9781422277348

Tech 2.0

“They don’t want to be athletes,” Garfat said of video gamers. “No- body wants to compare themselves to decathletes. But they are profes- sionals, at the highest level of competition. ESPN puts on a spelling bee. It puts on poker. There’s a variety of programming that we cover, and what we cover is the highest level of competition anywhere.” The 2017 League of Legends World Championship was held in November at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, China—where they had the 2008 opening ceremonies for the Olympics—and they had 50,000 people in attendance. It was projected that more than 40 million people were watching a live stream of the event. Is that enough to convince people it’s a sport? If anyone in the United Stateswants to make a case against esports as a sport, they can take it up with the federal gov- ernment. That’s because in 2013, the US government announced it would recog- nize professional video game players as athletes in order for competitors to acquire visas to come to the United States to compete. That said, whether or not it’s really a sport is a moot point. Call it what you want, esports is a global phenomenon that is only getting bigger.

The Bird’s Nest hosted the LoL World Championships.

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