[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

But you could say the points in football aren't based on athleticism but who gets the ball in a net?

The points in football alone are indication that it's a competitive sport, lol, it doesn't matter how those are earned. "Point-based" games are easier to define as sports because there are clear guidelines in how the game is played and, more importantly, won.

Whilst there are indeed ballet competitions... there are also baking, sewing, singing and design competitions. Ballet, whilst more physical and demanding than those other examples, is still a little more hard to define when it comes to "who wins?" Racing has times, ball games have goals/tries/runs, pub games have points, athletics has heights/distances/times... but I suppose ballet is more like diving in the sense that only someone paying close attention can tell what the best score for a performance would be. In that sense it's still a sport, since diving is one but I would imagine there are 100x the complexities in a ballet performance than there are in a single dive.