The Aesthetics Of Sport Analysis

Every year, more than 460,000 student-athletes compete in 23 sports under the National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA (NCAA.org). Each and every one of these young, talented, and dedicated high school seniors are required to select an academic major that is, more often than not, not relevant or consistent with their true intentions of attending the college they choose. Improving athletic skills is why significant numbers of NCAA Division I student-athletes are at their respective college and this is the main reason why they 've gone to their campus of choice. These students are very open about their intentions and neither them nor the media makes an attempt to suppress or hide the fact that their decision of which campus to attend …show more content…
I would argue that while there is a distinction between sports such as basketball, baseball, and football and sports like figure skating, gymnastics and diving, the distinction has nothing to do with whether or not they are forms of art. The distinction simply comes down to how the winner is determined (Suits). Judges rather than a score determine the winners in what Best calls aesthetic sports. While many might agree that a triple axel in figure skating or a well performed floor routine in gymnastics are beautiful and artistic, the argument could be made that a receiver in football making a leaping catch or a pitcher in baseball gracefully winding up to deliver a pitch are just as aesthetically pleasing. However, Best uses intent as necessary condition for labeling a sport as aesthetic (Best). He puts sports like football, baseball, track and field, basketball, rugby and tennis in the category of non-aesthetic sports. According to him, basketball would still be basketball even if there were no concern for the aesthetic at all (Best). While I would agree, I would not rule these sports out as art forms simply because they are not centered on the aesthetic. Take baseball for example. Baseball is constituted on the idea that who ever crosses home plate the most times before getting 27 outs wins. In the rules of baseball, nowhere is any attention paid to the aesthetics of the game. However, does that mean there are parts of the game that are not artistic, beautiful or graceful? I think it truly depends on your interests and perspective. Hockey is viewed as one of the most physical and grueling sports while figure skating is viewed as artistic, however, both share the same constitutive rule in that they most be performed on ice with skates. Of course there are aspects of ice hockey that may not be considered artistic but just as a figure