Bowling is a sport.

Don't worry about it; and good luck to you as well.I will begin by saying that bowling is a fine game, but it is not a sport.1. Bowling requires a high degree of skill."Next, proper balance, footwork, and form must be followed on every throw. While muscle strength or running speed are not necessary, other physical skills are still needed, which fits in the definition of a sport. For mental skills, every throw must be nearly perfect, especially on difficult oil patterns; anything off with your approach can cause you to miss a key spare or strike. Missed throws can be extremely distracting and kill confidence. Therefore, bowlers must have an extremely high degree of mental focus and preparation. All of these factors prove professional bowling requires specialized skill."There are many activities that require specialized skills, both mental and physical, that would most definitely not be considered a sport. For example: Growing roses for a Rose Competition. While muscle strength and running speed are not necessary, other physical skills are still needed. When preparing the plot of land where you will grow your roses, you need the physical ability to carry heavy bags of fertilizer. You need proper physical form to turn the soil and create your rows with efficiency. Mental skills are also necessary, you must decide on the right proportions of soil additives and choose the exact day to plant your rose bushes. Precision is needed in order to choose the right rose, and more importantly the optimal moment to pick the rose to achieve the best results you can. So; although competitive rose growing require specialized skills, it is not a sport.2. Bowlers can be considered athletes."I consider an athlete to be someone who trains themselves in order to get optimal personal performance in their chosen sport. A football player must train to become better, which is through strength training and drills. Also, all bowlers train themselves to become better. While they don't need overpowering strength, they must train their muscle memory, their balance and coordination, and their mental game. This can take years of practice and training to achieve optimal performance."Just because someone is an athlete does not necessitate that the activity they have trained in is a sport.Anyone who decides to climb a mountain must train to achieve the strength, agility, balance and coordination needed to accomplish their task. They also need to prepare their mind to handle the stress and exhaustion they will encounter. It can take years of experience and training to climb higher peaks and reach their performance goals.Climbing a mountain takes incredible athleticism; however, mountaineering is not a sport.For anyone interested in training to climb a mountain, a training program is outlined on the website for American Alpine Institute at the following link.http://www.alpineinstitute.com...3. Organized, professional competition."Every sport has some organizational structure, such as an overseeing organization, or professional leagues or circuits."I will go back to my rose growing analogy.World Federation of Rose Societies is the organization overseeing rose growing. According to their website; “The World Federation of Rose Societies is a federation of the national rose societies of 39 countries around the world, representing more than 100,000 rose lovers. Our goal is to expand contact among them and increase the flow of knowledge about the rose.” http://www.worldrose.org...One example of a league or circuit for rose growing would be the American Rose Society. You can get information on upcoming events on their website.http://www.ars.org...“It is impossible to say the name of a sport without some professionals playing it.” Just because an activity has participants that are professionals does not make it a sport. Professionals are merely people who get paid to do a specified activity. Dentistry is chock full of professionals, this does not make dentistry a sport. 4. It's more than just a "game"“All sports are games. However, all games are not sports, and a game doesn’t necessarily require a degree of skill. In a game such as Monopoly, a person who has played the game 100 times before can lose to a person playing for the first time. This is not the case with bowling. A skilled professional will never lose to a first time bowler from the street. This also refers to the "requiring skill" argument.” I agree with your initial statement "All sports are games. However, all games are not sports, and a game doesn't necessarily require a degree of skill"However, I disagree with your implication that any game that requires a degree of skill is a sport. This I can easily illustrate with the example of chess; chess is a game that requires skill to be played properly, but is not a sport. Barring any wildly unlikely circumstances, a skilled chess player will not lose to a first time chess player from the alley.Requiring skill does not transform a game to a sport. Those are the reasons that your arguments did not prove that bowling is a sport.I will now outline why bowling is not a sport.1. A sport requires direct competition against two or more competitors.Any activity that you can get the full experience out of by yourself, is not a sport. I can bowl a full ten frames, several times, alone in an empty bowling lane, and receive the full effect of bowling. Clearly, I got all the physical and mental exercise of bowling. I also received a competitive aspect by striving to beat my own score; however, I didn’t get any direct competition from another participant.Therefore; since the activity of bowling does not contain the required aspect of direct competition, it is not a sport.I will close this round of debate by showing that you already know that bowling is not a sport. You affirmed my claim that bowling lacks enough direct competition to be considered a sport in your first argument."Professional bowling requires an extremely high degree of skill, both physical and mental. This is different than going out to a bowling alley with some friends to drink beer while you throw the ball at the pins for fun. That activity is comparable to playing catch with a baseball, and baseball is universally accepted as a sport. Those activities are not truly competitive, and are not 100% of what the sport fully entails."The analogous comparison to playing catch with a baseball would be to roll a bowling ball down the street. You are only doing a portion of the activity. It is immaterial if bowling requires a high degree of skill, or not. 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. It isn't true that children playing sandlot baseball aren't playing the 'sport of baseball' simple because they can’t perform at the level of professional baseball players.Regardless of how skilled the participants, or how seriously they take the activity, a sport is a sport. A sport isn't only considered a sport when it is played at a high level. 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. Thank you.