The unique part, for me, is having to physically be in a specific place to engage in parts of the game, and the places are 'anywhere around the world'.

Reading the sentence I just wrote it still just sounds like sport, where you have to go to an oval or arena or whatever. But with Pokemon Go it's sort of 'anywhere' and yet specific at the same time. It's a particular place at a particular time. The difference may just be that it's a virtual / digital game rather than a physical one.