ESPN To Cover Video Gaming: Since When Did It Become A Sport?
It has been reported that the ‘worldwide leader in sports’, ESPN is adding video-gaming to their lineup of football, baseball, basketball and other sports. This is the craziest thing I’ve heard all day!
ESPN, after the success of DirecTV’s ‘Championship Gaming Series’, has entered into a multiyear content agreement with Major League Gaming and will provide extensive online coverage of MLG’s 2008 Pro Circuit competitions. It is said that they will also cover the footage on their television programs.
Why would anyone want to watch other people play video games?
Apparently, 34% of males aged 12 to 24 list playing games on their Xbox 360 and PS3’s as their favourite activity. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t necessarily mean ESPN will get that 34% viewing it’s gaming coverage. Surely it’s more exciting to play the game yourself?
Raphael Poplock, of VP-games, ESPN Enterprises, has said,
“If things work out nicely, I hope to see a larger relationship down the road. I’m bullish on professional gaming. This is a nice first step to establish a presence in this space and find out through reader interaction where to take this moving forward.”
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous to call playing video games a sport. I know some people are passionate about gaming but please, ESPN covering it as ‘news’? It’s ridiculous!
What do you think?
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Video games should be recognize as a sport. There are many people out there that will never be the best basketball player, the fastest runner nor will they ever attend in the Olympic. Video game is a competitive sport and it takes great dedication to be the best strategic player.
It also give us video games nerds opportunity to be the best…
Ridiculous indeed! Now if you will excuse me, I need to get back to watching middle aged men play poker.
Serious though, at first glance it may not seem like much but playing video games at a professional level is rather taxing.
Many people are just as dismissive about auto racing and fail to see what makes racing a sport.
With gaming, there is an amazing ammout of strategy, skill, and teamwork involved. Some of these players play for $100k pots.
Imagine playing chess with three times as many pieces and both players are moving their pieces without waiting for one another. That is what a Real Time Strategy game is like.
I guess it comes down to what you consider a sport. High levels of skill, extremely competitive play, strong team dynamics…gaming has all that.
If you don’t see gaming as a sport, that’s fine, but let’s go ahead and do away with golf, bowling, pool, racing, and to some extent baseball. Those are all displays of skill without a dependency on physical prowess.
You need to buck the trend that all old people seem to have that “videogaems are for children”. You were right….in the 80s…but a funny thing happened. All those kids grew up. And while the older generation can’t quite get their head around it, the twenty somethings in this country don’t have that big a problem understanding it.
This is a sub culture being brought into the spotlight. It is going to take some time for the masses to see competitive gaming for what it is and the skill it requires. Some people won’t get it, but it won’t matter because they will die off in 20 years and by the time we are their age, we won’t be able to get out heads around whatever new virtual sport they will be pushing.
Sports are just games where the better team/person wins. This qualifies.