...Not a sport?

[dbronco7sc]

Clearly the answer to whether or not something is a sport depends on how you define it.

Note: to me... an athletics competiton is different than a sport. All sports are athletics competitions... not all athletics competitions are sports.

So I guess my definition is:
An athletic competition on a playing field involving offense and defense.

Athletic: Involves significantly increased heartrate due to the use of full range of motion.
Competition: A miminum of two teams competing against each other using defined rules with a defined scoring system to decide a winner. If there are no rules defining how judges must score the competitor, then judging is not considered defined scoring system.
Playing field: A bounded Court/Field/Arena/Track/Aparatus/Lane/Pool.
Offense: A means of scoring points for your own team.
Defense: A means of directly preventing the scoring of points by the other team.

Sports:
Football
Basketball
Soccer
Hockey
Baseball
Rugby
Aussie Rules Football
Tennis
Boxing
Wrestling
Ultimate Frisbee
Volleyball

Athetics Competitions:
Gymnastics (no direct defense) Judges use defined rules however
Track & Field (no direct defense)
Cheerleading (no direct defense, defined scoring sysem???)
Swimming (no direct defense)
Diving (no direct defense, defined scoring system???)
Cross Country (no direct defense)

Competitions:
Golf (no significantly elevated heart rate, no direct defense)
Bowling (not significantly elevated heart rate, no direct defense)
NASCAR (no full range of motion)


If any other events are in question using this defintion I'll try to update the list if I see them.

 

[ajk4st8]

I thought this was a women's basketball post

 

[mj4cy]

Driving around in circles to me is hardly a sport. Although I know its grueling on the drivers, I just can't put that in the same classification as football or basketball. I am excited for the hype of Daytona though.

 

[CloneFan65]

I like to think of a sport as simply physical competition. This includes most fringe sports when one is competing, like golf, darts, and usually racing. Competitive cheerleading is thus a sport as well, while typical cheerleading is not. Poker, chess, etc. are not sports, they are games of skill. A good test is whether one's performance tends to significantly differ with changes in physical rather than mental ability.

Excellent definition. I used to be an avid bowler. Bowling is definitely a sport. It takes physical skill to compete at a high level. This doesn't mean bowlers are "athletes". People always seem to have a difficult time differentiating between the two. No one says John Daly is an athlete, but that doesn't have anything to do with golf being a sport or not. I would argue that professional ballet dancers are great athletes. But that doesn't make ballet a sport. So there are athletes that don't compete in sports and there are people that compete in sports that aren't athletes.

As far as poker, I'm an avid poker player, and I laugh anytime someone calls it a "sport". Calling it a "game of skill" is a good definition.