Thanks to the coronavirus, March Madness is canceled, the NBA season was suspended, and Opening Day of the baseball season never happened. The 2021 Olympics are postponed, and the Little League season has been shut down. So, one unforeseen side effect of this societal shutdown is that the emerging, once-obscure category of quasi-athletics known as “esports” is pretty much the only type of sports left.
It’s experiencing something of a surge in popularity as a result.
For those outside of Generation Z who don’t spend their days buried in the various layers of the internet, esports are professional-level video game competitions. This isn’t some fringe fad: The world of esports has become a $1 billion industry.
Whether competitions focus on warfare games or sports-centered video games such as the NFL-style Madden football simulator and the globally popular soccer video game FIFA, any professional video-game competition can count as esports. They’re often played in various forms of team competition, with big prize money at stake.
And esports are only getting more popular during the coronavirus shut-in.
“Esports, or competitive video gaming, is on the rise, with people tuning in to everything from Counter-Strike to League of Legends,” Time magazine reports. “Viewership on Twitch, the go-to site for game streamers, is up 31% in March, by one estimate. People stuck inside are playing more video games, no doubt. But they’re also watching the world’s best gamers take one another on, too.”
The question of whether esports are “really sports” will continue to divide critics and fans. While there’s no doubting the fact that they don’t bring the same health benefits as traditional athletics, it’s still better during the coronavirus shutdown for people to have some form of recreational competition to connect over — and someone to root for.
