The Serious Reality of Esports

While sport has become the popular buzz word among media execs and private equity investors, video gaming competitions have quietly attracted millions of players and fans, plus seriously competitive sponsorship and advertising dollars. 

It was in 2000 at the 21st Century Game Association founding ceremony in South Korea that Park Jie-Won, then Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism conceived the term “esports”.

Since then, competitive video games, have gained significant popularity and recognition worldwide. Some people still view video games as mere entertainment, rather than a legitimate competitive sport to be taken seriously. For millions of players worldwide, however, the prospect of playing video games competitively, and professionally,...