Hi Colin,
I'm a longtime listener from Los Angeles on 710 ESPN and appreciate the time you take every day to make your show relevant, entertaining and informative. With that said, I think your comments yesterday where largely made out of ignorance and only serve the function of alienating your up and coming listeners, although I do understand why you made them.
As a background I am 23 years old, male and am finishing my first year of law school. I was a scholarship athlete in college (did Cross Country and Track) and I do agree with you that video games are NOT a sport. With that said, I also do play "League of Legends" the largest "esports" title in the videogame industry and watch the professional esports scene regularly.
In my experience, while it is true there are some videogamers who fit with your "Nerd" persona that inhabit their mom's basements, the vast majority of people in the professional esports scene (and dare I say the online gaming scene in general are young men (although there is a surprisingly large demographic of women as well) who are talented, well educated, intelligent and are normal people with normal interests, including traditional sports. (Including both Gordon Hayward and Chris Kluwe , both of whom have done the linked promotional interview spots).
Like I said, while it’s true that professional video games are not a true sport, esports in my mind are every bit as legitimate as any other competition being broadcasted on network television, whether it be NASCAR, Poker, Chess, bowling, golf, etc.) While there is obviously something inherently different about a traditional sport than videogames, if consumers want to spend their time watching professionals play video games who are you to judge them? On the surface it comes off as extremely hypocritical that your entire livelihood is based off of commentating grown men playing a contrived game with rules that at first blush are not apparent (be it football, basketball, baseball etc.) and yet you criticize videogamers for enjoying what they do. While I very much have enjoyed a number of traditional sports throughout my life, there is nothing mutually exclusive about being athletic or enjoying regular sports and playing videogames and enjoying the exploding esports scene.
No one is asking you or wants you to spend time broadcasting and covering esports: we have hundreds (if not thousands) of people who do that worldwide already and are damn good at it (Duncan Shields , Travis Gafford, Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger, Kelsey Moser and Cristopher Mykles to name a few, not even mentioning anyone from the international scene). Stick with what you enjoy doing, but know that Esports is a fast growing phenomenon and that if you make comments like this you will alienate a huge portion of your audience who don't share your prejudices. According to a Forbes article from January 2014 (number have probably risen since then) League of legends has over 27 million users PER DAY. Furthermore as a spectator sport, League of Legends (not including the incredibly large number of viewers from DOTA 2, CS:GO and the upcoming Heros of the Storm) is already in the same ballpark as the viewership numbers for both the NBA and MLB finals according to the Washington Post and in 2014 their world finals had over 60,000 people in attendance live.
Colin, while you may be dismissive, esports is here to stay whether you get on board or not, and simply from a business perspective it seems foolish to dismiss the demographic that will one day make up the vast majority of your viewer and listening base (16-30 year old males). You’re a smart man, and I urge you to spend some time researching before you bash something you simply aren't familiar with.
Sincerely,
themxcrunner01
