"Competition spoils the spirit of every sport."

I know this isn't very WoW related; but I couldn't resist to correct this statement.

The very phenomenon of a "sport" is more often than not structered around the phenomenon of competition. While in our language the concept of sport has many different uses -- the more prominent use of the word typically involves the notion of competition. Think of ESPN's "SPORTScenter"; or think of when someone says, "I am going to a sporting event" this weekend; usually in these uses we are referring to events where one or more forces are in contest with one another -- and the notion of contest necessarily involves the notion of a victor and a loser. Now, we may use the word sport in other circumstances very similar to the meaning of game which may or may not involve competion between two or more foces. In this sense the meaning of sport or game is used to contrast events or activities that are of a more serious nature -- thinking of a game or sport as something that is done for pure fun as opposed to pure work.

So, I would argue that it is almost a complete contradiction in terms if you say that competition ruins the nature of sports when more than 90% of the time we use the term sport to talk about events that necessarily involve competition: ie. baseball, soccer, racing, poker, and yes... even video games.