Considering Video Games A Competitive Sport

Many people think of football, basketball, baseball, etc. when you say sport some of you might say shooting and other forms of stationary sports like archery. Others might even debate things like cheese rolling and hot dog eating. But surprisingly not many people would consider gaming as a sport even know there is a ton of evidence to support this becoming a reality and eventually being considered by the general public as a sport.

Gaming already a sport?

Well if you consider the fact that scholastic stated “100million Americans where expected to watch the Super Bowl almost as many people around the world watched the finals of a video game tournament” with players from all around the world training and trying their best to become the next big esport player doing mental exercises learning strategies and creating teams with fans, backers, sponsors cheering them on and with esports being organized with professionals wouldn’t you think gaming would definitely already be a sport wouldn’t you?

As you can tell esports will actually take the lead from a lot of the “traditional sports” in American leaving only the NFL out of its rampage to climb the top of the sporting ladder. Further cementing esports roots to the ground as a growing sport that might even become more of a main stream sport in the near future.

What is esports?

Well before we can get into the debate about gaming being a sport or not, we have to look at why video gaming is even being considered as being a sport and its mostly because of this new form of competitive gaming called esports what is esports you ask?

Well let’s start off with esports is short for “Electronic Sports” this sport holds big massive arena tournaments all over the world where players compete with one another just like regular sports to win a prize thousands of people come from all over the world to see these game play off people even beat on what team they think might win or beat on the odds its gotten so big that its now become” organized by professionals “ stated by BBC its so big that back in 2015 league of legends final had more than 35 million viewers watching it play off.

But some people disagree with the term sport being labeled on to a video game as seen here from my homework done blog “Video games are not physical sports (they do not involve a physical activity) and cannot be compared to the latter.” Some would argue that this statement is false in the sense that shooting is considered a sport but the only movement is your fingers pushing a trigger just like your finger would push the mouse button

And another point made by this blog stating “There are no clear rules and the video games competitions are not properly regulated” but if you looked at any esports tournament you would see that they are not only regulated but have many and clear rules that people have even been disqualified for rules can easily be found here and many other websites https://play.eslgaming.com/rules

Another point made by this blog is “Some studies suggest video games are actually damaging to the human psychic” But again this has been shut down with scientists doing research into video games actually benefiting the human psychic as seen in this article stating it actually makes our attention and visuospatial skills more efficient.

Well there’s no debate that esports is becoming the next big thing even football clubs have took notice as seen here by the BBC: “football teams, are starting to buy eSports players to represent them in competitions” this only proves the point that even traditional sports are recognizing esports. Many video games require strategy and lots of skill to become a pro just like a traditional sport athlete have to train for days so to do pro esport gamers they have to sharpen their skills have faster response, practice their hand-eye coordination to become the very best that they can be proving that it acts and trains the same as a traditional sport. As seen here with https://vr.eslgaming.com/ VR has now entered the fray meaning that people who say gaming is not a physical sport are now wrong with full room set up to allow gamers to compete against one another in a competitive setting moving, jumping evening rolling around with full body motion gaming has now even entered the stage of physical activity even furthering its progress of becoming the next big sport.

Conclusion

They involve mental focus just the same if not more than a game of tennis, basketball or any other traditional sport you’re playing against other people with your team in e-sporting they use strategy, Skill, Team work, and competitive strive they train and even have sponsors, clubs and fans who cheer them on in giant arenas this just proves the point that video games shouldn’t even be getting considered about being a sport from the looks of it video games are a sport they might not be you traditional sport like football, rugby etc. But the skills needed to compete in these high stress environments with thousands cheering your name and even more watching at home on twitch, tv, even radio in my opinion sports don't say in the definition they need to involve physical activity or there not a sport. Even if that was the case VR in esports is becoming a thing so soon the argument of they have to do physical activity will become not relevant.

Esports with so many different platforms for esports to grow Xbox, PS4, PC, VR and with each year more and more keep being added allowing for more fans. More events, more money being made, more players being created and with even traditional clubs backing esports to the extent of getting players to represent their team playing video games this just allows me to conclude with video games in my opinion should and are a sport.