I'm here to ask a very good question are you a sports fan or a sports fanatic? I looked up both definitions and the dictionary states for a fan the meaning is "an enthusiastic devotee or follower of sports or sports team" the meaning of a fanatic is "a person with an extreme enthusiasm or zeal for sports or sports team". The difference between a sports fan and a sports fanatic is a very fine line. I consider myself a fanatic, and I will give you my opinion of the fine line that separates a fan and a fanatic.
A sports fan will have a favorite team that they follow when they have the time. The fan will know some facts or history about their favorite team. The fan will try to go and see their favorite team when they have some free time, and it fits in their schedule.
A sports fanatic eats, sleeps and breaths everything about sports. A sports fanatic will know every single fact or history detail about every sport. They know every rule, every player of a team, and every detail that has to do with that team or sport. A fanatic will try their hardest to go to every game of their favorite team, and if they can't go to the game they will have a hand device or smart phone that can access the latest news or updates of the game.
The major necessity for a sports fanatic that doesn't go to the game is a huge obnoxious movie cinema size flat screen TV that takes up half of their living room. It must have surround sound stereo speakers, so it sounds exactly like sitting in the sports stadium. The furniture in the living room must consist of a large comfortable sofa, with a couple of reclining chairs and foot rests. There must be plenty of sitting room for the fanatic to invite all his or her friends over for the "big" game.
The final necessity for a sports fanatic is the food. There needs to be plenty of food so it feels like they are tailgating in their own kitchen. There must be plenty of potato chips, dips, tortilla chips, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs, and much more available for the game. The most important is the beverages which consist of a case of beer that would fit in the refrigerator or they have their own personal little refrigerator that will hold the beers, and other beverages.
Sports fanatics will also have a lot more sports team gear and memorabilia than a sports fan. A sports fanatic needs every little sports memorabilia of their favorite sports teams from the sports team jersey to a little sports team spoon. The fanatics are also most likely the ones that dress up in hideous sports team gear, and have face paint all over them in the stadiums.
While walking down the street, if you get to pass by a park or playground, you can see a number of individuals involved in different activity. Some can be seen engaged in cycling; some are using baseball equipment, while someone is busy giving baseball instruction to the seemingly amateur ones. Almost every one is engaged in some kind of activity. It is pretty obvious that the young ones are more interested in physical activities rather than just sitting or playing board games. Yet, every individual likes a different kind of sports. When we think of classifying the sports into categories, the number of categories is unbelievable. From bat and ball sports to automobile sports, from boarding sports to cue sports, from water sports to sky diving, there are just too many.
Classifying such a number of sports in definite categories is definitely an arduous task. But roughly, we can manage to suggest few criteria that can put a sport in the closest possible category. Using these criteria, the categories that have been formed are as follows,
• Racing Sports: In racing sports, there are a number of competitors racing against each other and sometimes also in teams. The basic objective of a race is to be the fastest and first one to achieve a target. Racing sports can be subcategorized in to three types of sports; human powered sports like running and swimming, Human assisted like cycling and rowing and External powered such as motor sports and sailing.
• Opponent sports: These sports are generally a competition between two opponents where the scores achieved by the players decides the winner. The opponent sports can also be divided into three main categories Court sports are the ones that are played in a court such as tennis, badminton and squash. Combat sports are one on one physical encounter between the opponent like karate and boxing. And the Team sports are one in which teams compete with other teams example football and cricket. It is possible that a court sport is also a team sport.
• Achievement sports: Achievement sports can be taken as the ones in which the players show off their abilities. The categories might help you understand it more clearly. There are three types of achievement sports; Target sports are the ones in which the objective is to hit a target such as shooting and archery. Display sports are the ones in which the participants display certain ability or moves like in bodybuilding, gymnastics and diving. In strength sports, the participants show off their strength as in weight lifting Gangnam Baseball Stadium and triple jump.
• Athletics: And finally, there are athletics in which the competitors have to show their abilities in a combination of different sports from above mentioned categories. We can roughly divide these into running, jumping and throwing. The players have to participate in a series of different games and the one with highest over all score is the winner.
This was only a rough categorization of sports, if you go into deeper studies of all these categories. Although, if you study each category individually, you will see that it can still be sub categorized into many other categories as well.