If there’s one debate that’s always bubbling beneath the surface of our beloved industry, it’s the ‘esports vs. sports‘ discourse. Many folks on either side of the wire have spent countless hours arguing for or against the legitimacy of esports compared to sports, and some are vehemently against classifying esports competitors as ‘athletes’. That’s a topic that I touched on with FC Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski this week when I was invited to the Spanish city to sit down with him and ask a few questions.
As we spoke, Lewandowski revealed himself as a gamer – even if he doesn’t ‘spend hours every day playing them’. He loves Call of Duty and has a full-fledged F1 simracing rig (that he unfortunately broke), and growing up, he started gaming on a Commodore 64 before moving on to bigger and brighter things. He might have cut his teeth on classic mobile games like Snake, but today he can be found playing FIFA or Mario Kart, among other titles, and he recently became a global ambassador for the massive gaming marketplace, G2A.
Esports vs. Sports – The Grand Debate
These days, the esports industry is aligning ever closer with the traditional sports industry. From the multi-million dollar tournaments to the competitors that train for eight hours a day, and have development coaches and personal trainers, to the strict diets, rigorous testing processes, and professional equipment, the two verticals are getting closer together with each passing day. Once upon a time, esports competitors were stigmatised, but today, they’re becoming rockstars.
One of the key topics I talked about with Lewandowski was the ‘legitimacy’ of esports competitors and whether they should be classed as athletes. Typically, the argument was always that gamers aren’t traditionally physical people, and it doesn’t take any real effort to sit in a seat and play a game – even at the highest level. However, the mutual line of thinking that Lewandowski and I shared was that it’s more of a mentality thing, which is a similar sentiment I’ve heard before from other athletes – such as tennis’ Taylor Fritz.
Here’s what Lewandowski had to share:
‘The players in esports, I’m sure that they have to do physical things to be ready. It’s not just playing in front of the computer, that isn’t enough for them. If they are professional, they also prepare physically, to be ready in your brain, your mind. You have to be focused, you have to have concentration, your reactions, from the brain to your body, it’s also important. If you are tired physically, you’re feeling bad, your competition will go down. That’s why you can find balance between the physical and the esports. It’s not only esports, but you also have to take this physicality from sports on the pitch or outside, you know?’
Lewandowski is a world-class athlete with plenty of trophies to his name, so he understands what it takes to compete at the highest level. It’s swings and roundabouts – most esports professionals couldn’t do what he does, but could he sit down and win a Counter-Strike 2 tournament playing at the top-most level? Probably not. In that way, which Robert agreed, it’s not always ‘fair’ to compare the two industries. Perhaps they don’t have to fully align and have the same classifications, but they can exist separately from one another:
‘I think that now, you cannot compare them, because I think that esports… before they didn’t do too much ‘sporty things’, but they found this space. I don’t want to say that there is like a battle, no. For both of them, there’s a lot of space, and before, they couldn’t find the space, but now they can find space.’
It’s an eternal debate but it’s getting tighter all the time. With traditional sports athletes finding their way into the gaming and esports industries – such as Lewandowski recently partnering with G2A – the audiences and markets are forever crossing over. There might never be a total alignment, but eventually, those on both sides of the fence will come to respect one another.
For more industry news, Esports.net
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