International E-sports participants recieve same visas as professional athletes
By Jace Riley ’16
THE ROUNDUP
Sports have been an American pastime for some time, but there might be a new sport on the way.
E-sports, or electronic sports, are video-games with a professional scene and large tournaments.
At Brophy, there are two clubs that involve two of the biggest games on the e-sport scene.
These two games are “Dota 2” and “League of Legends.”
Both games are considered to be in the genre of MOBA, or multiplayer online battle arena.
This year alone more than one million viewers watched “The International 3,” which is the “Dota 2” championship, according to Polygon.com. Also, 13,000 live viewers watched the “League of Legends” world final along with more than eight million online viewers, according to Neoseeker.com.
These events have large followings and prize pools.
For winning the “League of Legends” tournament, the winning team got $1 million out of an $8 million prize pool.
Both club leaders said that they follow pro scene and have a few favorite teams.
“Usually going into it, it’s either TSM because they are like the North American favorites, but going into worlds its SKT-1is really fun and Faker is like one of the best mids,” said Glenn Ferm ’15, leader of the “League of Legends” club.
A common argument people bring out is if E-Sports should even be considered sports at all.
The U.S. government issued Danny Le, a professional gamer and Canadian, a P-1A visa. This allows him to move in with his new team to train with them.
This visa has also been given to David Beckham.
“They have some of the same elements like in real, physical sports we have today…it certainly can happen,” said Kyle Chapman ’14, co-leader of the “Dota 2” club.
Both of these games have huge followings and take skill, yet some don’t consider it a sport or the players athletes.
“What prevents it from being that of sports? Because the game changes,” according to a post on teamliquid.net.
Physical sports will only change a rule very rarely.
E-sports can add new characters or change the entire game in a simple download.
