Joshua Rollinson

Jackie Burr, Instructor

English 2010

21 April 2020

Esports Are Sports, A Evaluation

Esports. A brand new kind of entertainment. Competitive video games, and childs new

dreams. Players practice countless hours in hopes of being sponsored, or winning tournaments

they enter. But are they sports? This essay will be an evaluation and put down criteria of which

esports meets to “qualify” as sports. There will be talk of similarities and talk of the physical

aspects of esports, and more.

To start, most people would define esports as just competitive video games, and nothing

else to it. This is terrible as it neglects the opportunities that esports brings to the table.

Especially when its community is growing exponentially and even competes at top levels of

viewership with other sports like football specifically the super bowl. Last year in 2019, the LCS,

the major video game league for League of Legends, received about 100-150 million viewers,

whereas the superbowl only peaked at 99 million viewers. Evidence shows that this is clear that

esports are massive, and need the respect they deserve.

In an interview with Spencer Garner A.k.a Bestness is the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

community. He is ranked #1 in Utah and currently ranked #43 in the world. He has good

placings and has been in the scene for 5+ years. Good to say he knows his way around. He was

asked about the esports community and how he feels about esports as a whole. To summarize,

He basically mentions that the community is growing and is growing fast, and people are quick
to judge esports, and that is something that needs to change. “The next generation is going to

take advantage of what Esports has to offer and careers in Esports will be more common than

ever.” To say, Spencer definitely believes that esports need the recognition and the respect in

order to continue growing healthily. So how is that done? First it's needed as a whole to

recognize esports as a sport. In doing so, people for one, don't downplay the concept of esports

as a whole, and two it will encourage more players, and more skillful talent to come out of the

shadows, as it becomes a more viable career. A survey taken on thetylt.com did a poll on their

twitter and facebook on why or why not esports competitors be considered athletes? The end

result ended really close with 52.5% voting that they are not athletes, and 47.5% voting they are.

Now this concludes that there is already for one a huge community that believes so, and that this

argument isn’t just some small issue. Now to say that there are still more people that believe that

it’s not an issue, and we’re here to change that. Now the word athlete can mean a lot of things, A

competitor, sports player, and even a video game player. All three have been used under the

word athlete. Most would argue that esports would never meet the physical requirements of a

real athlete. During a ted talk by Anthony Betrus titled, “Esports is Real Sports” he talks about

the direct relations to physical activity during esports. Scientific evidence shows that eSports

professionals are real athletes. “... The amount of cortisol produced by those playing video games

professionally was equivalent to that of a race-car-driver.” esports professionals also have high

pulse, sometimes reaching 160-180 beats per minute, equivalent to someone during a very fast

run, or a marathon. On a keyboard, esport athletes reach up to 400 movements on the keyboard

per minute. Four times as much as the average person. Esports as a whole is just as demanding if

not more demanding than most other sports. Now obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, and
also how you would define how physically taxing it really is, but at a top level, esports

professionals have to have very good endurance and proper practice in order to keep up with the

other top players. Now as it hits criteria, it becomes more obvious that esports can fit in the

definition of sports. Although, that isn’t all. Next is talking about the other aspects of sports such

as the community, teams, sponsors, and more. In Uriah Tagle’s scholarly article titled, “As North

American Esports Level Up, Its Players Lag Behind.” Has plenty of information on just the

statistics of jobs inside of esports, and all the regulations to uphold. For one, many esports have

age regulations where you have to be a certain age to join. OWL and NBA2KL two gaming

leagues both require you must be 18, or a legal adult to be on a professional team. LCS requires

you to be at least 17, and other leagues go as low as 14. Now these are completely legitimate

jobs with sponsors and teams. They must “go to work” and practice all day. The Shanghai

Dragons, an OWL team, practice for 13 hours a day together in order to meet the jobs standards.

The salary for these kinds of jobs aren’t as big as regular sports, but are salaries to not scoff at.

LCS players have the highest minimum salary of 75k a year, with OWL players guaranteed at

least 50k a year, and NBA2KL a base of 32k. Besides NBA2KL, the other 2 leagues pay salaries

that are higher than those of the average salary in most states. The reason these leagues can do so

well is because of broadcasting. Broadcasting brings in millions of viewers and plenty of revenue

to pay for the leagues, and its players, specifically those who win. These are all things similar to

sports. The fact that esports basically have the same process as regular sports, is also a reason to

be mind boggled at the fact that they aren’t recognized yet. In Michael Arin’s scholarly article,

“Competing Competitions: Anticompetitive Conduct by Publisher-Controlled Esports Leagues.”

His whole article talks about an additional side to esports, something regular sports don’t even
have. The fact that there are plenty of leagues, there are also certain esports that get by without

sponsorships from their official games. LCS, OWL are examples of huge leagues where they get

help from the original game developers and are officially sponsored by them. Games like Super

Smash Bros. Melee, a 2001 hit, doesn't get official sponsorships from Nintendo. So these

tournament organizers of the years, have built up their own leagues, usually their own

tournaments, and have major showings from hundreds of players, and the best of the best show

up, and broadcast it, and make enough to keep the tournaments coming each year. Something

regular sports don’t have. They rely on major leagues to uphold and present new opportunities to

allow more players in. Anyone could become an esports player. Not everyone can become a

major sports player. On viewsonic.com they have an article titled, “Is Esports a Sport?” and have

divided esports into categories that can easily be shown they hit criteria specifically, Skillful,

Strategy, Teamwork, Competitive, Professional, Success, Celebrity, and Business. All of which

can be found under sports regularly as they go hand in hand. The rest of the article goes through

the definition of sports and the different definitions found on different dictionaries, and then

follows through to find all the evidence for the criteria met. Another article by Jack Stewart

titled, “Why esports ARE real sports:” goes through just similar arguments, but has a stumble

specifically around the area of athleticism. Which in very simple terms, can be an issue, it is true

that esports professionals have to spend very little time exercising to get to the point they are at.

It's all mental, even if their hearts get up to similar bpm as other athletes, it still doesn’t have the

same taxing toll on the body. It will always be less. Now while that's true, it's not a big enough

reason to disregard esports as a sport. They still have to perform at a top level all the time which

does take its toll on the body, even if it isn’t the exact same as playing a regular sport.
Next, another interview, more specifically on the lifestyle of an esports professional. Keith

Markovic, a professional CS:GO player on the professional team, Team Liquid, talks about his

experience on the team as a whole. Keith talks about the experience they have on the big stage

and all the pressure put onto them, the interview specifically takes place during a new york

tournament where Keith was playing for 250 thousand dollars, a huge sum of money. Keith also

mentions that unlike other teams they do all live in seperate apartments, and not in a team house

together, but work together in a huge industry team liquid building together. There is also

mention of the amount of merchandise that is purchased by the fans, and also after the

tournament they had a fan signing afterwards. The esports life is something Keith says he wants

to live the rest of his life with. He believes that he is an athlete and will continue providing for

team liquid as a professional esports player. Also within the interview there is a player with the

name of, Emily Oeser, an Overwatch team captain of her University team, believes she’s an

athlete and should be recognized for her talent, she goes through all the struggles of being a

woman within these predominantly male scene, but makes a name for herself and her team. The

point under this interview was to point out how universities are putting hundreds of thousands of

dollars into the industry within their own universities. These colleges recognize the value under

which they could have players play under them, and also the value in esports. With all of the

evidence shown, it's obvious that esports fits the criteria under sports as a whole, whether that's

under physical activity or under the competitive side, how big esports is, the communities behind

it, the game scenes that help run it all, and finally the salaries within the industry are all valid. It

all fits together in one ecosystem. Esports is a real sport, and real professional athletes play

inside these wonderful teams for the crown of being number 1.

 Works Cited

Arin, Michael. “Competing Competitions: Anticompetitive Conduct by Publisher-Controlled Esports

Leagues.” ​Minnesota Law Review,​ vol. 104, no. 3, Feb. 2020, pp. 1585–1646. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=142016255&site=ehost-live.

Betrus, Anthony. “Esports is Real Sports” Ted: Ideas Worth Spreading, August 2019

Davis, Chris. “Is Esports a Sport?” ​ViewSonic Library,​ 18 December 2019,

www.viewsonic.com/library/entertainment/is-esports-sport/.

Garner, Spencer. Discord Interview. 7 April 2020.

Mailonline, Jack Stewart For. “Why Esports ARE Real Sports.” ​Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers,​ 24

August 2017, www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/esports/article-4812762/Why-esports-real-sports.html.

Markovic Keith, “From playing at home to the arena, inside a billion0dollar eSports industry” ​ABC News​. 22

March 2019 ​https://youtu.be/IrnZ7SboHvI

Tagle, Uriah. “As North American Esports Levels Up, Its Players Lag Behind.” ​Texas Review of

Entertainment & Sports Law,​ vol. 19, no. 2, Spring 2019, pp. 81–87. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=136705147&site=ehost-live.

Tran Daniel, “Should eSports Competitors Be Considered Athletes” ​Tylt.​ https://thetylt.com/sports/esports-athletes

Young, Henry. “ESports: Is pro Video Gaming a Sport?”​ CNN, Cable News Network,​ 31 May 2016,

www.cnn.com/2016/05/31/sport/esports-is-professional-gaming-a-sport/index.html.