  Formalism conceives of sport as constituted solely by written rules: a sport is just the set of written rules that govern it. On this view, there is no need to look beyond the written rules to determine whether an activity is a sport (e.g. is tennis a sport?), whether an activity constitutes the playing of a certain sport (e.g. are they playing tennis or squash?), or whether a particular move is permitted within a specific sport (e.g. is kicking the ball permitted in tennis?).