In recent years, esports have grown exponentially, creating a market that generates millions in revenue as hundreds of thousands of teenagers log on to watch a kind of sporting event they can relate to.
Although
traditional sports with testosterone high clashes and full grown men butting
helmets are still popular across the country, their prominence has started to
fade from the younger generation. This
is perhaps a result of the decline in sport-based activities. Fifty years ago, sports were played by
almost every kid-regardless of whether that kid made it onto his high school
basketball team, they were simply a way of life. Naturally, as the children of that generation
grew up they took an interest in watching the sports they had loved during
their childhood, now played by professional athletes. Watching sports is both an exciting,
adrenaline pumping present day activity, as well as a reminiscent reminder of
the long summers they spent playing baseball back in the sixties.
For
teenagers nowadays though, unless you are a varsity bawler and dedicate your
life to shooting hoops, sports are only played during P.E. Most kids, discouraged by the highly
competitive world of high-school sports, find better ways to waste their time. If they’re a testosterone driven male,
conditioned by years of evolution to compete with their peers, they usually
turn to the modern form of competition: videogames.
Finally,
as time has advanced, we are seeing some of the children who grew up on
videogames reaching adulthood. Just as
their fathers before them who found that they didn’t have the time with their
careers to play sports on a regular basis, young adults who grew up on
videogames are spending less time simply playing them, and more time watching
them. In 2012, the total number of
viewers for the League of Legends world championships were over half the
viewers for the baseball World Series final game. Eight million compared to fifteen
million.
Despite
its surprisingly large following, if you were to stop a stranger on the street
and ask them their opinion on esports, they probably wouldn’t know how to
respond. Unlike with sports, that
provided physical exercise to their children, parents were quick to attach a
negative to stigma to videogames in which they saw no real benefit. Judgments about gamers being nerdy and lazy
spread like wildfire, until gamers were forced into none-expressive shells,
only talking about their exploits with other gamers. If mentioning your interests in video games
to outsiders is taboo, then talking about your fascination with esports is even
more so, even kids who accept video games into their lives still have a mocking
attitude towards watching games played by other people. Watching esports is considered the pinnacle
of nerdiness.
Yet there
are still eight million viewers to be accounted for, not all of whom can be
complete nerds. The truth is that more
people watch videogames than let on.
It’s free, and easy and is an activity they can participate in without
any commitment, so a large amount of teenagers venture into the realm of
esports without any fear…and once they pick up on the rules and strategies of
the games the viewers are instantly hooked.
Whether
or not esports are the entertainment of the future is up to debate, as of now
they have a cult following but with the nerd label it would be surprising if esports
spread to a wider audience. There is
also the problem that in western culture videogames are not pastimes that girls
find attractive in males, or that most girls even care about themselves. Unlike with sports, professional gamers
really are restricted to one-half of the population to find fans.
Despite
this, esports are here to stay and I, along with eight million other fans, will
continue to enjoy them.
League of Legends Free Season Three Coverage: http://na.lolesports.com/
Starcraft Esport Center: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/esports/
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