Is Playing Video Games a Sport?

Each day, 12-year-old Brady Donbeck spends about an hour playing his favorite sport. During practices, he works with teammates on strategies for scoring goals. Brady’s team is so good that they finished fourth in last year’s North American Finals. But they weren’t competing on a soccer field or in a hockey rink. Brady was at his computer playing Rocket League—a fast-paced video game that combines car racing and soccer. 

Competitions involving video games like Rocket League are called esports (short for electronic sports). Worldwide, more than 500 million people watched esports events last year. As the popularity of esports grows, more people are starting to consider playing video games a sport. 

Brady is one of them. He competes in the XP League, the nation’s largest youth esports league. The sixth-grader from Virginia also plays basketball and spent years on a travel soccer team. He says esports aren’t any different from traditional sports.

Still, many people say that even though esports require skill, gamers are not really athletes.

Esports enthusiasts point out that gamers and athletes in traditional sports need many of the same skills. They include quick reflexes, concentration, and the ability to perform under pressure. 

To many people, the intense competition of esports puts them in the same category as sports like football and baseball.

“It’s different than sitting around and playing a board game with your family,” explains Daniel Kane, a college professor who has written about esports.

^{Source: Reviews.org February 2021 survey}

He also notes that attitudes about what is considered a sport change over time. For years, many people didn’t take skateboarding seriously. Now skaters compete at the Summer Olympics. Kane says esports are on a similar path.

More than 8,600 high schools in the U.S. have added esports teams since 2018. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the first major sports league to embrace esports. It runs the NBA 2K League for professional gamers.

Many people argue that being an athlete means exerting yourself physically. They say esports don’t require much exercise. Most video games are played sitting down, sometimes for hours at a time. 

Some people say that even though esports involve skill and strategy, they have more in common with games like chess than with tennis or football. Others point out that cooking shows and singing contests are also competitions that attract big audiences—but few people would argue that they’re sports. 

Justin Simpao is a lifelong gamer who works at a company in Canada that develops video games. He says esports belong in their own category of competition.

“Using the term sports to generalize esports doesn’t quite do it justice,” he says.

Simpao thinks of esports and traditional sports as siblings: They have a lot of similarities, but they also have other qualities that make them different.