ESPN is just desperate to find fresh markets and revenue streams. All of the cord-cutters are hurting them big-time. ESPN doesn't care if eSports or poker or bowling or whatever is a sport or not...if it's some sort of competition and they see money-making potential out of it, then they're going to consider and explore the opportunity. Hell, they'll probably welcome the "controversy" on whether competitive gaming is a sport or not. Controversy is publicity. I think this eSports thing will be unsuccessful for ESPN. Most of the eSport spectator audience consists of people in their teens and 20s. That market does not give a damn about ESPN...they get their videogame media fix from Youtube, Twitch and social media. Unless ESPN significantly overhauls and modernizes their business model, their days...at least as a big behemoth...are numbered.
What I find interesting in this "discussion" is that nobody has talked about what a huge step this is for esports. I don't really care if someone labels it a sport or not. And i'm a 51 year old dude. I mean, its ESPN. It doesn't get any more mainstream in the United States than that. Regardless of how you feel about esports and its up and coming status, in the past it was sort of this weird subset of culture that only geeks were into. It's become obvious that esports is about to become mainstream. EVERYONE these days has a game they play. League of Legends, Counterstrike, Mobile Strike, Game of War, Call of Duty, DOTA, NBA 2k16, FIFA, and on and on. Where gaming garners this kind of interest money will follow. Its not getting smaller. In fact, IMHO it's about to explode in interest.
No dude, listen to CCorn...we need to get more spelling bees on TV. That's where the market is. It's like 1,000 times more difficult too.
Strawwwwwwmannnn. I never said any of that. Anyways, examples of compensation not being a good measure for difficulty. Swimmers make poop. Powerlifters make poop. Tennis players outside of the top 40 or so in the world don't make much at all. Now compare that to 3rd string football players or, as said earlier, pitchers in baseball. Shoot there are NBA players getting paid big $$$ for being tall that don't do anything but foul.
I'm not arguing that there isn't a market for professional gaming. My point is it's not a sport. I'm sorry if my opinion does not match yours.
Read my post on the third. It is a sport by definition. It is just not a sport your clear that aren't interested in.
So you didn't just say that spelling was more difficult? Make up your mind. I don't care if you think it's a sport or not -- you've already shown your opinion matters very little. How could it? You're completely uninformed on the subject. In regards to your comparison of esports and a third string football player or basketball player being paid for being tall: I assure you anyone in esports making money right now that is a competitor is a beast. It doesn't work the same way.
My definition. Real sports require skill, toughness, tactics, talent, IQ - Basketball - NBA, football (the real one), tennis Fake tough guy sports require zero skill, zero tactics involved, no talent required, very low IQ just have to be big and fat - egg ball - NFL And then you have games like video games, monolpoly, cards, chess etc which are not sports but games for the totally non athletic
I said I'd imagine a spelling bee is more difficult. I didn't say it's 1,000 times more difficult. Nor did I say it was more popular.
I already said above (if you had read) that gamers are not athletes. That does not mean that video games aren't sports. With that said, again...I really don't care if anyone doesn't like them being called that. That's the standard that's been set, and I really doubt it will change. My issue was with people basically being pissed off it's on ESPN's website, which is...silly.
I don't care they're on the ESPN site. I watch football/basketball on ESPN and listen to one show, the Lebatard show. Whatever else they put on there to make money is up to them.
Ignorant take. Why? Plenty of athletes play video games. You can be athletic and still play a video game. You don't necessarily need to be an athlete to be good at them, but believe it or not a lot of the better players excel at recreational sports. Your boy Yao played Starcraft religiously. Gordon Hayward plays with pro League of Legends players. Gilbert Arenas (yeah yeah...) played with pro Halo players. Stuart Holden formerly of the Houston Dynamo (Team USA among others) was a pro CounterStrike player. They aren't mutually exclusive, you can excel at both believe it or not.
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