Electronic Sports: Really a "Sport"?

Electronic Sports: Really a “Sport”? When “sports” is heard the first thing thought of, big athletes, open fields, and probably a lot of sweat. However, that is not the case these days. Within the last ten to twenty years a radical thing that probably would not have been thought to exist is coming into fruition, and boy is it blooming. Electronic Sports, eSports for short, is the act of playing video games competitively for not just proving who’s better, but also for a very large chunk of money. Does that make it a sport however? Is just being able to compete against others for money what makes something a sport? In some cases, but that would probably be more the definition of a “tournament.” Other things needed would be leagues for the division of the skills of each player, a rules basis so that there is no cheating, and definitely a player base as well as fan base. Eventually eSports will become one of the next big televised events all over the world. It’s already gaining stardom in other parts of the world than the United States, but eventually it’ll catch on here too. Just as with the sports on the big television downstairs in the living room, such as soccer, basketball, football, softball, baseball, and tennis, eSports has a very large following of people and fans. Leah Jackson talks about how in its earlier days eSports only had a major following in Korea, but today it is spread throughout many countries in the world, including the U.S. Jackson goes on to say that a single tournament held in Sweden, known as Dreamhack, sported a healthy base of 900,000 unique viewers tuned in via web streams as well as physically being where the tournament was held (Jackson). Not only this however, but just regular play on the game not even having to do with a tournament that is then “Shout Casted” and uploaded on YouTube can receive as many as a few million views within a week to two.
The sport varies depending on the fact that “eSports” doesn’t just include

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