Is It a Sport or a Game?

Occasionally there is a debate about whether a certain thing is a game or a sport. This tends to come up around Olympic time when people criticize certain events as not being a "real sport". Given that the Olympics are right around the corner and figured I'd offer my views on the debate as I've always had a rule of thumb to differentiate between a game and a sport:


If you can be over 45 years old, and/or overweight, and/or drink beer while playing, yet still be one of the best at it -- it's a game, not a sport.


To me sports are athletic, you have to be in peak physical condition to be the best, whereas that is not necessarily the case with a game. That doesn't mean that certain skills are not necessary to be the best again, in fact they have to be extremely skilled to be the best, but not athletic. For the Olympics, that means games probably shouldn't be there.

So what does that mean for various events?


Chess – game. I know occasionally there is a push to include it in the Olympics (it is in the Asian Games) but I disagree with that.

Synchronized swimming -- this one always gets flak from people but under my definition it's definitely a sport.

Bowling – game.

Golf – hmmmmm, I will have to leave that one open for debate. Golfers seem to peak in their 20s and 30s so there appears to be a level of athleticism involved. I don't follow golf much so I couldn't really say how likely it would be for someone in their 40s to be a top-20 golfer. Are you allowed to drink beer between holes of a major golf tournament?

Curling -- I'm going to get in trouble for this one from my fellow Canadians – game.

Baseball -- maybe in the olden days you could have been overweight and out of shape but I don't think that's true anymore (so forget about bringing up those late-career pictures of Babe Ruth everyone) – sport.

Darts -- I think in Britain it's mandatory to drink beer while playing it ;-) Game.

Archery and Shooting – hmmmmm, don’t know. Can't think of why you can't be 45 or overweight and not be an excellent shot -- game unless someone can argue otherwise.

Equestrian -- you probably won't do well if you're overweight, and you can’t drink beer on the horse, but I think you can be over 45 and still win – game.

Table tennis -- occasionally maligned by Westerners but if you've ever seen it played at an Olympic level there is no way someone who is out of shape is going to be at the top – sport.

Wrestling – sport (hopefully it is not common for there to be top wrestlers over the age of 45, otherwise this will have to be the exception that proves the rule). Sumo wrestling is definately the exception that proves the rule on the overweight criteria.

Ice Dancing – sport. While not as physically grueling as, say, pairs figure skating you still need to be really fit.


Try the definition out with other events, if you can find some exceptions let me know.