Is gaming a professional sport?

Xiler said:
Its not a physical sport obviously. Definitely a sport though as it requires a set of skills that you have to practice and once good enough at the pro level there is a large audience that watches it.

I don't see how you could define a sport as anything other than that.
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So drawing is a sport?
 
Xiler said:
Unless it becomes competitive and has a wide audience then nope. It would also have to make a decent amount of money to be called a sport these days as well.
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Audience and money have nothing to do with whether something is a sport or not. Check any dictionary.

Physical exertion on the other hand does, which excludes gaming, except for maybe Dance Dance Revolution or certain Wii/Kinect type games.
 
Xiler said:
Unless it becomes competitive and has a wide audience then nope. It would also have to make a decent amount of money to be called a sport these days as well.
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Since when did a sport require a wide audience?

You can have 2 guitarist being competitive against each other, same could be said for artists/drawing. So they are both sports?
 
People who play League of Legends need to put in as much practice and dedication as any athlete in any sport.

They practice mechanics, practice teamwork, theorycraft, and study replays of opponents 24/7.

Seems pretty legit to me.
 
escape sanity said:
Audience and money have nothing to do with whether something is a sport or not. Check any dictionary.

Physical exertion on the other hand does, which excludes gaming, except for maybe Dance Dance Revolution or certain Wii/Kinect type games.
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Really then why is chess classed as a sport or any other board sport or darts its not physically demanding.

The problem with drawing is its an art and would be hard to score unless there was a set standard of how the final drawing should look, which would defeat the purpose of drawing/art. But if you really wanted to do that with drawing/guitar playing then I guess you could but it would be really boring.
 
Xiler said:
Really then why is chess classed as a sport or any other board sport or darts its not physically demanding.
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For the same reason that some people classify a tomato as a vegetable. Chess is no more a sport than Monopoly. Though darts is slightly closer than chess or LoL as it does require some kind of dexterity.
 
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Can definitely be classed as sport, the two are interchangeable, sports/games. Talking about the physical aspects is a flawed argument, so many things that are widely regarded as sports don't require actual fitness, you can be overweight but still have highly trained physiological responses, which when it's all said and done is all these guys really have.
 
Have an element of competition
Be in no way harmful to any living creature
Not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
Not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport
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There you go, definitions of a sport from SportAccord.

I tend to think "sport" is a generic term, whereby specific types of sports fall into it such as physical sports (boxing, football, rugby) and mental sports (chess, professional gaming, poker, bridge). You can also find professional gaming listed under electronic sports at Wikipedia's list of sports. I don't see why any sport and not specifically gaming needs to have physical prerequisite as there are lots of sports that aren't physical.
 
flibby said:
Have an element of competition
Be in no way harmful to any living creature
Not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
Not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport
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There you go, definitions of a sport from SportAccord.

I tend to think "sport" is a generic term, whereby specific types of sports fall into it such as physical sports (boxing, football, rugby) and mental sports (chess, professional gaming, poker, bridge). You can also find professional gaming listed under electronic sports at Wikipedia's list of sports. I don't see why any sport and not specifically gaming needs to have physical prerequisite as there are lots of sports that aren't physical.
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Does that mean Formula 1 (and other types of motorsport) are not sports because they rely on tyres provided by just one supplier? Pirelli in the case of F1. In Forumula 4, the entire car is provided by one supplier to all drivers.
 
hilly said:
America seems to think so:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/23321595

Personally, I think it's border line; Gaming takes so much skill and ability and knowledge of the engine that it's a high skilled (potentially) profession. If it is indeed a profession and the best can make it so, then why shouldn't it be classed as a sport?

Does a sport have to include exercise, can it be mental? Is Chess a sport for example, some would say so.

Now games like LoL are taking off, along with CS, BF, CoD, what are the main examples for you, of "Professional Gaming sports?"
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so your saying scrabble is a sport?
 
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