There are many options for entertainment on the Internet: you can watch a movie right now, try your luck at online casino sites or test your skills in a competitive video game. Only the last of these options is considered a sport and is now considered part of the Olympics. You heard that right: electronic sports are now considered an Olympic sport. We saw the first example of this at the 2018 Asian Games, but this was considered a “test drive” and no medals were awarded. Things are changing in Asian Games 2022, and esports is now starting to be rewarded with medals. Find out everything you need to know about this development in this article.
Details of the event
Esports was included in the Asian Games 2018 held in Jakarta, but it was considered a demonstration event, so it did not have any official nature. The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) announced in September 2021 that this would change at the next Asian Games event and shared the details shortly thereafter. According to this:
- Electronic sports will be one of 37 sports represented at the 2002 Asian Games.
- The event will be held from 10 to 25 September 2022 in Hangzhou, China (China Hangzhou Esports Center).
- The games to be represented at the event will be FIFA, PUBG Mobile (Asian version), Arena of Valor, Dota 2, League of Legends, Dream Three Kingdoms 2, Hearthstone and Street Fighter V.
- Gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded for each of these games. This means that a total of 24 medals will be awarded for esports at the event.
- The Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) will take on the role of technical delegate for all these games. In other words, the organization of the games and the evaluation of the results will be done by AESF.
There is another interesting piece of information in the OCA announcement: for the first time, two VR games will be included in Asian Games as “demonstrations” this year: Robot Masters and VR Sports. A medal will not be awarded for these games as they have only been added as a “test”, but esports has also had this status in the past. In other words, at the next Asian Games event, we may witness the awarding of medals for VR sports as well.
How did this happen?
It may come as a surprise to many that electronic sports are part of the Olympics, as they are quite different from traditional sports. First of all, athletes compete while sitting. They don’t need a stadium or a track, they just need computers and an internet connection. Since the Olympics has traditionally been built on the idea of “physical excellence”, it seems a bit odd that gamers playing video games should be a part of it.
But for those who follow the Olympics closely, this is not a surprising development. Since 2019, the Olympic committees have been saying that they want to include different sports in the events. If you are wondering how we got to today:
- In April 2019, the Olympic Council of Asia announced that it would select 37 sports for the 2022 Asian Games. There are 28 mandatory sports that should participate in the Olympics, so 9 sports remain. OCA has delayed the announcement of what these nine sports will be.
- In September 2019, it was announced that baseball, karate, sport climbing and softball would be included in the event.
- In December 2020, it was announced that break dancing and e-sports had been also selected for Asian Games. This decision enabled the sports that won medals in this event to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics.
- In September 2021, the Olympic Council of Asia picked eight video games that will participate in Asian Games, as we mentioned above.
The future of e-sports
Electronic sports are getting more and more popular day by day. This is an industry of more than $1.25 billion in size and is expected to be larger than $2.80 billion by 2025. E-sports has more than 450 million viewers worldwide. To understand the magnitude of this number, let’s point out that even the NBA has only 1,450 million viewers. Electronic sports are very different from traditional sports because they do not need a stadium or track, athletes can compete from all over the world and can be the subject of many different types of games. But perhaps the biggest difference comes from the training opportunities of the athletes.
Today, if you want to train yourself for a traditional Olympic sport, you have to dedicate your life to it and bear the costs of a very expensive training process. Only athletes who work with the best coaches and have access to the best equipment compete at the Olympic level. This is not the case with e-sports: anyone with a computer and internet connection can become the best athlete in the world, as long as they are talented enough. In other words, esports has an “equalizing” feature: if you have the talent, you can compete globally no matter where you live.