Editorial: eSports - As Seen on TV

eSports – As Seen on TV

          The Olympics are poised to take the world by storm again just as it does every other year, as we all watch in hopes that our country’s team brings home the gold. But as the games open in South Korea, there’s a question on the minds of the gaming community: will eSports ever find their way into the Olympics?

          While the country’s national sport isn’t actually StarCraft like an internet myth would tell you (it’s taekwondo), there’s no denying that South Koreans are the masters of the eSports scenes. Whether it’s League of Legends, Overwatch, Hearthstone or any other online PvP game imaginable, chances are that if a South Korean is playing they’re going to win.

          Because of the country’s love of gaming, fans of eSports have been wondering if the time is arriving for video games to make their way to the Olympics. eSports has really taken off in the last few years, going beyond Smash tournaments at your local comic book shop to multi-million dollar events with sponsorships from the likes of Coke and Red Bull. The biggest League tournaments are known to regularly bring in viewer numbers the likes of which are similar to the NBA’s March Madness, and the new Overwatch League was given a lot of hype before it started as the new kid on the block that was going to change eSports as we know it. Even the creator of Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov, has gone on record saying that he hopes his game will one day become an Olympic event.

          But, at least for this year, no dice.

          There are a few reasons as to why eSports have been left out of the fun. Firstly, this year is the Winter Olympics, meaning that the games are targeted primarily at sports you can only play in the snow or on ice, like hockey, bobsled, figure skating and the like. The Summer Olympics are typically the more open of the two seasons of games, including stuff like wrestling, judo, weightlifting, rowing and other, more unorthodox sports. If eSports wants a chance at making it in the Olympics, they’re better off trying for the Summer Games.

          The other big issue is that the Olympic Committee isn’t a big fan of sports that don’t physically exert the players. Stuff like poker, billiards and bowling might be easy to find on ESPN, but they’re nowhere to be found in the Olympics. If you’re not actively up and moving around or somehow otherwise causing strain on your body, they’re not interested.

          But the biggest roadblock between eSports and the Olympics is the content itself: despite turning in audiences of millions for their biggest matches, eSports are still viewed by casual audiences as very niche, not really belonging alongside the NBA and the NHL. A few years back ESPN aired the Dota 2 finals and was met with angry response on Twitter from the channel’s usual audience who felt that video games had no place on a sports channel. Even worse was that the channel’s owner later went on to say that he still didn’t believe eSports were comparable to “real” sports. Since then the main home of eSports has been Twitch, and it looks like it’s going to be staying there for the foreseeable future.

          I guess poor eSports will have to throw a pity party with the equally obscure and niche sport of American Football as they complain about not being allowed into the Olympics.

          I’m not a huge eSports fan, but I’d love to see it hit the mainstream. It’s not like League or Overwatch is that much harder to understand than the previously mentioned American Football, which is easily the most watched of the more popular sports leagues. Maybe someday when the old, out-of-touch managers that work behind the scenes at these things are retired, they’ll get their shot at the spotlight.