For a long time, I have wondered what made something a "sport." Is watching someone eat 59.5 hotdogs in 10 minutes a sport? What about watching a bunch of cars race around a big circle? Diving? 

After a thinking through it for quite some time, I couldn't come to any sort of conclusion on the topic. It has been bugging me ever since. Just recently, thanks to the 2008 Olympics, I was talking to someone in passing about all the ridiculous "sports" in the olympics and the topic came back up. While talking to him, he hit the nail on the head.

"Any activity that requires someone else's opinion to decide who wins isn't a sport."

It was perfect. I never thought about it that way. If an activity has pre-defined rules that decide who wins and only requires a referee to enforce the rules, then it is truly a sport. Sorry synchronized swimming. Sorry diving. Sorry all you crappy sports that have no rules! There are, of course, still many sports out there that are a "sport" but are boring. At least we can officially define them as a sport though. 

Speaking of sports. I'm pretty excited about the best sport ever starting up again this coming weekend.