Original:  however, the recent popularity of women's sport has seen many top-level female cricketers become fully professional, with top international players earning up to $300,000 before endorsements and franchise contracts. Association football Public football pitches are common in residential areas, such as this pitch on the Orchard Park Estate, Kingston upon Hull, England. Boot money has been a phenomenon in amateur sport for centuries. The term "boot money" became popularised in the 1880s when it was not unusual for players to find half a crown (corresponding to 12½ pence after decimalisation) in their boots after a game. The Football Association prohibited paying players until 1885, and this is referred to as the "legalisation" of professionalism because it was an amendment of the "Laws of the Game". However, a maximum salary cap of twelve pounds a week for a player with outside employment and fifteen pounds a week for a player with no outside employment lingered until the 1960s, even as transfer fees reached over a hundred thousand pounds; again, "boot money" was seen as a way of topping up pay. Today, the most prominent English football clubs that are not professional are semi-professional (paying part-time players more than the old maximum for top professionals). This includes all the major existing women's clubs, in which full professionalism has not taken root yet. Until 2019, when it abandoned amateur status, the most prominent true amateur men's club was probably Queen's Park, the oldest football club in Scotland, founded in 1867 and with a home ground (Hampden Park) which is one of UEFA's five-star stadia. They have also won the Scottish Cup more times than any club outside the Old Firm. Amateur football in both genders is now found mainly in small village and Sunday clubs and the Amateur Football Alliance. American football See: American football in the United States#Adult Amateur Football / Semi-Pro Football Sailing Around the turn of the 20th century, much of sailing was professionals paid by interested idle rich. Today, sailing, especially dinghy sailing, is an example of a sport which is still largely populated by amateurs. For example, in the recent Team Racing Worlds, and the American Team Racing Nationals, most of the sailors competing in the event were amateurs. While many competitive sailors are employed in businesses related to sailing (including sailmaking, naval architecture, boatbuilding and coaching), most are not compensated for their own competitions. In large keelboat racing, such as the Volvo Around the World Race and the America's Cup, this amateur spirit has given way in recent years to large corporate sponsorships and paid crews. Figure skating Like other Olympic sports, figure skating used to have very strict amateur status rules. Over the years, these rules were relaxed to allow competitive skaters to receive token payments for performances in exhibitions (amid persistent rumors that they were receiving more money "under the table"), then to accept money for professional activities such as endorsements provided that the payments were made to trust funds rather than to the skaters themselves. In 1992, trust funds were abolished, and the International Skating Union voted both to remove most restrictions on amateurism, and to allow skaters who had previously lost their amateur status to apply for reinstatement of their eligibility. A number of skaters, including Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, and Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, took advantage of the reinstatement rule to compete at the 1994 Winter Olympics. However, when all of these skaters promptly returned to the pro circuit again, the ISU decided the reinstatement policy was a failure and it was discontinued in 1995. Prize money at ISU competitions was introduced in 1995, paid by the sale of the television rights to those events. In addition to prize money, Olympic-eligible skaters may also earn money through appearance fees at shows and competitions, endorsements, movie and television contracts, coaching, and other "professional" activities, provided that their activities are approved by their national federations. The only activity that is strictly forbidden by the ISU is participating in unsanctioned "pro" competitions, which the ISU uses to maintain their monopoly status as the governing body in the sport. Many people in the skating world still use "turning pro" as jargon to mean retiring from competitive skating, even though most top competitive skaters are already full-time professionals, and many skaters who retire from competition to concentrate on show skating or coaching do not actually lose their competition eligibility in the process. Rugby football Background Rugby has provided one of the most visible and lasting examples of the tension between amateurism and professionalism during the development of nationally organised sports in Britain in the late-19th century. The split in rugby in 1895 between what became rugby league and rugby union arose as a direct result of a dispute over the pretence of a strict enforcement of its amateur status - clubs in Leeds and Bradford were fined after compensating players for missing work, whilst at the same time the Rugby Football Union (RFU) was allowing other players to be paid. Rugby football, despite its origins in the privileged English public schools, was a popular game throughout England by around 1880, including in the large working-class areas of the industrial north. However, as the then-amateur sport became increasingly popular and competitive, attracting large paying crowds, teams in such areas found it difficult to attract and retain good players. This was because physically fit local men needed to both work to earn a wage - limiting the time that they could devote to unpaid sport - and to avoid injuries that might prevent them working in the future. Certain teams faced with these circumstances wanted to pay so-called 'broken time' money to their players to compensate them for missing paid work due to their playing commitments, but this contravened the amateur policy of the Rugby Football Union (RFU). Organization Following a lengthy dispute on this point during the early 1890s, representatives of more than 20 prominent northern rugby clubs met in Huddersfield in August 1895 to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU), a breakaway administrative body which would permit payments to be made to players. The NRFU initially adopted established RFU rules for the game itself, but soon introduced a number of changes, most obviously a switch from 15 to 13 players per side. It became the Rugby Football League in 1922, by which time the key differences in the two codes were well established, with the 13-a-side variant becoming known as rugby league. The RFU took strong action against the clubs involved in the formation of the NRFU, all of whom were deemed to have forfeited their amateur status and therefore to have left the RFU. A similar interpretation was applied to all players who played either for or against such clubs, whether or not they themselves received any compensation. Such players were effectively barred sine die from any involvement in organised rugby union. These comprehensive and enduring sanctions, combined with the very localised nature of most rugby competition, meant that most northern clubs had little practical alternative but to affiliate with the NRFU in the first few years of its existence. Rugby football in Britain therefore became subject to a de facto schism along regional - and to some extent class - lines, reflecting the historical origins of the split. Rugby league - in which professionalism was permitted - was predominant in northern England, particularly in industrial areas, and was viewed as a working class game. Rugby union - which remained amateur - was predominant in the rest of England, as well as in Wales and Scotland. Rugby union also had a more affluent reputation, although there are areas - notably in South Wales and in certain English cities such as Gloucester - with a strong working-class rugby union tradition. Discrimination Discrimination against rugby league players could verge on the petty - former Welsh international Fred Perrett was once excluded in lists of players who died in the First World War due to his 'defection' to the league code.Rugby Heroes who went to War BBC Online Matthew Ferris, November 2008 One Member of Parliament, David Hinchliffe, described it as "one of the longest (and daftest) grievances in history" with anyone over the age of 18 associated with rugby league being banned forever from rugby union. Scotland and Wales The Scottish Rugby Union was a particular bastion of amateurism and extreme care was taken to avoid the 'taint' of professionalism: a player rejoining the national team after the end of the Second World War applied to be issued with a new shirt and was reminded that he had been supplied with a shirt prior to the outbreak of hostilities. In Wales the position was more equivocal with clubs attempting to stem the tide of players going north with boot money, a reference to the practice of putting cash payments into player's footwear whilst they were cleaning up after a game. Sometimes payments were substantial. Barry John was once asked why he hadn't turned professional and responded, "I couldn't afford to." Open union Rugby union was declared "open" in August 1995 - almost exactly 100 years after the original split occurred - meaning that professionalism has been permitted in both rugby codes since that date. However, while the professional-amateur divide remained in force, there was originally very limited crossover between the two codes, the most obvious occasions being when top-class rugby union players 'switched codes' to rugby league in order to play professionally. Welsh international Jonathan Davies was a high-profile example of this switch. Since professionalism has been allowed in rugby union the switches have started to come the opposite way. Union has swiftly grown to embrace the professional game with many league players joining union to take a slice of the larger amounts of money available in the sport. Nowadays, while rugby union no longer makes the professional-amateur distinction, the professional-amateur split still exists within rugby league with the British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA) strictly amateur, though it allows some ex-professionals to play provided they are no longer under contract. The most recent club to get a ban for fielding a contracted professional was Brighouse Rangers who were expelled from the National Conference League during 2007–2008 season, and the player handed a sine die ban (though in part for gouging ), although the club itself has since been admitted to the Pennine League. Also, some rugby unions have amateur rules, most notably the Argentine Rugby Union, where all member clubs are amateur. The Campeonato Argentino, the national championship for provincial teams, does not include players contracted to the country's Super Rugby side, the Jaguares. Ultimate and disc sports (Frisbee) Australia vs Canada, ultimate players at the 2012 WUGC in Japan. Ultimate Canada Alternative sports, using the flying disc, began in the mid-sixties. As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a Frisbee. What started with a few players, in the sixties, like Victor Malafronte, Z Weyand and Ken Westerfield experimenting with new ways of throwing and catching a Frisbee, later would become known as playing freestyle. Organized disc sports, in the 1970s, began with promotional efforts from Wham-O and Irwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using Frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events. Disc sports such as freestyle, double disc court, guts, disc ultimate and disc golf became this sports first events. Two sports, the team sport of disc ultimate and disc golf are very popular worldwide and are now being played semi professionally. The World Flying Disc Federation, Professional Disc Golf Association, and the Freestyle Players Association, are the official rules and sanctioning organizations for flying disc sports worldwide. Disc ultimate is a team sport played with a flying disc. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to members of your own team, on a rectangular field, 120 yards (110m) by 40 yards (37m), until you have successfully completed a pass to a team member in the opposing team's end zone. There are currently over five million people that play some form of organized ultimate in the US. Ultimate has started to be played semi-professionally with two newly formed leagues, the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) and Major League Ultimate (MLU). The game of guts was invented by the Healy Brothers in the 1950s and developed at the International Frisbee Tournament (IFT) in Marquette, Michigan. The game of ultimate, the most widely played disc game, began in the late 1960s with Joel Silver and Jared Kass. In the 1970s it developed as an organized sport with the creation of the Ultimate Players Association with Dan Roddick, Tom Kennedy and Irv Kalb. Double disc court was invented and introduced in the early 1970s by Jim Palmeri. In 1974, freestyle competition was created and introduced by Ken Westerfield and Discrafts Jim Kenner. In 1976, the game of disc golf was standardized with targets called "pole holes" invented and developed by Wham-O's Ed Headrick. High school sports Sports teams commonly exist at the high school level; students who participate, commonly referred to as student athletes, do so during their course of study. Occasionally, sports success in high school sports may lead to a professional career in the field. The benefit of sports in high school is debated; some believe that they promote discipline and teamwork,Naomi Fejgin. "Participation in High School Competitive Sports: A Subversion of School Mission or Contribution to Academic Goals?", Contemporary Issues in Sociology of Sport while others find that they can cause injury. One study on the relationship between high school athletic and academic successes finds that, for the most part, higher participation and success rates in sports is positively related school-wide student successes on academic outcomes such as standardized test scores and educational attainment. The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that student athletes have a 20\% higher chance of completing a college degree, and are more likely to be employed and in better health than non-athletes. However, a survey of high school athletes in 2006 showed that high school athletes are more likely to cheat inside of the classroom than non-athletes, especially boys participating in football, baseball, and basketball and girls participating in softball and basketball. The survey does not indicate to what extent cheating contributes to the greater academic outcomes of high school athletes. In the world of middle school and high school sports, several fees have risen over the last few years making sports more expensive. The term "Pay-to-Play" means that students and their parents must pay a flat fee to participate, and that fee often leaves out the costs of uniforms, transportation, and other team fees. This affects low-income families (those who earn less than $ 60,000 per year) and their ability to participate in the sports.
Revised:  however, the recent popularity of women's sport has seen many top-level female cricketers become fully professional, with top international players earning up to $300,000 before endorsements and franchise contracts. Association football Public football pitches are common in residential areas, such as this pitch on the Orchard Park Estate, Kingston upon Hull, England. Boot money has been a phenomenon in amateur sport for centuries. The term "boot money" became popularised in the 1880s when it was not unusual for players to find half a crown (corresponding to 12½ pence after decimalisation) in their boots after a game. The Football Association prohibited paying players until 1885, and this is referred to as the "legalisation" of professionalism because it was an amendment of the "Laws of the Game". However, a maximum salary cap of twelve pounds a week for a player with outside employment and fifteen pounds a week for a player with no outside employment lingered until the 1960s, even as transfer fees reached over a hundred thousand pounds; again, "boot money" was seen as a way of topping up pay. Today, the most prominent English football clubs that are not professional are semi-professional (paying part-time players more than the old maximum for top professionals). This includes all the major existing women's clubs, in which full professionalism has not taken root yet. Until 2019, when it abandoned amateur status, the most prominent true amateur men's club was probably Queen's Park, the oldest football club in Scotland, founded in 1867 and with a home ground (Hampden Park) which is one of UEFA's five-star stadia. They have also won the Scottish Cup more times than any club outside the Old Firm. Amateur football in both genders is now found mainly in small village and Sunday clubs and the Amateur Football Alliance. American football Sailing Around the turn of the 20th century, much of sailing was professionals paid by interested idle rich. Today, sailing, especially dinghy sailing, is an example of a sport which is still largely populated by amateurs. For example, in the recent Team Racing Worlds, and the American Team Racing Nationals, most of the sailors competing in the event were amateurs. While many competitive sailors are employed in businesses related to sailing (including sailmaking, naval architecture, boatbuilding and coaching), most are not compensated for their own competitions. In large keelboat racing, such as the Volvo Around the World Race and the America's Cup, this amateur spirit has given way in recent years to large corporate sponsorships and paid crews. Figure skating Like other Olympic sports, figure skating used to have very strict amateur status rules. Over the years, these rules were relaxed to allow competitive skaters to receive token payments for performances in exhibitions (amid persistent rumors that they were receiving more money "under the table"), then to accept money for professional activities such as endorsements provided that the payments were made to trust funds rather than to the skaters themselves. In 1992, trust funds were abolished, and the International Skating Union (ISU) voted both to remove most restrictions on amateurism, and to allow skaters who had previously lost their amateur status to apply for reinstatement of their eligibility. A number of skaters, including Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, and Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, took advantage of the reinstatement rule to compete at the 1994 Winter Olympics. However, when all of these skaters promptly returned to the pro circuit again, the ISU decided the reinstatement policy was a failure and it was discontinued in 1995. Prize money at ISU competitions was introduced in 1995, paid by the sale of the television rights to those events. In addition to prize money, Olympic-eligible skaters may also earn money through appearance fees at shows and competitions, endorsements, movie and television contracts, coaching, and other "professional" activities, provided that their activities are approved by their national federations. The only activity that is strictly forbidden by the ISU is participating in unsanctioned "pro" competitions, which the ISU uses to maintain their monopoly status as the governing body in the sport. Many people in the skating world still use "turning pro" as jargon to mean retiring from competitive skating, even though most top competitive skaters are already full-time professionals, and many skaters who retire from competition to concentrate on show skating or coaching do not actually lose their competition eligibility in the process. Rugby football Background Rugby has provided one of the most visible and lasting examples of the tension between amateurism and professionalism during the development of nationally organised sports in Britain in the late-19th century. The split in rugby in 1895 between what became rugby league and rugby union arose as a direct result of a dispute over the pretence of a strict enforcement of its amateur status—clubs in Leeds and Bradford were fined after compensating players for missing work, whilst at the same time the Rugby Football Union (RFU) was allowing other players to be paid. Rugby football, despite its origins in the privileged English public schools, was a popular game throughout England by around 1880, including in the large working-class areas of the industrial north. However, as the then-amateur sport became increasingly popular and competitive, attracting large paying crowds, teams in such areas found it difficult to attract and retain good players. This was because physically fit local men needed to both work to earn a wage—limiting the time that they could devote to unpaid sport—and to avoid injuries that might prevent them working in the future. Certain teams faced with these circumstances wanted to pay so-called "broken time" money to their players to compensate them for missing paid work due to their playing commitments, but this contravened the amateur policy of the RFU. Organization Following a lengthy dispute on this point during the early 1890s, representatives of more than 20 prominent northern rugby clubs met in Huddersfield in August 1895 to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU), a breakaway administrative body which would permit payments to be made to players. The NRFU initially adopted established RFU rules for the game itself, but soon introduced a number of changes, most obviously a switch from 15 to 13 players per side. It became the Rugby Football League in 1922, by which time the key differences in the two codes were well established, with the 13-a-side variant becoming known as rugby league. The RFU took strong action against the clubs involved in the formation of the NRFU, all of whom were deemed to have forfeited their amateur status and therefore to have left the RFU. A similar interpretation was applied to all players who played either for or against such clubs, whether or not they themselves received any compensation. Such players were effectively barred sine die from any involvement in organised rugby union. These comprehensive and enduring sanctions, combined with the very localised nature of most rugby competition, meant that most northern clubs had little practical alternative but to affiliate with the NRFU in the first few years of its existence. Rugby football in Britain therefore became subject to a de facto schism along regional—and to some extent class—lines, reflecting the historical origins of the split. Rugby league—in which professionalism was permitted—was predominant in northern England, particularly in industrial areas, and was viewed as a working class game. Rugby union—which remained amateur—was predominant in the rest of England, as well as in Wales and Scotland. Rugby union also had a more affluent reputation, although there are areas—notably in South Wales and in certain English cities such as Gloucester—with a strong working-class rugby union tradition. Discrimination Discrimination against rugby league players could verge on the petty—former Welsh international Fred Perrett was once excluded in lists of players who died in the First World War due to his 'defection' to the league code.Rugby Heroes who went to War BBC Online Matthew Ferris, November 2008 One Member of Parliament, David Hinchliffe, described it as "one of the longest (and daftest) grievances in history" with anyone over the age of 18 associated with rugby league being banned forever from rugby union. Scotland and Wales The Scottish Rugby Union was a particular bastion of amateurism and extreme care was taken to avoid the 'taint' of professionalism: a player rejoining the national team after the end of the Second World War applied to be issued with a new shirt and was reminded that he had been "supplied with a shirt prior to the outbreak of hostilities". In Wales the position was more equivocal with clubs attempting to stem the tide of players "going north" with "boot money". Sometimes payments were substantial. Barry John was once asked why he had not turned professional and responded, "I couldn't afford to." Open union Rugby union was declared "open" in August 1995—almost exactly 100 years after the original split occurred—meaning that professionalism has been permitted in both rugby codes since that date. However, while the professional-amateur divide remained in force, there was originally very limited crossover between the two codes, the most obvious occasions being when top-class rugby union players 'switched codes' to rugby league in order to play professionally. Welsh international Jonathan Davies was a high-profile example of this switch. Since professionalism has been allowed in rugby union the switches have started to come the opposite way. Union has swiftly grown to embrace the professional game with many league players joining union to take a slice of the larger amounts of money available in the sport. Nowadays, while rugby union no longer makes the professional-amateur distinction, the professional-amateur split still exists within rugby league with the British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA) strictly amateur, though it allows some ex-professionals to play provided they are no longer under contract. The most recent club to get a ban for fielding a contracted professional was Brighouse Rangers who were expelled from the National Conference League during 2007–2008 season, and the player handed a sine die ban (though in part for gouging), although the club itself has since been admitted to the Pennine League. Also, some rugby unions have amateur rules, most notably the Argentine Rugby Union, where all member clubs are amateur. The Campeonato Argentino, the national championship for provincial teams, does not include players contracted to the country's Super Rugby side, the Jaguares. Ultimate and disc sports (Frisbee) Australia vs Canada, ultimate players at the 2012 WUGC in Japan. Ultimate Canada Alternative sports, using the flying disc, began in the mid-sixties. As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a Frisbee. What started with a few players, in the sixties, like Victor Malafronte, Z Weyand and Ken Westerfield experimenting with new ways of throwing and catching a Frisbee, later would become known as playing freestyle. Organized disc sports, in the 1970s, began with promotional efforts from Wham-O and Irwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using Frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events. Disc sports such as freestyle, double disc court, guts, disc ultimate and disc golf became this sport's first events. Disc ultimate is a team sport played with a flying disc. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to members of one's own team, on a rectangular field, by , until one has successfully completed a pass to a team member in the opposing team's end zone. There are currently over five million people that play some form of organized ultimate in the US. Ultimate has started to be played semi-professionally with two newly formed leagues, the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) and Major League Ultimate (MLU). The game of guts was invented by the Healy brothers in the 1950s and developed at the International Frisbee Tournament (IFT) in Marquette, Michigan. The game of ultimate, the most widely played disc game, began in the late 1960s with Joel Silver and Jared Kass. In the 1970s it developed as an organized sport with the creation of the Ultimate Players Association with Dan Roddick, Tom Kennedy and Irv Kalb. Double disc court was invented and introduced in the early 1970s by Jim Palmeri. In 1974, freestyle competition was created and introduced by Ken Westerfield and Discrafts Jim Kenner. In 1976, the game of disc golf was standardized with targets called "pole holes" invented and developed by Wham-O's Ed Headrick. Two sports, the team sport of disc ultimate and disc golf are very popular worldwide and are now being played semi professionally. The World Flying Disc Federation, Professional Disc Golf Association, and the Freestyle Players Association, are the official rules and sanctioning organizations for flying disc sports worldwide. High school sports Sports teams commonly exist at the high school level; students who participate, commonly referred to as student athletes, do so during their course of study. Occasionally, sports success in high school sports may lead to a professional career in the field. The benefit of sports in high school is debated; some believe that they promote discipline and teamwork,Naomi Fejgin. "Participation in High School Competitive Sports: A Subversion of School Mission or Contribution to Academic Goals?", Contemporary Issues in Sociology of Sport while others find that they can cause injury. One study on the relationship between high school athletic and academic successes finds that, for the most part, higher participation and success rates in sports is positively related school-wide student successes on academic outcomes such as standardized test scores and educational attainment. The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that student athletes have a 20\% higher chance of completing a college degree, and are more likely to be employed and in better health than non-athletes. However, a survey of high school athletes in 2006 showed that high school athletes are more likely to cheat inside of the classroom than non-athletes, especially boys participating in football, baseball, and basketball and girls participating in softball and basketball. The survey does not indicate to what extent cheating contributes to the greater academic outcomes of high school athletes. In the world of middle school and high school sports, several fees have risen over the last few years making sports more expensive. The term "Pay-to-Play" means that students and their parents must pay a flat fee to participate, and that fee often leaves out the costs of uniforms, transportation, and other team fees. This affects low-income families (those who earn less than $ 60,000 per year) and their ability to participate in the sports.
Edit intent: fluency