Is triathlon a sport or a hobby?

Triathlon Forum
1

You get this discussion in a lot of sports - is golf a sport? is Nascar a sport? etc.

After reading all the Kona TV threads, it popped into my head that triathlon may not be a sport after all. In this respect, I am defining “sport” as an athletic competition the primary objective is to watch pro’s compete and see who wins/loses. A “hobby” is something you do for fun, and is all inclusive.

Reasoning: Whenever you see Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, Tennis, auto-racing (including NASCAR), and pretty much everything including curling, you watch the competition. The only people in the competition are the “pros”, and they show the whole match (or at least all the important bits).

If for instance, they don’t (e.g. the Heidi-bowl where they cut off the end of the Jets/Raiders game) everyone is PISSED OFF. The networks do whatever they can to show the whole thing (especially for the big 4). Even auto-racing is good at showing all the passes, crashes, etc. Marathon footage focuses on the pros and show just about everything. AND this is LIVE! They don’t have time to go back and make sure they got everything.

Watching the Kona broadcast was the equivalent to seeing the Jets driving down the field for the final score, then just showing Oakland celebrating in the end zone. Why? Because they wanted to show the little league game nearby, or the pick-up game in the parking lot. In any other sport, people would be pissed. Reading the posts here, it seems most people are just fine with this. Having an online feed does not rectify this BTW.

This leads me to believe that Triathlon is just a hobby. Some people get paid to do it, some don’t. But it is just a bunch of people doing stuff they like and if they happen to actually show the race and misrepresent what happened, then whatever.

I’m sure there are plenty of holes and different interpretations here, but I can’t think of another sport where pro’s and the “avid” viewing audience are treated so poorly. People enjoy all these other sports for fun, but when they watch it on TV, they are there to watch the game. Not the fun run before, not the punt and kick competition, not the other 40k people doing the event. I don’t care if the WTC is polishing their brand, what we are doing here is condoning that our “sport” is actually a HOBBY.

I really wish it was a sport and was treated as such.

2

rec·re·a·tion
–noun
a pastime, diversion, exercise, or other resource affording relaxation and enjoyment.

3

I usually consider non-athletic endeavors as hobbies: photography, music, gaming etc.

4

swimming is a sport, cycling is a sport, running is a sport…so yes, its definitely a hobby
.

5

You basically summed up exactly what I said/thought a few days again. Here it is the “Super Bowl” of triathlon, and how is it marketed? It’s better to show the 40 year old soccer mom than the actually pro race. It’s nothing more than a fringe crazy idea taht is more than anything an infomercial of commercial products. Yeah, there are tons of viagra and beer commercials during football telecasts, but they dont cut to the 38-40 year old flag football championships in lieu of the 3rd quarter of the Super Bowl. They show the entire game and in it’s context. Of course showing an ironman “live” is tough, but the point is, instead of aactually showing the true racing, our sport is marketed as a fringe “you can do it” sport vs an actual legit “pro” sport.

Not that its necessarily bad. It is what it is with sport. IM/Triathlon is never gogin to be able to have an legit tv audience/telecast simply because it’s just too boring/long. Maybe ITU distance, but we will never get IM on tv telecasts. Sure we may have 30 years ago, but I think all those shows were simply “recap” shows, similiar to what we watch now on NBC except now that show has morped into a 2 hour sob story infomercial telecast for WTC and it’s advertisers.

Edit: It’s perfect definition is a “participation” sport more than anything else.

6

I think your interpretation is logical and accurate.

One could say it’s a “sport conducive to hobby-like qualities”. Of course, another could argue it’s the other way around…

7

Sports involve maneuvering an object via athleticism toward a defined goal for points or to stop an opponent from doing so. Anything else is a hobby, game, pastime, activity, or just competitive exercise.

8

Every sport is a hobby. When you turn pro and make money, then its not a hobby anymore, it’s your job…

9

Life style
.

10

I hope you don’t define too many other things based on how TV covers it. There is no such thing as Reality TV. News doesn’t involve journalism.

I think the the big 4 sports in the US are actually a video game. If they aren’t now they should be because video games are much more interesting than the real thing.

Triathlon is is to swim, bike, run what softball is to baseball. An obsession for people that can’t do the “real” sport. I love triathlon for that reason.

11

Every sport is a hobby. When you turn pro and make money, then its not a hobby anymore, it’s your job…

From a macro standpoint, I’d say that once society as a whole accepts it as a sport, then it makes that leap. This though would require tiered levels of competition like you see in all sports:
Baseball has tee-ball, little league, HS, collegiate, minors, and single A ball.Football has peewee, high school, college, proswimming has rec leagues, HS, college, pro.
Right now, anyone can join USAT and be part of the ‘club,’ and 99.9% of tri’s are open to anyone who thinks they can compete. Even prominent marathons have qualifying times, but save for Kona & national championships, qualifying isn’t really part of triathlons right now (correct me if I’m wrong)

The newness of triathlon may probably be a big part, but I think since it gets such little media exposure and aside from Ironman is relatively unknown in most circles, there needs to be a large effort to create awareness if the sport wants to be held at the same level as a baseball or football sport.

I think more events like what Tri or Die was outlining today (DE tri with a qualifying cutoff time) staged around the country could really boost the perception of Tri as more of an elite sport and less of an “Ad executive with a bike and gym membership club”

Just my $0.02

12

addiction?

13

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games." E. Hemingway

14

It’s a sport to me…that’s really all I care about.

jaretj

15

Is ironman the only type of triathlon. I’m not going to say I am the most knowledgeable person on the board, but I feel it fits the “criteria” people have mentioned to be a “sport”. On tv they only show the pros because no one cares about the age group race they may have had the day before or whatever. You could say it has a progression to being pro, start as an age grouper, get elite status, do continental cups, if your lucky get on the ITU circuit and race world champs. Its not as popular as sports like baseball football etc but its also a much newer sport. Ironman is not the end all be all in triathlon.

16

The answer is simple, its both. I think we can all agree that swimming, cycling, and running are sports. I think it is a fair to say the combination of the three is still a sport. The fact i like to do them, makes them my hobby. Now just b/c i like to do them, does not mean I want to watch 8 hours of triathlon in a single sitting. i rather participate than watch.

When my son plays baseball, he is not as good as the Derek Jeter, but his lack of ability does not make baseball any less of a sport. However, i would say that baseball is his hobby. (along with terrorizing his sister).

TV is all about money and putting programming out there that gets people to watch. 8 hours aint gonna sell.

17

Why can’t it be both? A “sport” and a “hobby” are not mutually exclusive concepts.

That said, I define a “sport” as any physical activity that involves a score or timing. Anything else is an activity. Gymnastics, figure skating, etc. are not sports because the 'score" is judged, adn therefore subjective.

My brother takes an even more narrow view - if it doesn’t involve a ball, it isn’t a sport. You should hear him rail against hockey…"How the hell is that a sport when the field of competition can disappear? ‘Sorry guys, can’t play today, it is too warm!!’ "

Hilarious…

18

It’s a game.

19

sports are (generally) games.

sport ***–noun ***

  1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
  2. a particular form of this, esp. in the out of doors.
  3. diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime.

I would put triathlon, swimming, biking, running into the genre of “athletics”.

ath·let·ics–noun* ***

  1. ( usually used with a plural verb http://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.png) athletic sports, as running, rowing, or boxing.
  2. *British *. track-and-field events.
  3. ( usually used with a singular verb http://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.png) the practice of athletic exercises; the principles of athletic training.

both are damned hard to do at the pro-level. no need to denigrate either by calling them a hobby when you’re putting a lot of time and physical effort into it.

as and aside: it does my heart good to see rowing was used in the definition of “athletics” on dictionary.com…and I find it funny that sport can be defined as a pleasant pastime. I don’t think anybody would define an ironman or any hard triathlon race as a “pleasant” experience.

p.s. Nice troll…this topic hasn’t been beaten to death.

20

what is this “football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis” of which you speak?

what are these “networks” of which you speak?

seriously though, I feel sorry for you if all you do is waste your time watching other people live fulfilling lives.