[Vampyr]

 billw55, on 2014-October-03, 12:55, said:

Arguing semantics feels a little silly. Nevertheless, I do very much disagree with this. In American usage at least, the inclusion of at least some level of athleticism or physical action is the defining difference.

All this really means is that we have different personal meanings of the word "sport." Which is not really an important issue.

The point is here has nothing to do with semantics. It is about money, most importantly VAT.

[blackshoe]

 billw55, on 2014-October-03, 10:14, said:

My opinion is that calling bridge a sport is utterly absurd. Ditto for chess, go, backgammon, settlers of catan, etc. There is a reason the language has another word, "game", to distinguish nonathletic passtimes and competitions from athletic ones.

And no, I don't care what the IOC says about it.

I don't either. I do find it interesting, if "games" and "sports" are different things, that the "sports" event is called "the Olympic Games".

[Jeremy69A]

We often get told the EU is about harmonising rules and regulations yet bridge is a sport in some EU countries and not others including the UK. Where Bridge is not recognised as a sport it tends to be taxed more and it tends not to be accepted for a variety of funding initiatives. By way of example Badminton which has about as many members as the EBU has got something in the region of £8.5m for its preparations for the 2012 Olympics.
We can have arguments about what constitutes a sport and produce the silliest examples we can find of something that is (my vote is for baton twirling) but the list that HMRC depend upon is the one that Sport England use. They don't seem all that keen on explaining how it is justified and how one may appeal against exclusion. It is "with their legal team" at present. The Charity Commission on the other hand have no problem with defining Bridge and Chess as sports so at the very least we have inconsistencies both within the UK and also between the UK and other EU countries.

[MrAce]

It's considered sport in my country (Turkey) and run by ministry of sports.
To me it does not matter much whatever it is called. Bridge is my most favourite sport/game. Looking at the debates above in this topic, I find Rik's arguments the most convincing.

[barmar]

 Vampyr, on 2014-October-03, 13:46, said:

The point is here has nothing to do with semantics. It is about money, most importantly VAT.

Not in America. We don't tax recreational activities, whether they're sports or not. I don't know why people keep bringing that up when the question was "Why isn't bridge in the Olympics". Olympic recognition has nothing to do with whether the game is taxed or not.

[Vampyr]

 barmar, on 2014-October-04, 20:01, said:

Not in America. We don't tax recreational activities, whether they're sports or not. I don't know why people keep bringing that up when the question was "Why isn't bridge in the Olympics". Olympic recognition has nothing to do with whether the game is taxed or not.

The OP was about VAT, and the fact that it doesn't apply in your country is not interesting; why mention it?

[barmar]

 Vampyr, on 2014-October-04, 20:26, said:

The OP was about VAT, and the fact that it doesn't apply in your country is not interesting; why mention it?

I didn't go back and read the OP. The thread died out 6 months ago, and someone resurrected it last week with a question about the Olympics.

It probably would have been less confusing if he'd started a new thread for this tangent.