In recent years, esports have grown exponentially, creating a market that generates millions in revenue as hundreds of thousands of teenagers log on to watch sporting events they can relate to.


Although traditional sports with testosterone high clashes and full grown men butting helmets are still popular across the country, their prominence has started to fade from the younger generation. This is perhaps a result of the decline in sport activities. Fifty years ago sports were played by almost every kid-regardless of whether that kid made it onto his high school basketball team, they were simply a way of life. Naturally, as the children of that generation grew up they took an interest in watching the sports they had loved during their childhood, now played by professional athletes. Watching sports is both an exciting, adrenaline pumping present day activity, as well as a reminiscent reminder of the long summers they spent playing baseball back in the sixties.

Nowadays, unless you are a varsity bawler and dedicate your life to shooting hoops, sports are only played during P.E. Most kids, discouraged by the highly competitive world of high-school sports, find better ways to waste their time. If they’re a testosterone driven male, conditioned by years of evolution to compete with their peers, they usually turn to the modern form of competitive gaming: videogames.


Finally, as time has advanced, we are seeing some of the children who grew up on videogames reaching adulthood. Just as their fathers before them who found that they didn’t have the time with their careers to play sports on a regular basis, young adults who grew up on videogames are spending less time simply playing them, and more time watching them. In 2012, the total number of viewers for the League of Legends world championships were almost equal to the viewers for the baseball World Series final game. Eight million compared to fifteen million.


Despite its surprisingly large following, if you were to stop a stranger on the street and asked them their opinion on esports, they probably wouldn’t know how to respond. Unlike with sports, that provided physical exercise to their children, parents were quick to attach a negative to stigma to videogames which they saw no real benefit in. Judgments about gamers being nerdy and lazy spread like wildfire, until gamers were forced into none-expressive shells, only talking about their exploits with other gamers. If mentioning your interests in video games to outsiders is taboo, then talking about your fascination with esports is even more so, even kids who accept video games into their lives still have a hostile attitude towards watching games played by other people. Watching esports is considered the pinnacle of nerdiness.


Yet there are still eight million viewers to be accounted for, not all of whom can be complete nerds. The truth is that more people watch videogames than let on. It’s free, and easy and is an activity they can participate in without any commitment, so a large amount of teenagers venture into the realm of esports without any fear…and once they pick up on the rules and strategies of the games the viewers are instantly hooked.

Whether or not esports are the entertainment of the future is up to debate, as of now they have a cult following but with the nerd label it would be surprising if esports spread to a wider audience. There is also the problem that in western culture videogames are not pastimes that girls find attractive in males, or that most girls even care about themselves. Unlike with sports, professional gamers really are restricted to one-half of the population to find fans.


Regardless, esports are here to stay and I, along with eight million other fans, will continue to enjoy them.