns are not only related to market returns but also to other factors like size of the firm, book value to market value ratio. The spread of ways to convey news to investors and rapid decrease in time taken to spread news has reduced the reaction time of market and made it more efficient. But still it is difficult to say that markets are strongly efficient. Even though laws to prevent insider trading have been enacted, still share prices show abnormal returns before important public announcements especially around mergers and acquisitions. Market inefficiencies are more prominent at individual company level than at the whole market level. 7) Ladbrokes is the leading fixed odds betting company with presence in both shops and online betting sector. Online betting faces uncertain future due to changes in laws in US and expected changes in some European countries too. Ladbrokes is well placed to take into account banning of internet by taking more business through its shops. Company is focused on betting now after selling its hotel business and has capacity to take on more debt for future expansion across Europe. Ladbrokes profits are growing and with a current price to earn ing ratio of 14, the share price looks decent value for a company looking to expand. Ladbrokes also have high amount of cash and cash equivalent following sale of hotel business which it can use for expansion. This along with more debt will allow Ladbrokes to expand without raising equity; a prospect for shareholders. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES Ladbrokes, Annual Report and Accounts 2005 https://www.ladbrokesplc.com/downloads/reports/hilton_annual_report2005.pdf, Date 18 Feb 2007 Appendix I à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Summary Financials Profit and Loss statement Balance Sheet Cash flow (Source: Ladbrokes, Annual Report and Accounts 2005) Appendix II à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Sources of finance (Source: Ladbrokes, Annual Report and Accounts 2005) Appendix III à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Dividend history (Source: Ladbrokes, Annual Report and Accounts 2005) Appendix IV à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Working capital analysis (Source: Ladbrokes, Annual Rep ort and Accounts 2005) Appendix V à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Beta calculations (Source: Ladbrokes share price https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=LAD.L FTSE 100 index https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EFTSE) Graph of Ladbrokesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ monthly returns and FTSE 100 monthly returns Regression Analysis Appendix VI à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Second way of calculating beta (Source: Ladbrokes plc share price https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ladm=Ld= FTSE 100 index https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EFTSE) [1] https://www.ladbrokesplc.com/index.php?id=1pid=1c, Date 18 Feb 2007 [2] https://www.ladbrokesplc.com/index.php?id=1pid=1c, Date 18 Feb 2007 [3] https://www.ladbrokesplc.com/index.php?id=2pid=2a, Date 18 Feb 2007 [4] https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=LAD.L, Date 18 Feb 2007 [5] https://www.ladbrokesplc.com/downloads/results/Final_trading_update.pdf, Date 18 Feb 2007 [6] Ladbrokes plc, Annual Report and Accounts 2005, Page 62. [7] https://specials.ft.com/siterefresh/stats/pdfs/tenyeargovbondspreads/SPR160207.pdf [8] https://search.ft.com/ftArticle?sortBy=gadatearticlequeryText=ladbrokesy=9aje=truex=11id=070113005647page=3 [9] https://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=200611160700391673M [10] https://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=200608240700360444I

Essay on Faraday - 2921 Words

Faraday It is not my intention to lay before you a life of Faraday in the ordinary accepting of the term. The duty I have to perform is to give you some notion of what he has done in the world; dwelling incidentally on the spirit in which his work was executed, and introducing such personal traits as may be necessary to the completion of your picture of the philosopher, though by no means adequate to give you a complete idea of the man. Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts, on September 22, 1791, and he died at Hampton Court, on August 25, 1867. When thirteen years old, that is to say in 1804, Faraday was apprenticed to a bookseller and bookbinder where he spent eight years of his life, after which he worked as a†¦show more content†¦At this time he was acquiring, not producing; working hard for his master and storing and strengthening his own mind. He assisted Mr. Brande in his lectures, and so quietly, skillfully, and modestly was his work done, that Mr. Brandes vocation at the time was pronounced lecturing on velvet. In 1820 Faraday published a chemical paper on two new compounds of chlorine and carbon, and on a new compound of iodine, carbon, and hydrogen. This paper was read before the Royal Society on December 21, 1820, and it was the first of his that was honored with a place in the Philosophical Transactions. On June 12, 1821, he married, and obtained leave to bring his young wife into his rooms at the Royal Institution. There for forty-six years they lived together, occupying the suite of apartments which had been previously in the successive occupancy of Young, Davy, and Brande. At the time of her marriage Mrs. Faraday was twenty-one years of age, he being nearly thirty. Oersted, in 1820, discovered the action of a voltaic current on a magnetic needle; and immediately afterwards the splendid intellect of Ampere succeeded in showing that every magnetic phenomenon then known might be reduced to the mutual action of electric currents. This attrac ted Faradays attention to the subject. He read much about it; and in the months of July, August, and September he wrote a history of the progress of electromagnetism, which he published in ThomsonsShow MoreRelated Michael Faraday Essay860 Words   |  4 PagesMichael Faraday could be labeled the underdog of modern science. The son of a poor blacksmith, Faraday was no stranger to hard work, which was perhaps the exact opposite of many of his contemporaries, who came from wealthy backgrounds and studied science as a sort of extracurricular activity. Although Faraday was unsuccessful when it came to money, he was very successful in the field of science, namely electric science. One of his most important discoveries is that of electro-magnetic inductionRead MoreMichael Faraday And The Chemistry World1650 Words   |  7 PagesFor my term paper I have chosen to study the works of Michael Faraday, a very significant name in the Chemistry world especially in understanding electrochemistry and electromagnetism. He had a number of accomplishments over his career including writing a manual of practical chemistry, discovered a large number of new organic compounds, as well as liquefying what was thought to be a permanent solid. His largest discovery, and what I will be discussing in this paper is his advancements in the worldRead MoreApplications Of Faraday s Law Of Electromagnetic Induction1933 Words   |  8 Pagesdiscovery of electromagnetic induction has numerous industrial, technological, medical and other applications that we enco unter every day. Induction is used in power generation and power transmission two main uses. Out of the many applications of faradays laws four applications was looked at on how they works and also how they are constructed showing structural diagrams. These are the transformer, the generator, induction cooker and the magnetic flow meter. TableRead MoreEssay on Michael Faraday: His Life and the Liquefaction of Gases2196 Words   |  9 PagesMichael Faraday: His Life and the Liquefaction of Gases Michael Faraday was born on September 22nd, 1791, at Newington in Surrey, England to a Sandemanian family (Crowther, 7). The Sandemanians were an almost unknown off-shoot of the Presbyterian Church. Faraday was baptized in the Church but only became an official member in 1821. His religion was an important part of his life, though it featured little in his work (Crowther, 25-26 and Day, 28). From an early age Faraday showed a passion forRead MoreFaraday689 Words   |  3 Pagespictures. The picture created of the life and work from the obituary, in The Times, 28 August 1867, p.7,(Assignment Book, 2008), is a very obscure one. An individual reading this extract would find it difficult to know exactly what Michael Faraday had invented, or discovered. There is no exact knowledge, no mention of creation, nothing to indicate unique developments from his life. The main information in this prose of Faradays life is that of his ability of being a showman an entertainerRead MoreFaradays Law1667 Words   |  7 PagesLaw In 1820 Hans Christian Oersted observed that electric currents create magnetic fields. Consequently many scientists made unsuccessful attempts to create current in the presence of magnetic fields. After over 10  years of investigation Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry, working independently on different sides of the Atlantic, made the discovery that if a conducting coil has a changing magnetic flux passing through it an electromotive force is created that causes a current to flow through the coilRead MoreFaradays Law of Induction1124 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Faradays Law of Induction PHY 114 Lab Report 11/05/2013 Abstract: The purpose of this experiment was to look at Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry showed in the 1830’s that a changing magnetic field could cause and induced emf electromotive force = voltage in a circuit. Practically, this means that when a copper pick-up coil is placed inside a solenoid whose magnetic field varies with time, current will flow in this coil even if there is no voltage source physically connected to it. ThisRead MoreThe Origin Of Electricity And Magnetism1023 Words   |  5 Pagesto have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a stormy night. A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of his hand indicated that lightning was very much electrical in nature.6 Michael Faraday s discoveries formed the building blocks of electric motor technology. In 1791, Luigi Galvani published his discovery of bioelectricity, demonstrating that electricity was the medium by which nerve cells passed signals to the muscles.5AlessandroRead MoreThe Story Of Electricity Is Told By Al Khalili Essay1695 Words   |  7 Pagesnamed the age of invention, electricity has become more extremely useful such that society has moved from steam power to electrical power and allows us to produce a seemingly unlimited amount of electricity. In London in the 19th century, Michael Faraday went to the Royal Institution to watch the show of Humphry Davey. He was then later appointed by Davey into the Royal Institution about a year later to pursue experiments of electricity and magnetism. Faraday’s experiments concluded that electricityRead MoreEssay Electromagnetic Induction1369 Words   |  6 PagesMichael Faraday was a chemist and physicist from England. He invent ed electromagnetic induction in 1831. Electromagnetic induction as defined by Stuart Bushong is: An electric current is induced in a circuit if some part of that circuit is in a changing magnetic field. This observation is summarized in what is called Faraday’s Law, or the first law of electromagnetics. After a series of different experiments, Faraday determined that an electrical current cannot exist just by the presence of

Sociology and Understanding Human Behavior Free Essays

SOCL2151 Sociology and Understanding Human Behavior Phase 4 Individual Project Repost And Phase 5 Individual Project Conclusion Jerry Dunlap CTU Online Nov 12, 2012 SOCL2152 Introduction Portions of this assignment has repurposed work from Professor Vila’s Sociology 215 In my Phase 4 Individual Project I will be taking about the sociology of sport, what sport and event I picked and why I picked them. I will talk and describe the event and the sport that I have picked as well. I will be giving a description of my field observation over the event that I watched. We will write a custom essay sample on Sociology and Understanding Human Behavior or any similar topic only for you Order Now I will also talk about what it was like doing field work without really being in the field to do it. I will also go into talking about what I have learned from my field observation and Reflect on sports and the field of sociology of sport. Sports are and have been for me a way to relax ever sense I was a little boy growing up and going to school. I played sports in junior high and in high school as well. Sports for many people can be a way of life or their main way of making money to live from one day to the next. I watch sports manly because when I watch them I think man I wish that was me out there on that field or on that court them I wouldn’t have to worry so much about how I am going to take care of my family. I can be watching a game and sitting there thinking as well if I could just have one of the pay checks that the players get I would be seat for a long time. The sport that I was going with at first was basketball but after thinking about it I was like hold on there aren’t any basketball games showing on television right now so I changed it to football just to be able to do the field observation. I picked football because I grow up watching it when I was younger and I played it for three years in high school but I will be talking a little about both of them because of using both of them in my last two Individual Project. On January 20th 1892 the first true basketball game as we know it was played in Springfield Massachusetts. Doctor James Naismith a Canadian invented basketball for the YMCA so that they could play during the winter months. He made up rules for the game and also nailed up two peach baskets for hoops. Most of the rules the he made for the game of basketball are still used but have been changed up a little bit over the years. SOCL2153 Pro basketball and college basketball are both big sports that are covered by all types of media like the news, radio, television and the internet is a big one as well. Radio has a big impacted on basketball because it allows people that can’t watch it to be able to listen to the games. The internet and new allows you to be able to keep up with states and other stuff like that on the sport and on the players as well. The description of my field observation after watch the Sunday game between the Cowboys and Giants is there are all types of people there besides the players on the field playing the game, and coaches. There are the people that call the game and the camera people from the television channel that the game was on. There where fans, cheerleaders from both teams and referees as well. From what I could see and hear the fans where all into the game cheering and boing when bad calls were made or when there team made a good or bad play. People that where at the game looked to me like they were of all ages from little kids up to aridly people. The players seem to show when they are upset about a bad call or a play that was ran the wrong way. The players also show off a little after they make big play or even a little play. With the part of who hangs out with whom, and what are the moods and social dynamics. I can’t really tell from watching the game on television but for the most part I would think that most of the people that go to games just hang out with the ones they go there with and the players who can really say who they hang out with when there not playing. Some of the behavior in the game is from both the fans and players. Fans can start getting upset because there team isn’t playing like they should or there team isn’t getting the right calls from the referees that they think they should be. The same could go for the players from both teams. They start getting mad because they aren’t playing like they should be or they get a bad call. It all depends on how the game is going and how the players are playing on how the fans act and or behave. I picked this event because I am a big cowboys fan and I just like watching them play on Sundays. SOCL2154 As everyone knows American football has been around for centuries and is one of the most popular sports in America. As of 2010 football is the most watched sport of all of the four sports in America today. The Beginning A citizen of ancient Greek times used to play a game called harpaston and this game was known as a dangerous game. There were no rules, no field specifications and no guidelines. They simply went out and played this game resembling a mixture of rugby and football. In the 12th century the game as we now know it began in England. People of this time started to love this game so much that at one time both Kings Henry II and Henry IV banned the game. At this time people where only allowed to run and kicked the ball and couldn’t pass the ball forward at all. EVOLUTION On November 6, 1869 American football was believed to be burn when Princeton and Rutgers Universities met to play the first organized football match in American history. Within the next five years the game would change and more teams would be added. There would be new rules put together allowing the teams to have 15 players on their team. A coach from Yale named Walter Camp introduce new rule changes to the game that would include cutting the number of players allowed on the field from 15 down to 11 and adding downs. Football originally only had three downs and the teams only had to go five yards to get a first down but in 1912 it got increased to four down and they had to get 10 yards for a first down. President Theodore Roosevelt would later help the colleges put together or crate the National Collegiate Athletic Association and they would put together a seven member rules committee that would pass a rule to legalize the forward pass. In 1922 the American Professional Football Association changed its name to the National Football League and thus the NFL is born. Then in 1966 the Super Bowl was crated as the NFLs Championship game. In 1967 the first super bowl was played between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys and the Packers would go on the win the first ever super bowl over the Cowboys 21 to 17. SOCL2155 I have learned from doing field work that it is hard to do when you’re really not on the field doing it was same what hard to do because you can’t really get a good look at the fans or what is going on around the field. When watching the game on a television from the house only thing you really get a good look at is all of the players from both teams and the coaches. You can hear the fans and maybe every now and thing you can get a look at the fans just for a few seconds but not long enough to really be able to see how they are acting. Phase 5 Individual Project My life experience with sports has been very interesting from the start. I started playing sports like running cross country, track and playing basketball when I was in middle school. I wanted to play football but are iddle school football coach wouldn’t late me. He told me that I was too small because I only weighted like 110 pounds in middle school. When I got into high school I still played these three sports but my sophomore year I finally started playing football but by thin I was not that up to date on how to play the game nor was I really that good. I was able to travel to many different places in middle school and high school because of sports even if it was just in the state that I live in. I allowed me to meet different people from different areas of the state. I still think to this day if it wasn’t for sports and school that I wouldn’t have passed and graduated high school like I did. Sports are part of what I am today and I big reason why I am a sports fan today. SOCL2156 Being a sports fan of sports now I would have to say that for me it’s a way to relax and enjoy same of the sports that I played in school without playing them anymore. Being able to watch sports gives people a way to get together with friends a few times a week or just a few times a month depending on the sport that is on at that time. I see watching sports as a way to get a little trill without have to put your own life at risk or anyone else’s because you can do it sitting at home with your family or with friends. The sport experience help me connect with friends because it gives us something to talk about when we get together other thin just are family’s and what we have done over the past few days or weeks. The sports experience gets people together no matter what type of people they are or what race they are even if it’s just for a few minutes or a few hours’ people aren’t looking at others based on their skin color or their religion. References: ESPN. (2012). Retrieved from ESPN. com: http://espn. go. com/nba/ history of Football. (2012). Retrieved from historyoffootball. net: http://historyoffootball. net/ Bass, A. (2010, Apr 19). Livestrong. Retrieved from livestrong. com: http://www. livestrong. com/article/108870-history-football/ Faurschou, B. (n. d. ). History of Basketball. . Retrieved from nbahoopsonline. com: http://www. nbahoopsonline. com/Articles/History1. html How to cite Sociology and Understanding Human Behavior, Essay examples