Are games sports?

Over on Frank Solanki’s poetry blog:

May The Test Match Win

he used the word “sport” to describe games being played between rival teams.

Now, the world over conflates the word “sport” with a game played with equipment (sticks, balls, gloves, etc.) on a field or court, constrained by rules and governed by referees.

In a jocular mood I penned, as a comment, the following limerick:

The players declared this was sport.
The team owners together claimed tort!
If there are rules and a ball,
And lined fields to fall,
It’s a game, the judged cried with a snort.

In my mind, games are NOT sports.


“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” – Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway was an avid hunter and fisherman and no doubt would include those activities as sports.

But games? Maybe if you got rid of all the rules, put nails and barbwire on the bats and balls and PAID to play in fights to the death — then I might consider those sports.

Your thoughts?