E-Sport - An Olympic Sport??

[Olympic Dreamer]

We gave up 2 events and IOC is reducing our quota places to give way for "Sports" like this:
https://www.olympic.org/news/communique ... pic-summit
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/ ... -committee

[jhmartin]

This is a superb potential money saver for the IOC.

The eAthletes could compete via the internet w/o ever having to to get off of their couches.

Imagine ... a virtual opening ceremony with their avitars wildly waving their national flas and taking ephotos of one another!

SO exciting!!!

[Olympic Dreamer]

This is a superb potential money saver for the IOC.

The eAthletes could compete via the internet w/o ever having to to get off of their couches.

Imagine ... a virtual opening ceremony with their avitars wildly waving their national flas and taking ephotos of one another!

SO exciting!!!

It's all about the money: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/ ... 8a2c4e1c3c

[Hemmers]

We gave up 2 events and IOC is reducing our quota places to give way for "Sports" like this:

Um, we changed three events for gender equality reasons, and gave up zero quota places for sports like that. We lost quota places for sports that are actually in the Olympics.

IOC recognition of eSports does not mean that they are going to end up in the Games (even if the Paris team are having "discussions") any more than Chess is going to feature - despite Chess and Bridge being IOC-recognised Mind Sports for years and years.

Obviously it's about the money and the IOC would love to associate themselves with events which attract tens of millions of spectators/streamers and involve big ticket sponsorship. It's a good way to get the brand out there, especially in technologically backward countries like the USA where media coverage (cough NBC cough) is woeful, die-hard fans use VPNs to access foreign broadcast streams and the general public on the whole don't engage with the Games as they do in many nations. This is clearly the IOC saying "we should be big in market x, we're not, so what is big in market x that we can tag onto?".


However, the 2024 medal table won't be troubled by any form of eSport.

[SlartyBartFast]

Um, we changed three events for gender equality reasons, and gave up zero quota places for sports like that. We lost quota places for sports that are actually in the Olympics.

Good to remind people of those facts.

It would be nice if people limited the ridiculous (and sometimes sexist and derogatory) knee-jerk reactions to sports trying to become Olympic events.

Make too much noise and attract the wrong sort of attention (whine about gender representation equality or mocking other sports) and all shooting events might go away.

While new and well established sports are vying for Olympic attention based on "our numbers are growing", the (sexist) defence of (men's only) shooting sports (50m pistol, 50m men's prone) was often phrased as "the sport needs the Olympic exposure to survive". And as far as I'm concerned, that particular defence is indefensibly sexist. Why is/was men's 50m prone rifle inclusion as an Olympic event critical to rifle shooting sports development while no one seemed to be making any noise about the fact that women's 50m prone rifle was never included in the Olympics?

Competitive shooters competing in ISSF events who want the sport to grow and maintain Olympic exposure need to stop being so angry and avoid being derogatory towards any other Olympic sport or want-to-be Olympic sport. Target shooting athletes need to be more constructively involved in promoting local and regional competition and recruiting new competitors to keep the sport viable and begin holding the ISSF accountable for the differences in events available to men and women in ISSF Continental Games, Continental Championships, and World Cups.