Sports have become an essential part of American culture. Kids are enrolled in sports at an early age and people of all ages root for their favorite teams, which can help carve out their cultural identity.
Sports are essentially unavoidable, and with so many options, there is bound to be a sport that can entertain everyone.
My problem is that there are too many competitions and games that are being called sports, which is causing the word to lose its meaning.
A quick internet search will tell you that sports are any competition involving physical activity. That is where the gray area comes in, as it is not specified how much physical activity is needed to classify something as a sport.
If a sport is classified by the presence of physical activity, then everything is a sport. Moving your fingers while playing chess and video games counts as physical activity, making it a sport.
For those who believe the brain is a muscle, then literally everything is a sport. It takes strength to breathe and use the eyes you’re reading this article with. In that case, I will have to knock down football and place reading The Scribe as my new favorite sport.
I believe that a line in the sand should be drawn and there should be a threshold to the physical activity needed to classify something as a sport. With this new requirement, it means that a lot of “sports” will be ejected.
A disclaimer needs to be issued for fans of these former sports; just because something is not a sport does not mean it isn’t difficult and that people who partake in these activities are not talented.
Any game that is played while seated
The first few sports that are being evicted are obvious ones. Games like poker, chess, and esports are all played while sitting and barely require any physical activity.
With the only physical activity coming from moving your fingers, kicking these games out was a no-brainer.
Motorsports
We now dive into more controversial territory with motorsports. While it takes a lot of skill to steer a car moving at over 100 miles per hour, motorsports still lack the physical activity aspect.
Fans of the sport will be quick to say that it can get hot inside vehicles and drivers often come out in a pool of sweat, proving how physical the activity is.
Sitting in a sauna will also have you exiting in a pool of sweat, and that isn’t a sport.
Although this could be a sport if the cars involved get the credit. In horse racing, it is the horse that gets the credit for crossing the finish line instead of the jockey.
So, motorsports could be a sport if NASCAR fans accept that the Ford Mustang Dark Horse won last year’s Cup Series instead of Joey Logano.
Bar Games
As we progress, games will involve more physical activity, but not enough to cross the threshold. That is the case with our next two games, darts and billiards.
Both games require precision and concentration to be played at a high level, but with physical activity only coming from light arm movements, it’s not enough to save their status as sports.
Shooting
This is the first of our exiled sports that is featured in the Olympics, which is going to make it awkward when the greatest sports showcase on the planet features a game that is not a sport.
Shooting is similar to the last entry, as it does not require much physical activity aside from holding on to a rifle or pistol.
It’s an activity that rewards precision and concentration rather than physical ability.
This is not like throwing a football or baseball, which requires athletic ability to be able to throw fast and accurately, as after aiming, all it takes is a pull of the trigger to send a projectile flying.
Bowling and Golf
These are the most controversial games as they do require a solid amount of physical exercise. The only problem is that it doesn’t happen long enough throughout the course of a game.
Unless you go bowling by yourself, you’ll only bowl for 50 percent of the game, as the other 50 percent is taken up by the other player. This percentage only goes down the more players you add to a game. This concept also applies to golf.
Some people might argue that in football any one player is only on the field for roughly 50 percent of the game because each team has an offense and a defense that takes a break when the other unit is out on the field.
This is true but looking at the physical activity that happens while on the field, you’ll see players running at each other at full speed and tackles that make it hard to walk the next morning.
In bowling, the time spent playing involves hurling a heavy ball, and that takes athletic ability don’t get me wrong, but this sequence only lasts a few seconds.
In golf, it takes a lot of power to launch the ball several hundred yards, while a swing can be comparable to a baseball player swinging their bat, golf does not have the extra running element that baseball has.
There’s also a lot of leisure involved in both sports. Golf possibly could be a sport if the players decided to carry their bags to the next hole instead of taking a motor vehicle to travel a few hundred yards. Just imagine if after a big gain, Patrick Mahomes took a golf cart to get to the huddle.
Both sports are also some of the only ones that are situated in buildings that also double as bars and restaurants. As a rule of thumb, if I am encouraged to drink alcohol and eat mozzarella sticks while actively participating in a sport, then that is a sign that the game does not have enough physical activity to be classified as a sport.
The concept of bowling alleys and TopGolf could never work with other sports like basketball or soccer. Right after some chicken wings and beer, scrimmages would instantly devolve into vomiting competitions.
It does not need to be a sport to be fun
While I think these activities shouldn’t be considered sports, that doesn’t mean no one should play them and that they aren’t loads of fun.
This was not made to diminish these activities and ridicule anyone who partakes in them. Instead, I wanted to get rid of the confusion that causes the definitions of sports and competitions to merge.
While chess and shooting take tremendous amounts of skill, they just do not fit into the same realm as physically grueling competitions like cross-country or triathlons.
Photo from Florian Olivo on Unslpash.