Lukashchuk V. The Formation and the Development of Sports Industry: Sociological Approach.

Object: the sports industry. Aim: working out of the conception of the sports industry as a social system, revealing of specificity of it formation and features of functioning in a modern society. Methods of research: the analysis and synthesis, the typologization, the comparative analysis, the system analysis, the focused group interviews, the content-analysis, the participant observation, the secondary analysis of sociological data, methods of statistical analysis. Theoretical and practical results: the integral methodology of research of the sports industry as social system is developed, that gives possibilities to optimise social relations both in this social system, and behind its borders. Novelty: the social factors of sports transformation are defined and characterised, the conception of the sports industry as a social system is developed. Degree of implementation: the main results of the research are applied in educational process in the sociological department of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv national university, where the author has teaching the course "Sociology of sport". The offered in the work positions and methodology can be used also in preparing of teaching courses: sociology of the body, sociology of leisure, sociology of deviant behaviour, on marketing and management, etc., and also for creation of manuals at the specified courses.