The Definition of "Sport"

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Duckay
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The Definition of "Sport"

Postby Duckay » 01 Oct 2013, 03:57

This was originally a spam thread but I find it interesting so I thought we could continue to discuss it anyway.

The Australian Sports Foundation defines sport as follows:

“A human activity capable of achieving a result requiring physical exertion and/or physical skill, which, by its nature and organisation, is competitive and is generally accepted as being a sport.”


It's hard to say what exactly counts as "generally accepted as being a sport", but by the other parts of the definition, it's very broad - it would include competitive ballroom dancing, which was one of the examples in the original spam post. It wouldn't include e-sports - is that an oversight or does that make sense?
Last edited by Duckay on 26 Dec 2013, 15:18, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby My pseudonym is Ix » 01 Oct 2013, 03:59

First video: ddlj.

It's another one.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Duckay » 01 Oct 2013, 04:02

Ah, I didn't think of that until after I hit post. I hope the bot is fascinated by my insight?

ETA: In my defense (possibly?) the mobile site doesn't show post count. Still, I should have looked into it more.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby empath » 01 Oct 2013, 04:19

y'know? I starting to recognize the thread titles. I saw that and thought "that sounds like something someone would ask on Yahoo! Answers." :|

Still, I find it thought-provoking that the bots (or the people setting up the bots) are more and more choosing 'questions' that I find INTERESTING...

Makes me thing Randall's idea is slowly evolving on its own.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 01 Oct 2013, 04:28

To add fuel to the bot thread.

Video Gaming will always find it hard to become a "true" spectator sport because:
Rules are difficult to know for an outside. Football is simple to the outsider. Players kick a ball to place. Video games has various aspects. MOBAs have exp and gold. FPS has perks and weapons. You need to invest sometime understanding the mechanics of the game before enjoying it as a spectator sport.
The playing field keeps shifting. With games like CoD with every season. MOBAs adding new heroes and items over time. MMO Arenas adding new spells.
This makes it challenging for an outside with a passive interest to keep track. Real-life sport really only changes player rosters. Sometimes rules get tweaked or change. But rarely does a field position suddenly get the ability to teleport. Or players get to wear different clothing to give them different attributes.

This will always cause e-sports to be niche. You have to have an interest in video gaming to begin to even have an interest in a particular esport.

People will still watch real-life sport even if they've never played the sport in their life.

Real-life sport has an immediate social atmosphere. Most e-sports are viewed online (more anti-social)
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby korvys » 01 Oct 2013, 15:06

Merrymaker_Mortalis wrote:Real-life sport has an immediate social atmosphere. Most e-sports are viewed online (more anti-social)

Funny you should say this. A pub in Brisbane received noise complaints due to the crowd of Dota fans during the last Dota 2 International finals.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Duckay » 01 Oct 2013, 15:25

Merrymaker_Mortalis wrote:Rules are difficult to know for an outside. Football is simple to the outsider. Players kick a ball to place. Video games has various aspects. MOBAs have exp and gold. FPS has perks and weapons. You need to invest sometime understanding the mechanics of the game before enjoying it as a spectator sport.


On the whole, I actually agree with you that e-sports are fairly niche and going to remain that way for a while yet, but I'm not sure I agree with this statement, really. You could just as easily say that an FPS consists of shooting bad guys, and is therefore simple. There's a lot of extra bits and pieces, but there is in sports like football as well. In fact, you saying "football" leaves me confused. Do you mean soccer, gridiron, rugby league, rugby union, AFL? Something else? All of them could be reasonably described as 'players get the ball to a place', but there's substantial rules differences that can easily confuse people who aren't familiar with it.

Or to think of it a different way, I grew up with cricket. I don't really watch it, but plant me in front of a game and I know what's going on. However, I've met people from countries where cricket is not played, who have stone cold no idea what's going on in a game.

In short, I don't think it's actually that sport is 'easier' to understand, it's just that most people have been raised in a culture such that they've picked up a lot of the bits and pieces about various sports already.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby My pseudonym is Ix » 02 Oct 2013, 00:06

What Duckay said.
"Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not Image it after all."
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby empath » 02 Oct 2013, 13:53

xuliekeya wrote:What is the difference between a game and a sport and an art? I've read the answers to similar questions, but I am still not clear. Some people have said that sports tests a person's physical skills and endurance. If so, what about bowling? That's not really an endurance sport. It tests skill, though. What category does pool/billiards come under? What about darts? What about figure skating, which tests skills and endurance as well as other things, but is a solo or pair activity rated by judges. Would then ballroom dancing be considered a sport?


Thank you, spambot, for giving us a topic to have a fascinating discussion about!

(and again, I refer back to that xkcd comic...)
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby phlip » 02 Oct 2013, 19:53

For the complexity topic: I understand very little about, say, League of Legends, but I understand that the main goal is to fight your way to the other end and blow everything up, and preventing the other guy from doing the same. And, as I discovered when going to Melbourne for PAX, I also understand very little about, say, AFL, but I understand the main goal is to get the ball to the other end of the field, and kick it between the posts.

Watching either, I'm mostly lost as to the actual tactics involved, and a lot of the rules... why do they fight over the ball so much after a tackle, if the umpire's just going to take it back and throw it in the air anyway? In what ways is one hero better or worse than any another, how do they all interact? And listening to conversations between fans, I have absolutely no idea what's going on... ("So then Collingwood was playing the Magpies at the Telstroptus Oval, and you know what they're like playing away...", "And then they tried to use Teemo as a tank in the top lane, can you believe it?"), it all sounds like "Football football football, football football. League league legends league, LoL. Derp derp, I'm Alex, this is how I talk."

But, I understand enough to get some amount of enjoyment out of watching a game, and while I can't exactly follow who's ahead in the middle of a skirmish, and the commentators don't usually help much (being aimed at someone with more knowledge than I), when the dust settles and points have been scored, I can get some enjoyment out of the big-picture game. And I picked up some amount of the details from watching... like levelling up in LoL, and apparently there's some kind of store (but no idea what's in it), or that catching a kick on the full is a thing in AFL that gets you the option of a free kick (but no idea what decisions go into whether you take it or not).

So really, I don't think complexity is a major factor here - both physical sports and esports have a lot of complexity if you want to go deep, but the good ones you can still follow without going that deep into it. And, on that note, as mentioned, there's Cricket.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby korvys » 04 Oct 2013, 22:39

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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 05 Oct 2013, 03:23

Cricket. People hit the ball and run backwards and forwards a lot between two points.

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Advance rules. Hitting the thingy behind the batter gets the batter out (even if the batter hit it himself). Catching a ball hit by a batter without it touching the ground gets him out.
-
I can understand why Cricket makes no sense. I didn't understand how Rounders worked when I was 6. Why would I want to play a game where if I get out, I do nothing for the next 45mins?
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby My pseudonym is Ix » 05 Oct 2013, 06:13

As a cricketer I know once said, "Cricket is the only game on earth where half your team can be in Tesco's and you're still winning"
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Frednotbob » 30 Oct 2013, 02:24

Merrymaker_Mortalis wrote:Cricket. People hit the ball and run backwards and forwards a lot between two points.

-
Advance rules. Hitting the thingy behind the batter gets the batter out (even if the batter hit it himself). Catching a ball hit by a batter without it touching the ground gets him out.
-
I can understand why Cricket makes no sense. I didn't understand how Rounders worked when I was 6. Why would I want to play a game where if I get out, I do nothing for the next 45mins?



Baseball.

After 4,000,00 years of evolution, our chief form of entertainment is still hitting things with sticks and running in circles
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Lemegeton » 30 Oct 2013, 05:19

the darts player Phil Taylor once said that if darts isn't a sport then the tax man can return all his money then. you don't pay taxes for games or hobbies.

his point being that if you can play a game professionally and earn a living from it, then its a sport. i tend to think along those same lines.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby empath » 30 Oct 2013, 17:52

...as does Inland Revenue (or whatever it's called now), along with the Internal Revenue Service, Customs & Revenue Canada, etc. etc.

And yeah, when it comes down to it, that's a pretty GOOD definition.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby AlexanderDitto » 31 Oct 2013, 13:50

I've deleted the first post which was definitely spam (you guys get a B- in spam detection) but feel free to continue discussing the difference between a game and a sport and an art.

It's an interesting, if (in my opinion) ultimately futile discussion.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Duckay » 26 Dec 2013, 15:15

I am going to continue to discuss this because I find it interesting and it turns out that Cracked had a thing on it. (Actually a few months ago but I didn't see it until today.)

Specifically, I think this is the relevant quote.

Amanda Mannen wrote:First, as nebulous a concept as "sports" is to begin with, most people seem to agree that a sport is something that you get better at the fitter you are, which would include football but not, say, Magic: The Gathering.


Specifically applying that to golf, we get the result that because you get better with training and physical fitness, it is a sport. But are we happy with that definition - do we want something more? After all, as we discussed earlier in the thread, ballroom dancing is something you get better at the fitter you are.
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Re: The Definition of "Sport"

Postby pokute » 26 Dec 2013, 15:36

Duckay wrote:is that an oversight or does that make sense?


Things like these exist because they are useful. If e-sports become popular and lucrative enough, definitions and rules will either be changed or forgotten.
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby Duckay » 26 Dec 2013, 15:51

Lemegeton wrote:the darts player Phil Taylor once said that if darts isn't a sport then the tax man can return all his money then. you don't pay taxes for games or hobbies.

his point being that if you can play a game professionally and earn a living from it, then its a sport. i tend to think along those same lines.


I know this is an old post but pokute's post made me think of much the same thing. We already live in a world where for some small number of people, they can make a living from playing card games (poker, for example). Does that mean that poker is a sport, or is there some other definition which would be appropriate? Is that at all a meaningful distinction?
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Re: difference between a game and a sport and an art

Postby pokute » 26 Dec 2013, 16:50

Duckay wrote:Is that at all a meaningful distinction?


You'll need a well-established purpose and context before anyone can judge for meaning. Otherwise, it's going to be a run around in circles which, while amusing, is a waste of time other than for the amusement. If you're genuinely interested in exploring this topic, what you want to read up on is the evolution of social labels.
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Re: The Definition of "Sport"

Postby Duckay » 26 Dec 2013, 17:29

It's one thing to read about something, though - as I have done many times in the past - and another to discuss it with other people. But fair enough; if you think that's a waste of time, then that's reasonable.
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Re: The Definition of "Sport"

Postby pokute » 26 Dec 2013, 18:03

Duckay wrote:It's one thing to read about something, though - as I have done many times in the past - and another to discuss it with other people. But fair enough; if you think that's a waste of time, then that's reasonable.


I was actually hoping to fish out some deeper discussion.
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Re: The Definition of "Sport"

Postby AdmiralMemo » 27 Dec 2013, 02:09

This makes me question the distinctions of context... If you say that things like high-level poker tournaments are sports, you question whether playing poker with your friends is a sport, too. Most people would say no to the second part. However, most people would also say that professional football and playing football with your friends are both sports.

It's a tough call, and context is everything.
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Re: The Definition of "Sport"

Postby pokute » 27 Dec 2013, 10:29

As a sport for taxation - Depends on lobbying and if they could be arsed to create new laws for it or just lump it under existing regulations.

As a sport for participation - Largely depends on public perception. Any fatass can play football in his backyard. To perform at the highest levels of Starcraft, many Korean teams have rigorous cardiovascular and weight training programs for their athletes. To imitate the pros, aspiring Korean Starcraft players often adopt health and fitness programs. The line is blurrier the closer you look at it.

As a sport for spectating - I'd call it a sport right now.

As a sport of tradition - If it keeps growing in popularity, in a few decades it will be a tradition.

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