The Future of Sports Is Online

Posted on by

ANTHONY NASSER

SPORTS EDITOR

Imagine a world where scoring a touchdown in a heated game of football is just as respected as a gamer who recently won an online tournament. Esports is a form of professional gaming that is often very similar to traditional sports. With an increase of interest in Esports, this may soon become a reality. Although professional gamers do not put out the same physical exertion as athletes, they have been known to spend just as much time practicing and improving on their skills in gaming.

Professional marketing agencies, such as Level Up Media or Comcast, have been taking notice to the popularity of Esports, and hope to capitalize on the streaming part of gaming. In most physical sporting events, such as baseball or basketball, there is a live and commentated feed of the game streaming to televisions all around the world. Like this, programs such as Twitch TV and YouTube are making game streaming more popular than ever. Advertisement revenue makes it possible for a gamer to have a reliable source of income while gaming just as an athlete has a reliable source of income through team contracts. ESL, a well-known cable network, recently released a channel dedicated to the 24 hour streaming of various Esports competitions. Soon, Esports may be just as televised as physical sports.

According to many Esports managers, players spend just as much time practicing as an athlete would. Expert gamers have been known to spend five hours playing daily and go on exercise routines to stay in peak physical and mental shape. Many teams even hire professional chefs to support a healthy diet for all of the players.

Today, some of the most popular games in the Esports industry are League of Legends, Counter Strike GO, Overwatch, Dota 2 and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. All of these games and more have an estimated 300,000 players per state in America. This number is constantly growing with more and more games coming out every day.

Children may fantasize about playing games all day for the rest of their life, but with Esports, this may very well become a reality for millions of people. Professional teams on both traditional sports and Esports work very intentively produce content and gameplay viable for public entertainment. The near future may hold a place for both of these industries to equally grow and prosper respectively.