I began by teasing out the claim (smb) that participating in sport, whether as player or spectator, involves make-believe. I showed how smb relates to a loosely analogous solution to the so-called Paradox of Fiction before identifying difficulties for the view. The first two suggest that arguments for smb overgeneralize. First, our apparently odd attitudes to competitive game outcomes are continuous with those toward more ordinary events that do not plausibly involve make-believe. Second, our ability to recover from tragic competitive game outcomes is not markedly different from our ability to recover from ordinary tragedies. Third, a prima facie plausible defence of smb appealing to representational content in many games is unpersuasive. Fourth, the “facts” at the fictional worlds competitive games would instantiate on smb would not explain participants’ caring attitudes or else would involve what I call “illegitimate” make-believe. Lastly, competitive games require an authenticity from their players that other make-believe games do not.
