Is band a sport?

[reality is cruel!]

okay i've had it. im in the marching band, and i play the tuba. what the hell gives half of you the right to diss it. if you have never been in band, why are you putting it down. the entire month of july is my band camp. tell me how if i work my butt off all month long plus all the way through november it is not a sport. we work just as hard if not harder than football players. playing and marching is not easy. memorizing your drilll,music,etc it is very hard work.we have to memorize about 8 pages of music, 90 pages of drill. and if you screw up, you suffer from the raft of the band director. but if you have never been in band dont put ti down. u probably would not last on damn minute at band camp or in a competition.

[my_papaya]

Personally, I don't necessarily need marching band to be considered a sport, because in that case I could no longer honestly say that I hate sports and that I don't play any, because I marched for four years. However, I wish it weren't so terribly underappreciated, and maybe if it were recognized as a sport, few people would write it off without recognizing that it takes much more skill than some "real" sports. Plus, ESPN2 shows DCI at least once a year, and that is a sports channel. Being in an international-caliber drum corp is pretty damn intense, so to be like, "oh, it's just band" is incredibly naive at best.