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Esports in the Olympics
What are esports? Well the basic definition is a multiplayer video game played professionally for money. The largest esports are games like League of Legends by Riot Games, Overwatch by Activision Blizzard and two valve titles Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. These games all have one thing in common. They are competitive multiplayer games. Why should you care about esports? Well it is a huge market with League of Legends 2017 final receiving over 106 million unique viewers. Just to show how many people this is the Super Bowl LII only racked up a little over 104 million viewers. With the esports scene already very strong in South Korea it is very quickly growing in the North American scene. This growth is partly due to a new esports league known as the Overwatch League. This league started in November 2017 and is set up similarly to the NBA. The league has been a total success reportedly with season two teams selling for upwards of 60 million dollars. Obviously esports are growing rapidly and are already beating out some traditional sports. However for some these reasons are not enough to warrant introduction to the Olympics. Some concerns many people have is it is not a true sport and does not require training or hard work. Michael Phelps a 23 time gold medalist in the Olympics lays these claims to rest "There's absolutely no question to me the level of skill, training and devotion it requires to become a professional gamer.” Phelps also calling the players “fellow athletes” at the 2016 Game Awards. So esports has the fans. Esports requires the the same work ethic as other professional sports. So why isn’t it in the Olympics.
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I enjoy playing video games competitively and understand how many people would also want esports in the olympics.