I found a unique website that has a sort of a scoring system to determine if something is a "sport" or not. I am in no way saying this is official or that I agree with it completely, but it seems to be pretty well made. the website can be found
here .
*note, this is my numbers I am putting in here, if you disagree, that is fine, this is only what I think
Physical Exertion (30 pts)
Conditioning Factor: 2
Toll Factor: 0
Lifespan factor: 2
Injury Factor: 0
Who or what factor:1
Total 4
Skill (30 pts)
Practice Factor: 4
Athlete Factor: 3
Body type Factor: 5
Equipment Mastery Factor: 6
Equipment Contribution Factor: 0
total: 17
Rules (10 pts)
Determining the winner: 10
Total: 10
Competition (30 pts)
Physical Contact Factor: 0
Offense/Defense Factor: 6
Interaction Factor: 0
Environment Factor: 2
Head to Head factor: 6
Total: 14
TOTAL: 46
The website states that anything greater than 75 is a sport, so by this definition, FIRST would not be considered a sport. I would have to agree that FIRST is not a sport just in the fact that the primary competitor is not moving the entire time, less the small amount to move joysticks. Personally, I think that anything where the main competitor barely moves by his own power should not be considered a sport. This quickly eliminates NASCAR, horseback riding, and sadly FIRST.
after all of this, I really don't think it matters if FIRST is a "sport" or not, after all, "sport" is just a name, and does
not change anything about FIRST.
sorry for the long post, but just my $02