Why though. I love competitive gaming and I love watching the athleticism of Olympic competitions… But they’re very different things! Why do we need to combine everything?
Well, they did have an “Electronic World Cup” where CoD2, PubG, CoD:MF, and Apex Legends were present. If Saudi Arabia has a hand in it, it wouldn’t surprise me to see those game there too.
I would be surprised however if they got a lot of physical viewership. Many communities have competitions where they dress up too during tournaments, alcohol is definitely involved, and the viewership is quite varied from all over the world with both sexes being represented. They could invite a bunch of people from Asia to cheer for the teams, just like Qatar did, but my feeling would be that the majority of people would not risk a trip there. Getting your passport taken away because you dress or act like outside of Saudi Arabia is probably not what most people would enjoy.
Gotta lift a different issue here.
There are other Olympics event that can be directly traced as product placement?
Because, let’s assume that the esport picked is Fortnite… wouldn’t be the whole event a big ads for Epic (I am sure they would also put big money to lobby hard in this)?
Olympics are expected to promote products with ads, billboards and whatever… but the event itself?
Considering how dedicated teams have to be just in their regular tournament schedules, if there’s no prize pool to make it worth while I’m not sure the ioc will get a good turnout.
I have zero problem with competitive gaming. I have zero problem with huge money making tournaments where teams win lots of money and have managers, etc…
But come up with a different name than “sport”. Because it’s not a sport. Just because you put an “E” in front of it doesn’t make it a sport by any definition of the word.
Chess tournament…not a sport. Spelling Bee…not a sport. Highschool Debate Team…not a sport. Bingo…not a sport.
Be competitive. Have fun. Make some money. But for fuck’s sake, you’re not a “sport” any more than any of the other things I listed are.
Edit: I forgot to add probably the most obvious Analogy…Poker Tournaments. Because every time I say “not a sport”, someone rears up their head to say “well actually, esports involves a lot of concentration and sitting for extended periods of time, which is tiring and exertion…so it’s just like any other sport”.
To which I say, first: Shut up, nerd. And second, Poker tournaments involve the same amount of concentration and exertion and no one is calling that a fucking sport.
