While some sports such as golf seem to be on the decline other pastimes are increasing in popularity including what is being dubbed the worlds fastest growing professional sport: electronic gaming.
But can playing video games really be classified as sport?
Known better as ‘eSports’ electronic gaming is not only drawing in many new participants but also attracting keen interest from spectators and sponsors, as explained in more depth here: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/07/esports-scores-professional-status-dota2-lol-starcraft...
Video games have been blamed for rising rates of violence and obesity, with claims they are a significant contributor to an‘inside’ generation, but is there also another side worth considering?
“Each game requires a well thought-out strategy, as well as split-second decision making and teamwork. Our players need to train for eight hours a day, they have to eat well, and they need to be psychologically well. They're professional athletes in terms of honing in on their hand coordination skills, using the mouse, and very quick thinking,' says Anne Mathews, a founder of Fnatic, an eSports organisation that hosts, trains, and promotes several teams across a wide spectrum of electronic sports.
“ESports players are beginning to get the same legal footing as other professional athletes as well. The US issues the same visa to pro-gamers as they do to players of other professional sports. Even a university in Illinois offers athletic scholarships to gamers.”
But can they be called a professional sport akin to football, basketball, tennis, hockey, and chess?
'Sport is a field of cultural activity, in which human beings voluntarily establish a relationship with other people, consciously intending to develop their abilities and accomplishments - in particular in the area of skilled motion - in order to compare themselves with other people, according to rules set by themselves or adopted on socially accepted ethical values,' claims Alex Pfieffer, head of the Centre for Applied Games Studies at Danube University in Austria.
'Split the definition in all its small parts, like cultural activity, voluntary, relationship, skilled motion, and you will quickly see that eSports fits 100 percent within the definition of sport. ESport professionals have to train like all other athletes through tactics, fitness and on the game,' he added.
What do you think? Should gaming have more recognition as a sport in our country?
Many young people do not enjoy the range of sports currently offered at school and where sport is compulsory perhaps eSports would be a better option.
Would offering it as a sport at school be a good thing?
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It is proposed that electronic gaming (eSports) should be offered as a school sport option