Olympic Video Games

As eSports continues to grow and mature into a multi-billion dollar industry many are wondering; is it time for eSports to be taken seriously by the Olympics? We may soon be tuning in once every two years to see our favorite and most skilled players go head-to-head to test their merit in a competitive virtual arena.

With Paris, France being confirmed as the city for the the next Olympic Games in 2024 it may be the first place we see a virtual representation of sporting skill on an Olympic level. The OCA(Olympic Council of Asia) has already decided to have eSports represented at the 2022 Asian Games as a medal sport, this appears to bode well for eSports as a whole if we are looking to be on an Olympic stage with our physical competitors.

Thedebate is still out in these circles as to whether or not eSports is will be considered real sport. However, In contrast to the opinion that it is not you could simply point out that eSport’s is generating approximately $500,000,000 in revenue in 2016 alone. That revenue is  only set to gain drastically in 2017 and 2018. The proliferation of events is growing with tens of millions of viewers at viewing events around the world for massively popular games like League of Legends, DoTa 2, the Call of Duty franchise, Overwatch and many other burgeoning new titles. Here at CheckMate Gaming we certainly hope to see this occur and will be paying attention to what goes on in the coming talks with Olympic officials.

-Dante

Staff Writer at CheckMate Gaming