EPTWhen the common man thinks of sports, things such as soccer, rugby, basketball, baseball, american football and cricket all come to mind, nationally and internationally televised events, with recognizable players. You ask the same person who MC, or Boxer is and they would just shrug. While to those in the scene, these are immediately recognizable. Teams such as EG, Fnatic, coL etc all enjoy vast corporate sponsorship of their players, with big names in the industry like ATI, Intel, Nvidia and so on. But what is it about traditional sports versus esports that makes them so much more popular in terms of viewership, besides having been established longer? The simple truth is understanding. A non gamer would view an SC2 match, and while the tone and excitement of the casters may hold their attention, they would not understand why a timing push, or hatch snipe was such a big deal, but when Rooney makes a bicycle for an absolutely brilliant goal, he jumps from his seat and yells loudly. Its because he knows the basic fundamentals of the game, but can also grasp what level of talent the aforementioned play requires, probably because he has played soccer himself as a lad. Nowhere was this more obvious then in DirecTV's failed CGS series. It had all of the elements of a traditional sport, wide corporate sponsorship and a means to be broadcast to a wide audience, however, it was ahead of its time. The layperson who happened to browse through would be drawn in by the live audience and flashing stage lights, but as soon as the match starts, would be lost and confused, having never played the game, thus not having that understanding. Fast forward to MLG, a very successful and ever growing series of tournaments, with a-typical esports sponsors such as Dr Pepper. MLG owes much of it's success to the expanding esports popularity, fueled by access to gaming consoles. The xbox and playstation have brought gaming to the masses so to speak, no longer are you required to shell out money to buy and build a system, needing to upgrade every year or two or be left behind, you now have a readily accessible, stable platform that requires you to do nothing but enjoy the games. Thus, when a person flips onto a stream with MLG, they understand what is going on and can recognize and appreciate the skill displayed by the players.
The future of esports is solely dependent on access, as high speed internet becomes increasingly available and consoles continue to draw in newer generations of competitively minded gamers, esports will continue to grow. With partnerships such as GomTV and MLG, console gamers are exposed to more niche games such as Starcraft BW and 2 (yes, I know BW is the national sport of SK, I'm talking outside the korean scene) creating larger audience pools for these games. The present is an exciting time in our history as gamers, the future is bright and I for one am excited to see where we can go, who knows, in another decade or two, you might see the likes of MC jr and Nestea the III, playing in arenas being internationally broadcast via satellite, millions of fans affixed to their every play.
