Undisputed sports

dictionary.com gives us:

an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

I like the first part of the definition "requiring skill or physical prowess" but I don't like the next part "often of a competitive nature". To me SPORT implies competition. Missing from the enumerated list are other "arena sports" (sports that draw large audiences) like Football, Basketball and Soccer.

Present in the list are items that I don't 100% agree on. (hunting and fishing). And I know people that do not consider golf to be a sport.

Part of the problem is the various meanings of the word sport. Lower down the list of definitions is:

diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime.

Clearly this is what is meant when someone talks about a Sport Utility Vehicle or Sports Car. Here we are using sport to refer to recreation, not specific competitive sport. For the purposes of this discussion I will consider "Sport" to mean "a competitive athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess."

Chess, Poker, Checkers and Scrabble

These are not sports. They are games of skill. They are not physical challenges. I am not auguring that these are easy to play. (although computers can give even the best players a run for the money on all of these) It can take a lot of skill but its not physical. Don't give me any of this "it takes stamina to play poker effectively in a 12 to 15 hour per day tournament." That may be true, but as far as I am concerned, any game that can be won by a fat guy with a beer belly is not a sport.

As far as I am concerned, that settles it.


Only, does the same apply to competitive eating ?

Qualifications for being a sport

What is a sport ?

The basic debate might not be resolvable but it certainly has spirited some debate among my friends. In this initial posting I will setup the basic criteria for later discussion.

Some Ideas:

• A sport must require great Physical effort.

• A sport should also contain some risk of injury.

• A true sport is not judged
  

• A true sport is mainstream
  

• No Machines

• No Animals

• No Weird Stuff

• A Sport must have a winner
  

• A true sport does not suffer Grade Inflation

• Handicapped competitions do not count as sports.
  

In future posts I will attempt to take a look at specific sports and make the case that they should be de-listed as a sport.