When you think of sports, you probably think of football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. You think of athletes in pinnacle condition going to battle on the field, court, or ice. You probably don’t think of scrawny dudes going to battle behind a screen with mouse and keyboard in hand competing on a virtual battlefield, but maybe you should.
I know it can be hard for people to make the distinction between a football field and computer screen and put the two in the same bracket of being a sport. On one hand you have people in prime condition potentially risking their health for their team, and on the other hand you have comparatively average people sitting in a chair comfortably risking nothing besides their eyesight, but I hope to bridge that gap with facts, my personal opinion, and maybe some semantics.
First, I want to start off by saying that there is no concrete definition of what a sport is. Every definition that you find is subjective. So, let’s go through some definitions of what a sport is that I found online.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” When you read that definition, every box should be checked for eSports except for one, “an activity involving physical exertion.” I can see why people would write gaming off as a sport for this reason, but I simply disagree. There is at least some level of physical exertion that comes with gaming, and this definition doesn’t state how much physical exertion needs to be had, just at least some level.
Now I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that gaming is physically taxing because it's not, but there is at least some level of physical exertion in gaming. The most physically taxing aspect of gaming comes from players using a mouse, which in the long term has caused many gamers to experience symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. This condition clearly indicates that some sort of physical exertion was had, so if we want to get semantical with the Oxford definition, this evidence should check off all the boxes. Gaming also requires a level of hand eye coordination at the highest levels, and arguably takes more skill than sports such as ping pong or darts in terms of hand eye coordination.
There is also evidence that a healthy diet and exercise promotes better performance in gaming just as it does in any other sport. In an article published on verizon.com titled “Game on: Why gamers are getting serious about physical fitness” Cheng Ko, the director of performance at Team Liquid, which is a world-renowned esports team, is quoted in saying “Proper nutrition and exercise improve mood, increase tolerance for stress, increase resilience, increase motor functioning, and accelerated learning.”
He adds, “The bottom line is, pro gamers who eat right, hydrate properly and exercise regularly will have faster reaction times, make quicker decisions and perform better under pressure.”
If you weren’t convinced by me before, maybe the words of Cheng Ko can convince you, as there is a clear correlation between physical activity and overall health and performance in gaming even if it's not clearly displayed in the sport itself.
There is one more definition that I want to tackle if you still are not convinced. This definition comes from an academic article posted in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy titled “Philosophy of Sport.” In this article it is stated that a sport must be a game of skill, that the skill be physical, that the game have a wide following, and that the following achieve a certain level of stability.
So let's begin. I don’t think that anyone could argue that pro gaming doesn’t involve skill, the simple fact that someone can be better than someone else proves that skill is involved, and very, very little is left to chance in professional gaming.
I’ve already made my case as to why gaming exhibits physical skill, so I won’t bash that point any further.
Some people may not know that esports draws over 540 million viewers globally, whether that be in person or online. Also the most watched event in esports history drew in a total of 5.41 million people to watch a game called Garena Free Fire. Clearly there is a following here.
And to wrap it up, esports is only growing. The current total of 540 million viewers globally is predicted to grow to 640.8 million by 2025, so not only is there stability, but this sport is going to keep growing. To me it seems that this definition is also checked off, thus giving gaming the title of a sport.
Now if you still don’t consider gaming a sport, I understand. It can be hard to put gamers and Olympians in the same category, but at a very technical level I believe that gaming should be a sport.