The Nature and Value of Sport

Abstract

Suits is good on games, but bad on sports. Because he views sports as games, he has trouble accommodating the many sports that aren’t really games at all, like running, swimming, and rowing. More importantly, he mistakes the value of sport, suggesting that it derives from the challenges posed by the arbitrary rules that constitute games, when in truth it lies in the development and exercise of physical abilities. This paper argues that sport includes any activity whose central purpose is the exercise of physical skills, whether or not it is also a game, and that the value of sport derives from the intrinsic worth of such exercises.