What makes a good sports novel? What even counts as a sports book?
These are questions that listicle writers such as myself have tried to answer for decades on end. Opinions vary almost as much as novels featuring sports do. Some novels focus more on the lives of players than the games, and bringing in sports romance (which obviously would focus on romance over playing) complicates this further.
For me, as long as a book seeks to explore the culture of a sport or a sport in a place, it is a sports novel. It is bringing something new to the world of literature, a new perspective on a topic.