Top 10 Bogus "Sports"

How many times have you tuned in to ESPN or some other sports network only to find some pseudo sport you didn’t expect to see? If you’re like me, you probably scratched your head and asked, “Why is this being covered on ESPN? What makes this a sport?”

Apparently, the sports writers at the Winnipeg Sun noticed what I did and came up with a list of their top 10 bogus sports. After reading their list, I felt inspired to create my own. These are not in any particular order. Feel free to agree or disagree.

Poker
Spelling bee
Food eating contests
Scrabble/chess/board games
Billiards
Dog sledding
Fishing
Paintball
Tractor pull
Auto racing

I think there’s an important distinction to be made here between sport and competition. What many of us refer to as sport is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “any activity done for enjoyment or pleasure, or an athletic game.” Under the first definition, you’d have to consider sex as a sport, wouldn’t you?

Competition, however, implies a contest where someone wins. It’s not necessarily an athletic activity either, such as a spelling bee. ESPN’s programming emphasizes competition, not sport per se. Perhaps they should change their tag line to read, “The Wide World of Competition?”