This particular SE site is putting along but doesn't look like picking up the kind of traffic it would need to graduate from beta any time soon. One problem with fitting 'sports' into the SE model is that as far as the observers of sport go, as opposed to participants, the kind of questions you really want to ask/answer/discuss would be considered either off topic or too subjective. Questions about participating in sport are in the minority at the moment and not the topic of this question.
Take for instance my main topic of interest here, cricket. If you look at the last dozen or two cricket questions asked, each question taken on it's own is reasonable, but taken as a whole are a pretty bland and uninteresting collection, mainly covering either very simple well known rules or obscure edges cases in the rules. If a cricket fan comes to this site somehow via a search engine and pokes around at the questions, they are unlikely to be particularly motivated to become engaged with the site. Note that this is true more or less for many of the other questions. Football and American Football seems to be somewhat stronger, but still the kind of interesting questions people love discussing in the pub just aren't here, and nor could they given the SE Q&A model.
The main issue is subjectivity. Questions about sport that are entirely objective are typically about either the rules or some statistic that could be relatively easily found on some standard site or via search engines. In a lot of cases they just aren't that interesting to a sports fan.
There is precedent at some other SE sites to have tag categories like 'soft question' to indicate a question somewhat outside the core intent of the sites scope. Would something like that work here, some kind of tag to indicate the question is somewhat subjective and up for discussion, rather than being on the face of it definitively answerable?
There is a slippery slope here, SE is not a forum and by relaxing standards the boundaries become much less defined and puts more load on mods and high rep users to ensure consistent standards are applied to closing questions.
To give an example, the following is an example question (about cricket) that I think would on current standards would rightly be closed. However, I think it is an example of a case where good and interesting answers might be generated with some limited but not open ended subjectivity. What do people think?
Sample question:
Why is Peter Siddle considered to be a Test Match specialist?
Peter Siddle is currently considered to be the leader of the bowling attack in Test matches for Australia, however is never considered for any limited overs cricket. Is this entirely due to the selectors wanting to keep him fit and rested for Test matches, or is there something about his bowling style that makes him unsuitable for white ball cricket, even though he is considered the leading red ball bowler? In an ideal world where we could ignore the needs for player rest and rotation, would Siddle have a place in Australia's best ODI or T20 team?
So, what does the community think? This may not be the best question as a sample, as there is also a strong time localisation to it. On the other hand, subjective questions about relative player or team abilities typically will have time localisation (which is another reason they would most likely be closed on current standards).
