Es­port or elec­tron­ic sport is the or­gan­ised com­pe­ti­tion among play­ers and teams us­ing video games. A quick look on any search en­gine will re­veal just how pop­u­lar and com­pet­i­tive play­ing video games has be­come. Ma­jor tour­na­ments and com­pe­ti­tions are held an­nu­al­ly, fea­tur­ing per­sons from across the globe com­pet­ing ei­ther in­di­vid­u­al­ly or as teams.

De­spite its mas­sive pop­u­lar­i­ty, there are still those who do not clas­si­fy es­port as a sport. The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) has ac­knowl­edged the growth of es­port and has com­ment­ed on it pos­si­bly be­ing recog­nised as a sport in the fu­ture. This, how­ev­er, has not been done as they have point­ed out that the vi­o­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion in some of the pop­u­lar games were not aligned with IOC val­ues. This has not stopped oth­er coun­tries from clas­si­fy­ing it as a sport. Chi­na, the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, South Ko­rea, France and Italy, among oth­ers, have ac­knowl­edged es­port and have even paved the way for cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate. If one were to care­ful­ly ex­am­ine the par­al­lels, one would recog­nise that es­port shares the char­ac­ter­is­tics of tra­di­tion­al sports.

Phys­i­cal de­mand – Es­port ath­letes are re­quired to main­tain sus­tained pos­tures for 7-10 hours con­tin­u­ous­ly whilst car­ry­ing out repet­i­tive move­ments. To do so safe­ly re­quires mus­cle strength and en­durance and this re­quires phys­i­cal train­ing. Fail­ure to main­tain high lev­els of fit­ness will af­fect per­for­mance, as fa­tigue, pain and dis­com­fort sets in. De­pend­ing on the game, play­ers can record cor­ti­sol lev­els sim­i­lar to that of a race-car dri­ver. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, pulse rates can reach val­ues that ex­ceed max­i­mal tar­get heart rates dur­ing ex­er­cise and re­ports of heart rate val­ues rang­ing from 160-180 beats per minute is not un­com­mon. At the pro­fes­sion­al lev­el, play­ers must hit the gym dai­ly and many utilise per­son­al train­ers.

Skill train­ing – Like any oth­er sport, es­port de­mands skill. Am­a­teur and recre­ation­al play­ers are eas­i­ly dis­tin­guish­able from pro­fes­sion­als who in­vest sig­nif­i­cant time to train and per­fect their craft. At the elite lev­el, the play­ers’ life re­volves around train­ing and com­pet­ing, the same as for any oth­er sport. Team meet­ings, where strat­e­gy is dis­cussed, are fol­lowed by train­ing which can last 6-7 hours on each oc­ca­sion.

In­juries –Es­port ath­letes must al­so deal with in­juries that can be de­bil­i­tat­ing or ca­reer-end­ing. These in­clude ten­donitis, back in­juries and neck in­juries. The fo­cus on equip­ment de­sign to pre­vent in­juries and im­prove per­for­mance is al­so the same for es­port as for any oth­er sport.

Rev­enue stream - Rev­enues in the es­port sec­tor are ex­pect­ed to reach US$196 bil­lion by 2022. Es­port ath­letes are be­gin­ning to at­tract base salaries and en­dorse­ments that are com­pa­ra­ble with those of ath­letes in oth­er tra­di­tion­al sports. In Chi­na, for ex­am­ple, play­ers em­ployed to teams can earn month­ly salaries rang­ing be­tween US$3,000 to US$5,000. Top pro­fes­sion­al play­ers can earn sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than this.

High stake com­pe­ti­tions with large num­bers of com­peti­tors and spec­ta­tors are es­sen­tial to the rev­enue stream. In Ju­ly 2019, for ex­am­ple, pop­u­lar game Fort­nite by Epic Games had their very own ‘Fort­nite World Cup’. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly forty mil­lion play­ers from var­i­ous re­gions com­pet­ed on­line, vy­ing for the top 100 spots. The win­ners earned more than US$2.5 mil­lion. Over 2.3 mil­lion spec­ta­tors were record­ed, and this did not in­clude the view­er­ship da­ta for Chi­na.

Like any oth­er sport, the rev­enue stream ex­tends to gam­bling among the spec­ta­tors, as bets are placed on in­di­vid­u­als and teams.

Dop­ing – Dop­ing al­so oc­curs in es­port. Re­cent­ly, one pro­fes­sion­al team ad­mit­ted to the con­sump­tion of am­phet­a­mines. Oth­er play­ers have al­so re­vealed their us­age of these drugs while some in­dulge in re­lax­ants and even mar­i­jua­na to re­lieve ten­sion for bet­ter game­play. The In­ter­na­tion­al es­port Fed­er­a­tion has pub­lished rules and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing com­pe­ti­tion that were de­vel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the World An­ti-Dop­ing Agency (WA­DA). This 63-page doc­u­ment is as com­pre­hen­sive as that gov­ern­ing oth­er sports.

Spec­ta­tors – Though much low­er than the top tra­di­tion­al sports, es­port has a steadi­ly grow­ing spec­ta­tor base. It is es­ti­mat­ed that view­ers will reach 646 mil­lion by 2023. Foot­ball and crick­et re­main at the top of the list with a spec­ta­tor base in the bil­lions. Es­port is poised to make it in the top ten this year, bump­ing down sports like rug­by, base­ball and golf.

Schol­ar­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties –Sports schol­ar­ships pro­vide a means of ob­tain­ing ter­tiary lev­el ed­u­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly for those from low so­cioe­co­nom­ic groups. In the USA, more than 50 col­leges have a var­si­ty pro­gramme for es­ports and pro­vide schol­ar­ships for play­ers. Sev­er­al Asian coun­tries have recog­nised es­port’s play­ers as pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes dis­trib­ut­ing li­cens­es and spe­cial visas.

Against this back­ground, one may want to stop and think twice be­fore de­clar­ing that es­port is not sport.

Justin Mesqui­ta is a can­di­date in the MSc Sports and Ex­er­cise Med­i­cine pro­gramme in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport and Dr Sharmel­la Roopc­hand-Mar­tin is the head of the Mona Acad­e­my of Sport.