title: Turing test

text: Turing thus once again demonstrates his interest in empathy and aesthetic sensitivity as components of an artificial intelligence; and in light of an increasing awareness of the threat from an AI run amok, it has been suggested that this focus perhaps represents a critical intuition on Turing's part, i.e., that emotional and aesthetic intelligence will play a key role in the creation of a "friendly AI". It is further noted, however, that whatever inspiration Turing might be able to lend in this direction depends upon the preservation of his original vision, which is to say, further, that the promulgation of a "standard interpretation" of the Turing test—i.e., one which focuses on a discursive intelligence only—must be regarded with some caution.


title: Turing test

text: Turing did not explicitly state that the Turing test could be used as a measure of "intelligence", or any other human quality. He wanted to provide a clear and understandable alternative to the word "think", which he could then use to reply to criticisms of the possibility of "thinking machines" and to suggest ways that research might move forward. Numerous experts in the field, including cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, insist that the Turing test only shows how easy it is to fool humans and is not an indication of machine intelligence.


title: Turing test

text: Nevertheless, the Turing test has been proposed as a measure of a machine's "ability to think" or its "intelligence". This proposal has received criticism from both philosophers and computer scientists. It assumes that an interrogator can determine if a machine is "thinking" by comparing its behaviour with human behaviour. Every element of this assumption has been questioned: the reliability of the interrogator's judgement, the value of comparing only behaviour and the value of comparing the machine with a human. Because of these and other considerations, some AI researchers have questioned the relevance of the test to their field.


title: Turing test

text: The Turing test does not directly test whether the computer behaves intelligently. It tests only whether the computer behaves like a human being. Since human behaviour and intelligent behaviour are not exactly the same thing, the test can fail to accurately measure intelligence in two ways:


title: Turing test

text: Another well known objection raised towards the Turing Test concerns its exclusive focus on the linguistic behaviour (i.e. it is only a “language-based” experiment, while all the other cognitive faculties are not tested). This drawback downsizes the role of other modality-specific “intelligent abilities” concerning human beings that the psychologist Howard Gardner, in his “multiple intelligence theory”, proposes to consider (verbal-linguistic abilities are only one of those). .


title: Turing test

text: The Turing test is concerned strictly with how the subject "acts" – the external behaviour of the machine. In this regard, it takes a behaviourist or functionalist approach to the study of the mind. The example of ELIZA suggests that a machine passing the test may be able to simulate human conversational behaviour by following a simple (but large) list of mechanical rules, without thinking or having a mind at all.


title: Turing test

text: John Searle has argued that external behaviour cannot be used to determine if a machine is "actually" thinking or merely "simulating thinking." His Chinese room argument is intended to show that, even if the Turing test is a good operational definition of intelligence, it may not indicate that the machine has a mind, consciousness, or intentionality. (Intentionality is a philosophical term for the power of thoughts to be "about" something.)


title: Turing test

text: In practice, the test's results can easily be dominated not by the computer's intelligence, but by the attitudes, skill, or naïveté of the questioner.


title: Turing test

text: Turing does not specify the precise skills and knowledge required by the interrogator in his description of the test, but he did use the term "average interrogator": "[the] average interrogator would not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning".


title: Turing test

text: Chatterbot programs such as ELIZA have repeatedly fooled unsuspecting people into believing that they are communicating with human beings. In these cases, the "interrogators" are not even aware of the possibility that they are interacting with computers. To successfully appear human, there is no need for the machine to have any intelligence whatsoever and only a superficial resemblance to human behaviour is required.


title: Turing test

text: Early Loebner Prize competitions used "unsophisticated" interrogators who were easily fooled by the machines. Since 2004, the Loebner Prize organisers have deployed philosophers, computer scientists, and journalists among the interrogators. Nonetheless, some of these experts have been deceived by the machines.


title: Turing test

text: One interesting feature of the Turing test is the frequency of the confederate effect, when the confederate (tested) humans are misidentified by the interrogators as machines. It has been suggested that what interrogators expect as human responses is not necessarily typical of humans. As a result, some individuals can be categorised as machines. This can therefore work in favour of a competing machine. The humans are instructed to "act themselves", but sometimes their answers are more like what the interrogator expects a machine to say. This raises the question of how to ensure that the humans are motivated to "act human".


title: Turing test

text: A critical aspect of the Turing test is that a machine must give itself away as being a machine by its utterances. An interrogator must then make the "right identification" by correctly identifying the machine as being just that. If however a machine remains silent during a conversation, then it is not possible for an interrogator to accurately identify the machine other than by means of a calculated guess.


title: Turing test

text: Even taking into account a parallel/hidden human as part of the test may not help the situation as humans can often be misidentified as being a machine.


title: Turing test

text: Mainstream AI researchers argue that trying to pass the Turing test is merely a distraction from more fruitful research. Indeed, the Turing test is not an active focus of much academic or commercial effort—as Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig write: "AI researchers have devoted little attention to passing the Turing test." There are several reasons.


title: Turing test

text: First, there are easier ways to test their programs. Most current research in AI-related fields is aimed at modest and specific goals, such as object recognition or logistics. To test the intelligence of the programs that solve these problems, AI researchers simply give them the task directly. Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig suggest an analogy with the history of flight: Planes are tested by how well they fly, not by comparing them to birds. "Aeronautical engineering texts," they write, "do not define the goal of their field as 'making machines that fly so exactly like pigeons that they can fool other pigeons.


title: Turing test

text: Second, creating lifelike simulations of human beings is a difficult problem on its own that does not need to be solved to achieve the basic goals of AI research. Believable human characters may be interesting in a work of art, a game, or a sophisticated user interface, but they are not part of the science of creating intelligent machines, that is, machines that solve problems using intelligence.


title: Turing test

text: Turing did not intend for his idea to be used to test the intelligence of programs — he wanted to provide a clear and understandable example to aid in the discussion of the philosophy of artificial intelligence. John McCarthy argues that we should not be surprised that a philosophical idea turns out to be useless for practical applications. He observes that the philosophy of AI is "unlikely to have any more effect on the practice of AI research than philosophy of science generally has on the practice of science."


title: Turing test

text: Numerous other versions of the Turing test, including those expounded above, have been raised through the years.


title: Turing test

text: A modification of the Turing test wherein the objective of one or more of the roles have been reversed between machines and humans is termed a reverse Turing test. An example is implied in the work of psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, who was particularly fascinated by the "storm" that resulted from the encounter of one mind by another. In his 2000 book, among several other original points with regard to the Turing test, literary scholar Peter Swirski discussed in detail the idea of what he termed the Swirski test—essentially the reverse Turing test. He pointed out that it overcomes most if not all standard objections levelled at the standard version.


title: Turing test

text: Carrying this idea forward, R. D. Hinshelwood described the mind as a "mind recognizing apparatus". The challenge would be for the computer to be able to determine if it were interacting with a human or another computer. This is an extension of the original question that Turing attempted to answer but would, perhaps, offer a high enough standard to define a machine that could "think" in a way that we typically define as characteristically human.


title: Turing test

text: CAPTCHA is a form of reverse Turing test. Before being allowed to perform some action on a website, the user is presented with alphanumerical characters in a distorted graphic image and asked to type them out. This is intended to prevent automated systems from being used to abuse the site. The rationale is that software sufficiently sophisticated to read and reproduce the distorted image accurately does not exist (or is not available to the average user), so any system able to do so is likely to be a human.


title: Turing test

text: Software that could reverse CAPTCHA with some accuracy by analysing patterns in the generating engine started being developed soon after the creation of CAPTCHA.


title: Turing test

text: In 2013, researchers at Vicarious announced that they had developed a system to solve CAPTCHA challenges from Google, Yahoo!, and PayPal up to 90% of the time.


title: Turing test

text: In 2014, Google engineers demonstrated a system that could defeat CAPTCHA challenges with 99.8% accuracy.


title: Turing test

text: In 2015, Shuman Ghosemajumder, former click fraud czar of Google, stated that there were cybercriminal sites that would defeat CAPTCHA challenges for a fee, to enable various forms of fraud.


title: Turing test

text: A further variation is motivated by the concern that modern Natural Language Processing prove to be highly successful in generating text on the basis of a huge text corpus and could eventually pass the Turing test simply by manipulating words and sentences that have been used in the initial training of the model. Since the interrogator has no precise understanding of the training data, the model might simply be returning sentences that exist in similar fashion in the enormous amount of training data. For this reason, Arthur Schwaninger proposes a variation of the Turing test that can distinguish between systems that are only capable of "using" language and systems that "understand" language. He proposes a test in which the machine is confronted with philosophical questions that do not depend on any prior knowledge and yet require self-reflection to be answered appropriately.


title: Turing test

text: Another variation is described as the subject-matter expert Turing test, where a machine's response cannot be distinguished from an expert in a given field. This is also known as a "Feigenbaum test" and was proposed by Edward Feigenbaum in a 2003 paper.


title: Turing test

text: Robert French (1990) makes the case that an interrogator can distinguish human and non-human interlocutors by posing questions that reveal the low-level (i.e., unconscious) processes of human cognition, as studied by cognitive science. Such questions reveal the precise details of the human embodiment of thought and can unmask a computer unless it experiences the world as humans do.


title: Turing test

text: The "Total Turing test" variation of the Turing test, proposed by cognitive scientist Stevan Harnad, adds two further requirements to the traditional Turing test. The interrogator can also test the perceptual abilities of the subject (requiring computer vision) and the subject's ability to manipulate objects (requiring robotics).


title: Turing test

text: A letter published in "Communications of the ACM" describes the concept of generating a synthetic patient population and proposes a variation of Turing test to assess the difference between synthetic and real patients. The letter states: "In the EHR context, though a human physician can readily distinguish between synthetically generated and real live human patients, could a machine be given the intelligence to make such a determination on its own?" and further the letter states: "Before synthetic patient identities become a public health problem, the legitimate EHR market might benefit from applying Turing Test-like techniques to ensure greater data reliability and diagnostic value. Any new techniques must thus consider patients' heterogeneity and are likely to have greater complexity than the Allen eighth-grade-science-test is able to grade."


title: Turing test

text: The minimum intelligent signal test was proposed by Chris McKinstry as "the maximum abstraction of the Turing test", in which only binary responses (true/false or yes/no) are permitted, to focus only on the capacity for thought. It eliminates text chat problems like anthropomorphism bias, and does not require emulation of unintelligent human behaviour, allowing for systems that exceed human intelligence. The questions must each stand on their own, however, making it more like an IQ test than an interrogation. It is typically used to gather statistical data against which the performance of artificial intelligence programs may be measured.


title: Turing test

text: The organisers of the Hutter Prize believe that compressing natural language text is a hard AI problem, equivalent to passing the Turing test.


title: Turing test

text: The data compression test has some advantages over most versions and variations of a Turing test, including:


title: Turing test

text: A related approach to Hutter's prize which appeared much earlier in the late 1990s is the inclusion of compression problems in an extended Turing test. or by tests which are completely derived from Kolmogorov complexity.


title: Turing test

text: Algorithmic IQ, or AIQ for short, is an attempt to convert the theoretical Universal Intelligence Measure from Legg and Hutter (based on Solomonoff's inductive inference) into a working practical test of machine intelligence.


title: Turing test

text: Two major advantages of some of these tests are their applicability to nonhuman intelligences and their absence of a requirement for human testers.


title: Turing test

text: The Turing test inspired the Ebert test proposed in 2011 by film critic Roger Ebert which is a test whether a computer-based synthesised voice has sufficient skill in terms of intonations, inflections, timing and so forth, to make people laugh.


title: Turing test

text: Based on the large diversity of intelligent systems, the Turing test inspired universal metrics should be used, which are able to measure the machine intelligence and compare the systems based on their intelligence. A property of an intelligence metric should be the treating of the aspect of variability in intelligence. Black-box-based intelligence metrics, like the MetrIntPair and MetrIntPairII, are universal since they do not depend on the architecture of the systems whose intelligence they measure. MetrIntPair is an accurate metric that can simultaneously measure and compare the intelligence of two systems. MetrIntPairII is an accurate and robust metric that can simultaneously measure and compare the intelligence of any number of intelligent systems. Both metrics use specific pairwise based intelligence measurements and can classify the studied systems in intelligence classes.


title: Turing test

text: In June 2022 the Google LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications) chatbot received widespread coverage regarding claims about it having achieved sentience. Initially in an article in "The Economist" Google Research Fellow Blaise Agüera y Arcas said the chatbot had demonstrated a degree of understanding of social relationships. Several days later, Google engineer Blake Lemoine claimed in an interview with the "Washington Post" that LaMDA had achieved sentience. Lemoine had been placed on leave by Google for internal assertions to this effect. Agüera y Arcas (a Google Vice President) and Jen Gennai (head of Responsible Innovation) had investigated the claims but dismissed them. Lemoine's assertion was roundly rejected by other experts in the field, pointing out that a language model appearing to mimic human conversation does not indicate that any intelligence is present behind it, despite seeming to pass the Turing test. Widespread discussion from proponents for and against the claim that LaMDA has reached sentience has sparked discussion across social-media platforms, to include defining the meaning of sentience as well as what it means to be human.


title: Turing test

text: 1990 marked the fortieth anniversary of the first publication of Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" paper, and saw renewed interest in the test. Two significant events occurred in that year: the first was the Turing Colloquium, which was held at the University of Sussex in April, and brought together academics and researchers from a wide variety of disciplines to discuss the Turing test in terms of its past, present, and future; the second was the formation of the annual Loebner Prize competition.


title: Turing test

text: Blay Whitby lists four major turning points in the history of the Turing test – the publication of "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in 1950, the announcement of Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA in 1966, Kenneth Colby's creation of PARRY, which was first described in 1972, and the Turing Colloquium in 1990.


title: Turing test

text: In November 2005, the University of Surrey hosted an inaugural one-day meeting of artificial conversational entity developers,


title: Turing test

text: attended by winners of practical Turing tests in the Loebner Prize: Robby Garner, Richard Wallace and Rollo Carpenter. Invited speakers included David Hamill, Hugh Loebner (sponsor of the Loebner Prize) and Huma Shah.


title: Turing test

text: the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour (AISB), hosted a one-day symposium to discuss the Turing test, organised by John Barnden, Mark Bishop, Huma Shah and Kevin Warwick.


title: Turing test

text: The speakers included the Royal Institution's Director Baroness Susan Greenfield, Selmer Bringsjord, Turing's biographer Andrew Hodges, and consciousness scientist Owen Holland. No agreement emerged for a canonical Turing test, though Bringsjord expressed that a sizeable prize would result in the Turing test being passed sooner.


title: Turing test

text: Throughout 2012, a number of major events took place to celebrate Turing's life and scientific impact. The Turing100 group supported these events and also organised a special Turing test event in Bletchley Park on 23 June 2012 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Turing's birth.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace (born November 21, 1983), known professionally as Nikki Bella, is an American professional wrestler and television personality. She is currently signed to WWE as an ambassador.


title: Nikki Bella

text: In 2007, Bella signed with WWE and was assigned to developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) alongside her twin sister Brie Bella, forming the duo The Bella Twins. She made her debut for the "SmackDown" brand in 2008. Nikki Bella is a two-time WWE Divas Champion and holds the record for the longest reign with that title (301 days).


title: Nikki Bella

text: Bella ranked No. 1 in "Pro Wrestling Illustrated"s Female 50 in November 2015, and was named Diva of the Year by "Rolling Stone" in December 2015. She also won the award for Choice Female Athlete alongside her sister at the Teen Choice Awards in 2016.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Born sixteen minutes before her twin sister, Brianna, to parents Jon Garcia and Kathy Colace, Garcia-Colace was born in San Diego, California, and raised on a farm in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona. She is of Mexican and Italian descent. Keen soccer enthusiasts, she along with her twin sister played for the Scottsdale club in elementary school. She graduated from Chaparral High School in 2002. She then returned to San Diego for college where she played soccer for Grossmont College, but relocated to Los Angeles a year later, where she worked as a waitress at the Mondrian Hotel while trying to find an agent.


title: Nikki Bella

text: She then started modeling, acting, and doing promotional work. She made her first national TV appearance on the Fox reality show "Meet My Folks". Following this appearance, the Garcia twins were hired to be the World Cup Twins for Budweiser and were photographed holding the World Cup trophy. Nikki and her sister Brie were contestants in the 2006 "International Body Doubles twins search". Nikki and Brie later participated in the 2006 "WWE Diva Search", but they did not make the cut.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Nicole was signed to a developmental contract with her sister by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in June 2007 and was assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's then-developmental territory, in Tampa, Florida. At a FCW house show on September 15, 2007, Nicole and her twin Brie, called The Bella Twins, made their in-ring debut by defeating Nattie Neidhart and Krissy Vaine with Victoria Crawford as the special guest referee. She quickly started a scripted rivalry with Neidhart and Crawford, competing in a series of matches against them throughout October 2007. As a part of their on-screen personas, she and Brie would switch places behind the referee's back if one of them was hurt. She also occasionally competed in mixed tag team matches, teaming with male wrestlers including Kofi Kingston and Robert Anthony. She also made some non-wrestling appearances on Heath Miller's "Happy Hour" promo segment.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Starting in December 2007, she managed Derrick Linkin, however, the storyline was cut short when Linkin was released in January 2008. She and Brie then resumed their feud with Neidhart and Crawford, wrestling them throughout much of 2008. After Neidhart was called up to the WWE roster in April 2008, Milena Roucka took her place in the feud. Nikki also competed in bikini contests, and wrestled against other competitors including Katie Lea Burchill and Daisy. Nikki's last FCW appearance was on September 2, when she competed in a Divas battle royal won by Miss Angela.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On the August 29, 2008, episode of "SmackDown", Brianna debuted as Brie Bella, defeating Victoria. She quickly began a scripted rivalry with Victoria and Victoria's accomplice, Natalya, and had a series of matches against them. In each match, Brie would roll out of the ring and go underneath it, emerging and appearing revived, and then win the match. On the October 31 episode of "SmackDown", when Brie went under the ring, Victoria grabbed her legs, but a second pair of legs kicked her off, implying that a second person was under the ring. The following week on "SmackDown", Brie defeated Victoria and then ran under the ring to escape Natalya and Victoria, but Victoria and Natalya both reached for Brie under the ring, resulting in both Nicole and Brie being pulled out. The twins then attacked them and celebrated afterward. Nicole was then introduced as Nikki Bella, and the twins had their first official match as a team on the November 21 episode of "SmackDown", defeating Victoria and Natalya. They continued competing in tag team matches over the following months.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Starting in November, the twins developed an on-screen relationship with The Colóns (Carlito and Primo), appearing in numerous backstage segments with them, and accompanying them to the ring. In February 2009, the storyline expanded to include John Morrison and The Miz, who flirted with the Bellas and took them on a date for Valentine's Day. The date provoked a rivalry between the teams of The Miz and Morrison and Primo and Carlito, with the four competing for the affection of the twins, who were seemingly unable to choose between them. On the March 17 episode of "ECW", Carlito and Primo, aiming for Morrison and The Miz, accidentally spat apples in the face of Brie. Nikki began to laugh at Brie's misfortune, and a fight broke out between the two, which led to Nikki leaving with The Miz and Morrison, while Brie stayed with Primo and Carlito, with Nikki turning heel in the process. Brie won her first match over Nikki in a six-person intergender tag team match on "SmackDown" the following week. On the March 31 episode of "ECW", Nikki pinned Brie in their first singles match against each other after a distraction from Morrison and The Miz.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On April 15, 2009, The Bella Twins were both drafted to the Raw brand as part of the 2009 supplemental draft. On April 27, Brie made her "Raw" in-ring debut in an eight-Diva tag team match, which her team won. Nikki also made an appearance, reuniting with her twin as she was under the ring to help Brie during the match, turning face in the process. Nikki then made her in-ring debut for the brand the following month in a battle royal, but was eliminated by Beth Phoenix.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On June 29, 2009, they were both traded to the ECW brand. They debuted on "ECW" the following night as special guests on "The Abraham Washington Show". They developed a storyline feud with Katie Lea Burchill, when Nikki defeated her in a match by switching places with Brie behind the referee's back. The following week on "Superstars", Brie defeated Burchill in similar fashion, and the feud ended in September when Nikki defeated Burchill on "Superstars".


title: Nikki Bella

text: On October 12, the Bellas were traded back to Raw as part of a tri-branded Divas trade, where they predominately appeared in backstage segments with the weekly guest stars and only occasionally competed in matches. On the January 4, 2010, episode of "Raw", Brie participated in a tournament for the vacant WWE Divas Championship, but lost to Maryse in the first round, when a switch resulted in Nikki being pinned. In June 2010, they developed a feud with Jillian Hall, when Brie defeated her after switching places with Nikki. The following week, Nikki defeated Hall after switching with Brie. The feud was exacerbated when the Bellas acted as the special guest referees during one of Hall's matches. During the match, Hall attacked both twins, but lost the match when Nikki made a fast count, allowing her to be pinned by Gail Kim. The next week on "Superstars", the twins defeated Hall and Maryse in a tag team match to end the storyline.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On August 31, The Bella Twins announced they would be part of the all-female third season of "NXT", mentoring Jamie. Jamie was the first rookie Diva eliminated on the October 5 episode of "NXT". In November, the twins began a storyline with Daniel Bryan, when Brie accompanied him to the ring for his match. Following his win, Nikki ran out and the two fought over Bryan's affection, until Bryan broke it up and had them hug each other. They began to manage Bryan and frequently accompanied him to the ring over the next two months. In January 2011, both Bellas turned into villainous characters for the first time in their careers, when they discovered Bryan kissing Gail Kim backstage and assaulted her. They continued to attack Kim, both at the Royal Rumble and on "Raw", and on February 7, they teamed with Melina in a losing effort to Kim, Eve Torres, and Tamina.


title: Nikki Bella

text: The Bellas began feuding with Eve Torres after they appeared as lumberjills during a Divas Championship match between Torres and Natalya on the February 14 episode of "Raw". Following the match, they attacked Torres backstage before Gail Kim and Natalya stopped them. The next week, the twins defeated Torres and Kim in a tag team match. The following week, Nikki won a battle royal to become the number one contender for the Divas Championship, and unsuccessfully challenged Torres for the championship on March 7. On April 11, Nikki helped Brie defeat Torres to win the Divas Championship, marking the first time either twin had held a championship in WWE. Nikki helped Brie once again, this time to successfully defend the championship against Kelly Kelly at Over the Limit, after switching places with Brie. However, Brie lost the championship against Kelly on a special "Power to the People" episode of "Raw" on June 20, ending her reign at 70 days, and failing to regain it on July 17, in a rematch against Kelly at Money in the Bank.


title: Nikki Bella

text: The twins spent the majority of the rest of the year in tag team matches, regularly facing Kelly and Torres. The Bellas began to show friction for the second time since joining WWE in March 2012, after both twins lost to AJ Lee in singles competition. After Brie's match with Lee, Nikki revealed that Brie was rooting for Team Johnny in the 12-man tag team match at WrestleMania XXVIII, whilst Nikki was rooting for Team Teddy, thus furthering their dissension.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On the April 6 episode of "SmackDown", Nikki defeated then Divas Champion Beth Phoenix in a non-title match, after Kelly Kelly distracted Phoenix. On April 23, Nikki defeated Phoenix in a lumberjill match on "Raw" to win the Divas Championship for the first time. Brie lost Nikki's championship to Layla at Extreme Rules after "Twin Magic" failed, ending her Divas Championship reign after only a week. The following night on "Raw", they competed in their last match with the WWE, failing to win back the Divas Championship from Layla in a triple threat match. Later that night, WWE announced on their website that the twins had been fired by Executive Administrator Eve Torres.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On May 1, 2012, the twins appeared at their first independent wrestling show in Newburgh, New York for the promotion Northeast Wrestling. They later appeared for CTWE Pro Wrestling at the "Season Beatings" pay-per-view on December 15, each accompanying a different wrestler to the ring.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On the March 11, 2013, episode of "Raw", The Bella Twins returned to WWE in a backstage segment with Team Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow). On the March 15 episode of "SmackDown", they attacked The Funkadactyls (Cameron and Naomi), and the following week interfered in matches between Team Rhodes Scholars and Brodus Clay and Tensai, but were attacked by The Funkadactyls.<ref name="Raw3/25/13"></ref> The twins made their in–ring return facing and defeating The Funkadactyls on the March 27 episode of "Main Event" after interference from Cody Rhodes,<ref name="MainEvent3/27/13"></ref> and also defeated them on "Raw" five days later.<ref name="Raw4/1/13"></ref> The Bella Twins were scheduled to participate in an eight–person tag team match with Team Rhodes Scholars against Tons of Funk (Clay and Tensai) and The Funkadactyls at WrestleMania 29 on April 7, but the match was canceled due to time restraints, and instead took place the following night on "Raw", where The Bella Twins and Team Rhodes Scholars were defeated. The twins continued their feud with The Funkadactyls, defeating them in standard tag team,<ref name="NXT4/10/13"></ref> and six-Diva tag team matches. In June, Nikki suffered a fractured tibia.Upon the debut of the "Total Divas" reality television program in July, The Bellas returned and started a feud with their co-star on the show, Natalya. Brie and Natalya went on to trade victories in singles competition on "Raw" and at SummerSlam on August 18. The cast of "Total Divas" then transitioned into a scripted feud with Divas Champion AJ Lee, who mocked the show and cast, turning The Bellas faces in the process. Nikki returned to in-ring action on the October 25 episode of "SmackDown", losing to Lee. At Survivor Series on November 24, the twins were part of the victorious Team Total Divas. On the December 9 episode of "Raw", the twins were awarded Slammy Awards for Diva of the Year.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On April 6, 2014, Nikki competed at WrestleMania XXX in the 14-Diva "Vickie Guerrero Invitational match" for the Divas Championship, which was won by the defending champion AJ Lee. The same month, Brie became involved in her real-life husband Daniel Bryan's ongoing storyline with Stephanie McMahon and Kane, where as part of the storyline, McMahon threatened to fire Brie if, an injured, Bryan did not relinquish the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Payback on June 1, which forced Brie to "quit" WWE before slapping McMahon in the face. After Brie quit, McMahon put Nikki in several handicap matches as punishment. After being absent for a month, Brie returned to WWE television, appearing in the crowd on July 21; following a confrontation, McMahon slapped Brie and was subsequently arrested. In order to have Brie drop the "charges", Brie was rehired and received a match against McMahon at SummerSlam.


title: Nikki Bella

text: At the pay-per-view on August 17, Nikki turned heel by attacking Brie, which allowed McMahon to win the match. The next several weeks saw the twins fight in several backstage and in-ring segments, including a cameo appearance from Jerry Springer on "Raw" on September 8. As part of the storyline, McMahon declared Nikki the face of the Divas division and granted her a match at Night of Champions for the Divas Championship on September 21, which she failed to win. Nikki then obtained permission to begin forcing Brie to compete in handicap matches, similar to her punishment at the hands of McMahon, although Brie was able to win them. This led to a match between the twins at Hell in a Cell on October 26, where the loser was forced to become the winner's personal assistant for 30 days, in which Nikki defeated Brie. Five days later on "SmackDown", Nikki won a Halloween costume battle royal to become the number one contender for the Divas Championship.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Nikki received her title match against AJ Lee on November 23 at Survivor Series, which she won with Brie's help to become a two-time Divas Champion. The duo had reconciled at this point, with Brie also turning heel in the process. Nikki then went on to retain her championship in three separate occasions – against Lee in a rematch on December 14, at , against Naomi two days later on "SmackDown", and against Paige at Fastlane on February 22, 2015. Paige and Lee then formed an alliance against the Bellas, which led to a tag team match at WrestleMania 31 on March 29, where Lee and Paige were victorious.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On April 26, after Nikki, with the help of Brie, once again retained her title against Naomi at Extreme Rules a feud started with Naomi aligning with the returning Tamina to even the odds against the Bellas, who began showing more heroic characteristics. This change in character was criticized as "sudden", "randomly", and "for no reason". This led to a tag team match between the two teams at Payback on May 17, where Naomi and Tamina were victorious. At Elimination Chamber on May 31, Nikki retained her title against Naomi and Paige in a triple threat match, with Brie banned from ringside.


title: Nikki Bella

text: In June, The Bella Twins became villains once again by employing "Twin Magic", which helped Nikki retain the title against Paige on the June 1 episode of "Raw" and at Money in the Bank on June 14. During the feud with Paige, Alicia Fox allied with them to form Team Bella.<ref name="Smackdown 6/18/15"></ref> At The Beast in the East on July 4, Nikki retained the title against Paige and Tamina. After weeks of Team Bella outnumbering Paige, Naomi, and Tamina, Stephanie McMahon called for a "revolution" in the WWE Divas division and introduced the debuting Charlotte and Becky Lynch as Paige's allies, while NXT Women's Champion Sasha Banks debuted as an ally to Naomi and Tamina, which led to a brawl between the three teams.<ref name="Raw 7/13/15"></ref> Nikki then lost to Charlotte in a tag team match on the August 3 episode of "Raw", and to Banks on the August 17 episode of "Raw" in a non-title match. The three teams faced off at SummerSlam on August 23 in a three team elimination match, in which Team Bella first eliminated Team B.A.D. before Team PCB won.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On the September 14 episode of "Raw", Nikki defended her title against Charlotte, who pinned Brie after the twins had switched places to win the match; however, since the title cannot change hands by disqualification, Nikki retained the championship, and in the process, became the new longest reigning Divas Champion in history, surpassing AJ Lee's previous record of 295 days. Nikki dropped the championship to Charlotte at Night of Champions on September 20, ending her reign at 301 days, and failed to regain the title in a rematch at Hell in a Cell on October 25.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Shortly after, Nikki went on a hiatus from television due to a neck injury which would require surgery, but returned for one night on December 21, to accept the Slammy Award for Diva of the Year. Nikki made a brief cameo appearance at the WrestleMania 32 event on April 3, 2016, celebrating with Brie after winning a 10-Diva tag team match. In June, Nikki confirmed that she would no longer use her "Rack Attack" maneuver and began training with her sister's husband Daniel Bryan, whom she announced was teaching her a new finishing move. On July 21, she was revealed to be cleared for in-ring competition and continued her training at the WWE Performance Center.


title: Nikki Bella

text: After ten months of inactivity, Bella made a surprise return as a villain at the SummerSlam pay–per–view on August 21, 2016, where she replaced Eva Marie and teamed with Natalya and Alexa Bliss against Becky Lynch, Naomi, and Carmella whom they defeated after Bella pinned Carmella. This sparked a storyline feud between Bella (who was established as part of the SmackDown brand) and Carmella, also re-establishing Bella as a face in the process. Simultaneously with her feud with Carmella, Bella took part in a six–pack elimination challenge to determine the inaugural WWE SmackDown Women's Champion at Backlash on September 11, where she eliminated Natalya but was eliminated by Carmella. Bella eventually gained revenge as she defeated Carmella at No Mercy on October 9 and also at in a no disqualification match on December 4 to end their feud.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Bella then became the team captain of Team SmackDown for the traditional five–on–five elimination match at Survivor Series. However, at the event on November 20, she was replaced by Natalya, after someone attacked her backstage before the match. In December, just after their feud ended, Carmella revealed Natalya as the attacker, who eventually confirmed it with the main reason being Bella's success and Natalya's downfall in the company. Upon the beginning of 2017, both women kept attacking each other, which led to a match at Elimination Chamber on February 12 that ended in a double count–out. In a rematch that took place on the February 21 episode of "SmackDown", Natalya defeated Bella in a falls count anywhere match after Maryse attacked Bella with a lead pipe due to Bella accidentally tripping over her in the backstage make up area during her match with Natalya.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Maryse's attack sparked a feud between the two, which actually involved Bella's real real–life boyfriend John Cena and Maryse's real–life husband, The Miz. This led to a mixed tag team match between the two couples at WrestleMania 33 on April 2, which Cena and Bella won. After the match, Cena legitimately proposed to Bella, which she accepted. On April 4, Bella announced via her Instagram account that she would be taking time off from wrestling.


title: Nikki Bella

text: The Bella Twins made an appearance at the "25th Anniversary of Raw" on January 22, 2018. A few days later, both Nikki and Brie competed in the inaugural women's royal rumble match at the 2018 Royal Rumble on January 28, where Nikki entered at #27, lasting 16 minutes and 30 seconds before she was the last woman eliminated by the eventual winner Asuka. Both twins made an appearance at the SummerSlam pay–per–view on August 19, showing their support for Ronda Rousey in her match with Alexa Bliss.


title: Nikki Bella

text: In September, The Bella Twins returned full-time on "Raw" and feuded with The Riott Squad (Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan), over which they scored victories in various tag team and singles matches. To even the odds, Ronda Rousey aligned with The Bella Twins, and the trio was able to defeat The Riott Squad at Super Show-Down in a six–woman tag team match on October 6. Two days later on the October 8 episode of "Raw", after defeating The Riott Squad in a rematch, Nikki attacked Rousey, with Brie later following suit, turning villainous for the first time since 2015. Later that night, it was announced that Nikki would face Rousey for the Raw Women's Championship in the main event of the first ever all women's pay–per–view, WWE Evolution on October 28 in which she was unsuccessful despite multiple interferences by Brie.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On June 20, 2019, it was announced that a cyst had been found on Bella's brain, ending her in-ring career.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On the February 21, 2020, episode of "SmackDown", it was announced that Nikki and her twin sister Brie would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On the second night of WrestleMania 37 on April 11, 2021, Nikki, along with her sister Brie, appeared together and attacked Bayley, sending her rolling down the ramp.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Despite being retired, on the January 7, 2022, episode of "SmackDown", Nikki was announced as a participant in the women's Royal Rumble match at Royal Rumble. At the namesake event on January 29, she entered at #24, eliminating Alicia Fox and Sarah Logan before she was eliminated by her sister Brie, who was also in the match.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Prior to working with WWE, the twins appeared on "Meet My Folks". Both twins also appeared in the music video for "Right Side of the Bed" by the band Atreyu. They also appeared in the music video for "Na Na" by Trey Songz in 2014. The twins made a guest appearance on the MTV series "Ridiculousness" in October 2012.


title: Nikki Bella

text: The twins guest starred on the television series "Psych", in the 2014 episode "A Nightmare on State Street". Nikki and Brie are part of the main cast for the reality television show "Total Divas", which began airing in July 2013, and star in their own spinoff entitled "Total Bellas". The show premiered on E! on October 5, 2016. Nikki and Brie co-starred in the 2014 independent film "Confessions of a Womanizer", and provided voices for the 2015 movie "". Both twins appeared on the WWE YouTube show "The JBL & Cole Show". She appeared at the Miss USA 2013 pageant as one of the celebrity judges. They appeared at the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards, where they presented the award for Best Female. The twins were both nominated for Choice Female Athlete at the 2015 Teen Choice Awards, an award they would later win at the 2016 ceremony.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On November 21, 2016, Nikki and Brie unveiled their new YouTube channel, "The Bella Twins.” The sisters’ channel features daily fashion, beauty, travel, fitness, relationship, and health videos, along with daily video blogs, created by the twins themselves. On April 2, 2018, The Bella Twins revealed that they were awarded the YouTube Gold Creator Award for reaching 1 million subscribers for their channel.


title: Nikki Bella

text: The Bella Twins appeared in YouTuber Lilly Singh's video "When Someone Tries to Steal Your BFF" on March 2, 2017. On August 21, 2017, Nikki and Brie launched their own wine label called Belle Radici in collaboration with Hill Family Estates and Gauge Branding. On September 6, 2017, Bella was announced as one of the celebrities who would compete on the 25th season of "Dancing with the Stars". She was paired with professional dancer Artem Chigvintsev. She was eliminated on October 30, 2017.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On November 1, 2017, Nikki and Brie launched Birdiebee, a lifestyle intimates and activewear brand. The line includes transitional intimates, activewear, and loungewear aimed at “empowering and educating women through mirroring the twins’ passion for life, strength, women's health and wellness, and fun.”


title: Nikki Bella

text: On March 27, 2019, Nikki and Brie launched their own podcast, "The Bellas Podcast", with the Endeavour Audio network. In 2021, it was relaunched after being acquired by Stitcher, a subsidiary of Sirius XM.


title: Nikki Bella

text: In March 2020, Nikki and Brie released their memoir "Incomparable", which became New York Best Seller.


title: Nikki Bella

text: In 2021, Nikki and Brie launched another wine label called Bonita Bonita Wine. They also launched their own baby gear collection in partnership with Colugo. Nikki and Brie also announced that they joined Colugo as investors and are now creative advisors.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Nikki appeared on "" serving as a judge alongside Simon Cowell and Travis Pastrana. The series premiered on February 21, 2022, and concluded on March 14, 2022.


title: Nikki Bella

text: On October 19, 2022, Blake Shelton announced that Nikki alongside Carson Daly will join Shelton's new bar-inspired game show named "Barmageddon", as Nikki would serve as the host.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Bella has appeared in eleven WWE video games. She made her in-game debut in "WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2010" and appears in "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011", "WWE 12" (DLC), "WWE 13", "WWE 2K14" (DLC), "WWE 2K15", "WWE 2K16", "WWE 2K17" "WWE 2K18", "WWE 2K19", "WWE 2K20," and "WWE 2K Battlegrounds".


title: Nikki Bella

text: In May 2014, Nikki revealed on "Total Divas" that she had married her high school sweetheart at the age of 20; the marriage was annulled three years later.


title: Nikki Bella

text: Nikki began dating John Cena in 2012. The couple became engaged on April 2, 2017, when Cena proposed to her after their mixed tag-team match at WrestleMania 33. On April 15, 2018, the couple called off the engagement and canceled their wedding, which was planned for May 5, 2018.


title: Nikki Bella

text: She has been dating her Season 25 "Dancing with the Stars" partner and Russian dancer Artem Chigvintsev since January 2019. On January 3, 2020, the couple announced their engagement. On January 29, 2020, Nikki announced that she is expecting her first child alongside her twin sister Brie, who announced her own second pregnancy the same day. On June 11, 2020, on the season five finale of "Total Bellas", Nikki announced the baby's sex, a boy. She gave birth to Matteo Artemovich Chigvintsev on July 31, 2020. The couple married on August 26, 2022.


title: Sport

text: Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve participants' physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a "match") is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.


title: Sport

text: Sport is generally recognised as system of activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition. Other organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as "bona fide" sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi, and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.


title: Sport

text: Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.


title: Sport

text: Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.


title: Sport

text: According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013. The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.


title: Sport

text: The word "sport" comes from the Old French "desport" meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".


title: Sport

text: Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise. Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.


title: Sport

text: The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms.


title: Sport

text: The precise definition of what differentiates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF), which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the "de facto" representative of international sport.


title: Sport

text: They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).


title: Sport

text: The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports. Whilst GAISF recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.


title: Sport

text: There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called esports (from "electronic sports"), especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations. According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."


title: Sport

text: There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or GAISF.


title: Sport

text: Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those competed just for fun.


title: Sport

text: In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.


title: Sport

text: In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age). The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by a panel of judges, and therefore subjective. There are many shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where victory is assigned by judges if neither competitor has lost at the end of the match time.


title: Sport

text: Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China as early as 2000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zoorkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills. Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo and jousting. The traditional South Asian sport of kabaddi has been played for thousands of years, potentially as a preparation for hunting.


title: Sport

text: A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.


title: Sport

text: Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought motorised transportation and increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sports people should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.


title: Sport

text: Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.


title: Sport

text: Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.


title: Sport

text: Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure fair play, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.


title: Sport

text: Participants may cheat in order to unfairly increase their chance of winning, or in order to achieve other advantages such as financial gains. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports events creates a motivation for match fixing, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome rather than simply playing to win.


title: Sport

text: The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.


title: Sport

text: All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.


title: Sport

text: Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.


title: Sport

text: Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite increases in female participation during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrolment figures between male and female players in sports-related teams. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics.


title: Sport

text: Certain sports are mixed-gender, allowing (or even requiring) men and women to play on the same team. One example of this is Baseball5, which is the first mixed-gender sport to have been admitted into an Olympic event.


title: Sport

text: Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey. Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.


title: Sport

text: Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by people with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of people with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as "adapted sports". However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for people with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.


title: Sport

text: The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport.


title: Sport

text: Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast media including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view television broadcast. Sports league and tournament are two common arrangements to organize sport teams or individual athletes into competing against each other continuously or periodically.


title: Sport

text: It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain events. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final attracted an estimated audience of 135 million in India alone.


title: Sport

text: In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.


title: Sport

text: Super Bowl Sunday is a "de facto" national holiday in America; the viewership being so great that in 2015, advertising space was reported as being sold at $4.5m for a 30-second slot.


title: Sport

text: Sport can be undertaken on an amateur, professional or semi-professional basis, depending on whether participants are incentivised for participation (usually through payment of a wage or salary). Amateur participation in sport at lower levels is often called "grassroots sport".


title: Sport

text: The popularity of spectator sport as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run into millions of dollars.


title: Sport

text: Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practised a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby. From 1971, Olympic athletes were allowed to receive compensation and sponsorship, and from 1986, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics, with the exceptions of boxing, and wrestling.


title: Sport

text: Technology plays an important part in modern sport. It is a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), and it is used in others to improve performance. Some sports also use it to allow off-field decision making.


title: Sport

text: Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine-tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear. Sports engineering emerged as a discipline in 1998 with an increasing focus not just on materials design but also the use of technology in sport, from analytics and big data to wearable technology. In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules that are set to control the impact of technical advantage between participants. For example, in 2010, full-body, non-textile swimsuits were banned by FINA, as they were enhancing swimmers' performances.


title: Sport

text: The increase in technology has also allowed many decisions in sports matches to be taken, or reviewed, off-field, with another official using instant replays to make decisions. In some sports, players can now challenge decisions made by officials. In Association football, goal-line technology makes decisions on whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not. The technology is not compulsory, but was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada, as well as in the Premier League from 2013–14, and the Bundesliga from 2015–16. In the NFL, a referee can ask for a review from the replay booth, or a head coach can issue a challenge to review the play using replays. The final decision rests with the referee. A video referee (commonly known as a Television Match Official or TMO) can also use replays to help decision-making in rugby (both league and union). In international cricket, an umpire can ask the Third umpire for a decision, and the third umpire makes the final decision. Since 2008, a decision review system for players to review decisions has been introduced and used in ICC-run tournaments, and optionally in other matches. Depending on the host broadcaster, a number of different technologies are used during an umpire or player review, including instant replays, Hawk-Eye, Hot Spot and Real Time Snickometer. Hawk-Eye is also used in tennis to challenge umpiring decisions.


title: Sport

text: Research suggests that sports have the capacity to connect youth to positive adult role models and provide positive development opportunities, as well as promote the learning and application of life skills. In recent years the use of sport to reduce crime, as well as to prevent violent extremism and radicalization, has become more widespread, especially as a tool to improve self-esteem, enhance social bonds and provide participants with a feeling of purpose.


title: Sport

text: There is no high-quality evidence that shows the effectiveness of interventions to increase sports participation of the community in sports such as mass media campaigns, educational sessions, and policy changes. There is also no high-quality studies that investigate the effect of such interventions in promoting healthy behavior change in the community.


title: Sport

text: Benito Mussolini used the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Italy, to showcase Fascist Italy. Adolf Hitler also used the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, and the 1936 Winter Olympics held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to promote the Nazi ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other "undesirables". Germany used the Olympics to give off a peaceful image while secretly preparing for war.


title: Sport

text: When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.


title: Sport

text: In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported Association football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42, is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.


title: Sport

text: Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.


title: Sport

text: Sport and politics collided in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli Olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.


title: Sport

text: A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses. Also, when Washington Redskins win their final game before an election, then the incumbent President is more likely to win, and if the Redskins lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the Redskins Rule.


title: Sport

text: Étienne de La Boétie, in his essay "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them.


title: Sport

text: Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvellous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.


title: Sport

text: During the British rule of Bengal, British and European sports began to supplant traditional Bengali sports, resulting in a loss of native culture.


title: Sport

text: Sport was an important form of worship in Ancient Greek religion. The ancient Olympic Games were held in honour of the head deity, Zeus, and featured various forms of religious dedication to him and other gods. As many Greeks travelled to see the games, this combination of religion and sport also served as a way of uniting them.


title: Sport

text: The practice of athletic competitions has been criticised by some Christian thinkers as a form of idolatry, in which "human beings extol themselves, adore themselves, sacrifice themselves and reward themselves." Sports are seen by these critics as a manifestation of "collective pride" and "national self-deification" in which feats of human power are idolized at the expense of divine worship.


title: Sport

text: Tertullian condemns the athletic performances of his day, insisting "the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry." The shows, says Tertullian, excite passions foreign to the calm temperament cultivated by the Christian:


title: Sport

text: God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness and sensitiveness. ... Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them – the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.


title: Sport

text: Christian clerics in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement oppose the viewing of or participation in professional sports, believing that professional sports leagues profane the Sabbath as in the modern era, certain associations hold games on the Lord's Day. They also criticize professional sports for its fostering of a commitment that competes with a Christian's primary commitment to God in opposition to , what they perceive to be a lack of modesty in the players' and cheerleaders' uniforms (which are not in conformity with the Methodistic doctrine of outward holiness), its association with violence in opposition to , what they perceive to be the extensive use of profanity among many players that contravenes , and the frequent presence of gambling, as well as alcohol and other drugs at sporting events, which go against a commitment to teetotalism.


title: Gary Neville

text: Gary Alexander Neville (born 18 February 1975) is an English football pundit and former player. He is also a co-owner of English Football League club Salford City. After retiring from football in 2011, Neville went into punditry and was a commentator for Sky Sports, until he took over the head coach position at Valencia in 2015. After being sacked by the club in 2016, he returned to his position as a pundit for Sky Sports later that year. He was also assistant manager for the England national team from 2012 to 2016.


title: Gary Neville

text: As a player, Neville played as a right-back and spent his entire playing career with Manchester United, making him a one-club man. At the time of his retirement in 2011, he was the second-longest-serving player at the club behind long-time teammate Ryan Giggs, and had served as club captain for five years. He is one of the most decorated English and European footballers of all time, having won a total of 20 trophies, including eight Premier League titles and two Champions League titles.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville made his international debut in 1995 and was first-choice right-back for England for more than 10 years, representing the nation at three European Championships and two World Cups. He is England's most-capped right-back with 85 caps.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville is the older brother of twin siblings: his brother, Phil Neville, is currently head coach of Inter Miami CF in MLS and is a former player for Manchester United and Everton, and his sister, Tracey Neville, is a retired netball international.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville joined Manchester United as an apprentice upon leaving school in 1991, and captained the youth side to FA Youth Cup glory in his first season. He made his senior debut for United in September 1992 against Torpedo Moscow in the UEFA Cup. Neville emerged as part of Alex Ferguson's youth-oriented side of the 1990s (nicknamed "Fergie's Fledglings", an updated take on the 1950s equivalent "Busby Babes") that included his brother Phil, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes.


title: Gary Neville

text: In the 1994–95 season, Neville became United's first-choice right-back when Paul Parker was ruled out by injury, and remained so until his retirement, although in his first season as a regular player he often found himself on the sidelines as Denis Irwin was switched to right-back with Lee Sharpe (normally a winger) filling the left-back role.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville scored the first goal of his career in 1997 against Middlesbrough in a 3–3 draw, and he went on to score a total of five league goals for United; against Everton in 1999, Aston Villa in a 2–0 victory on 20 January 2001, the sole goal against Leicester City on 13 April 2004, and his final league goal came a week later when he scored the second in a 2–0 victory over Charlton Athletic on 20 April 2004. Neville also scored two goals in the UEFA Champions League, the first on 12 March 2003, when he scored the equaliser in a 1–1 draw with FC Basel, and his seventh and final ever United goal against Lyon on 23 November 2004 in Alex Ferguson's 1,000th game in charge of the club, a 2–1 victory.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville formed a successful partnership with Beckham on the right wing, regularly contributing assists.


title: Gary Neville

text: In January 2005, Neville was critical of Nike for starting anti-racism campaign Stand Up Speak Up, accusing them of being involved for good public relations. Neville made the comments after refusing to wear a training top bearing the logo ahead of a fixture against rivals Arsenal. Writing in "The Independent", journalist Sam Wallace said Neville's refusal, as well as that of teammates Scholes and captain Roy Keane, caused friction between the two teams before the match.


title: Gary Neville

text: Following Keane's departure in November 2005, Neville was appointed the new club captain. In January 2006, his actions were the subject of some controversy after his celebration in front of the visiting Liverpool fans at Old Trafford, when he was seen to run from the halfway line towards the opposing fans to celebrate the 90th minute injury-time winning headed goal by United defender Rio Ferdinand. His actions were criticised by Liverpool and fellow England defender Jamie Carragher, sections of the media and police who blamed him for disturbances between fans after the game. He was subsequently charged with improper conduct by the FA. Neville contested this, asking if it was preferable for players to act like "robots" and show no emotions. He was fined £5,000 and warned about his future conduct.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville recovered from an injury suffered against Bolton Wanderers in March 2007 and in his first match back, a reserve game against Everton in January 2008, he scored a rare goal in the 21st minute of the game which helped Manchester United to a 2–2 draw.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 9 April 2008, Neville made his long-awaited comeback against Roma in the UEFA Champions League quarter-final second leg at Old Trafford, coming on as an 81st-minute substitute for Anderson; Neville was welcomed back to the pitch with a standing ovation, and was promptly given the captain's armband. It was Neville's 99th Champions League appearance. However, he was not selected for the European Cup final squad on 21 May, though he did join in with the post-match celebrations after United won on penalties following a 1–1 draw with Chelsea. Instead, Rio Ferdinand and Giggs lifted the trophy together having shared the captaincy during Neville's absence.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville started his first game in 17 months when he captained Manchester United for the 2008 FA Community Shield against Portsmouth on 10 August 2008. He then made another start against Zenit Saint Petersburg in the UEFA Super Cup, before making his first start at home since his injury against Villarreal in the opening group game of the 2008–09 Champions League. On 21 September 2008, Neville started his first league game in almost 18 months when he played against Chelsea. Neville extended his stay at Old Trafford until June 2010.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 27 October 2009, Neville was sent off for a tackle on Adam Hammill in United's 2–0 away win against Barnsley in the League Cup Fourth Round. Neville added another medal to his honours list on 28 February 2010 when he came on as a substitute for Rafael in the 2–1 League Cup final win over Aston Villa. He did feature in enough league games to qualify for what would have been his ninth title medal, but United were beaten to the Premier League title by Chelsea who finished ahead of them by a single point. Neville signed a new one-year contract in April 2010.


title: Gary Neville

text: Having made only sporadic appearances in the last couple of seasons, Neville stepped down as team captain in September 2010 in preference of a more-regular first-team player, usually Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidić or Patrice Evra, although he remained as club captain off the pitch. On 24 October, Neville made his 600th appearance and his penultimate start for United in a 2–1 away victory against Stoke City; after receiving a 34th minute yellow card for a foul against Matthew Etherington, Neville was shown leniency seven minutes later for another reckless tackle on the same player, and was substituted at half-time for Wes Brown.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 2 February 2011, Neville announced his retirement from football after almost 20 years playing at Manchester United. Neville's final professional appearance was against West Bromwich Albion on New Year's Day 2011, a 2–1 victory at The Hawthorns. Neville later revealed that, during half-time of his last game, he sat on the toilet and knew for certain that it would be his last game. By the time of his retirement, Neville had won eight Premier League titles, three FA Cups, two Champions Leagues, an Intercontinental Cup, a FIFA Club World Cup, and two League Cups. The 2006 League Cup was his first trophy as captain.


title: Gary Neville

text: His testimonial was played at Old Trafford against Juventus on 24 May 2011. Manchester United's starting line-up included members of the "Class of '92": Neville was joined by his brother Phil, Beckham, Butt, Scholes and Giggs. Juventus won the match 2–1. He made another appearance in Paul Scholes' testimonial at Old Trafford on 5 August 2011, playing for the New York Cosmos in their first fixture since their re-establishment in 2010.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville made his first appearance for England in 1995 when he was picked by Terry Venables for the friendly against Japan. On 23 May 1996, he was joined in the England team by his brother Phil Neville for a match against China; they had also appeared together in the 1996 FA Cup Final two weeks earlier and thus were the first pair of brothers to play together in an FA Cup-winning side and for England in the same season since Hubert and Francis Heron in 1877, 119 years earlier.


title: Gary Neville

text: He was subsequently selected at right-back for his country by five different coaches. The form of Manchester City's Micah Richards, Liverpool's Glen Johnson and Neville's Manchester United teammate Wes Brown placed his position in the England team under threat in the latter years of his career.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville had been the youngest first-choice player in the England first team during his debut tournament, Euro 96, playing in each game until the semi-final, for which he was suspended after receiving a yellow card in two separate games. England were knocked out by the eventual winners, Germany, in a penalty shootout. In June 1997, he participated in the Tournoi de France, the friendly international football tournament held in France as a warm-up to the 1998 FIFA World Cup. He also played in the 1998 World Cup under the tenure of Glenn Hoddle as manager. As "a bit of a sceptic", Neville did not see Eileen Drewery, the faith healer Hoddle had brought into the England squad. Neville also played at Euro 2000 during the tenure of Kevin Keegan as manager.


title: Gary Neville

text: A broken foot ruled Neville out of the 2002 World Cup, but he quickly returned to the side after regaining his fitness, and was once again the first-choice right-back by the time of Euro 2004, with the team now being managed by Sven-Göran Eriksson.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville missed the latter stages of the qualification campaign for the 2006 World Cup with injury. He returned to the England team in March 2006 for a friendly against Uruguay. Neville was selected for England's 2006 World Cup squad. He played in England's opening Group B game against Paraguay but pulled his calf in training the night before the team's second game and was forced to miss the next three games until playing the full match in England's losing quarter-final against Portugal on 1 July. It was his 81st England cap, bringing him up to ninth in the all-time rankings, ahead of Gary Lineker and teammate Michael Owen, who had briefly drawn level with Neville during the World Cup.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville briefly took over the England captaincy during this game after the substitution of David Beckham due to an injury shortly after half-time, despite the previous match's deputy captain John Terry also being on the field.


title: Gary Neville

text: After the defeat to Portugal, Neville announced that he would continue to be available for selection for his country under new coach Steve McClaren and added that, unlike some former international teammates, he would not ever make the decision to retire from the England set-up, saying, "That decision is not Gary Neville's to make". As one of three club captains (along with Terry and Steven Gerrard) in the first-choice England line-up, he was mentioned as a contender for the England captaincy vacated by Beckham after elimination from the World Cup. However, Terry was given the job and Steven Gerrard made vice-captain.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 11 October, Neville was involved in a game-changing incident during a Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia when his straightforward backpass took an unfortunate bounce and caused goalkeeper Paul Robinson to miss his kick, which resulted in the ball ending up in the net. Although Robinson was at the centre of the moment, Neville was officially credited with an own goal, the second of his England career; he has scored no goals for England.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 7 February 2007, Neville won his 85th cap in England's 1–0 friendly defeat to Spain. His appearance took him to within one cap of equalling Sansom's record for an England full-back, and eighth in the all-time appearances list for his country. However, an ankle injury suffered on 17 March 2007 while playing for Manchester United robbed him of the chance to equal Sansom's record, as he was forced to miss the Euro 2008 qualifiers against Israel and Andorra on 24 March and 28 respectively. Surgery on his ankle ruled him out of two summer matches at the new Wembley Stadium, and then a calf muscle injury delayed his recovery in the autumn. These injury problems together with a perceived decline in ability threatened to put an end to Neville's international playing career.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 24 May 2009, Neville was given a surprise recall to the England squad by Fabio Capello for the World Cup qualifiers against Kazakhstan and Andorra, but did not feature in any of these games.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville wrote in his autobiography that, at times, he had reflected on his international career and thought sometimes that it was "a massive waste of time", and that success with United was "always the most important thing".


title: Gary Neville

text: An experienced and dedicated footballer, regarded as one of England's greatest right-backs, and as one of the best Premier League full-backs of his generation, Gary Neville was an aggressive, tenacious, and hard-tackling player, known for his work-rate, professionalism, determination, and consistency as a defender; due to his positional sense, he was also capable of playing as a centre-back on occasion. Although he was not the quickest, tallest, strongest, most talented or most technically gifted player, he was a reliable, traditional defensive-minded right-back, known in particular for his tactical intelligence and ability to read the game, as well as his stamina, work-ethic, authoritative presence on the pitch, and leadership, which enabled him to excel in this role; as such, he has been described as an "old-fashioned" defender, due to his combative playing style. During his career, Neville also formed a notable partnership with David Beckham down the right flank at Manchester United: he would often carry up the ball, lay it off to his teammate, and subsequently make overlapping runs to advance into more offensive positions, from which he could receive passes and deliver accurate crosses, providing an additional attacking threat to his team when Beckham was heavily marked. A vocal presence on the pitch and an opinionated dressing room personality, Neville also drew controversy throughout his career for his outspokenness and tendency to be involved in conflicts with opponents. His former manager, Ferguson, once described him as "the best English right-back of his generation".


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville, who holds UEFA Pro Coaching Licences, was appointed to the England senior team coaching staff by newly appointed manager Roy Hodgson on 14 May 2012 along with Ray Lewington and goalkeeping coach Dave Watson, signing a four-year contract with the FA. This saw him on the coaching team for Euro 2012, and was met with the backing of former England and Manchester United teammate David Beckham, who called his appointment a "shrewd move". Neville continued to work as assistant manager of England through the 2014 World Cup and subsequent Euro 2016 qualifying campaign.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville was appointed as head coach at Valencia in Spain on 2 December 2015. Neville's brother Phil had previously been caretaker manager and continued to work with his brother at the club; Neville also retained his England assistant coaching role while at Valencia. The decision to hire Neville was met with much surprise in Spain, due to his lack of prior experience, and as he was not fluent in Spanish. On 9 December, Neville managed his first game in charge of Valencia, suffering a 2–0 defeat against Lyon in the Champions League; as a result, Valencia crashed out of the tournament, finishing third in their group, and were relegated to the UEFA Europa League.


title: Gary Neville

text: On 3 February 2016, Valencia lost 7–0 away to Barcelona in the first leg of the semi-final of the Copa del Rey. This came after the team had gone eight games without a victory in La Liga since Neville took over, leading to criticism from the press as well as the club's fans, who called for him to resign. A week later, Valencia were eliminated from the tournament after a 1–1 draw in the return leg.


title: Gary Neville

text: Having started with a sequence of nine winless league matches, Valencia recorded their first win under Neville in a 2–1 victory at home against Espanyol on 13 February 2016. On 17 March, in the return leg of Valencia's UEFA Europa League round of 16 tie, Neville was sent off for protesting against Athletic Bilbao's goal to the officials; although Valencia won the match 2–1 at home, they were eliminated from the tournament on away goals, following a 2–2 draw on aggregate. On 30 March 2016, Neville was sacked by the club. At the time of his sacking, Valencia were 14th in the league, only six points clear of the relegation zone, and had won only three of their 16 league games under Neville, also failing to keep a single clean sheet.


title: Gary Neville

text: In 2014, it was announced that Neville, along with fellow Manchester United legends Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Phil Neville, had agreed to a deal to purchase Salford City ahead of the 2014–15 season, with plans to get the club to The Football League. The group announced they would take part in a special friendly, with Salford facing a Class of '92 team. On 22 September, the group agreed to sell a 50% stake in the club to billionaire Peter Lim. Salford obtained promotion in their first season, as documented in the "Class of 92" television programme for the BBC.


title: Gary Neville

text: Ahead of his testimonial in 2011, Neville revealed he would spend the proceeds towards a supporters club and hotel near Old Trafford. Despite objections from Manchester United, Neville's plans were approved in 2012. In 2013, Neville and Ryan Giggs launched a hospitality company named GG Hospitality, with plans to build football-themed hotels and cafés around the United Kingdom, initially in Manchester and London. The first operation was a football-themed restaurant named Café Football in Stratford, London, which opened in November 2013, with Hotel Football, previously under the guise of the supporters club Neville announced in 2011, scheduled to be opened in late 2014.


title: Gary Neville

text: In 2015, Neville and Ryan Giggs gained planning permission for a second Manchester hotel which will not be football themed. The pair will be redeveloping Manchester's former stock exchange building into a boutique hotel. Giggs and Neville bought the 1906-built Northern Stock Exchange Building for £1.5 million in 2013. The Grade II-listed building is on 4 Norfolk Street and will have 35 beds, a gym, spa, roof-top terrace, restaurant and bar. Zerum, Gary Neville's property consultancy, acted as agents for the application for planning permission.


title: Gary Neville

text: Along with other United players who won the 1992 FA Youth Cup, Neville founded a higher education institution in Greater Manchester, named University Academy 92 which offers "broader courses than traditional degrees" and aims to attract students who "otherwise might not go on to higher education". It opened in September 2019 in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester. As of August 2022, it has 400 students.


title: Gary Neville

text: In January 2022, it was announced that construction had begun on the £120 million St Michael's redevelopment project in Manchester city centre. The development will feature "a new public space (St Michael's Square), 191 hotel rooms, 181 apartments and a rooftop restaurant capable of hosting 900 guests".


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville wrote a weekly full-page column in the Sports section of "The Sunday Times of Malta", the widest circulating newspaper in the country, which is home to the oldest recognised Manchester United Supporters' Club. He joined Sky Sports at the start of the 2011–12 season, taking over as match analyst on "Monday Night Football" from Andy Gray alongside Jamie Redknapp. Neville had previously done some punditry work for ITV Sport during the 2002 World Cup, which he missed due to injury, and for Euro 2008, which England did not qualify for. In 2014, he began presenting Sky Sports' "Monday Night Football" with broadcaster Ed Chamberlin. Former England teammate and retired Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher joined a year later. Neville and Carragher have been praised for their analysis, with their former on-field rivalry adding to their personalities on-air. His commentary for a Fernando Torres goal for Chelsea against Barcelona in the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League semi-finals second leg garnered notoriety and was dubbed a "Goalgasm". On 8 August 2014, "The Daily Telegraph" announced that Neville would be joining their staff as a columnist.


title: Gary Neville

text: In taking his managerial job at Valencia in December 2015, Neville quit his position as a regular Sky Sports pundit after four years in the job. After being sacked from the club during the 2015–16 season after only four months, in 2016, Neville returned to his position as a pundit for Sky Sports for the 2016–17 season. Neville participated as a pundit in ITV's coverage of 2018 FIFA World Cup. and in the 2020 UEFA European Championship. In 2021, Neville started his own YouTube channel, named The Overlap, on which he interviews figures from the world of sport.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville has regularly been praised for his well-researched and neutral analysis, and he is now regarded as one of the best football pundits on British television, with Gary Lineker admitting he would like to work with Neville on "Match of the Day", and Des Lynam also praising his switch from player to pundit. Neville, however, has also received criticism from some in the sport for being overly opinionated or excessively harsh in his analyses; in 2011, Chelsea manager André Villas-Boas spoke out against comments Neville had made about Chelsea during a period of poor form, accusing him of being "biased", while in 2016, Hernán Crespo was critical both of Neville's punditry and his tenure as Valencia's manager, stating, "To watch a game from the TV, it's very different than from the bench. I'm almost happy for Gary Neville's troubles at Valencia. I remember he was too harsh as a TV pundit."


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville has spoken out publicly against the dominance of foreign players in the Premier League. In 2013, he said: "We have reached a tipping point. You have Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid and Lionel Messi at Barcelona but in the Spanish league 63 per cent of their players are still Spanish. That sounds about right. We've gone too far in England. We're maybe 20 per cent off. We need to give chances to our own." In July 2018, Neville was interviewed by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee about the proposed sale of Wembley Stadium. Neville described it as a "short-term plan we'll regret forever". He suggested taking a 25% cut of agents' fees to fund grassroots football instead.


title: Gary Neville

text: In 2021, when reports emerged that a number of European clubs (including six Premier League clubs) were breaking away from the European football pyramid system to form a European Super League without meritocratic relegation and promotion, Neville publicly opposed the plans. Shortly thereafter, the European Super League collapsed amid a strong backlash. Two weeks later, Neville expressed support for Anti-Glazer protests, which occurred in light of the attempted creation of the European Super League, and is part of a movement dating back to 2005.


title: Gary Neville

text: Neville's father, Neville Neville, was a former league cricketer. His mother Jill used to play netball in the local leagues, and is general manager and club secretary for Football League club Bury.