You Can’t Call That Sport

If you are a sport, you will get government funding to keep your sport on the track to future greatness. This is the reason why we have a list of 'sports' that should be re-branded as hobbies or activities and no more. My first stab is at chess, a 'sport' played on your rear end at a table, on a playing surface no bigger than your average bedside table. There is a bunch of pieces and there isn't even noise, just a lot of clock slapping and the occasional 'check mate', which in chess could be code for 'let's meet in the locker room afterwards to sort this out'. There is a title that all chess players strive for and it's name is just as pathetic as calling this activity a sport, 'Chess Grandmaster'. I'm sorry, were you looking for a title that would make you sound like a Merlin the Magician fan club?

My second gripe is at Dance sport, which is so scared of being called something other than a sport, it decided it would be best to put the word in its name. Which means if you dance normally at a party, that's not a sport, it's only a sport when you call it Dance sport. It's where all the over dressed straight faced pansies come together to dance on a parquet floor with giant numbers on their backs (to better resemble an actual sport). There is lots of rivalry and sweat, but it is dancing, we can't get over that can we?

Anything involving an animal with or without a human is not a sport. Yet there are plenty that are considered sports by whoever makes that decision. Equestrian for example, you ride a horse and get it to jump over fences and into water and around in circles and against the clock, but it involves an animal, that's not a human sport. You are taking out the human impact and there is too much emphasis on the breed of the horse and it's training regime. To make matters worse, you can pretty the horse up with strange looking braids and a dorky looking rider and trot around a yard. How is that a sport may I ask?

Orienteering, don't get me started on this one. You get a bunch of directions or clues and you must use a compass and walk around to find some markers in the bush. That sounds like an activity if you could even call it that. But calling that a sport is a disgrace to the real sports.

Which brings me to my next point, maybe we should use a new set of parameters to discuss which is a sport and which is not. One rule should be if you can have a crowd watching in the stands, complete with music and cheerleaders, that could allow it to be a spectator sport. If it makes high rating television including the increase of alcohol sales on the big days, that's a sport.

Sport is about blood, sweat and tears, it's about pushing yourself or your team to the brink of collapse for the overwhelming feeling of victory. Does that sound like chess, or do you think I could use that description when I talk about orienteering?

Give me my sport, on a TV, with beer and national telecasting or leave it in the hobbies box.

Footnote: When I used the standard spell checker on this document, it flagged the word Dancesport when the words are put together, so I acknowledged that by allowing it to separate them. So even spell checkers don't think it's a sport.