eSports could be added to the Olympic programme as an official medal sport in 2024.
Tony Estanguet, co-president of the Paris bid committee, has confirmed that he will speak with the International Olympic Committee and eSports representatives about the full-fledged inclusion of competitive video gaming when the Games come to France in seven years’ time.
“We have to look at it because we can’t say, ‘It’s not us. It’s not about Olympics,’” Estanguet said in an interview with the Associated Press. “The youth, yes they are interested in eSport and this kind of thing. Let’s look at it. Let’s meet them. Let’s try if we can find some bridges.
“I don’t want to say ‘no’ from the beginning. I think it’s interesting to interact with the IOC, with them, the eSports family, to better understand what the process is and why it is such a success.”
Paris will be confirmed as as the host city of the 2024 Olympics when the IOC convenes next month in Peru, the result of a deal with lone competitor Los Angeles, which agreed to take the 2028 Games.
In April, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) announced that eSports will be a medal sport at the 2022 Asian Games in China, the boldest step yet toward mainstream recognition of competitive gaming.
The OCA said the decision reflects “the rapid development and popularity of this new form of sports participation among the youth.”
The details of which games will be contested have yet to be provided, though the OCA confirmed the titles for this year’s Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in Turkmenistan: Fifa 2017, Moba (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and RTA (Real Time Attack) gaming types.
The Asian Games, which are recognized by the IOC, are billed as the world’s second largest multi-sport event after the Olympics. Forty-five national delegations and about 10,000 athletes took part in the most recent Asiad three years ago in Incheon, South Korea.
IOC president Thomas Bach, whose support would be crucial to eSports’ addition as an Olympic event, sounded less than convinced when asked about it after the Asian Games decision in April.
“We are not yet 100% clear whether eSports is really sport, with regard to physical activity and what it needs to be considered sport,” Bach told Inside the Games.
However, Bach did concede that eSports achieves a “high engagement from the youth”, which has become a clear priority for the IOC in their recent additions to the programme. He attributed the June additions of three-on-three basketball and freestyle BMX for the Tokyo Olympics to the committee’s push for a “more youthful, more urban” Games.
The Olympic programme for the 2024 Games will begin to take shape in 2019 with the final decision on added events to take place at some point after Tokyo. By then, eSports will have already been a demonstration sport at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia, which looms as an important testing ground for the nascent sport on the international stage.
eSports generated $493m in revenue with a global audience of about 320m people in 2016, the market research firm Newzoo reported last year.
While initially popular as a spectator sport in Asia – more than 40,000 people attended the 2014 League of Legends World Championship finals in Seoul – competitive gaming now draws tens of millions of spectators to online platforms and real-world venues, including New York’s Madison Square Garden, the Staples Center in Los Angeles and the MGM Grand Garden Arena on the Las Vegas Strip.
The International 2017, a Dota 2 tournament under way this week in Seattle, is offering a prize pool of nearly $24m.
