I think THS leagues should still be considered sport. 

I disagree. THS leagues are a game. Tougher patterns and sport shots are sport. If I can walk into a center after not bowling for 3 weeks, no warm up, and shoot 750, it's not a sport. You can bowl on most THS drunk as a skunk and still shoot 600, which is "par", right?

The finest bowlers in the world don't even want to bowl on most house shots because it's destructive to their actual money making game. Heck, *I* don't want to bowl on the house shot, and I'm not even that good!

Telling people who bowl in competitive leagues they are not competing in sport is borderline insulting, in my opinion.  I don't care how easy the shot is. 

If we as a bowling community want the 'sport' to grow, then we shouldn't be stating that only half of the sport/game is an actual sport.  That's lame.

It seems that THS equates to drunk hacks every time this debate comes up.  I spend a lot of time on this site and I have very rarely felt insulted. 

Rec league basketball is a sport. Bar league softball is a sport. Bar league volleyball is a sport. Bar league kickball is a sport. Thursday night league bowling is a sport.

If you've never felt competitive in a scratch THS league, then you need to re-evaluate what your definition of completion is.

I appreciate difficult oil patterns and never turn down the chance to bowl on them for competition, but that doesn't mean I look down my nose at the 'easy' ones.

sport/spɔrt, spoʊrt/ Show Spelled [spawrt, spohrt] 
noun
1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
2. a particular form of this, especially in the out of doors.
3. diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime.
4. jest; fun; mirth; pleasantry: What he said in sport was taken seriously. 
5. mockery; ridicule; derision: They made sport of him.

When the game of bowling makes the sport of bowling a joke, it's time to look down your nose at it. I apologize if you are offended, but bowling for money in your Monday night league on a THS where the breakpoint is 5 boards or more is not a sport. Athletes play sports. Athletes are finely tuned machines that can make the sport look somewhat easy, where the rest of us hacks couldn't hope to be as good as them on their worst day. They work at the SPORT of bowling while the rest of bowlers look at their little one house Ray Charles open shots as a sport. Well, sorry about your bubble, but it's not. It's a damn game, and I will be the FIRST to say that I am ashamed to have to say that, but it is what it is.

I get it. I bowl for money too on a house shot. I've won lots of money on the house shot. Does that make me an athlete? Does that make anything that I won on a house shot anything more than a carry contest? No. When you can nozzle it all over the lane like kids playing with a hose and still carry, it's not a sport.

Like I mentioned in my OP

I think it's a sport and a game, depending on the conditions or status (league bowler vs. get paid to do it - pros)

I agree with DOOM and Dogtown... but for fat guys like myself, anything that makes me sweat is a sport SHEET, eating at a chinese buffet is a sport....Damn it's lunch time..

before this serve let me dig into these nachos

if youre like me bowling is the thing you do after you do everything else. we could go bowling......or we could hang ourselves.......why dont we go bowling?