Should leauge be conciterd a sport? agree or disagree and why
I need to take a servery to see who believes that LOL should be considered a sport for an argumentative paper in school.
9 Comments
This isn't really the best place to get an unbiased opinion.
I hate to be a dick, but please use spell check.
"Sport" is not defined as an activity where people run around. Nascar is considered a sport, despite the driver sitting for the entire duration, because the overall activity is similar to a physical race. Similarly, FPS games are similar to paintball (a sport), while RTS or MOBA games could be seen as more humane counterparts to the sports carried on in the Roman Colosseum.
I disagree to this: tl:dr. Opinion on why:
What most people seem to ignore is the fact that League is a video game just like Counter Strike, Overwatch, or Street Fighter in means of competitive levels. What gives League its own distinction to be classified as a sport while others aren't?
Viewership? Not really a relevant or insightful metric in my opinion. You can have XXk viewers or even get your own timeslot on ESPN (EVO, Netherrealm WC, and Overwatch WC as examples); competitive gaming thrives off of its dedicated players and fanbase despite the numbers. League is no exception to that dedication even if it's the most prominent.
Investments? Organizations always get investments of sorts if they push strong enough or show promise and devotion. League is a focal point of its rise, but it's the organizations that expand first and foremost in order to produce.
Anything and everything can be considered a "sport" if it generates enough $ and audience.
Sport? no. E-Sport? yes.
Its one of the many forms of competition that fall into the gray area between sports and non-sports. The key issue is obviously the physical aspect (or seemingly lack there of).
Those in favor of labeling it a sport will compare it to other competitions that are accepted as sports that dont seem to be physical in nature like nascar. The problem with this is that the nascar drivers undergo roughly 2-3 G's of force for several hours which requires much more physical endurance than your typical car ride.
This puts LOL in a difficult spot because even the longest games dont go on for much more than an hour and even then the players are making minimal movements while only facing 1G of force. One could argue that a Bo5 series would require a level of physical endurance high enough to be considered a sport because of the endurance needed to maintain the repetitive motions at such quick speeds however this is where most people disagree.
Ultimately the individual games just aren't long enough to test the players physically and the long Bo5 series seem to be geared more towards mental endurance than physical, and thus it is unlikely people will ever view it as a sport. That being said, it is important to note that the Olympics Comittee recognizes the game of Chess as a sport which has no physical aspect at all... so perhaps the "traditional definition" of a sport that people use for these types of arguments shouldnt be the sole definition. Its probably best to use the term "e-sport" until the definition of "sports" can be agreed upon.