Explain Why Video Games Should Be Considered A Sport

Video games have been around for many years and so has competitive gaming. The first video game was created around 1970 and was Pong. Pong required one or two players to play. The players would play next to each other and the game required both players to move the courser to the ball and knock in to the other player’s side. Pong was the first competitive video game because you could play with another person. The video game industry now is a very big market and is suspected to be an 86 billion dollar industry in 2016 (A Classification Of Business Models In Video Game Industry). For the past couple of years video competitions have gotten really popular and now there is a franchise called eSports that hosts gaming competitions in big areas. “The past several year’s eSports have seen meteoric growth in dozens of markets, attracting tens of millions of viewers each year in the United States, alone” (Hollist). Esports is made up of many different games and each game has different teams that specialize in the game that they are competing in. E-Sports 89 million viewers in 2014 and is suspected to grow to 145 million in 2017. ("Red Bull Media Readies ESports Studio for Prime Time."). Competitive gaming should be recognized as a sport because each team has a sponsor. The sponsors pay for all associated costs of the player’s gaming including, but not limited to, plane tickets, hotel rooms, and food. In return the teams have to wear the

What exactly determines whether or not an activity is a sport? The term sport is defined by The Free Dictionary as: A physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively, an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules

What exactly determines whether or not an activity is a sport? The term sport is defined by The Free Dictionary as: A physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively, an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of

In conclusion, dancing should be considered a sport because dancing improves memory, balance and coordination, and provides the best mental escape for your brain. If dance were considered a sport then the world would agree. The point is that even though dance is one of the world’s true art forms, it is still a sport, and should be considered one by all of society, including athletes

The definition of a sport is as follows, “Noun; an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.”. I would argue that colorguard, an activity in which one spins flags, weapons, batons, and props with the marching band, should be considered a sport (Dictionary.com).

So that begs the question, what is a sport? Is it using a ball or scoring goals or running and kicking? Is it competing against others with the aim of winning a trophy, ribbon, or money? If a so-called sport does not include those things, does that make it not a sport? Here is my criteria for a sport: if it is in the Olympics, it is a sport.

One of the activities on the list that I thought was the furthest thing from a sport was Pigeon Racing. Even though I believed Pigeon racing to have incorporated many of the key components of a sport such as competition, a governing bodies, benefits, and strategy; it fails to meet the other requirements. One requirement that is not met is maintaining a certain level of physical and mental activity. In this particular sport the performer is completely dependent upon the pigeon to compete. By doing so this completely removes an athlete from the sport and eliminates any human chance in affecting the overall outcome. Instead of a sport I would categorize this as a recreational activity that is fun to watch and be involved in. I believe that an activity that relies solely on an animal performance cannot be considered to be a true sport.

First off, what does it actually mean to be classified as a sport? According to The Women’s Sports Foundation these are the elements that define a sport:

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, the word “sport” is defined as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Video games do contain skills/experience , competitions, and amusement but do not emphasize “physical exertion”. Most games such as the Call of Duty and Halo franchise require no physical

The dictionary definition of a sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”

Imagine it is 1990 and you just heard one of your friends got the new Super Mario World

However, the lack of physical skill is made up by mental skill. Viramontes describes that by saying, “...video gaming requires so much mental training, focus, and the ability to read what your opponent’s next move is going to be” (Can Video Gaming Be Considered an Actual Sport?). A sport like chess is exactly interpreted as this; thinking about strategy and other major key points to win. Along with improving in the mental side of things, video games also increase hand-eye coordination. Robin Burks, an editor for Tech Times expresses that sensorimotor skills and hand-eye coordination improve while actively playing action games (Burks). Likewise, almost everything in life, including all the sports, require great hand-eye coordination to play. Furthermore, video games fall under this category. The term ‘sport’ can be differently interpreted among the general audience. Cerrudo stated that a professor, Dr. Ingo Froböse, explains, how just physical movements do not explain a general sport (Should “eSports” Be Considered As a Sport?). Different people think that a sport does not need physical effort for example, gold or chess. Therefore, video games are a sport.

Last October, Riot held the League of Legends Season 2 World Championships, a tournament that brought the world’s best teams together for a week of intense matches. $1 million went to the overall champion, while a total of $5 million was spread out over the course of Season 2. Apart from the unprecedented cash prizes, the League of Legends tournament was able to bring in over 8 million “unique viewers” online, viewership that is greater than the National Hockey League’s (Heaven and Robinson). In South Korea individual e-sports events for the popular real-time strategy game StarCraft 2 bring in over 100,000 live attendants to go alongside huge numbers of online spectators (Robinson). On top of this, competitive gaming’s popularity is continuing to grow through 2013. David Ting, founder of Imagine Game Network’s professional gaming league, states that online traffic for the company’s tournaments is “doubling every six months”(qtd. in Heaven). Who would’ve thought that playing video games would turn into such a loved spectator sport?

A sport is defined as an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature. Competitive. Competition is a rivalry between two or more persons or groups for an object desired in common, usually resulting in a victor and a loser. Something to argue would be if a competition could legitimately be considered a sport. The word ‘compete’ is in the definition of sport after all. So, should eSports, or Electronic Sports, be considered a sport?

The next type of game is sports titles, which are probably the most popular for a group of people, rather than the individual gamer. Sports titles cover everything from football and baseball to golf and auto racing. These games are equally enjoyed by both players who are or were jocks, and for those who wish they were. A person learns the mechanics and intricacies, giving them a greater appreciation for the game overall. Sometimes the video game can create a fan of a sport where none existed before.