Esports (competitive video game playing) Is Now a High School Varsity Sport in 8 States

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/tech/esports-varsity-arena/index.html

"The global esports market is expected to generate more than $1 billion in 2019, according to research firm Newzoo. It also estimates the esports audience will reach 454 million this year."

Dang (#%&*$# is censored???). I wish when I was in high school there was an e-military flight sims varsity sport!!


That would have been the ONLY varsity sport I would have been good enough to do!

I can't wait until The Olympics includes these sports. Of course they'll have to get rid of some outdated ones to make room. But we don't need archaic things like running, jumping, wrestling and similar events, do we? Besides, those things aren't very inclusive.

So chess is therefore a sport too right?

I’m sure it is in Russia. Heck, they even televise chess matches!

Knock it all you want, but these kids make serious bucks. I've got some clients in the biz.

Why not? Not everyone is sports inclined, but everyone wants a niche. They have competitive theater too, starting in middle school.

My son was telling me about some "professional streamers" who make several hundred thousand dollars a year letting people watch them play games online.

I was born too soon.

Yep. He's not joking. Some even make millions. Even simple editors of videos can make bank if they're skilled enough. You need to have a special kind of personality to be successful as a streamer, though, and to do it well you have to treat it as a job with set hours, and that might mean acting in a way that requires great effort. Not for everyone.

my son's HS has a Bass fishing team that competes against other NH teams. I could understand this in the South, but was shocked when I saw a friend posting his son on a team.

The amount that competitive gamer's make, and knowing not every kid is college material, I'm glad to see schools looking outside the box of telling kids it's college or nothing.

The big three sports (football, basketball, and baseball) have become stale. It is no surprise that other competitive entertainment has started to become popular.

Twenty years ago I was heavy into all the EA NHL gaming. I would have loved to take a crack at making some cash off of it. Like it has been said before, born too late.

If this boom had happened twenty years ago I would have made some nice money competing in StarCraft and Quake, I'm sure. I won some titles back in the late 90s, but they were meaningless as there wasn't any cash attached to them. Nowadays that'd be $$$.

The top earning youtuber is an 8-year old kid who reviews toys. I think he earns something like $20m annually.

Every day I'm reminded of how true was the Waylon Jennings song "It's the World's Gone Crazy Cotillion".

My point was that video games aren't a 'sport'. There is a 'sporting' aspect, but it begins and ends with competition. Athletes participate in sports and display athleticism. Poker players aren't athletes when playing poker, but they are competing. Video game. Game. Chutes and Ladders is not a sport.

+1

The indoor sports of...

I guess “varsity” is correct if they play other schools, but like 462cid said these are not sports. Hell, I don’t consider auto racing a sport, because to me “sports” mean you’re doing the physical work. Simply sweating from the effort of steering and the heat doesn’t count.

I call major BS on auto racing not being a sport because it’s not physical enough.

The G forces acting on the driver and upper body strength required for racing most cars is considerable.

I agree with those who believe a sport is a game or competition between individuals or teams involving speed, strength, agility and/or physical endurance in which a HUMAN is the primary source of these. That eliminates dog racing horse racing nascar competitive eating video gaming poker and so on. These may be competitions or games or pass times but that doesn’t make them sport.

And at my house at least, sex is the varsity sport!

+1

Auto racing, other than maybe drag racing, is very physically demanding.

Yep, gone are the days of fat slobs pushing their way into the car via the window hatch. Most racing teams have their drivers doing 2-4 hrs of exercise a day on top of their driving training.

Knock them all you want but some of these competitive games absolutely require much of the same mental and emotional skills as any highly competitive team based sport. These games exercise your brain, not your body, but an idiot isn't going to come out on top.

I think it is wonderful that e-sports are joining professional sports. They're an outlet for kids who have disabilities that prevent them from competing at the top levels of physical sports, and certainly better than kids getting mixed up in drugs or crime.

If being physically demanding is all that’s necessary for something to be a sport, then my job as a truck/trailer/logging equipment mechanic is a sport. Farming and working in a tire shop would be some of the most demanding sports around.

It really isn’t important.
It’s “e-sport”, not “sport”. They play sports in an electronic environment. Basketball, baseball, football and yes, shooters (e-paintball) etc.
Might as well argue that “e-mail” isn’t real “mail” because it isn’t on paper and hand delivered. No one cares.

There was a story on the news last night(?) about pro esport gamers having to workout to stay in shape to be able to avoid injuries and to sit for 8 hours a day. I thought that was kind of funny. Also to deal with stress, as it’s really competitive and not much job security. Plus how games can get you worked up mentally.

If playing computer games is a sport, then in 5 years time you will see a new generation of athletes.

That looks like the qualifying round of the new Walmart 500.

Of course, once free motion VR and ER games become a thing, most serious action gamers will probably become fitter than the general population.

No one claimed that.

Auto racing requires skill and coordination as well as being physically demanding.

I wish I could have lettered in Defender.

meh

None of it does me much good. I like WWI Flight Simulations. Which is pretty much the esport equivalent of curling.

Doesn't matter, the chicks always go for the football goons.

Well, except maybe these guys:

Skill and Concentration, cause one right turn instead of left on an oval track is so hard to remember....

What do you mean?

He means he is totally ignorant of the skills required to be a top level driver in NASCAR.

LOL...Yeah...driving is real hard..... The skill is in the mechanics and pit crew,,,,the driver is just along for the ride,

Sorry,,there is just no way a person can call a Nascar driver an athlete. Nascar is a spectator event where you hope to see cars crash -yes....a circus- yes....a serious sport....don't see it...

Seems like you have a bit of an emotional aspect here, perhaps a loved one involved. I had no disability as a child that kept me from playing on my schools' ice hockey team. The problem was me not being good enough at hockey! There's plenty of reasons a healthy kid cannot participate at " the top levels of physical sports". Please, do not imply that all any kid has to do is not be disabled in order to play varsity. Most kids can't.

I didn't knock anybody. A video game player is not using athleticism. He's playing a game. You disagree Chutes and Ladders is a game? That's not a knock, a snub, or an insult. It's an example of a game everyone knows. Unless of course you choose to make it into a case of me saying that the video game players are child-like or weak or inferior, pick you negative term, and then frankly since you can supply both sides of discussion by yourself, I won't bother to talk to you any more, since it's evident I play the #%&*$# things too, plus I detest having words put into my mouth

If I want to "knock" a competitive video game player, even a child, I'd post something like "video game players are pathetic weaklings" or "that's all the disabled can manage since they aren't good". I didn't. I am not afraid of doing that either, although it's not actually my opinion re: disabled children. I'll criticize a child any time I like and without needing permission, but I didn't do that here. I don't buy into this 'children as prized fetish objects to be worshiped' cult that is the norm today. I also have none of this social-media disease in which I need to be "liked" or am wary of having a bad rep online. I said they weren't athletes, and they simply are not using athleticism while playing video games. Without displaying athleticism, how can you be an athlete, and if you're not doing what an athlete does, how are you playing a sport.. If I wanted to say disabled kids suck, I'd just say it.

edit: since when is the root word of "damnation" censored here, but "suck" isn't? Strange!

NASCAR is not the whole of auto racing. I think you're the one that even brought up NASCAR. You seem to not even understand that NASCAR races road courses too. Or that they don't just 'turn left' on an oval course. Look at the layouts sometime.

The simple fact that you find driving a car easy does not make you objective on what goes into racing or what drivers do while racing or what their bodies experience. The stamina involved should be very apparent even to somebody who feels his experience driving is any way similar to a race driver's job.

I think you're basing your opinions off of assumptions that driving your car is like what they do in NASCAR, only it is harder. On the one hand, I am surprised you don't see this as a biased and uninformed opinion, and on the other, it ignores every other type of auto racing in favor of making NASCAR the definition of auto racing, and that seems bizarre to me.

Maybe I have misunderstood. That's why I wanted to learn what you had meant with your overly-simplified version of racing.

This is what you think auto racing is?

Disclaimer:
I don't watch NASCAR. I watched one NASCAR race in my life. and it was in 2003, when two US marines from Texas made me sit down and watch NASCAR with them while we got blitzed on bloody marys of all things, and their other USMC buddy started smoking the brisket.

One does not simply say no when this happens. You say "yeah another bloody mary and don't make it so bland this time" if you know what's good for you.

I quit watching NASCAR a few years ago due to the constant rule changing, but those who think that it's as simple as "press the gas and turn left" just have no idea what they're talking about.

If it were that simple the list of F1 drivers who have gone to NASCAR and beaten the pants off of all the regular drivers wouldn't be blank.

Isn't pool classified as a sport?

Not much different from competing in a real time strategy game or first person shooter.

Minus the beer.

Does anybody still go bowling? Growing up, my hometown (very blue collar) had three places. They were always jam packed. League night was insane. Now all three have been bulldozed over. I don't think I have bowled in 25 years.

The overall popularity of bowling really has plummeted. I mostly attribute it to the fact that younger generations prefer to socialize via smartphone than to go out and do a group activity like bowling. In my area I only know of ONE remaining bowling alley and I live in a heavily populated and urbanized area.

The ball is to big and heavy for them.

There is 5 in Ottawa and 1 across the river. 5 pin not 10 pin

Bowling is still a thing, although I’ve never cared for it. Weekend nights they do black lights, glowing stuff etc. instead of the usual.

Once I had them laughing about the anagram for bowling...we usually didn't stay long.