ESPN boss says eSports is "not a sport"
John Skipper compares growing market to chess and checkers
The rise of eSports may have to continue without the support of the leading sports media network ESPN, after its president, John Skipper, dismissed the idea of calling it a sport at all.
In an interview at the Code/Media conference in New York, Skipper was asked about Amazon's recent acquisition of Twitch. Let's just say that his assessment of eSports is unlikely to sit well with its legion of followers.
"It's not a sport," he said. "it's a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition. Mostly, I'm interested in doing real sports."
ESPN has covered eSports events in the past, but the company dismissed rumours that it was planning to make a much bigger commitment due to the performance of the Dota 2 tournament, The International.
Skipper's comment suggests that eSports will remain a fringe concern at the world's biggest sports media network for the foreseeable future.
Notice said competitor is raking in teh kashes.
Claim to have always believed in the thing.
????
PROFIT!
(except the way Twitch and YT are going it might already be too late to try and jump on the bandwagon)
He missed the word 'physical' because that's what this is really about. Short sighted fool..... nvm, no loss then as we don't want that kind of person to be involved with E-Sports anyway. Skip away Skipper.
eSports is a misnomer. Want to play sports, put the controller down and go outside. Want to be a competitive gamer, pick up the controller and prove your skills. Want to do both, go for it. But we aren't doing both at the same time. Unless Occulus Rift advances far enough to create virtual sports.
Do I think Skipper is making a bad business decision? Certainly. But he's not incorrect regarding the eSports name.
This is just an assumption but if ESPN starting showing eSports, I think it would mostly stand to alienate their existing viewers. I don't see a flood of people interested in eSports coming to the channel.
Also, specific to this story, apparently the IOC actually consider chess a sport.
Admittedly, these are largely my personal feelings but I have a personal stake in a lot of them. I don't deny that competitive gaming, being video games, chess, darts, bridge, etc...are widely popular and should be globally recognized as major competitions. But they are not sports competitions, they are gaming competitions. It doesn't devalue what they are.
Skipper is still wrong to not include them in the networks programming. A competition is still a competition. Sport or game. And If MTV can show reality TV shows, ESPN can show gaming competitions.
EDIT:
First paragraph wasn't being displayed due to foreign characters.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Jim Webb on 8th September 2014 5:54pm
I love to watch on youtube, or mostly twitch, because it's on demand and my way. I can participate in chat, or not. I can watch live, I can watch later, I can take a snack in between.
TV seems pretty stiff for e-sports.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Michael Adzijevic on 8th September 2014 7:33pm
That being said, I'd probably watch a program that had an actual NHL game going, and then two pro players playing the video game with the same teams between periods ;)
eSports is not a Sport, for me its that simple.
Competition is actually a great description!
It's not because Poker plays on ESPN that it makes it a sport. Its a competitive card game. ESPN will play whatever does good rating.
Not being a Sport doesn't make eSports more or less interesting and worthwhile. It won't make them more or less popular.
Other than to facilitate the competitors’ visas (good administrative reason for me), it feels like we're a bunch of nerds that need to compensate for something or in desperate need of aproval - ‘I’m an athlete too, bro!'
If ESPN said "eSports are not gross-movement physical sports," and "we specialize in the gross-movement sports," they'd make more sense.
For the life of me I could never understand why so many people watched televised poker tournaments. Just when I thought golf was the most boring thing on tv they start airing poker and it catches on in some bizarre way. That reason alone is why I knew video games could potentially draw huge audiences. Plus they aren't boring to watch, atleast the competitive fps and fighting games aren't. I still miss CGS.
Is shooting a gun a sport? Apparently. Is driving a car around a track a sport? Apparently. Both using technologies invented after the word Sport was defined.
Neither are primarily testing the human body - just the skill that it exerts. So what if the gun was controlled using a Game Controller but still physical? What if the car was remotely controlled via a Game controller? The sport would still be testing the same set of skills?
What is sport if it is not a test of skill in a competitive space? I guess you can start carving up between physical things and virtual things like some people do with "Online Friends" vs "Real Friends". Maybe I'm just a child of the Internet but it's all the same to me and the distinction is pretty meaningless.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Shane Sweeney on 15th September 2014 6:53am