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If there's one thing I've come to really despise lately, it's the willingness to turn every meager activity into competition. No longer can one simply enjoy something for its own sake. No, instead you've got to be the best at it. Or at least be better than everyone else in the immediate vicinity. This very article, in fact, is a contest, written in inspiration after being challenged about who can write the best article. I've honestly never thought of it that way. I just like articles that make sense.
But what unnerves me even more are the people who obsessively participate in these contests and then call them sports, making them by definition athletes, worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Pele, Sampras and Namath. Video gamers are saying this. Yeah, fucking video gamers. And I'm thinking: no you're not. You don't play a sport just because it has an international body, organization, a league and tournaments. So I think it's high time I outline the criteria of what I feel rightfully deserves the accolade "sport" (and, subsequently, coverage on ESPN).- A sport is that which has a standardized, objective method of determining a victor.
 Sorry: just because you like to jump in the air and go "weeeeeee!" does not make it a sport. |
Get the obvious one out of the way. All true sports have a definite outcome. It is something that is beyond question and universally agreed upon, without room for interpretation. You score more points, you win. That's it. Hiring a panel of judges to decide who had the best overall presentation does not make it a sport. Figure skating, gymnastics, synchronized swimming, diving, ballroom dancing and the X-games--while all impressive feats of athleticism--belong in the circus, not the Olympics.
This will never happen, of course, being that figure skating is the most popular Olympic event next to hockey, and the IOC would be mad to alienate its female and gay audience so viciously. But the Olympics was never meant to be a sports extravaganza in the first place. In fact, it would do well to eliminate all the real sports from its pantheon (including meaningless ones like baseball and tennis and any others that have established world-renowned professional circuits), and be strictly a showcase of the world's best events and games.
As ugly as it sounds, boxing is not a sport either. Or, at least, not anymore. In the nineteenth century combatants frequently fought until one was knocked out or incapable of continuing. Tales of bouts lasting over a hundred rounds were not unfounded. They stopped this practice when deaths and life-threatening injuries became too frequent. With the rise of defensive strategies in the last 50 years, knockouts are becoming less and less common now, giving rise to the panel of ringside judges who award fights to boxers who, to them, appear to have a more polished, more technical style and are the clear aggressors. More accurate than some of the other judging sports, perhaps, but otherwise still completely subjective. Especially at the amateur and Olympic level.
- A sport is that which pits opponents against each other in a real-time struggle for control.
Turn-based activities are not sports. They are games. That includes bowling, golf, pool, darts, skiing, chess, and as much as I don't want to admit it because I love it so much, even curling. If ESPN wants to air the World Series of Poker and child spelling bees, it should really create a separate ESPN Games network (or maybe transform ESPN 2 into one) for that.
The operative part of this rule is the "against each other" bit, in that opponents are directly hampering each other's ability to succeed. Any activity where you can not in some way deliberately manipulate your opponent's performance is not a sport. You can't stop your opponent from sinking the 8-ball, or two-putting on the green. All you can do is stand back and hope he doesn't land his shot. Similarly, anything involving food is not a sport, because you can't stop your opponent from scarfing down that 40th hotdog.
Baseball is turn-based, but you are still actively partaking in your opponent's actions, so while it has all the behavior of a game, it's still technically a sport, no matter how fat or out of shape baseball players tend to be.
Sorry, Lance: you are a great athlete and all, but unless you could toss a stick into the spokes of your competitor or push him over a cliff high in the Alps, cycling is not a sport. But it certainly was one in American Flyers!
- A sport is that which has no limit for professional achievement and excellence.
Gretzky and Jordan scored as many points as they could. Despite the inhuman statistics these titans put up, they could have always scored more. There is always a chance to be better statistically in a real sport. In bowling, you can't score better than 300. In archery, you can't do better than a bulls-eye. Any game with a "perfection cap" that can't be exceeded under any circumstances is exactly that: a game. Sports don't have ceilings. There is no limit to how much you can achieve. You can do anything in a sport. Anything at all. The only limit is yourself. Yes. Welcome to sportocom.
- A sport is that which has a universally identifiable time limit or scoring method played through to completion.
Soccer has 90 minutes. Volleyball plays until 25 points. Baseball has 9 innings. You can fish forever. Hunting can take forever too, especially if you're really lousy at it.
- A sport is that which is entirely human operated and powered.
Padding and special equipment that are necessary to play don't count. Hockey players may wear skates to produce an unorthodox and unnatural form of movement, but it's still their muscular energy propelling that movement. Same goes for pole vault and javelin, but they aren't sports anyway because they're turn-based. Auto racing is not a sport. Neither is sailing. Nor is anything relying on beasts of burden, such as bull riding or horseracing. Any activity that requires a vehicle or some apparatus of assisted mobility annuls it from being a true sport. Entertaining, yes, but not sport.
 "Hey Vic: Do you think if MXC had more deaths, people would treat it seriously as a sport?"
"That's a good question, Ken. We're always looking to improve the quality of competition here."
"Ha ha ha. I was just kidding. When people die, they take it out of my paycheque."
"Awww Ken. NO!" |
- A sport is not fake or predetermined in any way.
Go away, Triple HHH.
- A sport is not stupid.
Go away, Slamball.
- A sport does not rely almost completely on an element of random chance.
Gambling is not a sport. I would wager to say that football is veering dangerously close to not being a sport either just by virtue of the fact that they have to start the game with a damn coin toss. Seriously, why do they have that stupid thing? Just let the home team decide whether they want the ball or the end zone and get on with it. Or just take a page from baseball: Home team always gets the ball in the second half. Tiddlywinks, Monopoly, Magic: The Gathering, Jeopardy, or any activity where neither of the competitors are in complete control of all parameters of the game are just that: games. If your fate is decided by luck of the draw, it's not a sport.
This sounds like an awful lot of rules, but it's really not when you think about it, because most of them are common sense and the rest are what we've pretty much known all along. Note that I left out any mention of classifying activities by whether they are physically strenuous or enduring in any way. That's because, at the world-class level, all of these disciplines are pretty equally strenuous, from juggling to dodgeball, and the people who are the best at it treat it like a full-time commitment. But when all is said and done, no matter how much work you've put into it, no one is going to take a breakdance competition as seriously as Wimbledon.
Or if you don't agree with this classification, let's just use the Ernest Hemmingway definition for now on: - A sport is that which if you make a mistake, you die. All the rest are games.
So, like, just gunfighting. And probably rock climbing. And bull fighting. And auto racing. And maybe even sports article writing.
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