According to the president of ESPN, eSports is not a sport, and there are no plans to expand the network’s coverage of events like Dota 2 The International.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with ESPN, it is an American television sports network that covers your conventional sporting events – football, basketball, etc. As of August 2013, ESPN was available to just under 100 million American households, and was operating in more than 200 countries.
In a recent interview, ESPN’s president John Skipper said whether or not eSports continues to grow in popularity, it will not be supported by the network.
“It’s not a sport. It’s a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition. Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports,” he said.
Before the chess and checkers players explode with rage, let’s deal with the eSports issue first briefly.
- The recent Dota 2 The International saw the winning team – NewBee – take home over R50 million.
- Research from SuperData shows that 71 million people from across the globe tuned in to watch eSports during 2013.
- Amazon recently bought Twitch, the popular video game streaming site, for over R10 billion.
So, eSports is popular. But is it a sport?
Honestly, I don’t think it matters what you call it. As long as you enjoy doing it and is it not negatively affecting you or those around you, then go for it – sport or not.
The real question is – is ESPN missing out on a growing market here? Let us know what you think in the comments and forum.
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Thank god eSports is not on ESPN, they have more adds then actuall sport coverage. 1 minute of sport, 2 minutes of adds..