ITT: internet journalist pedantic about labels.<p>While western media may not yet be open to embracing eSports on television, South Korea and several other nations have been televising video games for years and building followings behind them that rival "real" sports. The author's trying to make an opinionated point about the state of eSports without recognizing their following both internationally and online. There's a lot of money being thrown around in there. We're past the point of debating whether or not they are real sports and starting to seriously consider bringing them to the attention of a wider audience. It hasn't stuck (yet), but maybe in the future viewers will be receptive to it.
>Chess is a <i>recognized sport</i> of the International Olympic Committee<p>I think the guy should stop talking out his ass about Chess.<p>Of course there is a lot of confusion. It's new. Try showing Polocrosse on ESPN and you'll get a bunch of confused reactions too - even though it's a legitimate and "physical" sport! It's not something ESPN regularly shows or what the viewers might expect to see.<p>eSports isn't something that ESPN regularly shows or that viewers expect to see. It needs time to become "expected" and non-surprising. If it brings in ad revenue from the hundreds of thousands of people watching, I'm sure it will stick around.<p>I would love if ESPN would show Polocrosse just to prove my point though.
professional gamers have incredible hand/eye coordination and the ability to process and react to events in near realtime. but from the outside, it just looks like some button pushing.
eSports aren't sports; that's why they're not called "sports" and are called "eSports" instead. You wouldn't think this would be confusing, but apparently it is.<p>And being as how people feel like they're entertaining competitions to watch, it doesn't seem out of place to air them on the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network; again, this doesn't seem like it would be confusing, but apparently it is.