Probably obvious question

[Motivated]

I have a db that is for sports.

In one table (Teams) I could have a column (sport) in the column would be entries:

Rugby
Rugby League
etc

Now for example I would have the super 12 teams in the table (thats 12 teams)
So my table would look like:

rugby :: Crusaders
rugby :: Highlanders
rugby :: Hurricanes

As you can see rugby would be in the table 12 times.
With Rugby League, Rugby League would be in the table (I think) 14 times.
I can never imagine a point where there would be any more than 20 duplicate entries.

So heres my question:

Should I build a table : Sport
With id and sport columns

Then build another table: Teams
With sportid, team

The Sport table would only contain at the most 20 sports (an incredably small table) and add to the amount of selects I would have to call on (now querying 2 tables) is it worth it to remove the duplicates from the Teams table ??

And how much difference will it make toward stopping my db from becoming corrupt ??

My guess is not to worry about the duplicate entries as there is so few, but I would rather be told by some-one that knows.

Thanks in advance

[dale_burrell]

Always build tables for duplicate information even if there are only 3 entries (2 can be done with a bit field).

Otherwise you are breaking all the rules for relational databases and, while it is OK to break the rules from time to time , this could lead to all sorts of problems, a single spelling mistake looks like you have a new sport type, the need to know something specific about the sport in future (i.e. how many members to a team!!!) is very difficult without a seperate table.

Rule of thumb, if you have 2 possibilities use a bit field, if you have 3 or more use a seperate table, its not even worth the time taken to consider which is the best option.

[Motivated]

Thanks, completely different information to that that I have had in the past (not from this forum).

[r937]

i've done it both ways

what if instead of going "up" from team to sport, you want to go "down" from team to category

crusaders
highlanders
wrestlers -- men
wrestlers -- women
hurricanes

the sql to join a sport table to the team table is about the same as joining the team table to the gender table

and what if i'm the only one assigning names, and i know there's never going to be more than twenty of them?

yes i have "hidden" a 1:m relationship inside a name

but i also appreciate the wisdom of knowing when it's "not even worth the time taken to consider which is the best option"