Is this a sport?

avatar

esport.jpg

This argument probably never gets old. Are esports a sport?

Wikipedia has this to say

"The word "sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining"

With this definition it is certainly a sport.

But everyone likes to have his own definition.

I always thought it is something where you can get better through training. This would make things like drawing, writing and cooking a sport as well though. So it is not really fitting.

Back to wikipedia

"SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:

  • have an element of competition
  • be in no way harmful to any living creature
  • not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
  • not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.

They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport)."

With this definition esport is certainly a sport.

It is a competition and it is a game for the mind and coordination.

The prize pool for certain tournaments is just bat shit crazy

Payouts for the first half of 2019

Top-10-Esports-of-H1-2019_Vertical-768x1119.png
source

One more time wikipedia

The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports.[11]

Whilst SportAccord recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.
There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called esports, especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations.

According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, "'Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."

So if you believe esports are not a sport you are not alone.

Personally I believe esports are a sport. I was playing Starcraft 2 for a while not on any kind of Top level but was watching the tournaments etc.

The life of a pro is very demanding and they do a lot to reach those top levels.

I dont think every video game should be considered an esport but if you dismiss all to just clicking a couple of buttons really fast you do it no justice.

What is your opinion? Do you consider esport as an legit sport? What about chess and dart?



0
0
0.000
29 comments
avatar

Congratulations @flipstar! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You published a post every day of the week

You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
0
0
0.000
avatar

define esports a physical sport as we know it ... well it is a stretch. But if they have declared it as such ... will it be the sport of the future? mine is then a very bad forecast ... so sad

0
0
0.000
avatar

why bad?

0
0
0.000
avatar

Sad... it is a concept of sport that I do not yet approve 😅

Posted using Partiko Android

0
0
0.000
avatar

I have my doubts as well but I think it deserves credit...kind of billard or dart I would even say it is more demanding

0
0
0.000
avatar

Some grey area here for me!

In the past i would not have considered gaming a sport, even if it involved waggling the joystick like a crazy bastard to make Daley Thompson run faster during his Decathlon :)

But actually, that game made you sweat and was hard work, and so it does at least fill some of the definitions above. There are also those dance-off games and plenty of others that involve physical activity - I think that's where I have trouble with other (board/bored) games being a sport.

Interesting one though and I expect plenty of differing opinions :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

I guess so as well.

What you think about games like dart or billard?

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yes I class these as sports.

You are moving and there is no specialist equipment. And Sky Sports covers both - key factor :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Exports are sports because they're basically demanding and technical to an aspect and I believe there are just tiny difference which will not be there in a few years so.

0
0
0.000
avatar

To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.

Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.

0
0
0.000
avatar

This is an interesting point of discussion. For me to consider an event sporting activity, it has to have the characteristic of ensuring and encouraging the physical training/fitness of the player i.e must require a level of physical fitness. Looking at esports and board games, they mostly lack this characteristic, so I don't consider a legit sport.

0
0
0.000
avatar

whats your opinion about horseracing or motorsports?

0
0
0.000
avatar

Horseracing a sport? Yes for me, but motorsports for me is a No.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I believe eSports to be a valid sports but I also agree that not every game can be considered an eSport!

0
0
0.000
avatar

It is a sport but sometimes I marvel at the prize pool set down for these export games. Sounds crazy

0
0
0.000
avatar

hte prize pools are crazy for sure

0
0
0.000
avatar

I have to admit i thought it was a bit strange that it got categorized a sport but in the end it doesn't really matter because the world is all about supply and demand.

I remember years ago where Pepsi had an advert that featured the "world's greatest athletes" and a Nascar driver was one of the athletes and I thought that was strange. I think it was Jeff Gordon. Is he talented? Absolutely... is he a world-class athlete. I think not... and the same applies to these e-sports fellas but again.... it doesn't matter.

For me personally, i would much rather watch E-sports than regular sports any day.

0
0
0.000
avatar

There are not many sports I enjoy watching especially without friends.

But when I was really into Starcraft I could watch that all day.

If you look at dart, billard or Sports like this the people dont really look like professional athlets.

I think this discussion will never end and especially for older people it is hard to grasp that something like this even gets the tag sport by some.

At the end of the day it doesnt really matter like you said.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I can accept some of them as a sport due to the competitive nature and large scale events. Not all, but ones with proper competitions. There is a difference with this to just playing a game.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I think eSports can be considered as a real sport. Most of them are proven to have high level of competitiveness within their player pool and I believe that the level of decision making going on is really praise worthy. I used to play Dota 2 and LOL in my younger years and the pro tournaments were as popular as the basketball news in my circle during that time.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I'm all for including esports...but I don't think that is what the creators intended. It seems the other gaming tribes might more of an appropriate spot for esports posts.

0
0
0.000
avatar

well that's something we all can argue all day all life long so its better to just enjoy till the end because its all about enjoying whether its sports or e sports ;) isn't it

0
0
0.000
avatar

I believe esports is a modern day sport. More technologically advanced type of sport. Both chess and dart are also legit sport

0
0
0.000
avatar

Hi @flipstar!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 5.022 which ranks you at #1127 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 177 places in the last three days (old rank 950).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 160 contributions, your post is ranked at #29.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • You've built up a nice network.
  • The readers appreciate your great work!
  • Good user engagement!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

0
0
0.000
avatar

Interesting iinformation.

0
0
0.000