Will Esports ever be as popular as regular sports?

[Xprimentyl]

The question was whether or not esports could ever be as popular as major league sports. Millions of views on YouTube do not equate to network viewership or physical attendance at stadiums, arenas or ball parks.

I recognise those youtube numbers are just a drop in the ocean at the moment. But they're probably only going to grow.

Are you suggesting that popularity on YouTube is indicative of a thing?s objective popularity hence its legitimacy? That YouTube clicks will inexorably spill over into primetime televised viewership and the mass appeal and following of gamers and non-gamers alike? Because I will staunchly disagree. They already show some competitions on ESPN occassioanlly; you know who watches them? Other gamers who?re glad/surprised to see their beloved hobby getting some recognition on the ?jocks?? channel. The only discussion I?ve heard from non-gamers about televising video game competitions has been essentially ?why are they televising this??

I?ve no doubt that esports will garner increased popularity, but it will be a cold day in hell when they?ll rival the draw of say Monday Night Football, March Madness or the World Series.

People said that about movies when they first appeared too. Same for video games. Bicycles. The light bulb. Submarines. The superhero genre etc, etc etc.

Is that hyperbole? If not, which people said that about those things? Who said the lightbulb was a fad never to supplant the candle? Who said the bicycle was a larf when compared to good old fashion walking or horseback? The things you mentioned were inventions, true innovation. Videogames already exists as a thing that many people do, so simply watching others do that thing will never be a primetime draw for the masses, i.e.: there will never come a time when a typical Sunday afternoon event is firing up the barbecue, icing down beers and inviting the guys over to watch other dudes play League of Legends. Again, I?m not saying spectating professional gamers isn?t viable or that there will never be any audience for it; I?m saying in response to the OP, no, it will never be on par with the likes of the multi-BILLION dollar industries of professional sports that already enjoy their own, deserved status and hundreds of years of tradition and following.

The first steps on the path never look that impressive, but they are the most important.

And if you missed my post on this very subject, I was being facetious, but:

Thought I should apologize for my doubt in esport's viability as I'm quarantined and watching NASCAR's iRacing right now. Guess it takes a plague and pure desperation to bring people in.

I watched this event Sunday. And you know what? It was a farce. We literally laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was compared to actual NASCAR. Looked great for a video game that you or I could go out, buy and enjoy, but it was cartoonish when compared to what it was pretending to be. They had cars clipping through each other, they don?t animate pit crews, so cars just stop in the pit box for a couple of seconds before taking off ?repaired,?, the ?wrecks? were poorly realized and nowhere near the violence that for some is a huge draw for watching racing. It was a better than nothing ?something? to watch since COVID-19 has effectively cancelled sports, NASCAR included, but given the choice to watch one or the other, any fan of the sport of racing would opt for the real thing.

I?m a gamer too; I know what games have to offer, how far they?ve come, that more people play them now than ever and how difficulty it is to compete at the professional level. But I?m also a sports fan and I know what it takes to earn a spot on any one of their storied stages as a professional athlete, and that that effort and honor are what people from every walk of life turn out by the millions to watch on gameday. Being really good at a $60 game that anyone can play isn?t quite the same?

 

[Xprimentyl]

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Maybe. But I think I'll either be an old man or it'll be long after I'm dead before it happens.

One thing we might need is a videogame that doesn't just become obsolete later. Football or soccer doesn't get replaced every 3 years by Soccer 2...

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Esports will became more popular than sports once VR really becomes a thing. It will be one of those things where even if you don't have VR, you will instantly understand how hard it would be able to do that like shooting a basketball in real life would be the same as VR basically. Then, you can have real sports taken to the extreme as physical harm wouldn't be a thing. Imagine people actually driving cars playing Rocket League for example, why would you wanna watch any normal driving sport over that?

 

[Xprimentyl]

Esports will became more popular than sports once VR really becomes a thing. It will be one of those things where even if you don't have VR, you will instantly understand how hard it would be able to do that like shooting a basketball in real life would be the same as VR basically. Then, you can have real sports taken to the extreme as physical harm wouldn't be a thing. Imagine people actually driving cars playing Rocket League for example, why would you wanna watch any normal driving sport over that?

People watch sports BECAUSE of the physical difficulty, BECAUSE of the risks; having exceptional talent mitigated by virtual reality mitigates the appeal. People watch NASCAR to see a good race with a worthy winner, but a huge portion of the draw is the wrecks. People want to see the violence of a huge wreck with flames and cars flipping over, then they want to see the driver somehow, miraculously, emerge unscathed due to the science and technology put into making the cars, while caustic, safe enough for the spectacle of collision. NFL, people like the big hit moments as much as the long receptions and impossible lanes run by skilled running backs; mitigating that with something nearly anyone could replicate in a riskless virtual environment mitigates the appeal of watching those talented athletes who?ve spent years and huge portions of their lives honing their bodies into the machines that make such spectacle possible. Why watching real racing over Rocket League? Rocket league is a game, something ANYONE, including myself, can play with some level of competency; even bad players are playing the game. Real racing is millions of dollars of investment into a singular vehicle and driver who?s trained in the physics, aerodynamics and track conditions that differ from track to track; the good ones learn their craft intimately and their performance shows. I can?t do that. You can?t do that. Those drivers can. I can control ?Joe Montana? and throw a 40 yard bomb to an AI ?Jerry Rice? playing Madden 20, but I?ll never even taste a single iota of the actual talent it would take to reproduce those results in the real world.

Esports will be a novelty, a pastime, something to watch (as evidenced by the fact that iRacing, Madden and NBA 2K have been a thing since the quarantine,) but when the world opens up again, people aren?t going to want to watch videogames; we want SPORTS.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Esports will became more popular than sports once VR really becomes a thing. It will be one of those things where even if you don't have VR, you will instantly understand how hard it would be able to do that like shooting a basketball in real life would be the same as VR basically. Then, you can have real sports taken to the extreme as physical harm wouldn't be a thing. Imagine people actually driving cars playing Rocket League for example, why would you wanna watch any normal driving sport over that?

People watch sports BECAUSE of the physical difficulty, BECAUSE of the risks; having exceptional talent mitigated by virtual reality mitigates the appeal. People watch NASCAR to see a good race with a worthy winner, but a huge portion of the draw is the wrecks. People want to see the violence of a huge wreck with flames and cars flipping over, then they want to see the driver somehow, miraculously, emerge unscathed due to the science and technology put into making the cars, while caustic, safe enough for the spectacle of collision. NFL, people like the big hit moments as much as the long receptions and impossible lanes run by skilled running backs; mitigating that with something nearly anyone could replicate in a riskless virtual environment mitigates the appeal of watching those talented athletes who?ve spent years and huge portions of their lives honing their bodies into the machines that make such spectacle possible. Why watching real racing over Rocket League? Rocket league is a game, something ANYONE, including myself, can play with some level of competency; even bad players are playing the game. Real racing is millions of dollars of investment into a singular vehicle and driver who?s trained in the physics, aerodynamics and track conditions that differ from track to track; the good ones learn their craft intimately and their performance shows. I can?t do that. You can?t do that. Those drivers can. I can control ?Joe Montana? and throw a 40 yard bomb to an AI ?Jerry Rice? playing Madden 20, but I?ll never even taste a single iota of the actual talent it would take to reproduce those results in the real world.

Esports will be a novelty, a pastime, something to watch (as evidenced by the fact that iRacing, Madden and NBA 2K have been a thing since the quarantine,) but when the world opens up again, people aren?t going to want to watch videogames; we want SPORTS.

VR will be the same test of skill. You can have a player's speed, strength, agility, etc all put into the game as attributes and shooting a basketball, throwing a baseball, driving a car will all be the same as doing it in real life. You could literally have people driving completely real cars in a virtual environment playing Rocket League. Who the hell is going to watch Nascar over that?

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Well, there's your answer. Sure it took a pandemic, but for now, they are.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

OR he was always an asshole, and safe confine of his own house allowed everyone to see who is he after the mask drops.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

Do i need to post the unfortunately tired examples of footie fans throwing bananas at black sportsmen? Real sports are hardly unfamiliar to racism, and other kinds of scummy behavior.

 

[BrawlMan]

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

OR he was always an asshole, and safe confine of his own house allowed everyone to see who is he after the mask drops.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

Do i need to post the unfortunately tired examples of footie fans throwing bananas at black sportsmen? Real sports are hardly unfamiliar to racism, and other kinds of scummy behavior.

Thank you. One asshole ain't gonna ruin everyone's perception of gamers. If that's the case, then those type of people don't care nor want to understand. And need to take a good look in the mirror or see racism or sexism is not only eSports.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Snip

Snip

VR will be the same test of skill. You can have a player's speed, strength, agility, etc all put into the game as attributes and shooting a basketball, throwing a baseball, driving a car will all be the same as doing it in real life. You could literally have people driving completely real cars in a virtual environment playing Rocket League. Who the hell is going to watch Nascar over that?

Absolutely incorrect. VR maybe be able to imitate skills, but they will never be able to reproduce them and hence will never exceed them in spectator value. I cannot run a 4.3 second 40-yard dash; putting me in a virtual environment where I can pretend to does not put me on par with an elite NFL running back. And the other thing your talking about is remote sports; controlling an actual vehicle remotely is an entirely different discussion, though reinforces my point that people will opt to tune in to watch reality over virtual reality every day of the month.

Well, there's your answer. Sure it took a pandemic, but for now, they are.

They're the only option right now; once real sports open back up, very few are going to prefer the virtual games. Hell, I?ve watched more replays of ACTUAL sports than new esports during all of this anyway.

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

OR he was always an asshole, and safe confine of his own house allowed everyone to see who is he after the mask drops.

Absolutely agree. I?m not suggesting video games MADE him into an asshole; I?m suggesting that it reinforces that IDEA in the heads of people who don?t play them (y?know, the ones esports might supposedly one day win over on and be on par with actual sports?) that they are indeed what they think they are: toys for the immature.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

Do i need to post the unfortunately tired examples of footie fans throwing bananas at black sportsmen? Real sports are hardly unfamiliar to racism, and other kinds of scummy behavior.

Again, not suggesting their isn?t controversy in every manner of sport, and I?ll give you credit enough that I believe you knew exactly what I meant and are simply devil?s advocating. Who hasn?t heard of those on the outside looking in who see video games as the realm of the toxically immature where they spout sexists, racial and general hate speech? And what did those people see when Kyle Larson met their exact expectations on national television?

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

OR he was always an asshole, and safe confine of his own house allowed everyone to see who is he after the mask drops.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

Do i need to post the unfortunately tired examples of footie fans throwing bananas at black sportsmen? Real sports are hardly unfamiliar to racism, and other kinds of scummy behavior.

Thank you. One asshole ain't gonna ruin everyone's perception of gamers. If that's the case, then those type of people don't care nor want to understand. And need to take a good look in the mirror or see racism or sexism is not only eSports.

See my response above; people?s perception of gamers is already tarnished, and we all know that well considering the myriad threads on this very forum where we?ve discussed the misconceptions surrounding gaming culture; this ?one asshole? simply reinforced that negative bias.

Last I?ll say on the matter: as long as an option exists to watch a professional athlete do it, those that prefer to watch a kid down the street pretend to do it will be, by far and away, in the minority.

 

[Squilookle]

Snip

Snip

VR will be the same test of skill. You can have a player's speed, strength, agility, etc all put into the game as attributes and shooting a basketball, throwing a baseball, driving a car will all be the same as doing it in real life. You could literally have people driving completely real cars in a virtual environment playing Rocket League. Who the hell is going to watch Nascar over that?

Absolutely incorrect. VR maybe be able to imitate skills, but they will never be able to reproduce them and hence will never exceed them in spectator value. I cannot run a 4.3 second 40-yard dash; putting me in a virtual environment where I can pretend to does not put me on par with an elite NFL running back. And the other thing your talking about is remote sports; controlling an actual vehicle remotely is an entirely different discussion, though reinforces my point that people will opt to tune in to watch reality over virtual reality every day of the month.

Well, there's your answer. Sure it took a pandemic, but for now, they are.

They're the only option right now; once real sports open back up, very few are going to prefer the virtual games. Hell, I?ve watched more replays of ACTUAL sports than new esports during all of this anyway.

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

OR he was always an asshole, and safe confine of his own house allowed everyone to see who is he after the mask drops.

Absolutely agree. I?m not suggesting video games MADE him into an asshole; I?m suggesting that it reinforces that IDEA in the heads of people who don?t play them (y?know, the ones esports might supposedly one day win over on and be on par with actual sports?) that they are indeed what they think they are: toys for the immature.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

Do i need to post the unfortunately tired examples of footie fans throwing bananas at black sportsmen? Real sports are hardly unfamiliar to racism, and other kinds of scummy behavior.

Again, not suggesting their isn?t controversy in every manner of sport, and I?ll give you credit enough that I believe you knew exactly what I meant and are simply devil?s advocating. Who hasn?t heard of those on the outside looking in who see video games as the realm of the toxically immature where they spout sexists, racial and general hate speech? And what did those people see when Kyle Larson met their exact expectations on national television?

So ?eSports? has its first controversy not a month into its inception. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drops the ?N? bomb on the live stream during a race and is suspended and subsequently fired. I swear, we can?t have the nice things, and somehow people find ways to sully the terrible things used to replace the nice things we?re accustomed to.

OR he was always an asshole, and safe confine of his own house allowed everyone to see who is he after the mask drops.

But this is another good reason why eSports will never rival real sports in popularity; not even a month into it and already ?videogames? have brought out the worst in someone once thought upstanding and respectable; it also shows those not in the larger loop of the culture that videogames are pretty much what they think they are: toys of the immature.

Do i need to post the unfortunately tired examples of footie fans throwing bananas at black sportsmen? Real sports are hardly unfamiliar to racism, and other kinds of scummy behavior.

Thank you. One asshole ain't gonna ruin everyone's perception of gamers. If that's the case, then those type of people don't care nor want to understand. And need to take a good look in the mirror or see racism or sexism is not only eSports.

See my response above; people?s perception of gamers is already tarnished, and we all know that well considering the myriad threads on this very forum where we?ve discussed the misconceptions surrounding gaming culture; this ?one asshole? simply reinforced that negative bias.

Last I?ll say on the matter: as long as an option exists to watch a professional athlete do it, those that prefer to watch a kid down the street pretend to do it will be, by far and away, in the minority.

OK, you love physical sports, we get it.

But you've still got no basis whatsoever that people watch sport for all that training done behind the scenes. A goal is still great whether it was practiced off the field a thousand times beforehand or if it was a lucky shot done by some plucky newcomer. You place great stock in people caring about the physical state of sportsmen and women. I still say that as long as their moves on the grand stage of sport are impressive enough, people won't give the slightest shit how many bicep curls they did that morning, or ever.

 

[Xprimentyl]

OK, you love physical sports, we get it.

But you've still got no basis whatsoever that people watch sport for all that training done behind the scenes. A goal is still great whether it was practiced off the field a thousand times beforehand or if it was a lucky shot done by some plucky newcomer. You place great stock in people caring about the physical state of sportsmen and women. I still say that as long as their moves on the grand stage of sport are impressive enough, people won't give the slightest shit how many bicep curls they did that morning, or ever.

You do know why sports are a thing, don?t you? I mean, you do know why for literally thousands of years, people have turned out by the thousands to watch those of exceptional physical abilities compete against one another? You do know even the worst of those ?plucky newcomers? are still exceedingly more talented than your average Joe, so their even competing is a spectacle to behold because they made it farther than 99% of people could?

In Esports, everyone playing is handed the exact same amount of ability as governed by the rules of the game; the competition becomes how well the perform within that strict framing. That?s about as interesting to watch as a spelling bee; the words are the words; either you can spell them or you can?t. Sports on the other hand, everyone?s handed the rules of the game, and the spectacle becomes how game-breaking an individual?s earned and God-given abilities can be. Why was the NES? Tecmo Bowl?s Barry Sanders so over powered? Because the actual Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions was basically overpowered, and any given Sunday, footage of him will be more interesting to watch than some guy who?s a prodigy at Tecmo Bowl.

Humans simulate what they wish to emulate. The day simulations become more desirable than reality, we will have lost something innately human. I don?t mind Esports; entertainment is entertainment, but if anyone believes there will ever come a day when they?ll be on par with excelling at the human condition, they?re out of their mind.

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

Most Likely, it's all a matter of Time + Normalization.