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What Makes a Sport a Sport? Essay

Decent Essays

Sports are played worldwide and are reflective of that particular areas cultural view. This has led to a wide variety of sports that are played. Due to this high level of diversity it has become extremely challenging to define what activities are considered a sport verse a recitation activity. Specialists in this field frequently debate this issue, discussing the criteria that should exist when evaluating a sport. The main goal is to make a list concise enough yet, at the same time detailed so it can be used in every sporting model.
Scholars have identified six separate components that must be present within a sport in order to be considered as a true sport. One of the first requirements on this list is that the sport must include a …show more content…

One of the activities on the list that I thought was the furthest thing from a sport was Pigeon Racing. Even though I believed Pigeon racing to have incorporated many of the key components of a sport such as competition, a governing bodies, benefits, and strategy; it fails to meet the other requirements. One requirement that is not met is maintaining a certain level of physical and mental activity. In this particular sport the performer is completely dependent upon the pigeon to compete. By doing so this completely removes an athlete from the sport and eliminates any human chance in affecting the overall outcome. Instead of a sport I would categorize this as a recreational activity that is fun to watch and be involved in. I believe that an activity that relies solely on an animal performance cannot be considered to be a true sport.
Going along the idea about animal involvement this brings me to another sport on the list I questioned, noodling. This particular activity would in a sense be considered hunting but however, the means at which the animal is captured is vastly different. This type of hunting is focused on capturing catfish in a very peculiar fashion. The athlete essentially coats his arm in chum then sticks it underwater waiting for a nibble. The catfish generally come and engulf the person’s entire arm thus successfully capturing a catfish. One of the main reasons why I would not classify this as a sport is because it is a very unskilled form

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