Dota 2 TI4 ESPN Reception

[L3773R5a]

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2ba6jq/looks_like_the_dota_coverage_on_espn_was_well/

 

The guy who did this collage probably only got most of the negative comments but still, it goes to show you how far away the general public are from accepting professional gaming if at all. There are many differing opinions and i am assuming most of them are from people who are older like my parents age.

 

I personally am a huge fan of Dota 2 and to be honest i'm sure my dad would sit through a match with me if it were on TV but then again my dad is a bit more accepting of what our generation does compared to theirs. Unfortunately because i live in Australia the games are from 2am onwards and we don't even get ESPN3 even on our pay TV service, i don't think that's going to happen. Regardless, there is certainly a stigma attached with professional gaming and that's not going away soon. Having said, it's great that the guy who writes the program scehdule at ESPN decided that it was a good idea to televise dota 2.

 

What do you guys think of the reception? Not surprised? Lost all faith in humanity?

[BonBon Scott]

Well, I know bugger all about Dota 2 or Sports.

 

It's not like games like this have been on ESPN before, I believe that Magic: The Gathering tournaments used to be on ESPN in the 90s.

 

EDIT: Just checked the Reddit link, and yep, someone mentioned the Magic: The Gathering tournaments.

[d3sl91]

Not surprised. I even had a friend (who is a gamer) tell me he didn't think it was possible for Video Games to be considered a sport. 

 

Then again, he wasn't aware of the gaming culture in some countries, so, I didn't mind him...

 

 

Video games will be commonplace on TV in the near future. Just like anything else, people are going to voice dislike it until it becomes more normal, just because it's new. 

[matin94]

finally nice to see E-sports being accepted.

[steffen_anywhere]

Was expecting a lot of hate and non-acceptance. This is definitely going to be a thing soon enough.

 

EDIT: @d3sl91 well in Korea League is all over the TV

[killz2much]

I want to punch some of/if not all of those people. Especially the ones making fun of the proposal and calling them fat, so disrespectful.

 

I wish it was televised in Canada and more instead of only in the states, I tried to tune in into it, but apparently Rogers Cable here in Canada doesen't carry any ESPN with the exception of ESPN Classic. Even though there was probably alot of positive ones not posted on this, I wish that more then the americans could have watched it and gave their opinions.

[Misanthrope]

Don't follow Dota 2 but I've seen Starcraft 2 games, they were certainly very exiting and fun to watch, maybe it would have been better to start with those? Though not nearly as popular in the west I believe

[d3sl91]

Was expecting a lot of hate and non-acceptance. This is definitely going to be a thing soon enough.

 

EDIT: @d3sl91 well in Korea League is all over the TV

It kinda reminds me of Soccer here in the US. The majority hates on soccer because it's "boring" etc. Whereas the rest of the world is in love with futbol, and it's on TV everywhere all the time. 

 

Yay US.

[steffen_anywhere]

It kinda reminds me of Soccer here in the US. The majority hates on soccer because it's "boring" etc. Whereas the rest of the world is in love with futbol, and it's on TV everywhere all the time. 

 

Yay US.

 

Yes, we won the world cup (I'm German) !!! Interesting just how big of a deal League is in South Korea. It's like a major sport...

[Xorbot]

I didn't watch the tournament, and I am not a major fan of Dotas and Mobas (did I say it right?).

 

But it is inevitable that what people currently call "sport" will cease to exist.  Let's take football for example.  This is a sport that has a long history, and is well integrated into Americana itself.  However, this does not mean that football as we know it today will last forever.  Will football be popular in 5 years? Most certainly.  What about 50?  It's hard to say, but football has been around for a long period of time, so it is likely to still be around and popular in 50 years.

 

What about 40,000 years?  Surely football's popularity will cease to exist at some point in the future.  I don't believe that football or any other major league sport will shut down in any given year.  Instead, it will just be phased out due to lack of popularity.  With what people today call "e-Sports", what we see before our eyes is the newer generation taking interest in video games and digital entertainment rather than physical athletics.  Your American father and grand-father will never accept a MOBA as a sport, and accept football as the only sport.  But unfortunately for them, their generation dies off.  There will be new generation of kids who will only have watched MOBAs and never have watched football.

 

Therefore, as MOBAs rise in popularity and occupy the young kids' attention, there will be fewer (as a percentage of the population) people who are watching football.  If ESPN can identify itself as the only place you'd go to for MOBA coverage, then that's a good move for them.  Just extrapolate the number of viewers and size of prize pool for DOTA 2 from the past few years to now.  If people are watching, then ad revenues increase, and it is more money for ESPN.  You had better believe they are taking interest, and as a business who thrives on ad revenues, it is essentially a no brainer to cover e-Sports (like it or not, will one day be called "sports", so get mad all you want).

[Curemylife]

It's not more of a sport than chess so is it really that wierd?

[Nomelas]

I don't think that Dota, or starcraft or LoL or any of those should be called a "sport" as they are missing the physical aspect of what it means to be a sport.

E-sport to me is acceptable as it's easily differentiated from regular sports. That's not to say it's not at all physically and mentally demanding, just in different ways and it really needs to be labelled as such.

Aside from the physical aspect, it really does share everything else in common with your average sport and I find this perfectly acceptable.

[Yoinkerman]

Using Twitter as a metric is laughable.

[Aelrikom]

I found the ESPN spot to be a lot more cringe worthy than the Twitch stream.  It looked like they were trying to hard.

[Victorious Secret]

ESPN is where sports go to die anyways. 

[martinrox1568]

finally nice to see E-sports being accepted.

Yes because those tweets were the acception of e-sports.

[matin94]

Yes because those tweets were the acception of e-sports.

wasnt talking about tweets. they are probably typical people that watch the football or basketball with beer every week and dont know shit about gaming. in their mind, its just a "Video Game"

i was talking about dota a competitive game, being shown on a well known Sports channel world wide. its finally being realised as a sport.

[dalekphalm]

I don't think that Dota, or starcraft or LoL or any of those should be called a "sport" as they are missing the physical aspect of what it means to be a sport.

E-sport to me is acceptable as it's easily differentiated from regular sports. That's not to say it's not at all physically and mentally demanding, just in different ways and it really needs to be labelled as such.

Aside from the physical aspect, it really does share everything else in common with your average sport and I find this perfectly acceptable.

Why does a sport require a large physical aspect?

 

According to the Internationally Accepted (or De Facto) definition of "Sport", E-Sports definitely qualify:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport#Definition

 

 

SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:^[1]

• 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

They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).^[1]

SportAccord is the international association of all the major sports leagues and federations in the world.

 

Although it funnily enough goes on to say that many mainstream sports organizations don't view e-Sports as a sport, despite it definitely qualifying by their VERY OWN DEFINITION. Hypocrites if you ask me...

 

Anyway, according to the definition, yes, e-Sports are sports too. I've highlighted the two main factors used in e-Sports in that quote, mind: using tactics and strategy to out-think your opponent, and co-ordination: using hand-eye co-ordination to accurately out-control your opponent.

[pixeldensity]

I think those people are forgetting that espn also shows "sports" like texas holdem or poker on their channel as well.

[BallisticPeanut]

"... you found something worse than poker and womens basketball."  

 

So I don't watch sports at all anymore so I wouldn't know what women's basketball is like, but that sounded really sexist. 

[BallisticPeanut]

I think those people are forgetting that espn also shows "sports" like texas holdem or poker on their channel as well.

 

They should, the original tweet mentions poker.

[Luc401]

some people ..

[ACatWithThumbs]

They used the wrong game for it.
DOTA 2 or LOL aren't good games to show to non gamers.(Most gamers don't even understand MOBAs)
If they want Esports to become a thing they need to play simple action packed games first.(Or maybe sport games like FIFA)
I bet if they would've shown Battlefield or Call Of Duty we would've seen better reactions.

[deviant88]

If your goal was to show me a list of tweeter ignorant stupid people congratz you have succeeded you happy now?

[dalekphalm]

They used the wrong game for it.

DOTA 2 or LOL aren't good games to show to non gamers.(Most gamers don't even understand MOBAs)

If they want Esports to become a thing they need to play simple action packed games first.(Or maybe sport games like FIFA)

I bet if they would've shown Battlefield or Call Of Duty we would've seen better reactions.

I'd recommend CS:GO or Starcraft 2. Both have a large tournament following already - especially Starcraft 2. And both are easy to follow/understand without knowing the rules to the game.

 

They could certainly also have done CoD or BF series but I didn't think either had a particularly large tournament scene.