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Esports has been making moves when it comes to its comparison with traditional sports. In the past five years it’s gone from an oddity that occasionally showed up on ESPN to one of the largest sports viewership markets in the world. Simply put, it’s gotten to the point where even large traditional organizations need to pay attention to the esports scene. But what about the most traditional of all the organizations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC)? Are we going to see esports on the Olympic stage soon? Should esports be in the Olympics? Would we have to change anything?

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What Has Been Done So Far Within the Industry?

Esports has truly exploded in recent years. It’s become a larger, more mainstream industry than it was when the heart of esports were untelevised LAN events in announcer’s basements. Streaming and the infrastructure to run larger esports leagues has created a multi-million dollar industry as the backbone of competitive gaming.  For context on how young esports is, the Associated Press only agreed on how to write out esports (as opposed to e-sports or eSports) in 2017, Jessica covered the story here: How to Spell Esports.

Since then, esports has exploded into a worldwide endeavor.  The International Esports Federation has 127 member countries working towards worldwide standards of competition and athlete training programs for international esports competitions. Recent events put traditional sports on hold while esports have flourished, gaining more fans and proving that they will survive through adversity. Finally, the newest consoles have proven that they can match up with PC performance, with the PS5 and Xbox Series XIS enabling proper cross play and huge influx of new competitors.

That said, despite all the growth and garnered legitimacy, there was no mutual goal for esports. Growth has come from a myriad of disconnected sources. Is it time for esports to work towards a mutual goal?

Should Esports Become an Active Part of the Olympics?

Well, they already have been… kind of. PyeongChang 2018 had a pre-event sponsored by INTEL where players competed in Starcraft 2 and the officially licensed Olympic video game. The medals didn’t count for the main event but they were Olympic medals. Esports were additionally in the 2021 Olympics as the Olympic Virtual series, but they weren’t exactly playing mainstream titles; less CS:GO and more Virtual Regatta.

This slow half-incorporation is as far as I think esports should go within the Olympics for now. Let me explain why the Olympics are a poor match for esports, and what a better solution might be.

Do You Know why Chess is not part of Olympics?

The first hurdle that esports truly needs to contend with when it comes to Olympic consideration is avoiding the ‘mental games’ clause. To join the Olympics a game needs to involve athleticism within their current rules, which is why you don’t see games like chess in the Olympics.

Luckily the IOC has already recognized something that avid gamers already know, that esports involves way more than mental stress. Key factors like reaction time and actions per minute (APM) alongside physical training are enough for the IOC to recognize esports as Olympic viable, which is the biggest hurdle out of the way.

There is still another large issue within the rules of the IOC, and that is that the Olympics are inherently non-violent. This directly excludes some of the most popular games on the planet like CS:GO, Valorant and Fortnite, but it also could also exclude critical games like League of Legends and DOTA2 if the definition of ‘violence’ extends to characters fighting in those fantasy settings.

Now, there certainly are esports games that don’t violate violence clauses, but if we have to write off shooters and
MOBAs, the highest ranked game complying with those rules would be Rocket League with the 12^th largest league [3].

This actually brings up three key issues that bring the viability of esports into the Olympics into question, first one being;

1.) Which Game Would Represent the Actual Olympic Esport?

When people are talking about market shares and viewer counts to compare esports to traditional sports we tend to talk about esports as a monolith. ‘Esports has more annual viewers than the NBA.’ That said, this is slightly disingenuous, esports is not a single game but an entire genre of games. It’s like calling Hockey, Curling, Figure Skating and Ringette ‘Ice Sports.’ Sure, they all take place on ice, but they are different audiences, rules and applications.

Here’s the critical question: What game is the Olympic Esport? Any game you choose is going to eliminate fans of other genres, and even within a genre of games fans tend to be exclusive. A League of Legends player can’t exactly switch over to DOTA 2 for a month to train for the Olympics, it’s just not how these games work.

This issue of deciding on a game is doubly complicated because esports, as a sport, is quite a junior member of the whole world of sports. League of Legends is ancient by esports standards and hasn’t even been competitive for 3 Olympic cycles. Most games just rise and fall from popularity too quickly to ever be Olympic viable.

2.) What Medal System Would Esports Use in the Olympics?

Reasonably, an ‘esport’ medal doesn’t work unless you attempt to bundle every esport into a monolithic event. In theory esports would need to be treated similar to gymnastics or swimming, multiple events under the esports banner for the whole cavalcade of games we play. Getting esports in the Olympics can’t be the goal, we would need to get games into the Olympics on an individual basis.

Which brings up question three.

3.) Who Would Control the In-Game Changes? The Olympics Committee?

Unlike traditional sports that are unowned but regulated videogames have companies behind them. Riot Games owns League of Legends, and right now they can do whatever they want with it. Even with this freedom they’ve still needed to modify existing champion designs to work within the Asian mobile market.

Olympic viability could be another shackle on creative freedom. If the IOC decides that characters are no longer allowed to use guns, do all involved games need to change or be kicked out? I’m not sure that design roller-coaster is worth it. Even that is ignoring game balance. Some games patch as often as once every two weeks. Would a company get accused of attempting to effect Olympic results by buffing or nerfing a strategy? And let me not even start with the evergreen question on who owns Dota 2.

4.) A Host of Other Issues

Beyond the larger issues above there are dozens of small problems that risk getting subpar solutions from the IOC as they’re not an esports focused organization.

Take game equipment for example, different countries are going to have access to different equipment on average, whether it’s for financial or basic access reasons. Does the Olympic committee force everyone onto 60hz monitors for a low common denominator? Or are some countries going to be expected to leap from easily accessible equipment into RTX 3090 gaming rigs with a standardized mouse, keyboard and headset? Would that equipment need to stay the same across all events?

Even that is ignoring the wider infrastructure issues like internet. Sure, the internet speeds in Europe are getting better as years go by, but the bigger picture is worse than you think. Even first world countries with smaller populations like Canada have subpar internet and play games on servers from other nearby countries. Canadians couldn’t train in Canada and expect a LAN-like connection. Not to mention countries without consistent or widespread internet in the first place.

Additionally, esports currently lacks organizations like the ISF, which regulate and host international sports competitions for athletes that are too young for esports. These organizations provide key regulations that standardize how counties engage with one another in sport. They are there to protect student athletes and esports doesn’t have a current equivalent.

In my article on women in esports I covered the current situation of female players, and we’ll face the same problem with Olympics as well.

Finally, even if esports made it into the Olympics, I don’t think it would be that popular or truly flourish as an event. Some Olympic competitions are already scored inscrutably to the average viewer and rely on the feats of raw athleticism to be entertaining. Even enfranchised players and watchers of esports, won’t know what constitutes impressive play or amazing mechanics in a game they don’t engage with.

I write about esports, and I wouldn’t be able to understand everything in every game. Try explaining the six million dollar echo slam to grandma when DoTA 2 comes on after the 200M Butterfly.

It’s hard to say that Olympic viability would be a big ‘win’ for esports. If a single game gets into the Olympics it might act as a marketing boost, but the average person watching the event would have no idea what’s going on.

So, Should Esports be Included in the Olympics?

No. Esports are their own thing, divorced from traditional sports, and similarly to how getting on ESPN has largely been an afterthought compared to streaming live events, getting into the Olympics shouldn’t be the goal. Meaning, esports should not be in the Olympics, I believe that we can make the industry better without needing the IOC to validate us.

If we want to have an international, multi-game competition the best way would be through a collaboration between an organization like the IESF and the companies that made the games, we need to create a more structured process than finding the best kids who’ve been grinding solo queue as much as they could.

School programs like the ISF should be started to treat esports like the competition it is, with the same gravitas and expectations of players that we see in traditional sports. Leagues and regulated competition with etiquette and equality rules will help break esports gender barrier and alleviate toxicity that spreads in the current online communities.

Collaboration between companies would allow for massively improved anti-cheat systems to ensure fair competition. Working directly with member counties would allow for esports infrastructure to get built where it’s currently lacking. Events where different players interact could alleviate the barrier between one esport and another.

It would require teamwork, but we can do so much better for esports than the Olympics.  Let the IOC have the traditional sports, and esports can build something new, it’s what we’ve been doing this whole time anyway.