Last week, my fellow sports reporter Scott Lebo sparked a debate by arguing what constitutes a sport. I found his list of activities he claims are not sports to be rather egregious. In order for me to counter his argument, we need to start with a definition. As Scott mentioned, Oxford Languages defines a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” By and large, this is the definition we are automatically accustomed to.
So, how do I define a sport? Oxford’s definition never states to what extent there must be physical exertion, and, as Scott argued, how we define sports is subjective to some degree. I argue, however, that you do not necessarily have to lose consciousness by participating in certain activities for those activities to be considered a sport. We do not always know when our bodies will break down, and we do not need to play certain sports to figure that out. That brings me to my definition of a sport, which is any activity — group or singular — that can be done competitively or for entertainment. Particularly, I want to make the case for esports and motorsports as valid sports.
By my definition, esports is a sport. You do not necessarily need a certain amount of physical exertion to determine if esports is a sport. With its rising popularity, the competitive nature of esports makes it very entertaining, so much so that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced earlier this summer that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will host the first-ever Olympic esports games next year.
NASCAR and other motorsports are sports, and I’m tired of pretending they’re not. It is about more than a driver going in circles for three hours. It is a sport that requires endurance. It goes beyond a driver’s ability to react and handle heat behind the wheel. There is also the mental gymnastics of racing. Everyone involved with a racing team takes on a degree of emotional stress. In addition to stress, there is strategic planning the crew chief has to coordinate, including determining more technical aspects like when to call to pit for fuel or gauge how much wear the tires take on (also known as tire fall off). It is very much like a chess game, especially when there isn’t much action occurring on the track and pit stops become more crucial.
There is a certain kind of physicality that exists in this sport as well. The majority of pit crew members are former college football players. They need agility and strength to ensure an efficient pit stop for their driver. They are also carrying gas cans that weigh almost 100 pounds and have to swiftly change tires on time. That is not to mention the extra work that could go into repairing a car that gets damaged from an on-track incident. All of this is mostly happening while other cars are zooming through as well, jostling for a position on the pit road.
Our attention spans tend to focus on constant movement as we have seen in basketball and football. There is a rewarding factor to analyzing the amount of strategizing that goes into other sports like chess and golf. The ultimate payoff is to see whose strategies work and whose falter. The strategizing and climax of the action is the payoff that makes sports entertaining. I don’t believe that there should be a physical qualifier to constitute a sport.
My definition of a sport is more lenient than most people. This is merely my take, but I am open to hearing other arguments. This debate is far from over in the Trinitonian, so I invite you to return and check out what others within the paper have to say.
Part two of an ongoing series
