I'd love to hear your take on esports as sport! I've never really considered it before, but I make a stronger distinction personally between sport and games/leisure activities than I think even the mainstream — anything primarily mental/fine-motor (video games, chess, billiards, etc.) my brain classifies as "game," even if it's competitive, elite or professional. "Sports" are gross motor joints to me. I recognize the irony of a "strength" "athlete" saying what is and isn't a sport ...
I actually kind of like the gross-motor/fine-motor distinction you're making. But where I land--using your examples--is that video games and billiards are (probably) sports and chess is not. My argument/definition: a sport is a competitive endeavor where the use of the body is essential to attaining the result. In other words, while I use my hands in chess/poker, it doesn't really matter how I use my hands. If you played me in chess and, for whatever reason, didn't feel like moving the pieces yourself...but you made all of the decisions and someone else moved the pieces (or we were playing chess on paper via correspondence in the good old days), I would still say that we were playing chess and that you beat me at it. In video games or billiards, the physical actions (no matter how miniscule) determine the outcome. I could tell you "hey, sink the 8-ball in the corner pocket" or "here's how you beat bowser in the castle in level 7" but I couldn't take credit for accomplishing those tasks if the controller or cue weren't in my hand.
OR, we just keep it simple: Sports are generally physical and competitive endeavors that some group of people decide to categorize as sports.
In this sense, sports are like art: what makes a shoe stapled to a wall art? when some group of people agree it is and put it in a museum, a gallery, whatever.
all of this is unsatisfying of course. Power lifting and motor racing are the only true sports.
I'd love to hear your take on esports as sport! I've never really considered it before, but I make a stronger distinction personally between sport and games/leisure activities than I think even the mainstream — anything primarily mental/fine-motor (video games, chess, billiards, etc.) my brain classifies as "game," even if it's competitive, elite or professional. "Sports" are gross motor joints to me. I recognize the irony of a "strength" "athlete" saying what is and isn't a sport ...
I actually kind of like the gross-motor/fine-motor distinction you're making. But where I land--using your examples--is that video games and billiards are (probably) sports and chess is not. My argument/definition: a sport is a competitive endeavor where the use of the body is essential to attaining the result. In other words, while I use my hands in chess/poker, it doesn't really matter how I use my hands. If you played me in chess and, for whatever reason, didn't feel like moving the pieces yourself...but you made all of the decisions and someone else moved the pieces (or we were playing chess on paper via correspondence in the good old days), I would still say that we were playing chess and that you beat me at it. In video games or billiards, the physical actions (no matter how miniscule) determine the outcome. I could tell you "hey, sink the 8-ball in the corner pocket" or "here's how you beat bowser in the castle in level 7" but I couldn't take credit for accomplishing those tasks if the controller or cue weren't in my hand.
OR, we just keep it simple: Sports are generally physical and competitive endeavors that some group of people decide to categorize as sports.
In this sense, sports are like art: what makes a shoe stapled to a wall art? when some group of people agree it is and put it in a museum, a gallery, whatever.
all of this is unsatisfying of course. Power lifting and motor racing are the only true sports.
"Powerlifting and motor racing are the only true sports – Prof. Dr. Tolga Ozyurtcu" — epigraph to my book, forthcoming from UT Press 2034