On the Definition of Sport

ABSTRACT

This paper side-steps the question of whether ‘the’ concept of sport exists, or can be usefully analysed. Instead, I try to explain the much more modest aim of exhibition-analysis, which is to seek a description of an actually existing example of some concept of sport internal to a normative position. My example is that of Olympic-sport. I try to set out its logically necessary conditions, which of course are conditioned by its context within a theory that emphasises the values of formal competition, citius-altius-fortius, and excellence in contest, as well as rule-based procedural values related to fairness, justice and equality. In so doing, I readily accept that other kinds of sport can be similarly analysed, and I do not press the value claims of Olympic-sport. Instead, I try to show how Olympic-sport, properly construed, can accommodate the concerns of my critics with regard to sport’s play and game-like characteristics.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport definition
• Olympic sport
• exhibition analysis
• play and games

Preliminary Note

For the purposes of this article, I shall be using an asterisk (*) as a place-holder for various different kinds of sport. *sport, then, might be Olympic-sport, Nature-sport, Motor-sport, Recreation-sport, or something else—maybe even the concept of sport as such (if you think that there can be such a thing). When I am specifically referring to any particular kind of sport, I shall make it hyphenated, thus: Nature-sport, Motor-sport, etc. When I am not sure what precisely is being intended by the word ‘sport,’ I shall use *sport.

On E-sports

Karl Popper’s account of scientific methodology, as set out in his book Conjectures and Refutations (Popper 1963), emphasises the central and motivating role of the conjecture—the idea, the intuition—in the formulation of scientific hypotheses. I think that something similar is true in matters philosophical. Here’s my autobiographical example. I was thinking of a youngster, propped up in bed, playing Super-Mario by jiggling buttons on the console. Then I thought of the Wii-player who discovered that Wii tennis could be played lying on the couch, since certain movements of the wrist-console can produce effective tennis shots on the screen, without standing and without the need for tennis-like arm movements. And my intuition was: this cannot be sport.¹

My paper on e-sports (Parry 2019) was meant to test this intuition—that computer games are not sports—and my strategy was very simple. Since e-sports owners, producers and promoters were publicly seeking admission to the Olympic Games, their strategy must have been (and was) to seek to secure the status of their computer games as ‘Olympic’ sports. That is to say, they had to argue that e-sports were Olympic-sports. So, I sought to provide an analysis of Olympic-sports,² suggesting a set of six ‘logically necessary conditions’ (LNCs), and then to see whether e-sports could qualify against those conditions.

In order to be quite clear about this, I emphasised two points:

1. this was an ‘exhibition-analysis’ of specifically Olympic-sport. It was explicitly not presented as an analysis of *sport. It was a conceptual analysis of an actually-existing type of sport, available for inspection by anyone who cared to look at it.

2. it carried no implications for other kinds of *sport. I gave the example of Nature-sports, as another kind of sport that required a separate analysis (since it rejects ‘contest’ as a LNC).

On the Definition of *Sport

Despite my denial of any implications for other kinds of *sport, Mareš and Novotný (2022)—hereafter ‘the authors’—object to what they see as my emphasis on and promotion of the values of Olympic-sport. Instead, they say they will analyse ‘the practice paradigmatically called ‘sport,’ i.e., its individually necessary and jointly sufficient³ conditions’ (2022,2), which they label “modern ‘hard-core’ sport”. But they don’t explain what they mean by this paradigmatic Hardcore-sport, and they give only a few examples, which fail to identify Hardcore, and fail to distinguish Hardcore from Olympic-Sport, or Nature-sport.

Consider another autobiographical example: When I first came to live in Czechia, I was surprised to learn that hockey (ice hockey) was as big a sport as football, and that floorball (indoor hockey) was hugely popular—for ice hockey is a very minor sport in Britain, and most Brits have never heard of floorball. Even more surprising, though, was the frequently-made claim that one of the most popular participation sports in Czechia is mushrooming. (Czech TV 2022)

Now, it seems clear to me that this is a simple semantic issue. It might be said that, whereas hockey, football and floorball are Olympic-type sports, mushrooming is a ‘Recreational-type’ sport. Wouldn’t this instantly solve the problem? I don’t have to accuse mushroomers of insincerity, or of conceptual re-engineering. They are simply referring to a different concept of sport. And one might readily conduct an exhibition-analysis of ‘Recreation-sport’ without prejudice to a conception of Olympic-sport.⁴

But what are the authors to say about this, with their claim to be analysing ‘Hardcore-sport’? Since mushrooming is very popular, and Czech TV announces it as a *sport, does it count as a Hardcore-sport (for Czechia)? If not, why not? What are the criteria of hardcore-ness? Do those criteria differ across cultures and languages? Is hockey or floorball hard-core in Czechia, but not in Britain? How is hard-core related to non-hard-core sports? Is it a matter of popularity, or something else?⁵

There are those who think that an account of the concept of *sport is possible. I doubt it, although following their quest is interesting. I address a more modest task, but one that is arguably much more viable: that of essaying an exhibition-analysis. It is a much more achievable project to seek to describe Olympic-sport, or Nature-sport, than to provide an account of the concept of sport (i.e., an account of *sport). At any rate, this was the (more modest) task that I addressed.

On Definition

Now we run up against the problem of the definition of ‘definition.’ For my purposes, I was taking a definition to be the sum of the necessary conditions revealed by an exhibition-analysis. This methodology assumes a prior decision as to object of enquiry. We ask: what kind of sport are you thinking about analysing? We identify and specify in advance what we are talking about—in this case Olympic-sport—by clearly indicating the object of analysis. Because we can all inspect Olympic-sport for ourselves,⁶ we can all assess the clarity and accuracy of the analysis. The result is supposed to be an enhanced understanding of this object of analysis, though a more detailed and comprehensive description than we would normally have reason to attempt.

Importantly, this descriptive task is undertaken within a social context, since the concept under analysis already exists in the social world, upheld and promoted by groups with values, interests, etc. The task is to elucidate the necessary conceptual connexions holding within a set of commitments⁷ - within an overall evaluative position. We are asking: just what is this kind of sport—how do we describe it, and how do we descriptively exhibit its meanings and values?

The example I gave was from the jurisprudence of HLA Hart (1968, 4–6), who offers five logically necessary conditions (LNCs) for ‘punishment’: intention, unpleasantness, offender, offence, authority. Of course, these terms (also) require some clarification, and this requires reference to a normative situation—to particular social understandings, within which ‘judicial’ punishment is contextualised, and within which this concept of punishment is exhibited. The outcome is that these 5 LNCs form a definition of ‘judicial’ punishment: ‘the intentional infliction of something unpleasant on an offender, for a particular offence, by a properly constituted authority.’

There are two points to notice about such an account. The first is that it only works for the context in which it is exhibited. Hart himself notes five exceptions to his ‘judicial’ account, given other different contextual understandings. For example, a teacher might ‘punish’ the whole class for the offences of only some pupils. That is to say, some non-offenders are ‘punished,’ thus violating the third condition: that of being an offender. (The analogy here is that my account of Olympic-sport has effect only within the Olympic context—no further claims are being made regarding *sports.)

The second point is that Hart’s LNC-based definition is not designed to capture all that is interesting to say about punishment. Some people take themselves to be defining punishment when they introduce related terms, such as retribution, deterrence, reform, protection and education, all of which have been advocated as central ‘characteristics’ of punishment. But we have to ask: are they LNCs? I would say that reform or deterrence, for example, are notions closely related to punishment, but only within some normative theory or another that advocates a position on what are (or should be) the functions of judicial punishment. (The analogy here is that the authors’ revised ‘conceptual’ definition is no such thing, because it simply imports a normative theory of how we should see *sport—i.e., as an encounter, whether competitive or not.)

However, this does not mean that exhibition-analysis must eschew the normative—it does not pretend to be ‘value-neutral.’ This shows how the analytical task can be seen to embrace the normative in a transparent and still strictly analytical methodology. Of course, Hart had an interest in judicial punishment—he was a Professor of Jurisprudence whose most famous book was The Concept of Law (1962) his normative intention was to analyse the concept of punishment close to his interests in law and jurisprudence.

So, the analytical task is: firstly, identify your object of enquiry—what value-based, theory-based, context-dependent concept do you seek to analyse? Secondly, exhibit the properties of just this concept. This descriptive task could be called ‘analytical relativism,’ because it sees the conceptual analysis as situated in (and relative to) some normative context, or ‘theory.’

It leaves open the question of whether or not *sport is identifiable, never mind analysable. It settles for the more modest task of identifying and exhibiting a particular concept within its normative context. (That is what I was trying to do in the context of Olympic-sport, which values formal competition, citius-altius-fortius, excellence in contest, etc., as well as rule-based procedural values related to fairness, justice, equality, etc).

The authors propose instead to consider ‘modern ‘hard core’ sports as a stipulation’ (2022, 6). However, whilst my object of enquiry is transparent—everyone can see what is an Olympic sport—theirs is not. They nowhere explain their object of enquiry. We are entitled to ask: what do you mean by ‘modern ‘hard core’ sports’, and which *sports qualify? In their first elucidation, the only sports mentioned as Hardcore-sports are in fact Olympic-sports. Later, they are augmented by one (just one) Nature-sport example: rock climbing.

On ‘Theories’

I was not (and am not, for argumentative e-sporting purposes) concerned with ‘theories’ of sport. I do think that competitive sport has its justifications, and it is undeniable that its particular virtues have been widely accepted and adopted. Of course, it also has its critics and detractors. But in this article I was not concerned to explore the relative value of various theories of sport, much less to address a theory advocating Olympic sport.⁸

To return to the example of punishment. If someone suggests reform, deterrence or protection as LNCs of punishment, I reply that our present task is to discover what punishment is, not what the features of punishment might be, or with which theories we might seek to justify our punishings. First, try to say what punishment is – this is the descriptive task (within a normative context). Second, ask why we do that very thing—this is the normative task, which will involve our inspection of the various theories of judicial punishment that have been offered

Here, the authors are most concerned about ‘how sport ought to be played and approached’ (2022, 10). This addresses the second task, not the first—it is a ‘theories’ issue, not a conceptual issue. It also begs the question: what is this *sport, to which you refer, and for which you hold commitments as to how it ought to be played and approached? My suggestion would be: when you have been able to articulate the differences between (say) Olympic-sport, Recreation-sport, Nature-sport, Mind-sport, Motor-sport, Hardcore-sport, etc, then (and only then) are you in a position to think about how each *sport should be played and approached.

It seems to me that this value commitment is driving the authors’ analysis. Instead of seeking a conceptual analysis (within some acknowledged normative context), seeking LNCs, they advance a preferred theoretical characterisation of modern Hardcore-sport. But, again, we are not told what this is. It might as well be simply *sport—in contrast to my account, which provides a clear and transparent object of analysis. No examples are given of a practice that is not a modern Hardcore-sport—in contrast to my account, which trials and discusses many and various counter-examples.

The Authors’ Own Account

It seems that the authors have no objection to my conceptual analysis of Olympic sport—indeed, they rely heavily on it for their characterisation of Hardcore-sport. Neither do they object to the suggestion that many people find it a desirable kind of sport, even though they demur. Further, they have no reason to suppose that I was seeking to extend this idea further into *sport. I was perfectly clear: ‘It cannot yield an analysis of the concept of sport’ (2019, 6)—i.e., an analysis of *sport. ‘I shall propose six logically necessary conditions for the use of the word ‘sport’ (understood as ‘Olympic sport’)’ (2019, 8). So there’s no argument here.

The authors want to start elsewhere. ‘We may ask to what extent Parry’s account of sport applies outside the Olympic context.’ (2022, 6) Of course, they are free to ask that if they wish. But my project, dealing with the e-sports issue, was clearly limited to Olympic sport and, whilst there are many other *sports to explore, this was not my task. Again, I insist that I was quite clear about not addressing the nature of ‘ … any other kind of sport—such as recreation sport, exercise sport, sport training, blood sports, outdoor sports, dance-sport, yoga-sport, board-games sport, card-games sport, etc.’ (2019, 5). So there’s no argument here, either—about the project that the authors set themselves.

Furthermore, there is very little disagreement over definitions. The authors’ definition of *sport (2022, 10) is identical to mine, including all of my six criteria: institutionalised rule-governed contests of human physical skill. Their single objection is to the category of ‘contest,’ to which they wish to add ‘game and play-like encounters’ (where ‘encounters’ includes ‘tests’ as well as contests).

This amendment requires inspection. To start with, it is unclear whether encounters are seen either as tests-or-contests; or as tests-and-contests-plus other encounters (that are neither tests nor contests).

If the former, then an important point goes unnoticed. Krein’s account of Nature-sports insists that they are neither tests nor contests, but encounters with nature (2018, ch. 3). This is a useful distinction, which should not be lost. However, if the latter (as applied to the authors’ account), the idea of encounter now becomes so vague as to be without content. What can I do that cannot be described as an encounter? All human activities involve encounters of some kind. Some of them might be tests and some of them contests, but most of them will be neither. I’m sure my Czech friends are happy to encounter mushrooms. The introduction of ‘encounter’ strikes me as a forlorn attempt to find some common ‘essence’ to various very different kinds of *sport, whilst accepting an internal contradiction—encounters can be either contests or not. The whole point of Krein’s distinction between what he calls Nature sports and Traditional sports is that the first are encounters and the second are contests.

The idea of Hardcore-sports conceals this important insight, whilst its own instantiations remain opaque. We don’t know which sport practices are included in or excluded from Hardcore-sport. It seems as though the authors are reaching for an ‘umbrella’ account of *sport that will include (at least) both Olympic-sport and Nature-sport, but we cannot know what else might be included or excluded, and why.

Play and Game (Or Their Place-Holders) as LNCs

In all my years of asking students to perform exhibition-analyses of Olympic-sport, no-one (in 40 years) has EVER suggested play or game as a logically necessary condition.

And neither do the authors—or do they? Despite their claim to be seeking LNCs, they acknowledge that Suits ‘does not consider all sports to be essentially games’ (2022, 5) and they themselves confess that: ‘not all sports are games and the relation between sport and play is even less obvious’ (2022, 8). This seems straightforwardly to rule out play and game as LNCs, and yet the phrase ‘structurally game and play-like’ appears in their revised definition. They repeat the point: ‘not all sports are games’; and play is not sport because of ‘a different emphasis on the importance of rules’ – so, again, this seems to admit that neither play nor game can be a LNC for *sport. And yet they insist on introducing play and game ‘place-holders’ into their definition – ‘the non-necessary, non-ordinary, arbitrary, and gratuitous character of sport that links it to play and game structures’ (2022, 7-8).

They say, ‘These play and game structures are relevant and constitutive for the definition of sport’ (2022, 8). I do not think that they are relevant for the definition of *sport. Rather, they are constitutive for the theory the authors hold about the nature and value of *sport. They say (2022, 11) that ‘Parry’s account lacks the emphasis on play and game structures that are inherently present in sport (2022, 11).’ However, it is left unclear as to what counts as *sport here. And what is it to be ‘inherently present,’ since it is not claimed that they are LNCs? They say (2022, 7) that their account ‘more accurately describes what sport is about’. But, again, what is *sport here? It certainly does not more accurately describe what Olympic-sport is about.

On the authors’ account, my definition is missing a reference to some (preferred) ‘features’ of *sport. However, I was not looking for ‘features’ or ‘characteristics’ of sport, but rather LNCs. A simple response would be to point out that one of the LNCs for Olympic-sport is ‘rules’; and, when further construed, it is the rules that exhibit all those features that are given as play and games place-holders. They are non-necessary, non-ordinary, arbitrary, and gratuitous. We might even say that they are ‘inherently present’ in Olympic-sport. That is to say, on further analysis, the definition of Olympic-sport (based on the six LNCs) already contains reference to the ‘play and game structures’ advocated by the authors.

The claim that I’m trying to colonise (infect) all kinds of sport with the harmful excesses of the pursuit of competitive excellence is never far away. ‘It would be wrong to claim that because Olympic sports are contests, then all typical modern sports are also contests (2022, 7).’ Of course, I never said that, and there is evidence that I’m happy to work in other *sport paradigms, e.g., in Nature-sport (Martínková and Parry 2017; and a forthcoming article responding to Krein 2018) and in a SEP Special Issue on Slow Sport (Martínková, Andrieu, and Parry 2022) which some might even regard as discussing non-sporting bodily activities, so far is it removed from the concerns of Olympic-sport⁹. So I am not wedded to the value of only Olympic-sport, and I am not pressing the values of Olympic-sport to the detriment of other *sports.

Conclusions

I can’t see that the authors disagree in any measure with my arguments and my positions in the E-sports paper.

Their main criticism is that my account ‘does not sufficiently represent sport outside the Olympic context’ (2022, 11). Well, of course not—since its intention was simply to represent sport within the Olympic context. That’s why it’s called Olympic-sport, and that’s why it’s called an exhibition-analysis. It was intended as a first step—a conceptual analysis that exhibits in detail the elements of the concept of Olympic-sport and the relationship between Olympic practice and the ethical, social and political values shared in the Olympic context. The second step is to seek to explicate just those values, in relation to which a particular set of sports practices emerges, including those that laud the value of competition, or contest. And, of course, this is quite without prejudice to other kinds of sport, that laud other values. Let a thousand flowers bloom: if I play squash on Thursdays, fighting for my place on the squash-ladder; and I climb with friends on Cow and Calf rocks at weekends—then Olympic-sport and Nature-sport happily co-exist in me.

Furthermore, I cannot see that their own account intersects with mine, except insofar as it presents serious problems of its own. In responding to their positive account, which differs from mine by tweaking only one criterion, I have tried to show how Olympic-sport, properly construed, can accommodate their concerns regarding play and game-like characteristics.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lukáš Mareš and Daniel Novotný for vigorous discussions, and for further collaborations. This paper was written with institutional support from Cooperatio (Sport Sciences - Social), Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. However, I must congratulate the marketing genius who sought to persuade us all through conceptual engineering that computer games share in the virtues of sport. Since they are now ‘e-sports,’ parents can rest easy in the safe knowledge that all of that sedentary console-jiggling is sporting activity, and their child is a budding athlete.

2. Or, to be clearer, an analysis of Olympic-type sport—to include those sports that share the analysis, but for various reasons will probably never secure a place on the quadrennial Olympic programme. Whilst there are hundreds of Olympic-type sports, only a few (26 at present) find a place on the Summer programme, with the addition of a few ‘demonstration sports.’ I regard all Olympic-type sports as ‘Olympic-sports.’

3. They never again mention the role of ‘sufficient’ conditions.

4. Incidentally, I don’t think that mushrooming is even a Recreation-sport. I take my lead from the argument that Kevin Krein uses to distinguish wilderness activities (which he regards as non-sporting activities) from nature sports. Nature sports, he says, “are about particular kinds of skillful interaction with features of the natural world,” whereas wilderness activities emphasize the simple encounter with nature—with simply being in nature. Further, Krein argues in his chapter 3 that this is a useful exercise “if we explicitly distinguish between nature sports and wilderness experiences, and allow different explanations for each”. I think it’s also a useful exercise to distinguish nature sports from Olympic sports (or traditional sports, in Krein’s terms). The authors don’t agree—they wish to include both (and what else?) under the umbrella term Hardcore-sports.

5. Popularity (or ‘wide following’) is a criterion suggested by Suits (in Morgan and Meier 1988, 45). But it seems to me not a necessary condition of Olympic-sport (where this means Olympic-type sport). There are many clear examples of Olympic-sports which are not (yet) very popular, e.g., teqball, woodball, wakeskate, etc. (Of course, this depends upon just how wide a wide following needs to be.).

6. Perhaps this is not as straightforward as I’m suggesting. There may be examples of sports currently being considered for the Olympic programme (break-dancing) or historically on the Olympic programme (motor-boating, in 1908) that do not fit the analysis. I would argue that an analysis of Olympic-sport helps us to see why the inclusion of motor-boating was a never-to-be-repeated mistake, and just why break-dancing in unacceptable (under its present arrangements).

7. For more on the relation between the conceptual and the normative, see Morgan (2019).

8. Although I did this many years ago in a number of articles, including Parry (1998, 2006), and finally (absolutely explicitly) in The Concept of Sport in Olympism (2020), which situates just this analysis of the concept of Olympic-sport within the ideology of Olympism.

9. ‘At first glance, the phrase ‘slow sport’ seems antithetical to our understanding of sport. For the purposes of this issue, by ‘sport’ we do not mean competitive sport, of which the most paradigmatic example is Olympic sport’ (Martinkova et al 2022, 2)