Bowling? Golf? Cheerleading? What constitutes a "sport" anyways?

People argue about this all the time. What's a sport? In high school, kids always made fun of cheerleading. The cheerleaders would all say how it's a sport... The guys would laugh hysterically... In my opinion, cheerleading was only a sport when they were in competitions. Jumping around and chanting "Go School!" didn't really seem like a sport. But if they were doing complex maneuvers and competing against other teams, I could see counting that as a sport. But that's just my opinion. Is it really a sport?

And don't get me started on ESPN. I could write an entire article on how I love and hate ESPN. But some of the things they show on there shouldn't be considered sports. Cheerleading, Poker, Bowling, Fishing, Golf, that weird "sport" where people saw wood... Then it gets even worse with the National Spelling Bee, Scrabble championships, and even Chess sometimes. I've even seen paintball matches. We're getting closer and closer to needing ESPN The Ocho.

But what is a sport? Well, dictionary.com defines it as:

"1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc."

 

Now, according to this, physical prowess isn't necessary for something to be a sport. It just has to be an athletic activity that requires skill and is competitive. But wait, they then go on to say racing, bowling, hunting, and fishing are all sports. Those are athletic? I don't feel like you need to be athletic to do any of those. And that's saying a lot from me. I love bowling. It's always been a borderline sport to me... But I bowled a lot, got pretty good at it, and generally had fun doing it. I didn't really care if people called it a sport. That definition didn't really seem to make sense, given the examples they had...

Let's try wikipedia...

"A sport is an organized, competitive, entertaining, and skillful activity requiring commitment, strategy, and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by objective means. Generally speaking, a sport is a game based in physical athleticism. Activities such as board games and card games are sometimes classified as "mind sports," but strictly speaking "sport" by itself refers to some physical activity. Non-competitive activities may also qualify, for example though jogging or playing catch are usually classified as forms of recreation, they may also be informally called "sports" due to their similarity to competitive games."

 

Now that sounds like a good definition. "Physical athleticism". On a side note: who the hell calls jogging (or yogging. I think the 'j' might be silent.) a sport?

 

At any rate, Wikipedia knows all. And if they say a sport needs physical athleticism, so be it. Goodbye poker. You are not a sport. Neither is chess... Except for chess boxing. Now THAT'S a sport. One that I actually want to try one of these days.

 

Cheerleading's out if the winner has to be determined by objective means. Same with figure skating, gymnastics, diving, and most "extreme sports". So the things that women are good at and men who want to pretend they are still kids are good at aren't sports. Good to know. Wikipedia tries to turn this around and say that even though they are judged sports, the criteria is so precise that they are still sports. Stop contradicting yourself, Wikipedia. It's as if more than 1 person wrote the article. I'm sticking with your original definition. You were just trying to be nice to people who compete in those events.

 

But wait, physical athleticism? What about bowling, fishing, etc... You need to physically be able to do something well in order to do those things, and they have a scoring system where a winner is determined by objective means... It sounds like these are now sports.

 

My conclusion: Sports have to have something physical and have an objective way of scoring. No cheerleading, figure skating, poker, or anything like that. However, golf, bowling, darts, billiards, polo, fishing, hunting, and the like are all sports. Fat people everywhere rejoice. You can be athletes, too.(And not just offensive linemen in football.)