Defining Games and Sport: Academic Perspectives

Defining Games and Sport: Key Concepts

What Constitutes a Game?

A game is characterized by motor and social activity. It involves constraints such as the possibility of winning or losing, the existence of rules, and real motor actions. These are recreational activities with significance, requiring a sufficient degree of motor system involvement, including key movements related to intention, decision, and motor adjustment to the environment and others.

Scholarly Perspectives on Games vs. Sport

• Sanz: The game originates from a popular proposal. It is communicative, creative, spontaneous, and perhaps detached from serious outcomes. Conversely, proposals directed towards higher authorities (possibly organized sport) are competitive, potentially alienating, and involve a transcendent effort.
• Zapico: States that the difference between a game and sport is that the latter is no longer purely recreational. Instead, it seeks performance, possibly driven by prizes or bets. Consequently, recreation is often forgone by both the performer and the spectator.
• Parlebas: Notes that sports commonly share the characteristic of being officially selected and sanctioned. This feature doesn't necessarily differentiate sport from traditional 'sports games'. However, both belong to the broader category of 'games', distinguished by two features: a motor situation (driving action) and coding (rules).

Defining Sport: Various Viewpoints

• Cagigal: Defines sport as: Fun, liberating, spontaneous, disinterested activity; an expansion of mind and body, usually taking the form of a struggle through exercise, more or less subject to rules.
• Seurin: Views sport as a game, meaning an activity not pursued for utilitarian purposes. It involves competing against an adversary, either inert (like time or space) or animated, with the goal of victory. It requires intense physical activity.
• Diem: According to Diem, sport is a game that carries value and reliability. It is practiced with commitment, adherence to rules, integration, and improvement, aiming for the highest possible results.
• Romero: Defines it as: Any activity, organized or not, involving movement through play with the objective of overcoming challenges or winning, either individually or in groups.
• Salvador: Emphasizes that sport is primarily a business. While voluntary, it's not 'free' but subject to rules. It's competitive and, though sometimes hazardous, not governed purely by chance. Ultimately, sport may lack purpose beyond itself.
• Parlebas (2003): Offers a concise definition: A finite or countable set of motor situations, codified in the form of competition, and institutionalized.