
It’s Time to Stop Pretending ESports Are ‘Real’ Sports - rkda
http://recode.net/2015/04/27/video-games-on-espn-its-time-to-stop-pretending-esports-are-real-sports/
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Lancey
ITT: internet journalist pedantic about labels.

While western media may not yet be open to embracing eSports on television,
South Korea and several other nations have been televising video games for
years and building followings behind them that rival "real" sports. The
author's trying to make an opinionated point about the state of eSports
without recognizing their following both internationally and online. There's a
lot of money being thrown around in there. We're past the point of debating
whether or not they are real sports and starting to seriously consider
bringing them to the attention of a wider audience. It hasn't stuck (yet), but
maybe in the future viewers will be receptive to it.

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Nadya
>Chess is a _recognized sport_ of the International Olympic Committee

I think the guy should stop talking out his ass about Chess.

Of course there is a lot of confusion. It's new. Try showing Polocrosse on
ESPN and you'll get a bunch of confused reactions too - even though it's a
legitimate and "physical" sport! It's not something ESPN regularly shows or
what the viewers might expect to see.

eSports isn't something that ESPN regularly shows or that viewers expect to
see. It needs time to become "expected" and non-surprising. If it brings in ad
revenue from the hundreds of thousands of people watching, I'm sure it will
stick around.

I would love if ESPN would show Polocrosse just to prove my point though.

~~~
lightlyused
"physical exertion" I not sure that pushing buttons counts.

~~~
Someone1234
You're responding to a point they never made. Read their post again.

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Nadya
They responded to an unedited version of my post. I forgot to mention the edit
in the post and by the time I realized - it was too late to edit the post.

I was originally being pedantic about the opinionated piece and went from one
thought to another. I was focusing on the latter half of the definition of
"sport" (individuals or teams competing against each other for others'
entertainment) and not "physical exertion".

>an activity involving physical exertion and skill in _which an individual or
team competes against another or others for entertainment_.

The above quote is what they are referring to, with my emphasis italicized.

I was trying to be pedantic in return towards the author of the article and
had a rather bad oversight in my zealousness of doing so. When I had noticed
my mistake, I removed the argument against the definition of "sport".

Which Chess doesn't fit either - but is officially recognized as a sport. So I
think the "physical exertion" bit isn't necessarily needed.

E: Further explanation of scenario and a few typo/grammar fixes.

~~~
lightlyused
Perhaps a corrected definition would be physical and/or mental exertion. That
would fit with with chess.

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aoakenfo
professional gamers have incredible hand/eye coordination and the ability to
process and react to events in near realtime. but from the outside, it just
looks like some button pushing.

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CocaKoala
eSports aren't sports; that's why they're not called "sports" and are called
"eSports" instead. You wouldn't think this would be confusing, but apparently
it is.

And being as how people feel like they're entertaining competitions to watch,
it doesn't seem out of place to air them on the Entertainment and Sports
Programming Network; again, this doesn't seem like it would be confusing, but
apparently it is.

~~~
wamsachel
The word sport came from 'leisure activity' meat-sports took over the term,
but does that mean we can't change it back?

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=sport&searchmode=none)

