Open Mike: What's a Sport?

There is a lot of confusion and even bigotry around the definition of "sport," which is one of those words that tend to evoke a lot of passion. I encounter it regularly in writing about cue sports.

The word "sport" derives from "disport," which as a noun means "diversion, amusement, play."

The Oxford Dictionary is the culprit in promulgating much misunderstanding, in my view, defining "sport" as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment." (Emphasis mine.) Exertion? Don't care for it.

I would define a "sport" as "a contest involving physical skill for the entertainment of the participants or spectators." That last bit is left out of a lot of definitions.

Simon said yesterday in the Comments that "it's surely not a sport if you don't get out of breath." That's one factor that speaks to "exertion" and weighs heavily in some peoples' conception. But I guess that disqualifies Formula 1 racing, target shooting, and archery, and golf if you use a cart or are in shape, right?

What are some of the other common beliefs around what constitutes a "sport"?

• Has to get you out of breath
• Has to involve physical skill or coordination
• Has to require or display physical strength
• Has to be a contest
• Has to entertain an audience
• Has to take place outdoors
• Has to be something you can bet on
• Has to require physical conditioning

Are all of these requirements met by every sport? I don't think so. Professional basketball takes place exclusively indoors, for example. There goes that criterion.

The unofficial official definition
Wikipedia tells us in its article on "Sport" that "The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.

"SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:

• have an element of competition
• be in no way harmful to any living creature
• not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
• not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.

"They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport)."

SportAccord admits a limited number of "mind sports," including chess (which at the highest level is physically exhausting and in many cases rewards physical conditioning) but is not open to admitting any more. So everything from the ancient Chinese game of mah-Jongg to video games need not apply. Other authorities recognize "eSports" (video games). But no exertion there!

SportAccord's "in no way harmful" clause  disqualifies hunting and fishing. It would seem to also disqualify boxing and MMA, because those are harmful to living creatures. Max Baer (a boxer and the father of "Jethro" on The Beverly Hillbillies), Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, and Sugar Ray Robinson all killed people in the ring, never mind Evander Holyfield's ear. One study determined that an average of 13 people per year have died in boxing matches since 1890. I distinctly remember reading a quote that I have never been able to find again, reportedly written by a British sportswriter: "The only natural sports are running and fighting. All the rest are contrived." (The Internet is terrible at quotes. It's one of the things it's worst at. There is no custom of attribution or citation, and a great deal of noise.) But the SportAccord definition disagrees. We should add that there are borderline cases even here; Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was killed by a pitch in a baseball game in 1920. Pretty sure that doesn't mean baseball isn't a sport.

Is pool a sport?
The border between sports and games is porous, shifting, and vague. Personally I'd consider cue sports to be in the DMZ between a sport and a game. It's a game because it requires a lot of strategy and knowledge to play well; and it's a sport because it requires a great deal of physical coordination. Of course, to the average observer, most of the strategy is invisible, and a lot of the physical skill is invisible too. One aspect of the physical skill that's crucial is that you have to strike the cue ball exactly in the right spot to get it to behave how you want it to; but that is impossible to see directly. The only way you can tell how well the ball was struck is by seeing what the cue ball does and, to a lesser extent, what the object ball does. And most casual observers have no idea how to judge this. It's as if they can't even quite see the game at all when they watch it. But we can't say that non-exertion activities have to have a strong element of strategy or gamesmanship, because what about darts?

It's a thorny thicket, and we have to be a little respectful of the complexities of the various definitions. If curling is a sport, why isn't shuffleboard? If bowling is a sport, why isn't boules?

Basketball
The greatest, most quintessential sport of all might be basketball. Think of it. It requires great skill and coordination and athleticism, yet also a high degree of strategy, gamesmanship, and instantaneous adjustment. It requires team sport cooperation and also rewards individual flair and skill. It can require delicacy, touch, and finesse, yet also demands strength, physical prowess, and a tremendous level of conditioning.

The only thing wrong with basketball is the structure of the game. The endings, if the game is very close, don't seem to go well. It would be better just to eject anyone who committed a foul in the last 75 seconds, which would put a high premium on not committing one of the fouls that routinely interrupt play at the ending of games. And there is only one ending. The way to "fix" basketball in my opinion would be to make it "best three out of five" 15-minute periods, with each period being one point. So a blowout would feature three endings and last only 45 minutes, whereas a close game would last for an hour and 15 minutes and feature five endings.

But I'm just thinking out loud here.

Anyway, I definitely consider cue sports to be sports. If you don't, that's fine—be that way!

Mike

Book o' the Week

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman. A very brief, illustrated overview of the life of America's 16th President suitable for young people.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave Levingston: "Funny this should come up today. I enter photos in the French PHOTO magazine contest every year. I almost always 'win' in that they publish one of my entries in the magazine. This year I had one entry that did not seem to fit any category. So just left the category blank. That's the photo that won. And they picked a category to put it in: 'Sport'

"Here's the photo...go figure...."

Richard Parkin: "All definitions are doomed! However, my view is that the activity should be 'sporting' which rules out most of the activities you’ve mentioned. In snooker, how is it 'sporting' to pot all the balls while you opponent sits glumly at the ringside?  ;-)  . Among the spectator 'sports' cricket possibly qualifies but not much else. Of the activities you mention I think fishing, by which I assume you mean angling, is sporting and it often causes little harm to the fish if they are returned to the water as is often the case."

Mike replies: You can "break and run out" in pool, in which case your opponent does not get a turn and can "sit glumly" etc. But never in the history of snooker has there been a single break-and-runout. The reason is that each frame necessarily starts out with a safety battle. So while the winner of each frame breaks off in the next frame, the opponent gets a chance at least once per frame to get in amongst the balls. It really is a beautiful game, in its game-like, strategic aspects—much better than any of the many pool games, none of which are as well designed.

By the way, the best game for beginners is not "stripes and solids." It's Simpson's Any-8, invented by Tom Simpson. Flip for break, and if the breaker makes one he keeps shooting at any ball on the table until he misses. The first one to eight wins. If the cue ball is pocketed, it is spotted on the center spot and the opposing player takes over, but all pocketed balls stay down.

It's a much easier game except in one respect: the players have to keep track of the score! That's why 8-ball is preferred, because score is automatic—just look at the balls remaining on the table. Any-8 is also very easy to handicap: if one player is consistently better, then just allow the weaker player to win on fewer balls. For example, I have to pocket eight balls, you only have to pocket six.

schralp: "An acquaintance who liked to send catchy postcards once sent me one with a cartoon drawing of two beer-bellied fellows in a John boat with unattended fishing lines in the water as they reclined and consumed malt beverages. The caption was one asking the other: 'If fishing is a sport, does that make us athletes?' Actually, I believe it was spelled athaletes….  ;-)  "

Mike replies: In Wisconsin there were semi-regular reports of hunters sitting in blinds up in trees until they got so drunk that they fell to the ground and hurt themselves.

T S Moore: "Basketball, baseball, etc. are games because they have officials who enforce agreed upon rules and there are multiple individuals on the team that contribute and cooperate. Fishing and hunting are examples of sports. The efforts of the individual are the only determining factor in the outcome. There are no officials enforcing the rules. Also the individual may choose more restrictive rules than other participants."

Yonatan Katznelson: "ESPN regularly televises the National Spelling Bee...if you can watch it on ESPN, then it's a sport."

Barry Reid: "Surely the 'in no way harms…' part also pretty much rules out equestrian sports? In particular, but not limited to, jump racing, as so many horses have been put down as a result of falls."

Gert-Jan: "The word sportsmanship also comes to mind: fairness, respect, graciousness in winning or losing. I kind of like the SportAccord definition, but what I still miss is the notion of awareness and fairness. That all involved know they are part of it, and have an equal chance of winning. Hunting and fishing would also not qualify as sport because the animal is not there by choice and has no chance of winning. Winning by killing does not show a lot of respect for the victim. 

With regard to getting hurt by a baseball, I would read 'in no way harmful' as 'the goal is not to harm.' Accidents can always happen, and some sports are more dangerous or rougher than others. I see that Merriam-Webster defines a game as 'a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other,' and sport as 'a source of diversion.' Playing a game can be a sport, and a sport may also be a game...."

Luke: "My wife sent me to kart racing school as a birthday gift. After three days of racing, for only a few hours per day, I was plenty tired and sore. It's a real workout. These karts probably never went over 70mph, but that's fast when your butt is an inch off the ground. It's by far the most fun I've had on four wheels, at least in the front seat. Sport, indeed."

Mike replies: Several people replied that Formula 1 is arduous and physically demanding, but I never said it wasn't. I merely said it doesn't get you out of breath, which I don't believe it does; it's not anaerobic exercise.

By the way, didn't Aryton Senna believe that kart racing was the purest form of motor racing?

jeremy thomason: "This is quite a rabbit hole you have enticed me down. Some thoughts that popped into my head: Game fishing is a sport. Traditional field sports, covered by Field Sports magazine, are hunting, shooting, and fishing, none of which appear as field sports in the Olympics. Cricket is a sport but each match is a game. Sportsmanship is seen as something to aspire to while gamesmanship is seen in a more negative light. You personally can be a 'good sport' but not a 'good game.' Though games can be good. The sport known as football is often called the beautiful game. The Olympic Games are all sports. The Sporting Life newspaper in the UK covered mostly horse racing, while the similarly named magazine in the US covered trap shooting and baseball. And my favourite tongue in cheek quote from the Guardian 2011: 'sport is what the servants watch on the TV, game is what we shoot.' Sport and game are clearly synonyms; they are often differentiated but that depends on the linguistic/cultural context."

Comments

[Benjamin Marks]

eSports. Yikes.

[Albert Smith]

What's a sport? Football (American) is a sport. Last Friday's episode of Jeopardy (a game) was preempted by the NFL draft which was by some sports loving TV executives that thought that we Jeopardy watching dweebs are less important than watching 18 year olds being told they now are being the honor of being susceptible to CTE.

[mike r in colorado]

Hi Mike,

After the first paragraph, I had a feeling this was going to end up about pool. :) I feel like this is a little bit like the question of "what defines Art?"

For its first century +/- there was much debate about if photography is Art. These days that's mostly settled since most big Art museums also have a photography department. But I'm really not certain photography has changed that much since it officially became Art. Sometimes I just scratch my head about photography I see in an Art museum. I'm happy to practice a craft and let the Art school graduates make Art.

As a kid I remember a Saturday afternoon TV show called "The American Sportsman". They killed stuff all the time on that show! So I'm not sure I care much more about the Sport vs. skill of any particular activity. When I go running -- running is widely accepted as a sport -- there's not much skill involved. I'm 63 and slow. So am I participating in a Sport or an activity? I don't particularly care.

I've enjoyed the occasional pool videos you've linked in this blog. The skill is obvious and they're cool to watch. I may think of it as mostly a contest of skill, but you can call it sport. I'm fine with that.

[Dan Khong]

To make definitions more complicated, if I may add, pool is in the DMZ of sport, game and pastime.

[Tex Andrews]

True story. I came to alpine skiing late in life. I was fond of lessons, and found a "hack" for them: as an intermediate skier, I could sign up for a group lesson (much cheaper) and often wind up being only one of several in the class. So it was almost like a personal lesson. One time at Stratton I did this, and I was the only one in the class.

My instructor was a somewhat crusty old character at the end of middle age. He was originally Hungarian, and came here with his parents right after 1956 (Google that). Good instructor, and since I was at the beginning of middle age, I really appreciated him. While going up the lift with him, he turned to me and asked, "Mind if I smoke?". Loved it: alpine skiing is maybe the only challenging "athletic" sport after motor sports where smokers can excel.

[Nick]

I think "be in no way harmful to any living creature" must surely mean "intentionally harmful" regarding your comments about boxing - and to a far greater extent equestrian sports, especially racing, which causes 700-800 horse deaths per year in America (per PETA) with only limited public pushback. And no mention of uncountable injuries in all sports, from simple sprains up to long term effects of CTE etc.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I've never actually driven in a Formula 1 race :-), but I hear it's physically quite difficult. You probably do get out of breath.

Pretty sure swimming is also a "natural" sport even by that strict definition. Shot-put might even be; we've been seeing who could throw that rock furthest for some time!

Given the importance of sinking a ball on the break in so many pool games, I think that may fail the "designed-in element of luck" rule. Maybe pool isn't a sport!

[Richard Gonet]

Where do you stand on the 'sport' of ferret-legging? According to Wikipedia: In the sport of ferret-legging, competitors tie their trousers at the ankles before placing two ferrets inside and securely fastening their belts to prevent the ferrets from escaping. Each competitor then stands in front of the judges for as long as he can. Competitors cannot be drunk or drugged, nor can the ferrets be sedated. In addition, competitors are not allowed to wear underwear beneath their trousers, which must allow the ferrets free access from one leg to the other, and the ferrets must have a full set of teeth that must not have been filed or otherwise blunted. The winner is the person who lasts the longest.

The sport is said to involve very little "native skill", simply an ability to "have your tool bitten and not care". The former world champion, Reg Mellor, is credited with instituting the practice of wearing white trousers in ferret-legging matches, to better display the blood from the wounds caused by the animals. Competitors can attempt, from outside their trousers, to dislodge the ferrets, but as the animals can maintain a strong hold for long periods, their removal can be difficult.

[Bear.]

"Sport" is a word whose meaning has widened over time, as it is now often used to describe any competitive activity. But when I was in elementary/primary school (depending on the country),I was taught that an activity was not a "sport" unless it involved both competition and physical exertion. Competitive activities without physical exertion were "games"; e.g. rugby and basketball were sports, whereas billiards/snooker/pool/etc and bridge/poker/etc were games. (Non-competitive physical activities (e.g. jogging) were "exercise".) The words "sports" and "games" therefore described mutually exclusive activities. Thus, as the use of the use of a computer is not an activity involving relevant physical exertion, the term "computer sports" being used identify competitive gaming on computers is strictly an oxymoron in the use of the word "sport" in the description of "gaming" itself. I had always thought that that use was deliberate as a marketing ploy but perhaps it merely reflects the shifting linguistic usage of the word "sport" to encompass "games".

[John Fleming]

From what you wrote concerning exertion and Formula 1 it would seem that you believe that a driver merely sits in the car. No so. Between braking, accelerating and cornering a Formula 1 car can pull 5 Gs! Sitting in the car you are surrounded by heat. The track is often 40 degrees C, the engine is hot and the fuel is as well (just not as hot as the engine) Brake discs hit about 1100 degrees and tires 100. Acceleration slams you back in your seat and braking has the opposite effect. Cornering slams you side to side. Rumbling over the curbs bounces you around. All this at up to 360 km/hr. Drivers are in top shape and their workouts are intense. Hope you find this helpful.

[Henning]

Formula 1 is definitely a 'sport' which involves exertion. During a race a driver typically loses 5 to 10lbs, a lot of that being sweat. Having to do many precise and often strenuous movements for 1-1/2 to 2hrs. while enduring up to 6g of forces which may or may not align with those movements is definitely exertion. The head-and-neck restraint system (HANS) which is now required helps a bit, but having your head whipped back and forth at 5g+ many times per minute is hard to counter even if you have some help.

A driver returning to formula 1 this year after being out of it for a year was in a fair bit of pain after the first couple of races and said that his problem was that he had foregone the regular physical training during the last year and was not yet in good enough shape. He is about 24 or 25 yrs. old.

[Kirk]

Almost as good at rationalizing a game into a sport as I am rationalizing the need for a different camera...

[Mark L]

'primarily mind (such as chess or Go)'

Go? No matter how hard I google I have no idea what 'go' is?

[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) --Mike]

[Ian Hunter]

A Formula one driver loses between 5 and ten pounds in a race, Most of it is sweat. What is the rest?
Ian Hunter

[Zyni Moë]

Is very important that prescriptive linguistics is both junk science and often used as a way by people in positions of power to drive their opinions onto other people in positions of less power.

This article is just avoiding prescriptive linguistics. Just.

Words in natural language do not mean what you say they mean, what I say they mean, what a dictionary says they mean or what they once meant in some old language which may have the same name as the language you speak. They mean what the users of the language collectively decide they mean. Good dictionaries (the OED is one dictionary which tries to be good) attempt merely to describe what the current usage of words is.

So example: that 'sport' comes from 'disport' in some ancient version of English is interesting but means absolutely nothing about what 'sport' means in modern English.

Same is case for grammar: once in some language spoken by some people a long time ago infinitives did not have particles (we think: may have had in fact in spoken language but the rich people who write things down did not use them). So a bunch of really unpleasant and stupid men (yes, I can say this, not being man) invented (yes) based on this old not-English language some silly rules for English, a language where infinitives do have particles, which could then be used to distinguish people who had gone to the right schools from people who had not. And big resonant phrase used in famous space TV series is thus disallowed by those men and their adherents, who are even more stupid than they were.

Also if you think driving race car does not involve physical exertion can only assume you have never driven a car hard, because it requires a lot of physical strength and stamina. A lot.

(I am not a linguist by the way still linguist of English: my English is not even very good as is third language. But I do know linguists rather well.)

[J]

A sport is something where the only criteria for winning is the individuals skill, endurance & strenght. Everything else is a game. There is no team behind which an individual can hide on a bad day in sports. There is no technology influencing the result. There is no luck. There is no judge's decision on "style" or whatever that determines the winner.

Also, just correcting the misconception that F1 (or any other race driving) does not involve exertion. An average person likely wouldn't last more than a few laps of any race. The exertion is very real, but it does not critically influence the result, therefore driving is not a sport.

[Pierre Charbonneau]

It might be a old legend, but wasn’t it Ernest Hemingway who once said: "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

[Stan]

My admittedly narrow definition of “sport” is a human-powered, physical, competitive activity in which a “winner” can be objectively determined. I think the revised scoring systems in gymnastics and figure skating are helping to make them more objectively transparent. Mostly long gone are the “political” scores—a string of sixes with a three from the East German judge. Horse racing and auto racing don’t pass the human-powered test. I am not suggesting that jockeys and drivers are not athletes, just that those competitions rely primarily on non-human propulsion. Snowboard races qualify; freestyle snowboard does not. Ski jumping counts—there is a “style” component, but distance is the major factor. Swimming races qualify; diving does not (too “big” a splash).

[Joshua]

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” - Ernest Hemingway

[c.d.embrey]

Humpty Dumpty tells Alice "words mean exactly what I want them to mean neither more or less" therefore we can equat Mike with H.D. ;-)

[Cab]

Clearly photography qualifies under many of these criteria, particularly if you're hiking for landscapes and entering the results in competitions! Requires some level of physical fitness, technical skill, many suppliers make the equipment... I suppose if you don't enter competitions it's "just" a pastime, but every sport I can think of can be done non-competitively if desired. We're all photograthletes! ;)

[John Denniston]

“What are we here for but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn”. Jane Austen, P&P

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

I have been saying for years that basketball should be the best of nine 5 minute periods as all the excitement is crammed into those last minutes of the game and the other minutes are just going up and down with very tall people dunking the ball, rinse and repeat.

[Chris Bertram]

There's a good piece on the sport/game distinction by philosopher David Papineau here

https://aeon.co/ideas/chess-and-bridge-are-games-that-don-t-belong-in-the-olympics

[That's a nice essay. Thanks. --Mike]

[marcin wuu]

Actually, the biggest sport now is League of Legends. Bigger than NBA. Yeah, it's weird.

[Richard Parkin]

I agree with Zyni Möe, what I mean by “sport” may not be what you mean by it — in fact I’m fairly sure it isn’t.

I’m probably in the minority of your readers who used to actually play snooker occasionally though not seriously and watched “Pot Black” on a monochrome TV when we used to be told “the red is behind the yellow, for those watching in black and white”. The games were longer then and, at least according to Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, the pockets narrower ;-)

[robert e]

Given SportAccord's definition of sport, it's ironic how many of our sports derive from war and combat (and in some cases literally are combat). Or maybe it's not ironic but laudable progress--the equivalent of beating swords into ploughshares (whatever that is). On the other hand, even animals engage in the playful practice and perfection of lethal skills, so maybe it's not so benign after all.

(The idea of "play" (per the definition of "disport") has gotten little attention in this conversation, though perhaps it's because we're taking it for granted, but it's of course central to what sport is and means to us, for several different meanings of the word, at least in the ideal.)

There is the lore that sports originated as a way to settle differences without violence, or at least without mass violence. I'm not sure there's a way to tell how well that has worked or not, or even backfired, but clearly sports can have political significance.

As for the silly semantic debates, I propose that we disqualify as "real" sports any activity included in the Olympic Games or that is routinely described as a game ("the beautiful game", "game of inches", etc.). I'm sure the internet construct sometimes labeled "Ernest Hemingway" would agree.

[Bear.]

I don't know if F1 is a "sport", any more than is flying a fighter jet - but for sure the drivers and pilots are athletes - huge amounts of physical training are required just to have the neck and body strength not to black out from the g-forces in driving / flying the dang things. F1 drivers need similar aerobic fitness to any other endurance athlete to get through a race too - the average driver loses 2-3 kg per race (I assume through sweat). Don't know about fighter pilots; I expect similar.

[Stephen Scharf]

Then there's ballet*. Like a sport. Only harder.

(*-which I trained in..for 10 years.)