If ESPN says something is a sport, there really can’t be any argument, can there? Heck, if The Worldwide Leader in Sports started covering beer pong on its website and on SportsCenter, the friendly drinking game would makes its way into the Olympics sooner than later. By this train of thought, it’s high-time that everyone recognizes eSports in the same way they recognize the likes of baseball, football, and basketball… Because ESPN now covers eSports.
eSports refers to electronic sports, which is “a form of sports where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by video games.” And as of January 14th, 2016, ESPN now has a vertical on its site entirely dedicated to eSports, where frequenters of ESPN.com can stay updated on the likes of League of Legends, Defense of the Ancients 2, and Hearthstone.
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eSports is a burgeoning institution that is rapidly gaining steam, and its recognition by ESPN serves as a monumental achievement. For as long as it has been of national and international attention, eSports has been the subject of more skepticism than acclaim, with followers of “traditional” sports unwilling to admit that eSports deserves the distinction it now has. Just a year-and-a-half ago, ESPN president John Skipper said, regarding eSports: “It’s not a sport — it’s a competition.” Regardless if his opinion has changed or not since then, fans of eSports around the world should rejoice at ESPN’s inclusion of the “competition” on their site.
So now that eSports is officially a sport, what makes eSports worthy of the terminology that also graces soccer, baseball, basketball, American football, and more? According to Tom Burns, eSports deserves to be recognized as a sport because it requires “careful planning, precise timing, and skillful execution,” all of which do characterize typical sports that are dominated by physical activity. People have been reluctant to think of eSports as a sport because it doesn’t consists of running, throwing a ball, or swimming in a pool, but it would seem that those are the wrong criteria with which to deem something a sport in the first place. ESports is a sport because it can be won, especially with copious amounts of practice, and requires as much dedication and strategy as physically-inclined games around the world do.
An eSports vertical on the ESPN website does not necessarily mean that eSports will suddenly gain thousands of new followers, but having the sport featured on ESPN is a victory for those who already love it. And with a massive League of Legends tournament just underway, as well as more minor tournaments for Halo, Call of Duty, and others, it’s quite the time to be an eSports fan.