Sports and Games

While I was busy exchanging germs with a couple hundred people in an aluminum can on Saturday, a competition aired on ESPN2. While not unusual that a sports network would broadcast a contest for entertainment, this happened to be an "eSports" tournament, which got all sorts of people in a froth. 

Sport (according to Dictionary.com):

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.
2. a particular form of this, especially in the out of doors.
3. diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime.

Most people fixate on the athletic component of the above definition in order to label a given activity as sport. I confess that I myself do so. On the other hand, I feel that primarily artistic competitions that happen to include an athletic component (e.g., dance, figure skating) should not be included. Neither would I consider competitions not involving athleticism (e.g., chess, videogames) to be sports. However, according to the third definition, I am wrong to think so. "Sport," much like "Obscenity," seems to be difficult to pin down, but we know when we see it.

Belghast thinks that we need to drop the "e" from eSports, as if they would be more legitimate without the wannabe prefix. I personally consider it a mistake to define every competition as a sport. We already have the ridiculous sounding Dancesport. What's next? Singsport? Why not? Singing involves plenty of physical exertion, more than the button-mashing of videogames that Belghast alludes to. How about Triviasport? The folks on Jeopardy mash buttons, too; and it's often reaction time/button mashing speed that determines the winner.

Game (also from Dictionary. com):

1. an amusement or pastime
2. a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.
3. a single occasion of such an activity, or a definite portion of one

Just as not all sports involve games (by the third definition thereof), not all games need to be called sports. My point is not to mock these various competitive organizations aspiring to be "Sports," but to point out that sports is not necessarily a  desirable thing to be associated with. Too many gamers (and other fringe interests) are concerned about credibility with the "mainstream." As the Godmother of Faff obliquely points out, the sports world is not exactly filled with proper role models. Nor are they likely to accept us "basement dwellers" into their cool kids' club in any case.

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