Esport, another type of athletics？
How can we develop our traditional sports and combine it with the mainstream culture? Follow up with the youth’s culture and the development of times.
E-Sport, which is also called as electronic sports, it is a competition by using electronic equipment to compete with others. E-Sport not only serves as a mainstream culture among young people but it also emphasizes the intelligence, reverberation and collaboration between people. One example for eSport is League of legends, a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) or action real-time strategy (ARTS) game, published by Riot Games. It is one of the popular games in the youth community. It helps youth to improve their coordination, reaction and communication skills. Maybe you might never play this game, but just like most people do, you will hear this name a lot from the youth that around you.
Since electronic athletics have become mainstream in the youth community. International Olympic Committee should introduce it as part of the program. However, most people are having prejudice about electronic athletics, they are accustomed to take electronic athletics as a network drug, a fashionable way to waste time and an unenterprising activity. If you exchange the same amount of time into sport, people will treat that as a “healthy activity”. In fact, no amount of them notice the sweat, benefit and opportunity behind the electronic athletics. The development of the times show us digital life had become mainstream lifestyle. Youth are likely to spend their time to interact with their devices instead of traditional sports. If we want to let youth participate into those events, we should create some programs that can attract their attention and bring their interest into the games. E-Sport should be part of the Olympic Games because it is a great bridge to conveying sport information with the youth.
As an experienced player, I have witnessed the growth of the game culture. Although it is growing more popularly, we are still on the minority side. But people seem to treat minorities in different ways. As a game enthusiast, people around me always think I am an outlier who is doing some kind of unenterprising activity. I still remember one of my friend said she didn’t want to see a group of Indoorsmen competing with each other on some professional game stage. Should the idea of game culture be viewed as “prejudice” that we have as people who live in today’s society? I want to see a day when Esports acts as a formal game without being laughed at by others. A day when people can make a judgement based on their evidences. Therefore, I think esport should be part of the Olympic Games in order to eliminate this type of “prejudice”.
The population of eSport culture has been improve rapidly. According to the data research from statista.com, the population of eSports size worldwide in 2012 was 134 millions, but the population of eSports rapid increases to 385 millions at the year of 2017. It is almost 287% increase since the year 2012. It is not difficult to imagine that the population of eSport must keep increasing rapidly in the next few years. Furthermore, according to IOC News, Timo Lumme, a managing director of IOC mentions the IOC will explore esports’ relationship with the Olympic Movement and make more connection with the youth. Driven by this situation, I believe Esports will certainly lead more young people to participate different sports. Why don’t we follow this trend to introduce, develop and combine eSport with our traditional sports?
Funds and interests are always the core for different business, organizers and sponsors. It is well known that holding an Olympic Games is an important manifestation of the human and material resources of a country. Of course, it will cost a lot of money and resources. As different events going on, the cost will increase rapidly. How can we solve this problem effectively? Fair enough, electronic sport can help us to solve the problem. According to statista.com, the eSports market revenue worldwide from 2012 to 2020. It mentions the market revenue is 130 million dollar at the year 2012, and the number rapidly increase to 696.3 million dollars at the year of 2017. It is about 516% growth compare with the year 2012. There is no doubt for its huge potential market value in the future.
Also, some people say Olympic Games should all be traditional athletics sports. Keeping things traditionally doesn’t mean we don’t make changes. For example, shooting sport originally used for hunting and war, but as the development of times, it has become a campaign to compete with others. The same applies to e-sport; we are changing the outward appearance of traditional sports but the spirit still remain the same.
Furthermore, E-sport also require the same training as athletic Olympic sports, or even stricter than what it suppose to be. According to Harrison Jacobs, he mentions, “The players on Team Liquid, a professional League of Legends team, practice for a minimum of 50 hours per week and most play the game far more”. Professional player are spending half of their time to practice on a specific type of sports. They need to pay their full attention on high-intensity practice at least 10 hours per day. Moreover, Compared with the traditional sports, the elimination rate of Esports is astonishing. Most of the player can only participate for 3–4 years because the reaction and sensitivity of the players will decline obviously as the growth of ages. Esport player require same professional training as traditional athletes, for what reasons they should be treat differently?
I think relate with digital world is not a bad thing for us, by the way technology makes us improve lot compare to the past. If you’re sending a letter to others, would you prefer to send a efficiently email or spending a lot of times to mail it? Obviously, most of us prefer to send a email. Why? As a human, we have the ability to adapt the changes around us. We always choose things that can benefit us in a long terms even though it takes time. The same applies to e-sport in Olympic Games. We may not be able to accept this change right away. Ultimately, history will have the final say.
The International Olympic Committee should introduce Esport as part of its culture. It creates benefit for the economy and expands the Olympic Games market. Beside, it can produce important influence for diversified traditional sports, catch up with times, and lead more youth to participate sports.
