In no way, shape or form should esports be considered actual sports.
As a lead-up to the 2020 Olympics, Intel will host an esports tournament in Tokyo featuring “Street Fighter V” and “Rocket League.” The victor of each game will net a hefty $250,000 grand prize.
While this is not an Olympic sanctioned event, it’s being promoted as one. Twelve teams will be selected to participate, with each team representing one nation.
The International Esports Federation, however, has been doing everything it can to get esports included in the Olympics.
The federation and organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics have considered including esports as a demonstration sport at the Games, according to an April 2018
BBC article.
The International Olympic Committee said that esports could be considered a sporting activity and the players involved are comparable to athletes because they “prepare and train with an intensity.”
I’m all for competitive gaming and its continued growth, but there is a clear line between a professional NBA player, for example, who puts their body on the line every game versus someone who endlessly sits behind a keyboard or controller.
That said, I’ve done my fair share of gaming in the past.
Steam, an online video game distribution platform, keeps track of the hours its users spend in game.
According to my stats, I’ve played a combined 664 hours of “Day of Defeat: Source” and “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer.”
In case you were wondering, 664 hours is just over 27 days.
A large majority of that play time was over the course of a two-year span. Looking back on it, I regret none of it, but I most certainly didn’t think any of it would be considered sports adjacent.
For something to be considered a sport, it has to involve an athlete that is sacrificing their blood, sweat and tears into their craft.
The sport itself, as well as the training regimen of it, needs to have the athlete pushing themselves to peak physical exertion in order for it to be a sport.
That said, the IOC considers chess and the card game bridge a sport, so the definition of what a sport is needs a rework.
Prior to the 2018 NFL season, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson added boxing to a workout routine that already included box jumps, front squats, kettlebell lunges, bench press work, deadlifts and speed training, according to a Men’s Journal article.
He then steps onto a field every Sunday during the season and has 300-pound behemoths running at him at full speed.
If I tried any of that, I’d probably have to pay for a hospital stay.
But, if I decided to stay up all night “training” while playing the latest “Call of Duty” game, all I’d need is a couple of Red Bull’s and hot pockets for sustenance.
“Overwatch” players, during a tournament in Brooklyn in 2018, compared themselves to athletes in an AP
News article.
“There’s actually a physical component of moving that cursor across the screen in a split-second and putting it on a pixel. That’s a physical move,” Nate Nanzer, “Overwatch” league commissioner, said when talking about a player. “And you can practice a lot, and you can get better at it, but you couldn’t get to his level at it.”
Multiple players in the article said that what they were doing wasn’t for fun and was more akin to a job than something leisurely.
I respect the time and effort it takes for professional competitive gamers to get to the level they are at, and I don’t think their mindsets need to change at all, but they are just simply not athletes.
The fact that the commissioner of the “Overwatch” league had to defend physicality in the event as moving the cursor across the screen says it all.
It’s hard to be truly great at a video game. It takes endless amounts of practice and focus, much like professional athletes.
But, the lack of anything physical happening is the breaking point and cements the fact that esports can’t be considered actual sports.
