Esports Rising

  A bead of sweat falls off your face in complete absorption. Your concentration is at 100%, and this is, by far, the most meaningful sporting event of your life, a step closer to 3 million dollars, and it isn’t the Super Bowl – but a Fortnite tournament. 

   As Dictionary.com defines it, a sport is “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.” 

   As Dictionary.com defines it, video games are, “any of various interactive games played using a specialized electronic gaming device or a computer or mobile device and a television or other display screen, along with a means to control graphic images.”

   PVHS Senior Shanniah Correa said, “If you aren’t physically playing or touching a ball, it shouldn’t count as a sport.” Correa added, “When you play a video game you are using a controller, and are not being physically athletic.” 

   If we are using the definition of a sport, video games should have as much correlation to be sports such as darts and pool. Darts and pool are good for the mind and not meant to be athletic based just like video games, but these types of sports are still quite competitive. 

   Much like football, soccer, and baseball, video games are just as (or even more) competitive.

   Gamers all over the world will compete in tournaments with millions of viewers, and put competitive sports like basketball and softball to shame, but why do people still not believe Esports should be real sport? 

   PVHS Senior and Fortnite enthusiast, Cameron Ellis, said, “Many people consider Esports an actual sport because it is competitive. I believe Esports should be considered a real sport because people commit time to tons of practice.”

   And with “tons of practice” comes tons of competition to be the best. 

   Much like how football teams like the Raiders and the Patriots draft their players, Fortnite teams like Liquid, FaZe Clan, NRG Esports, Ghost Gaming, and Fnatic all draft their players by watching game-play footage and deciding if they are worth adding to the team.

   A great proportion of gamers are now winning more money than professional athletes will ever dream of. Fortnite gamer Ninja (Tyler Blevin) earns $500,000 monthly streaming the game, and gamers like Fitz (Cameron McKay) only earns about $60,000 a month playing a game called CS:GO.

   In the 2019 Super Bowl, the winners, The Patriots, of one of the biggest sporting events only won a bonus of $118,000, but last July, Kyle Giersdorf, a 16-year-old gamer, took home $3 million after winning the Fortnite World Cup final. The runner up, 24 year old Harrison Chang, won $1.8 million. The Super Bowl winners only got a pitiful 4% of what Giersdorf won and a measly 6.5% of what Chang won.

   PVHS Senior and Esports enthusiast, Amos Blake, says, “Esports is the new world sport.” He added, “It’s just like regular professional sports: College scholarships, private trainers, and a lot of sponsors.”

   Esports is here, and it’s here to stay, gaining more and more viewers every second. As Blake told me, “This is the future.” As video games achieve higher graphics and more consoles are made, Esports will only get more popular.