Opinion
Are Video Games Sports?
This was originally posted on March 18th, 2017
The dictionary definition of a sport is:
A physical activity engaged in for pleasure
Merriam-Webster Online
This definition has two parts on it. the first one is that a sport must be a “physical activity,” with some form of exercise. The second one is that it must be “engaged in for pleasure,” and not just to get in shape.
Video games do not fit the definition of sport; because video games do not fit the first part of the definition of being physical. Video games currently don’t have much of a physical component to them (except if you want your right middle and index finger strong from clicking the mouse,) and are therefore, not a sport.
But wait, there’s a rebuttal for this argument.
Sports were designed as a pastime to entertain the people playing them, and soon after, the people watching them; and now with competitive gaming, both of those criteria are able to exist inside Video Games.
Our denotation of words is based off its connotation, which is the dictionary definition of a word is based of of what we associate an think it means. “Sport” is an old enough term to be denotized when Video Games did not exist, and therefore could require the “physical” criteria inside of its denotation.
So if the denotation of a “Sport” was made during the existence of modern competitive video games, it would definitely be, in some way, inclusive to video games.
So technically yes, video games are sports, but it will take a long time for people to get used to that.
