In a 2013 Action Replay we raised the question of whether chess counted as a sport. We felt that maybe it did, as the top players were required to take drug tests. But of course chess does not involve any physical exercise, which is usually counted as an essential aspect of sport.
Similar questions have arisen more recently, in connection with this year’s Olympics, as to whether certain other activities are to be considered sports. This applies to rhythmic gymnastics, skateboarding and breakdancing, for instance, which are certainly physical but somehow do not resemble traditional sports. As another example, people now often see martial arts as a sport rather than a form of combat.
And the same may apply to gaming or esports (electronic sports), competitions involving video games, where people compete either individually or in teams. There is little physical effort, other than pressing buttons and so on, but they can be psychologically quite demanding. They can be played for fun, but there are also professional players, and the whole enterprise is surprisingly big, with plenty of people watching others play. Nearly a hundred million watched the 2018 final of the world championship for one video game, League of Legends, for instance.
Recently the International Olympic Committee announced that the inaugural Olympic Esports Games will be held next year in Saudi Arabia. The country has over 23 million gamers, with a hundred full-time professional esports players, and its Minister for Sport described it as ‘a global hub for professional esports’. Women there are apparently participating more and more in esports, and indeed in sport more generally. Such is the official picture, anyway, no doubt designed to counter claims of how much discrimination Saudi women suffer from.
Just like other sports, capitalist companies have seized on esports to promote their products, in what has been termed esportswashing (nakedcapitalism.com, 25 August). Car manufacturers, oil companies and even the US armed forces have signed sponsorship deals with the esports industry. The fanbase is global, mostly young and overwhelmingly male, and they are a good target for capitalist concerns that need to boost their public image. Saudi Arabia was already using football for more general sportswashing (see Action Replay for October 2023), so this is not all that new.
As sports expand and adopt new methods of playing, much of the marketing and other paraphernalia stay in place.
Paul Bennett
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