If I were to describe someone who rigorously trained 10 hours each day, had finely-tuned, quick reflexes and spent their remaining time breaking down different strategies, what initially comes to mind?
An athlete.
Which is why when ESPN announced Ninja, the “biggest gamer in the world,” as its newest cover, there should have been no controversy. But there is.
Richard “Ninja” Blevins, a content creator and Fortnite live streamer, became popular after streaming the video game “Fortnite” with musician Drake, a decision that attracted 630,000 concurrent viewers to the live streaming platform Twitch — an all-time record.
“Fortnite,” a free-to-play, 100-person battle-royale game released last year, is expected to reach an estimated 750 million people in 2019.
Blevins currently hovers around 3.3 million Twitter followers and has 11 million Twitch followers, with daily streams drawing in more than 50 thousand viewers.
To his viewers, he’s known only as Ninja.
There’s no doubt ESPN’s decision will create controversy. Many traditional sports fans will crawl out of the woodwork, saying video games have no place in ESPN’s magazine, especially not on the cover.
I disagree.
We are moving into a new era of sports, and ESPN is now paving the way. It’s time to accept the societal definition of sports will never be the same — and that’s a good thing.
Friday Fortnite, a Las Vegas event hosted by Ninja, brought in almost 9 million viewers, 1 million more than the series finale of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”
Ninja’s many sponsors include Samsung, Uber Eats and Red Bull. Sponsorships, in addition to other sources of streaming revenue including Twitch advertisements, subscriptions and donations, net Ninja an estimated $500 to $800 thousand per month.
And all things considered, “Fortnite” isn’t even the mainstream competitive game.
Max Rothenburg | Argonaut
The recent North American League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS) Summer Finals, hosted at Oakland’s Oracle Arena, peaked at 430 thousand unique viewers.
That number sounds high until Asian viewership is brought in to the equation. Then, the numbers become insurmountable.
The Tencent League of Legends Pro League (LPL) Spring Finals, held in China, delivered an astounding peak viewership of 95 million unique viewers.
There are no signs of slowing down. The 2018 Asian Games, held every four years in Asia and recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the second largest sporting event behind the Olympics, hosted “League of Legends” as an official demonstration sport.
For South Koreans, Asian Games winners are exempt from mandatory national military service. Because the game was a demonstration sport this year, there were no exemptions. However, in future years, players will receive these same benefits.
The jury is out worldwide — competitive gaming is a sport, and competitive players are professional athletes.
The government has recognized players as professional athletes since 2013, when it passed a law allowing foreign players to acquire P1 visas. These are reserved for “aliens entering the United States to perform at a specific athletic competition as an athlete, individually or as part of a group or team, at an internationally recognized level of performance.”
Yet, people fall back to the same, worn-out depiction as a counterargument: physical exertion.
Is a mouse/keyboard combo that much different than a steering wheel or even the swing of a club? What about competitive racing games that use a steering wheel and pedal set?
As more and more competitive activities are accepted as sports, the very basis of physical exertion is more frequently called into question.
Oxford Dictionaries defines a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
Dictionary.com takes a different stance, defining the term similar to Random House Dictionary: “An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.”
The debate of and/or is never-ending. Different dictionaries choose different wordage, each representing an organization’s own views. The moment we start cherry picking different definitions to best find one representing our own views, we lose all credibility.
Definitions can change. Adaptation is necessary.
Ninja deserves the spotlight, and he is one of many who have earned it.
ESPN, the U.S. based, premiere worldwide sports network, has acknowledged this global shift to a new definition of sports — a beginning to settling the discussion.
Max Rothenberg can be reached at [email protected]