# What is the difference between a Game & a Sport? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 16, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718 "2006-02-16T00:07:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/21 "2006-02-17T03:28:40Z")
I’d agree with the “defence” rule except that racing, track & field, and the like are most definitely sports. I’m reminded of a comic strip: Patient in what is labeled as a “Sports Clinic” Patient has a chess piece lodged in his nose. Doctor says: “We’ve decided not to treat you because chess is a game, not a sport.” …and Anthony Edwards line from Revenge of the Nerds II. ---
**Author:** ![\_Ava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/43a26b/32.png) [@\_Ava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Ava)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/22 "2006-02-17T04:36:00Z")
I don’t know, but during the Westminster Dog Show this week, they kept saying that it’s the second oldest sporting event. And every single time, I thought, “showing dogs is a sport?” ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/23 "2006-02-17T06:26:11Z")
> [@\*Ava\*](#): > > I don’t know, but during the Westminster Dog Show this week, they kept saying that it’s the second oldest sporting event. And every single time, I thought, “showing dogs is a sport?” I’ve seen some handlers for whom just running the dogs a few feet is intense physical exertion. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/24 "2006-02-17T14:48:35Z")
I’m reminded of the cartoon showing four old, fat, bald guys on the golf course, in appropriately tacky clothing. One says “It is a sport, therefore we are athletes.” ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/25 "2006-02-17T16:05:45Z")
> [@\*Ava\*](#): > > I don’t know, but during the Westminster Dog Show this week, they kept saying that it’s the second oldest sporting event. And every single time, I thought, “showing dogs is a sport?” I think this is another subtle linguistic delineation of the word “sport”. Whereas, “Sporting” seems to be a catch all and denotes the less strictly defined non-team sports. For example, hunting and fishing are sporting, but perhaps not strictly sports. [From the etymology dictionary: Sporting “characterized by conduct constant with that of a sportsman” is attested from 1799 (e.g. sporting chance, 1897).](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sport) ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/26 "2006-02-17T18:30:38Z")
**Martin Hyde** nailed it perfectly. Sports are organized head to head strategic competitions with active, physical defense employed by the opponent, and are purely human-powered. If you don’t exert yourself, you’re playing a game, not a sport. If determining the winner involves going to the judges, or the humans involved don’t supply all the energy, it is a competition, not a sport. Boxing is usually brought up as the counter to the judging qualifier, but sports are “played”. Nobody ever “plays” boxing. The fighting arts are just that: arts. Not sports. Tennis involves athleticism, active defense, is organized, etc…, so it easily qualifies as a sport. Golf, OTOH, is a game. All races are competitions. Auto and horse racing could only be considered sports from the point of view of the cars and horses. For the humans involved, they are competitions. Similar with those new-fangled snowboarder and skier cross events, where the riders can tangle. Gravity is supplying the energy, thus they are competitions, not sports. Don’t get hung up by the fact that you heard somebody (even in a position of authority) describing something as a sport. ESPN will tell you NASCAR and poker are sports. This has as much credibility as the people who claim intelligent design is a theory. The word “sport” has been bastardized about the same amount as the word “theory” has been. Don’t be fooled by the marching band geeks who wear letter jackets for walking while playing an instrument. A letter jacket does not a sport make. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/27 "2006-02-17T21:51:01Z")
I once thought of a definition that would divide games and sports: games are competitions that have moves that you are automatically permitted to do within the rules; sports are games in which you must attempt to execute your permitted moves successfully with your body. That is to say, games like Sorry, Monopoly, chess, backgammon, poker, roulette, and others permit you to roll the dice, discard, draw cards, and so on: you don’t need to successfully shoot a basket or flip the card into a slot or hit a curveball _before_ you do those things; you just say “I’m drawing a card” and you do. If you had to perform some physical action to qualify for the right to those moves, then they’d be sports. It hasn’t had much scrutiny as a definition so there might be holes in it. It definitely throws some funny kinks in. For instance, under my definition, tiddlywinks would be a sport. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/28 "2006-02-18T00:38:45Z")
> [@soulmurk](#): > > ”It’s not a sport if you can do it drunk.” > [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > ”Rough guide: if you can smoke while playing, it’s a game.” > [@Martin Hyde](#): > > …“A sport is any type of organized athletic competition in which defense is employed.” To which I would add: “If the average Joe plans to retire and spent as much time as possible playing, it is not a sport.” In my book golf doesn’t qualify as a sport ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/29 "2006-02-18T00:59:20Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > “A sport is any type of organized athletic competition in which defense is employed.” So would you consider curling to be a sport? Because it seems to fit your definition. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/30 "2006-02-18T01:37:24Z")
> [@jwalter](#): > > When I get off track, especially for enduros, I’m exhausted. Anywhere from 2hrs to shared track time up to 24 hrs. F1 drivers need an impressive physique to compensate for high g loads that would snap most people in half. To be at the pointy end of the grid, you have to have a good deal of muscle control and stamina. > > At the pinacle of racing, F1, WRC, Moto-GP, etc, physical strength, (some) agility, and lots of stamina are required. An argument for Enduro races (and their like) could be made, but not Formula-1/NASCAR. By using those traits as qualifiers to define athleticism, then all astronauts are athletes, and NASCAR would be the farm league of the Cape Canaveral Astronauts (who haven’t won a race since '69). Perhaps instead of auto-racing being disqualified entirely, it should be amended to disqualify only those races taking place on more than 3 wheels. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/31 "2006-02-19T06:11:23Z")
> [@soulmurk](#): > > Thus, by failing one or more of the rules: auto racing, bowling, 100-yard dashes (and their ilk), hunting/fishing, golf, billiards, darts and **curling** (to name a few) are not sports. What? curling not a sport?? let’s go through your list. > [@soulmurk](#): > > A sport requires athleticism, whereas a game only requires physical effort (if even that). You try sweeping your guts out, while sliding sideways down a length of ice on a piece of teflon, 48 times in a game, and tell me there’s no athleticism involved. > [@soulmurk](#): > > A sport requires some degree of strategy that may or may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer, whereas a game’s strategy is more likely to be the centerpoint of the contest, though can even contain no strategy. Strategy is a key aspect of curling, but it’s balanced by the other athletic aspects, such as the throwing ability of the shooters, the endurance of the sweepers, etc. > [@soulmurk](#): > > A sport is usually a team effort, whereas competitions between singular people are usually games. (The only exception I can think of is tennis) Check - team of four (or five, at the highest levels of competition) > [@soulmurk](#): > > It’s not a sport if you can do it drunk. [**Piper** remembers several all-night country bonspeils.] Okay, I give - by these rules, curling is not a sport. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/32 "2006-02-19T08:23:32Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Stuff that wouldn’t be a sport because defense is not employed: > > -Virtually all track & field which rely purely on athleticism but no interference between the competitors > -Swimming competitions of virtually all types > -Gymnastics > -Golf > -Croquet Minor nitpick. Under the athletic + defense definition, croquet would probably be defined as a sport, as players can interfere with each other by sending other players’s balls on striking. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/33 "2006-02-19T12:30:34Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > IMHO: > > A sport is an activity involving physical prowness and some degree of winning. > > A game is an activity involving competition within a set of rules. > > So football is a sport and a game. > Fishing is a sport but not a game. > Chess is a game but not a sport. **Little Nemo** ’s definitions are the only ones that seem to make even the slightest bit of sense to me. Where on earth did we get the idea that _sport_ and _game_ are mutually exclusive categories? Does anyone really use the words like that? Does anyone feel the need to correct someone who refers to a football match as “a big game” because football is a sport? (“Football match” doesn’t even sound right referring to American football–of course it’s a football _game_.) Nor is one a subset of the other. Football is a game, but boxing clearly isn’t; as someone pointed out, no one “plays” boxing. Racing isn’t a game, either. (“Olympic Games” clearly being the exception.) But I have a hard time believing anyone really objects to calling them sports. Outside of this conversation, would any of you blink if someone answered the question “What sports do you play?” with “Track and field”? If any one of you participated in Track and Field, would you answer No to that question? (_Sports_ **are** played, even if an individual sport isn’t. You don’t like it? Start your own language.) So obviously, whatever each word means, they are overlapping categories. They are not mutually exclusive or nested categories, and any definitions that try to make them such are merely spurious. (As are claims that that “sport” has become broadened or debased as a term; the _earliest_ meaning was “amusement”.) Actually, I’ll go further still. They aren’t true categories at all: they are simply words. Language is not taxonomy and there is no reason to conflate the two. I think the only real question is how the words are actually used, and a dictionary (if it’s any good) should help answer it. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/34 "2006-02-19T12:40:35Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > The word “sport” has been bastardized about the same amount as the word “theory” has been. Don’t be fooled by the marching band geeks who wear letter jackets for walking while playing an instrument. A letter jacket does not a sport make. At my high school, they gave the band and color-guard geeks jackets, but they were very different and much shittier-looking than the ones for athletes. I played Rugby but couldn’t get a jacket because it was a club sport. (And during my sophomore year, we lost our affiliation with the school because of drinking and fighting - a point of pride for any rugger as far as I’m concerned.) The other high school in my town gave letter jackets for ART. ART!!! And those jackets were of the same (high) quality and appearance as the letter jackets given to actual athletes. Boy oh boy. But then, that school had a reputation for being the “gay” and artsy school. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/35 "2006-02-19T12:50:02Z")
I like [George Carlin’s](http://www.boredatuni.com/stuff.php?stuffId=11) take on what is a sport and what isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/36 "2006-02-19T12:55:28Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > The other high school in my town gave letter jackets for ART. ART!!! And those jackets were of the same (high) quality and appearance as the letter jackets given to actual athletes. Boy oh boy. But then, that school had a reputation for being the “gay” and artsy school. I just can’t begin to imagine why that would bother you. I agree with **Martin Hyde**. If poker was a sport, I’d be an athlete, and I’m sure I’d know if I was. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/37 "2006-02-19T13:17:19Z")
> [@cthiax](#): > > I just can’t begin to imagine why that would bother you. > > I agree with **Martin Hyde**. If poker was a sport, I’d be an athlete, and I’m sure I’d know if I was. It bothered me because the letter jacket is a privelege of physical exertion. It’s the equivalent of proving oneself on the field of battle. High school sports are not fun. It’s fucking hard work. Practice, more often than not, is hell, and your body is subject not only to the opposing team’s players but to the ever-changing whims and moods of your coach. It’s not the games where you prove yourself, it’s in practice, and it’s not the games where you really suffer, it’s practice. Coach having a bad day? Run. Coach has a hangover and doesn’t want to supervise drills? Run. Did a shitty job in your last game? Be prepared to pay for it physically at your next practice. I wrestled as a freshman but I sucked at it and I couldn’t have made varsity (I was competing with a team jam-packed with cornfed farm kids who had been wrestling since elementary school.) I loved rugby and I would have loved to have a bad-ass jacket to show for it. I am also an artist. I have been drawing longer than I have been playing sports, and I am much better at drawing than I am at playing sports. If you don’t believe me, [here’s my most recent drawing](http://portfolio.iu.edu/akentisa/workman2.JPG) - if I pursued art competitively in high school, I would have destroyed most of the art geeks (who were still copping Japanese Anime, Marvel comics and soft-pencil landscapes while I was sneaking R. Crumb comics at the library in 3rd grade.) Art is a passion for me, but I still don’t think it compares to sports in terms of the hardship suffered and sacrifices made. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/38 "2006-02-19T13:21:59Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > It bothered me because the letter jacket is a privelege of physical exertion. It’s the equivalent of proving oneself on the field of battle. > > High school sports are not fun. It’s fucking hard work. Practice, more often than not, is hell, and your body is subject not only to the opposing team’s players but to the ever-changing whims and moods of your coach. It’s not the games where you prove yourself, it’s in practice, and it’s not the games where you really suffer, it’s practice. Coach having a bad day? Run. Coach has a hangover and doesn’t want to supervise drills? Run. Did a shitty job in your last game? Be prepared to pay for it physically at your next practice. Okay, but I still don’t understand why it would bother you, honestly. How does an art student getting a jacket for his accomplishments change any of that? You still earned what you earned. What the art student did also has value, as you know, as an artist, and also took work and dedication. Is a letter jacket just a symbol of pain and suffering? ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/39 "2006-02-19T16:50:15Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > It bothered me because the letter jacket is a privelege of physical exertion. It’s the equivalent of proving oneself on the field of battle. Speaking as somebody who used to sell them, a letter jacket is an overpriced piece of commercial crap that parents buy their man-children so they can vicariously show off their kid’s accomplishments and their own disposable income. We’d sell a letter jacket to a weasel if the weasel’s check was good. We’d even sell them a full arrangement of whatever accomplishment tchotchkes they wanted: swimming patches, honor bars, what the hell ever. It’s just a pricey showpiece. It’s not a friggin’ Purple Heart. Now the letter _itself_ we didn’t sell. But frankly, when you’re looking over the range of high school memorabilia – yearbooks, class rings, class jewelry – I think you’ll agree that it’s mostly a business. _Everybody_ is allowed to waste their money on something that commemorates high school; _everybody_ deserves to remember whatever it was they accomplished. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718/40 "2006-02-19T20:06:36Z")
> [@soulmurk](#): > > It’s not a sport if you can do it drunk. Clearly you’ve never played softball at one of my company’s picnics. “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then it’s sports.” It _does_ seem pretty arbitrary (I’ve often heard chess referred to as a sport.), but yeah, in general you need to sweat. It also takes hand-eye coordination, which is why I think golf is a sport. Hell, I dunno. If I suck at it, it’s a sport. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-game-a-sport/344718.md?page=3)