But the interesting split comes when you look at individual sports.
The real split comes in the 20th century after the slaughter of WWI.
The potential split comes even as a phone-hacking investigation continues to cloud News Corporation's newspaper business in Britain.
The split comes in the run-up to the party conference, where tensions now seem set to become public.
After every high-profile split comes a deluge of affair rumours, spurious cheating reports and over-analysis on where it all went wrong.
The announcement that R.B.S. would not be split comes a day after publication of a letter from the British business secretary, Vince Cable, in which he called for the breakup of R.B.S.
Every craving you ever had to devour a banana split comes raging through the memory circuits, making you want to clutch the svelte Cosmo digital mobile phone, designed by Trium for Mitsubishi.
Though there were smiles as Lewis shook hands with chief executive Murdoch MacLennan and is reported to have said: "You've done the right thing, Murdoch", the split comes after months of frustration on both sides.
His 2002 album with the affable Paul Wall, "Get Ya Mind Correct" (Paid in Full), was an underground hit; now, after an acrimonious split, comes "The Sound of Revenge," a puzzlingly dull CD that never quite gets going.
