So chess qualifies, but not gymnastics/diving/swimming/weighlifting/rowing…?
Why is defense critical?
Take a World Cup skier. I doubt if anyone would claim that that sort of skiing is not a sport.
When the World Cup skier is skiing gates in training, is that still a sport?
When the World Cup skier is free skiing (which is a very important part of training), is that still a sport?
When the World Cup skier retires but thanks to advances in equipment is free skiing better than when he was competing, is that still a sport?
It’s the nature of the activity, not the competition, that makes a sport a sport. Competitive sport is simply a specific subset of sport.
When a NASCAR driver drives to the gym is it a sport? Certainly not.
When MLB players take batting practice is it a sport? I’d say no.
Same for when MLP pitchers are throwing a bullpen session.
I think competition is necessary for sport.
Sport is a big tent term. There are a lot of sports that do not share key aspects (competitive v. non-competitive, physical v. non-physical, regulated v. non-regulated, judged v. non-judged, timed v. non-timed, mechanically or electrically assisted v. non-mechanically or non-electrically assisted, involving animals v. not involving animals, fans following statistics v. neither fans nor statistics), but they are still all under the same big tent of sport.
Asserting that a sport is not a sport because it lacks a particular aspect that some other sport has is no more than defining by way of personal preference, and in effect is trying to define what sport is not rather than trying to define what a sport is.
It’s a bit like trying to define feminism or who is a feminist. Big tent terms with varied and sometimes mutually incompatible definitions.
But activities like these are not always sports. We distinguish cycling for sport from cycling to work, walking for sport from walking to the fridge, hunting for sport from hunting to feed one’s family. Activities become sports when people do them “for fun” or for the challenge inherent in the activity itself.
I’m still undecided whether a sport has to involve competition, but it might work if we define competition broadly enough. A sport fisherman may not be competing against other people, but he’s competing against the fish. A sport swimmer may not be competing against other swimmers, but she’s competing against the clock or against her own previous best.
I guess it would come down to the nature and threat level of whatever the hell it is that has been growing in the fridge.
And the fisherman could be sitting on a dock drinking a twelve pack, and the swimmer might be swimming out in the surf to bodysurf the next wave. Swimming, running, skating, skiing, shooting, driving, baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf - these are all recreational activities and competitive sports.
I actually think the fisherman or hunter has to be competing against other fishermen or hunters for it to be a sport. Sitting on the bank of the river with a pole in the water is not a sport for me. Likewise, man with gun vs. animal is not a sport in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for hunting, but unless you’re competing against another hunter somehow, it’s just a hobby.
If a lot of people participating in an activity consider it to be a sport, then it is a sport, and trying to define that sport as not being a sport simply isn’t on.
Is sport hunting (also known as trophy hunting) of black bears a sport? You bet it is. You hire a fellow to lay out rotten meat for a few weeks to train the black bear to come to the site for lunch every day, then he drives you up an old skidder trail to the bait site and sets up a chair for you to sit in while you wait for the trained bear to arrive. Once the black bear arrives and starts chowing down on his catered lunch twenty feet from you, you shoot it. Your guide uses the now dead bear for further bear bait for his next client, and sends the head to a taxidermist to make a trophy out of it for you. Yup, that’s a sport. The is no competition what-so-ever, and unless you consider hitting a large non-hostile trained target at point-blank range to be physical, skillful and challenging, it does not have any of these other aspects often associated with sports, and is the antithesis of sportsmanship. All it requires is (1) hire a guide, (2) sit in a chair, and (3) point and pull with no need to aim carefully. Why is it a sport? Because thousands of participants consider it to be a sport.
So let’s start with black bear trophy hunting and identify what makes it a sport, and then see which aspects of it are also aspects of other sports. Leisure? Yes. Amusement? Possibly. Competition? Nope. My guess is that if you identify commonalities between sports, you’ll arrive at a better definition of sport that you will by taking the most obvious and frequent commonalities (physicality and competition) and excluding all other sports.
Also, let’s not forget that there is a fair degree of arbitrariness in categorizing one activity as a sport and another activity as something other than a sport, such as an art. Why are ballet and modern dance art, whereas rhythmic gymnastics sport, and ballroom dance both, despite all being somewhat the same sort of thing? When coming up with a definition of sport, it would be best not to fret if an activity not commonly considered to be a sport fits the definition of sport.
When looking about for a definition of sport, have a good look at what the major players are focusing on, but don’t take their orientations as gospel.
For example, the International Olympic Committee is all about television market share, so it’s focus is on television friendly competitive sports, whereas the Council of Europe is all about social movement, so its focus is on sportsmanship and mass participation.
Sport specific sport governing bodies (La Fédération internationale de Ski, International Canoe Federation, etc.) tend to focus on competition because it is their job to set out the rules for competition. They have little or no involvement at the grass roots level.
Professional sport organizing bodies are all about market development, and will adapt the sport to the market.
All of these organizations provide insights into what sport is, but please note that they all have their own special interests and particular focuses, and in no way are the Word of God on what sport is or is not.
The sport organizing bodies arise out of the sport, not the other way around, so when you see athletes not joining, going outside sport organizing bodies or leaving sport organizing bodies (for example, the majority of high end skiers and high end white water kayakers), it is not that they are leaving the sport, but rather that the sport organizing bodies are either not relevant enough to the aspects of the sport in which these high end athletes are interested, or are actual embuggerances that are barriers to high end athletes reaching their maximum level of enjoyment of the sport.
On the flip side, the competitive focus of sport organizing bodies also acts as a barrier to encouraging middling and poor athletes to remain engaged in their sport. The way to develop a strong national team is to start with a broad and young participant base, and then through competition winnow them down over the years so that at optimum age only the best of the best remain. Move up or out, nothing less. It makes for terrific competition, particularly for the spectators, but fails in encourage lifetime participation in a sport.
So don’t fall into the trap of assuming that competition is a necessary part of the definition of sport, for it simply isn’t. I respectfully suggest that folks who believe it is the cornerstone of sports should (1) get out and spend more time participating in a sport rather than being a sports fan, and (2) if they are active competitors, step back a moment and consider that for a great many people who participate in sports, competition is only one of many enjoyable aspects, if an aspect at all.
There are actually lots of fishing competition and it is big money. Bass tournaments and derbies pay out big money and there are also endorsement contracts for the competitors.
Joan Wulff held the world record for fly fishing casting distance, not just for women, so if that’s a sport, she’s a woman who not only competed with men, but won.
I am familiar with fishing tournaments. The champion is determined based on the fisherman’s (or woman’s) performance compared to other fishermen, right? You can call that a sport, I guess it fits.
Yeah, competitive fishing is definitely a sport. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all fishing is a sport, though.
Thats true of any sport, swimming in the Olympics is a sport, but me splashing in the surf isn’t.
I find chess to be the most interesting case here. Most people have argued that it isn’t a sport because it involves no obvious physical exertion. However, at the very highest levels, the age range of the competitors does tend to resemble that of more conventional sports.
Very few grandmasters are still able to maintain the degree of mental focus needed to compete at the highest level after age 40 or so, and most peak in their twenties. In contrast, people engaged in most purely “mental” activities like doctoring, lawyering or academic work (or amateur chess) tend to keep improving well into middle age. I wonder how poker compares.
I wouldn’t necessarily argue strongly that chess is a sport because of this, but it does seem that pretty much all activities universally agreed to be sports are ones in which the best performers are in their twenties or thirties, so that might be an important part of a definition.
As a place from which to start, let’s explore how your sport makes you feel when you are sport-sport-sporting about. I.e. “participating in my sport at such and such a level makes me feel: xxx, yyy, zzz.”
Then review the sensations that you experience and try to use them to delineate the aspects that make your sport your raison d’être.
With enough data, I expect that we’ll end up with a cloud or Venn that will bring out commonalities between various sports, but also illustrate sports that do not have much if anything in common with each other. Out of this, we might come up with a definition for sport that delineates a range of activities that could be considered sport.
***When I did this, what I came up was that sports that appeal to me (which of course may be very different from what appeals to you) tend to be activities that bring me to a greater level of intensity in a number of emotional, intellectual, physical, environmental and social ways:
[ul]
[li]Activities that promote intense emotions.[/li]
[li]Activities that promote intense intellectual involvement.[/li]
[li]Activities that include intense movement.[/li]
[li]Activities that include intense interaction with surroundings.[/li]
[li]Activities that include intense interaction with others.[/li][/ul]***
Here’s how I came to the above conclusion.
I started with how my sports made me feel, in order of my preferred sports:
[ul]
[li]Steep ice high speed telemark skiing (decade competitive, 17th in world Super-G, then a couple of decades advancing the envelope in retirement) makes me feel: scared, adrenaline rush, calm, focused, analytical, full mind involvement, situational awareness, precise, subtle, fluid, rhythmic, dancing, outside of time, reactive, full body involvement, one with the ice, snow and terrain, controlled application of explosive force, challenged, tested to the limit, death if fail, exhausted, dopamine and endorphin rush, exhilarated, ecstatic, joyful, satiated, well-being, complete, satisfied. (Seriously, way better than the physical aspects of great sex.)[/li]
[li]White water kayaking (instructor for several decades including pro instructor for a few years) makes me feel: scared, adrenaline rush, calm, focused, analytical, full mind involvement, situational awareness, precise, subtle, fluid, rhythmic, dancing, outside of time, reactive, full body involvement, one with the dynamics of the water, challenged, tested to the limit, injury if fail, exhausted, dopamine and endorphin rush, exhilarated, ecstatic, joyful, satiated, well-being, complete, satisfied.[/li]
[li]Dragon boat racing (coach and recreational racer for a decade and a half) makes me feel: calm, focused, analytical, situational awareness, precise, subtle, fluid, rhythmic, reactive, one with the dynamics of the water, one with the movements of the crew, full body involvement, controlled application of explosive force, challenged, tested to the limit, exhausted, complete, satisfied.[/li]
[li]Sprint kayak paddling (recreational instructor for several decades) makes me feel: calm, focused, analytical, situational awareness, precise, subtle, fluid, rhythmic, reactive, one with the dynamics of the water, full body involvement, controlled application of explosive force, challenged, tested to the limit, exhausted, complete, satisfied.[/li]
[li]Rugby (17 years recreational) makes me feel: focused, analytical, situational awareness, precise, subtle, fluid, reactive, one with the actions of the team, full body involvement, controlled application of explosive force, exhausted, complete, satisfied.[/li]
[li]Cross-country skiing (several decades recreational, mostly classic) makes me feel: focused, situational awareness, fluid, full body involvement, one with the snow and terrain, exhausted, complete, satisfied.[/li]
[li]Middle and long distance running (decade competitive, 17th eastern Canada cross-country) makes me feel: focused, situational awareness, fluid, full body involvement, one with the terrain, exhausted, complete, satisfied.[/li][/ul]
Then I grouped the various feelings:
[ul]
[li]Intense emotions: scared (risk of injury or death), adrenaline, calm, challenged, tested to the limit, dopamine and endorphin rush, exhilarated, ecstatic, joyful, satiated, complete, satisfied, bonding (one with the movements of the crew or team)[/li]
[li]Intense intellectual involvement: focussed, analytical, full mind involvement, situational awareness, outside of time[/li]
[li]Intense movement: precise, subtle, fluid, dynamic, dancing, reactive, full body movement, controlled application of explosive force, tested to the limit, exhausted[/li]
[li]Intense interaction with surroundings: situational awareness, one with the ice, snow and terrain, one with the dynamics of the water, one with the movements of the crew or team[/li]
[li]Intense interactions with others: situational awareness, one with the movements of the crew or team[/li][/ul]
Then I concluded that for me, some aspects of sport are:
[ul]
[li]Activities that promote intense emotions, including fear, calm, ecstacy, satiation and bonding.[/li]
[li]Activities that promote intense intellectual involvement, including extreme focus and analysis, full mind involvement and situational awareness, and stepping outside of time.[/li]
[li]Activities that include intense movement: precise, subtle, fluid, dynamic, dancing, reactive, full body movement, controlled application of explosive force, tested to the limit, exhausted.[/li]
[li]Activities that include intense interaction with surroundings: situational awareness, one with the surrounding environment.[/li]
[li]Activities that include intense interaction with others: situational awareness, one with the crew or team.[/li][/ul]
You know, RickJay, I realize you’ll probably disagree with me, but I think standup has aspects of sport.
[offtopic]It was for a couple of kids and a shark earlier this week in North Carolina – the kids were swimming and the shark was fishing. Tragically, the shark won some limbs.[/off topic]