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Though the sports and video gaming communities see far more overlap than they used to, there's still that ever present "nerd vs. jock" rivalry that still rears up from time to time, even as the landscape of society has changed. That's what happened this week when president John Skipper was asked about Amazon's recent Twitch acquisition, and the general rise of eSports.

"It's not a sport -- it's a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition....Mostly, I'm interested in doing real sports," he said, according to Re/code.

Most will recall that ESPN only just recently partnered with DOTA 2 to broadcast a preshow for The International on ESPN2, and aired the event itself on ESPN3, their streaming arm. It also seems like a rather hypocritical declaration for a channel that airs bass fishing and poker alongside "traditional sports" like baseball, football, basketball, etc.

When fans were first upset that ESPN wasn't airing the DOTA 2 championships on TV, I wrote a piece that said eSports didn't need ESPN, or really, TV broadcasting at all. To me, TV seems like a step backward for a scene that's far better to consume in online streaming format, rather than sliced and diced for TV time outs, and condensed for time given that many such tournaments take entire weekends to complete. The only real benefit to TV is the idea of being "accepted" as a real sport that deserves airtime alongside more traditional pastimes.

Now it seems we're getting into an old debate about the semantics between "sports" and "eSports," only this time it's a bigger deal because the president of ESPN (and by proxy, the "president of sports" essentially, in the west), has emphatically, and rather rudely, declared eSports not a "real sport."

You want to argue official definitions? I suppose we can for the hundredth time. The dictionary defines sports as:

"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."

By that definition which includes skill OR physical prowess (or both, presumably), I would say eSports qualifies. Games like Starcraft or DOTA require honed physical skills in addition to larger decision making processes. In other words, clicking fast and often and precisely is essential to victory. That's less the case in newer eSports like say, Hearthstone, which only requires strategy and no physical ability whatsoever, but still, by that definition it should qualify.

And yet, I understand that when you look over the general eSports pro line-up, you wouldn't look at many of the players and deem them "athletes" by their physical prowess alone. Though the same can be said of many other "activities" that are on the fuzzy edge of being a "sport" or not.

Personally, I don't really think it matters whether eSports is technically a sport, a competition, or a game. It's a competitive experience that people enjoy watching, and I don't see why it's necessary to draw specific lines for events like these. Should we cut off the "sports" tag at curling? Hunting? Poker? The Spelling Bee? I don't know, and again, I don't think it matters.

With that said, Skipper's remarks in this context are unnecessarily dismissive, particularly when his network had so recently partnered with DOTA. If ESPN was smart, instead of dismissing Twitch and eSports as no competition to them because it doesn't involve "real sports," they would be bending over backward trying to figure out how to capitalize on what is very clearly an explosive trend of millions of fans around the world watching people play video games. Whether that would take the form of more partnerships like the recent one with DOTA, or trying to do something more advanced like actually partnering with streamers or sponsoring events directly, it seems like they're waving away what could be a promising opportunity, and instead are essentially letting Twitch and Amazon have a monopoly in the space.

Right now ESPN is as relevant to me as the Oxygen Network, given that I spend my nights watching League and Hearthstone streams instead of three hour baseball games. But rather than dismissing my choice of a "competition" I enjoy watching, ESPN would be wise to try to understand and embrace it.
Follow me on Twitter, like my page on Facebook, and pick up a copy of my sci-fi novel, The Last Exodus, and its sequel, The Exiled Earthborn, along with my new Forbes book, Fanboy Wars. How should Destiny spend its $500M budget? I explain below:

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ESPN Boss Declares eSports 'Not A Sport'

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Though the sports and video gaming communities see far more overlap than they used to, there's still that ever present "nerd vs. jock" rivalry that still rears up from time to time, even as the landscape of society has changed.

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sport | Definition of sport in English by Oxford Dictionaries

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Definition of sport - an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainm

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Professor Ingo Froböse began studying eSports athletes five years ago. This made Froböse something of a pioneer, as the expert in prevention and rehabilitation at the German Sports University in Cologne became the very first scientist to conduct a study of athletes who compete in eSports. Nobody had previously looked into the demands placed on an eSports professional, the kind of training he needs to go through to compete, or what kind of strains he is exposed to during a tournament. Froböse was quite surprised by the results.

Esports are a major test of an athlete's motor skills

"We were particularly impressed by both the demands placed on the motor skills and their capabilities," Froböse said. "The eSports athletes achieve up to 400 movements on the keyboard and the mouse per minute, four times as much as the average person. The whole thing is asymmetrical, because both hands are being moved at the same time and various parts of the brain are also being used at the same time," he added.

This is a level of strain that the scientist had never observed in any other sport, not even in table-tennis players, who require a high level of hand-eye coordination.

The pulse of a marathon runner

When eSports athletes take part in a competition, it must look to the layman as if the players are just randomly hammering at their keyboards and moving their mice, but Froböse rejects this notion. He notes that strategy games such as Counter Strike or League of Legends are extremely complex, because in addition to the motor skills required, the games require a high degree of tactical understanding for an athlete to defeat his opponent.

To find out more, the scientists at the German Sports University conducted tests aimed at determining the demands placed on the athletes' minds, testing for the stress hormone cortisol.

"The amount of cortisol produced is about the same level as that of a race-car driver," Froböse said. "This is combined with a high pulse, sometimes as high as 160 to 180 beats per minute, which is equivalent to what happend during a very fast run, almost a marathon. That's not to mention the motor skills involved. So in my opinion, eSports are just as demanding as most other types of sports, if not more demanding," he said.

Better training and nutrition a must

However, many of the athletes don't appear to understand the demands that are being placed on them, because they have failed to adjust their nutrition intake and training methods accordingly. Years of study have shown that most of the athletes do not prepare themselves for competition in a professional manner.

"In terms of their fitness, many of our test subjects are simply average citizens, and average citizens worry me. They simply aren't fit," Froböse said. "For example, they fail to do exercises that would strengthen the whole support system in the shoulder and neck areas. Were they to do this, this would improve their fine-motor skills in the arm area, something that is extremely important in competition."

Rene Pinkera is among the athletes who fail to do this. With his team, SK Gaming, the 22-year-old Pinkera won the world championship in World of Warcraft at the BlizzCon 2015 tournament in Anaheim. His training methods, as well as those of his three teammates, consist entirely of playing on the computer.

"We do a short warmup, we do a couple of stretches with our arms and our hands. After that, we play, because that is what it is all about," Pinkera said. "We do that for at least six hours a day, sometimes as many at 12".

This sort of thing concerns Ingo Froböse, because Pintera is no exception. As far as he can tell, the training regimes of the majority of eSports professionals consist of spending hours in front of the computer every day. He believes that they should also be doing regular physical training as well as exercises to relax the body.

Mid-20s is the end of the road

"What isn't happening is cycling the stress, in other words, building in breaks after periods of strain so that the athlete can recover and overcome fatigue during competition," Froböse said. "Another factor is getting the right nutrition." An eSports athlete's diet should be similar to that of other competitive athletes, including added nutrients such as ginseng, which increases circulation in the brain.

World of Warcraft world champion Rene Pinkera (second from left) at Blizzcon 2015

During the many tournaments that Rene Pinkera has competed in, he too has noticed that many eSports athletes don't pay enough attention to what they are eating.

"You always see opponents with energy drinks and other beverages that are loaded with sugar, people who don't watch what they eat," Pinkera said. "We try to avoid sugar, we eat a banana beforehand, or maybe a muesli bar. And you can't go wrong by drinking water."

Froböse is convinced that a professional training regime and better nutrition could solve one problem that many eSports professionals are confronted with. On average, an eSports athlete's career is very short, usually ending in his or her mid-20s, when reflexes start to go and younger competitors are at an advantage. The German Sports University professor believes that through training and better nutrition, though, athletes like Rene Pinkera could extend their careers by four to five years. However, Pinkera is already preparing for life after gaming - by studying computer sciences at university.

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Science shows that eSports professionals are real athletes | DW | 12.03.2016

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Professor Ingo Froböse began studying eSports athletes five years ago. This made Froböse something of a pioneer, as the expert in prevention and rehabilitation at the German Sports University in Cologne became the very first scientist to conduct a study of athletes who compete in eSports.

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Debating: - “Should eSports be considered ‘real sports’?"  

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Debating: - “Should eSports be considered ‘real sports’?"  

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Learning intentions:
1. Use facts and persuasive language to deliver a strong and convincing argument.
2. Recognize that point of views often differ, and that views can be argued in respectfully ways.

Online Resources that might be of interest

Definitions
‘Sport’ definition (Oxford Dictionary): https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sport

‘Athlete’ definition (Oxford Dictionary): https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/athlete

Articles arguing ‘For’ (Yes, esports are real sports)

Title: Why esports ARE real sports: Video gamers' talents compare with those of athletes and their tournaments rival viewing figures of sport events
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/esports/article-4812762/Why-esports-real-sports.html

Title: eSports are real sports. It’s time for the Olympic video games
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/11/esports-olympic-video-games-ioc-gaming

Title: Science shows that eSports professionals are real athletes
https://www.dw.com/en/science-shows-that-esports-professionals-are-real-athletes/a-19084993

Articles arguing ‘Against’ (No, esports are not real sports)

Title: ESPN Boss Declares eSports 'Not A Sport'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/09/07/espn-boss-declares-esports-not-a-sport/#23d92e995f80

Why esports should not be in the Olympics
https://theconversation.com/why-e-sports-should-not-be-in-the-olympics-100430

(Room 13, Term 3 - 2018)