Bowling is a sport.

"Yet track is still a sport. A similar situation occurs with other individualized sports such as swimming, golf, field events such as discus or shot put, etc." Track and the other activities are not sports. "Also, tournament bowling often includes what is referred to as “Baker games” which require teams, not individuals (http://bowling.about.com......). New aspects come into play in this format, such as lineups, less frames bowled, and teamwork. Therefore, you can’t receive a full experience of bowling by yourself." Changing the format of a game does not change the basic elements of that game. "Also, there is a major difference between those “bowling for fun” and those who are bowling competitively. You claim that they are the same when you say “If, as you state, drinking beer while throwing the ball at the pins for fun does not constitute enough competition to qualify bowling as a sport; adding higher-skill level players and monetary rewards for winning doesn't change this. “ First, you don’t require direct competition 100% of the time, as referred to in the previous argument. Next, there is such a big difference between the two such that they can be considered two separate activities." This debate is on whether bowling is a sport; not whether professional bowling is a different activity than recreational bowling."A sport is a sport if and only if it meets all the requirements: physical and mental skill, athleticism (training yourself physically and mentally to perform more capably and to improve your skill), competition, and strategy. All the other activities you mentioned are not sports because they do not meet all the requirements." In your first argument you had failed to mention a sport needed to meet all those requirements; you just listed attributes of bowling and said it was a sport. I wasn't trying to imply that any of those activities were sports. All your attributes referring to bowlers are irrelevant. I reiterate: A sport is able to be played by anyone who; knows the rules, has the equipment, access to the proper setting, and the requisite amount of participants. Skill doesn't come into play. Even at the highest level of any sport there are players of different skill levels. You wouldn't say that two professional baseball players are playing games of different ‘degrees of sport’ because they have different batting averages. An activity either is or isn’t a sport. If recreational bowling was fundamentally different from professional bowling, they would have different names, not different qualifiers. We can see that the participants of an activity don't decide if it is a sport or not. It is only the elements of an activity that determine if it is a sport. Here, in turn, I must apologize to my opponent; I went back and reread my previous round, and I seem to have left off an aspect of a sport. A sport requires both offensive and defensive strategy, which is why all the activities you mention in your first paragraph aren't sports either. Football, baseball, soccer, cricket, hockey, tennis, lacrosse, and polo are all sports because they have athletes competing directly against each other with both offensive and defensive strategies. The participants of sports can physically affect their opponetnt's performances. Activities like golf, swimming, track and field events, and bowling are games of compared performances. "I will use the common phrase, “If it looks like a duck and flies like a duck, it is a duck.” Bowling has all the requirements to be considered a sport. Therefore, how can it be considered that it isn’t a sport?" I think the reason for your confusion about what bowling is can be illustrated by looking at your closing statement. The problem with that phrase is that, it is a 'common phrase'. The quote that that phrase is based on is: "I can’t prove you are a Communist. But when I see a bird that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has feathers and webbed feet and associates with ducks—I’m certainly going to assume that he IS a duck." -Emil Mazey, the secretary-treasurer of the United Automobile Workers for 33 years, said at a labor meeting in 1946 http://en.wikipedia.org... People take an actual quote, or meaning of a word, and simplify it, making it more general. It is a problem of discarding precision for ease. This results in common phrases and common definitions. They are close enough to get a general idea across, but lack the specificity of their actual meaning.I would like to, once again, thank my opponent for posting this debate.I will say, in closing, although many might assume bowling is a sport; if you take the time to look beyond the common concept, you will see bowling, while a fine game, is not a sport.