This article investigates social entrepreneurship in relation to government state policies in Sweden and to the Swedish sports movement. Social entrepreneurship within sport comprises three elements that need to be qualified: the social element, entrepreneurship and sport. We wish to offer both a specific and a wider definition of social entrepreneurship in sport; specific in the sense that we try to define the concept theoretically, and wider in that we place the concept in a societal context where we relate it to different sectors in society. The method can be described as ethnographically inspired case studies. Four cases are presented. Previous research and the cases have helped us to formulate theses concerning ‘sport’ and ‘profit’ as means for social entrepreneurship, ‘social’ being normatively defined in the public sector, and entrepreneurial activities being understood as acts, crossing boundaries between the different sectors of society, leading to conflicts.