Can You Define What A Sport Is?

In a recent interview I gave to Gelf Magazine, I was asked: “Are the following ‘sports’: gymnastics, golf, archery, bowling, cheerleading, weightlifting?”

The question took me by surprise, but probably shouldn’t have because it’s actually an oft-debated subject -- what counts as a sport?

Someone once said, “If you can’t break your nose, it ain’t a sport.” Clever, but there goes swimming, track and field, and tennis. Others offer a more defensible variation on the theme: “If you don’t sweat, it’s not a sport.”

But perspiration, too, is a problematic criterion. Like nose-breaking, it presents at most a necessary but not a sufficient condition for sports status -- otherwise mowing the lawn and moving furniture would count.

More importantly, it introduces unacceptable arbitrariness. The overweight man on a hot day may sweat up a storm on a golf course. Does that mean he’s an athlete playing a sport whereas someone less prone to sweat and in a less warm environment isn’t?

I asked my friend Artie Kempner, a director for Fox Sports, for his definition. Having directed two Super Bowls, Kempner has the requisite credentials to weigh in on a thorny sports matter, and as he and I go back 35 years, I knew he’d have an answer and be willing to give it. When you’ve made your mark barking orders at Hall of Fame athletes, you can’t be shy.

“A sport determines the winner through a definitive scoring system,” Kempner explained. “You can have an athletic competition like gymnastics and figure skating, but because the winners are judged, subjectivity comes into play, and in my opinion that eliminates it from the category of ‘sport."

Since Kempner also directs NASCAR, I asked him if he considers auto racing a sport. “Of course,” he replied without hesitation. “The winner is determined by a definitive scoring system, without any subjective input.”

Artie is more consistent than convincing. By his definition, horseshoes and Scrabble are sports and boxing isn’t. It seems to me that two crucial criteria for status as a sport are physical exertion and competition. That knocks out chess and old-fashioned cheerleading, while leaving in bowling and competitive cheerleading.

But what about auto racing? Horse racing? Dog racing? Cock fighting? Does the introduction of technology disqualify something from sport-hood? Are human beings necessary? Or is the whole question an irrelevant exercise in taxonomy?

Consider the similar attempt by the great philosopher of language, Ludwig Wittgenstein, to define “game.” He looked carefully at all the things we call games (board games, card games, ball games, and so forth) and found no single trait uniting them. Games involve different mixtures of competition, skill, luck, and amusement, but none of these traits are found in all games.

Wittgenstein concluded that searching for a definition, or essence, of “game” is futile. Surely, the same applies for “sport.”

Unfortunately, declaring a definition of sports impossible does not eliminate the need to make some designations. The question of what counts as a sport unavoidably emerges when the Olympic committee decides what new events to accept and when newspapers decide what merits publication in the sports section. Wish I could help them, but I’m afraid I’ve got to punt.

Which raises this question: are kickers really football players? Was Eddie Gaedel (the dwarf hired as a pinch-hitter by Bill Veeck) a baseball player? How about Herb Washington (the track star hired by Charlie Finley as a pinch-runner)? I’m glad Gelf Magazine didn’t ask me those questions!