Esports, an Introduction

Electronic sports, commonly referred to as esports, is the competitive and organized play between two or more individuals on some type of multiplayer game. Athletes must demonstrate superior coordination, reflexes, quick thinking, and team communication if they wish to be able to compete. There is not one single type of game played in esports, rather esports is a conglomeration of many different games and genres.

There are tournaments being held before worldwide audiences all the time. Most pass under the radar, but every now and then, a massive high stakes tournament is held. For example, last year during the international tournament for DOTA2, a team based strategy game produced by the game developers at Valve, which boasted a prize pool of over ten million dollars, about ten thousand tickets were sold for the event being held in the Seattle’s Key Arena according to Tassi, P. (2014, April 6) The International 2014 ‘DOTA 2’ Championship Sells Out An Arena In An Hour. Additionally, over twenty million people watched the tournament over the internet according to McWhertor, M. (2014, July 29) The International Dota 2 tournament watched by more than 20M viewers, Valve says, using streaming websites like twitch TV. DOTA 2 is not the only game to draw so much attention, in fact there are a multitude of games that have massive and active fan bases. Though in spite of the massive backings behind these games and the attention they garner, many people think they aren’t a sport.

Esports are not widely accepted by the general public as a real sports like football, soccer, and baseball. Recently esports have been trying to get recognition as a sport, but is often met with ridicule by the public. Despite the ridicule, esports has made some progress in America. Over the past year, according to the article Parrish, R. (2015, January 7) You Can Now Go To College On An eSports Scholorship there have been multiple universities that have announced that they will be forming their own varsity esport teams. They provide sports scholarships for each member in the teams. Despite being officially accepted by the schools as sport, there is still some resistance from students who don’t believe that esports should stand next to traditional sports like football or basketball. I think so many people ridicule esports because they know nothing about them.

John Skipper, President of ESPN.

I think one of the best things that could happen for esports would be TV broadcasts of games. I believe if esports were on TV then they wouldn’t be such a foreign concept and people might see how similar it really is to a traditional sport. There have been multiple attempts to try and get esports on television and most of them did not succeed, and the times they did succeed they did not last. The president of ESPN when asked about his views on esports and having them on his network, according to Tassi, P. (2014, September 7) ESPN Boss Declares eSports ‘Not A Sport,’ stated that “It’s not a sport” and that he was “interested in doing real sports.” This is in stark contrast with Korea, were esports is widely accepted by the general public, that has channels devoted to showing esport competitions and tournaments, as well as interviewing different esport athletes. I wish there was something like this in the western world, so that the general public might understand why some many people consider esports a real sport.

References

McWhertor, M. (2014, July 29). The International Dota 2 tournament watched by more than 20M viewers, Valve says. Retrieved February 23, 2015.

Parrish, R. (2015, January 7). You Can Now Go To College On An eSports Scholarship. Retrieved February 23, 2015.

Tassi, P. (2014, April 6). The International 2014 ‘DOTA 2’ Championship Sells Out An Arena In An Hour. Retrieved February 23, 2015.

Tassi, P. (2014, September 7). ESPN Boss Declares eSports ‘Not A Sport’ Retrieved February 23, 2015.

“The International 2014” by Jakob Wells – https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakobwells/14516251507/in/set-72157645379601078. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.