Mapping the terrain of sport: a core-periphery model

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I propose a new way of defining sport that I call a ‘core-periphery’ model. According to a core-periphery model, sport comes in degrees – what I refer to as ‘sport-likeness’ – and the aim of the philosopher of sport is to chart those dimensions along which an activity can be more or less a sport. By introducing the concept of sport-likeness, the core-periphery model complicates the picture of what is or is not a sport and encourages philosophers interested in defining sport to engage with the social sciences in exploring the extension of the term sport in common usage. In this paper I present the results of a small survey about attitudes to sport, and use it to illustrate how a core-periphery definition of sport would proceed.

KEYWORDS:

• Defining sport
• movement compression
• constitutive rules
• facilitative rules
• core-periphery

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. While the term ‘core-periphery’ may be familiar from, e.g. John Friedmann’s ‘core-periphery four-stage model of regional development’ (Friedmann 1966) or Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1974) World Systems Theory of international relations, it has a distinct meaning in this context. In particular, the spatial element of traditional core-periphery models in human geography and international relations is metaphorical, and I am absolutely not suggesting – such as in World Systems Theory – that there is any sense in which the ‘core’ of sport is in some kind of exploitative relationship with those activities in the periphery.

2. Of course, for Parfit similarity comes down to psychological continuity and connectedness, which is where the analogy to defining sport breaks down.

3. I am not suggesting that there is no place for philosophers in defining sport: philosophers are still needed to tidy the concept of sport, to ensure that it is coherent and consistent.

4. Again, I want to emphasise that I am engaged here in a demonstration of an approach, rather than definitively arguing for a concrete definition of sport.

5. Cricket’s score is an odd case. Despite being very much the same kind of activity as baseball, its score is much lower. However, compared to baseball or American football, which are well known – even if not actively followed – in countries without national teams or popular leagues, citizens of non-cricket playing countries tend to know about cricket only in the vaguest terms, if at all. I think it’s this ignorance that explains cricket’s comparatively low score. To test this, I restricted the responses to only individuals from cricket-playing nations (including Canada, where the sport is known, but could hardly be called outrageously popular), who would at least have some basic knowledge of the game. When I did this, cricket’s score increased to 2.91, putting it decisively in the top tier alongside baseball.

6. It is noteworthy that this criterion undercuts the status of activities that are traditionally central to the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Given that being included in the Olympic Games is often taken to mean that an activity is quite definitively a sport – to the point where inclusion in the Games has been treated by some philosophers of sport to be a starting point for discussions about defining sport – much more research is required to conclusively demonstrate the relevance of the facilitative/constitutive distinction.

7. It is important to note that this is not saying in any sense that these activities are unskilled; they may be as or more skilled than core sports. The point is that in core sports, skill is the dominant thing that is being evaluated by the activity, whereas in figure skating or diving, skill is at least somewhat decentred by the evaluation of the aesthetic product of that skill.

8. While I didn’t have the data to undertake this analysis here, if access does matter there is likely to be a negative correlation between respondents’ scores and the median cost of golf memberships by country. Hopefully future research will bear this out.