  Conventionalists argue that an adequate account of sport must appeal to collectively agreed-upon norms called ‘conventions.’ Fred D’Agostino, the pioneer of conventionalism, maintains that the conventions that operate within a game constitute the ‘ethos’ of the game. The ethos of a game is the ‘set of unofficial, implicit conventions which determine how the rules of a game are to be applied in concrete circumstances’ (D’Agostino, 1981, 15). Thus, from a conventionalist perspective, sports comprise both formal rules and conventions. For example, in soccer, convention dictates that the ball must be put out of play when any player requires medical attention. No written rule demands that players kick the ball out of play in such circumstances. However, any player who failed to do so would be subject to blame and rebuke. Conventionalism is better equipped than formalism to describe and understand how sports are actually practiced in specific contexts. For instance, despite playing the same game, amateur soccer players in a pick-up game and professional players in the World Cup final apply the rulebook differently (e.g. amateurs often suspend the offside rule, whereas the rule is crucial at the professional level). Likewise, the non-contact and travelling rules in basketball are applied differently depending on the context.