ABSTRACT
Legalists attempt to understand sport as a legal field, analogous to society and its laws. However, their definition falls short in recognizing the ludic nature of sport and its heterogeneous order. This paper examines some of the legalist arguments and subjects them to a Bataillean critique. First, laws are supposed to bind society, but they are generic and often at odds with the singular nature of human beings. Second, what are the legalist arguments for sports? Some of the legalist positions are examined to see why and how they liken sports to the legal sphere. Finally, what is Bataille's position on law and sports? This part presents his ideas from his critical writings and examines why and how ludic functions cannot be explained by way of law, and rules in sports cannot be confined to or understood as political laws of the homogeneous field. The culture of playfulness is discussed by way of Bataille, Caillois and Huizinga as an alternative to jurisprudence in sports, and the chapter shows how sport, a heterogeneous field of play, does not function in the way the orderly society does, even if there may be parallels between the two spheres.
