Have you ever imagined having an eSports Olympics? It looks like it’s coming for years to come! O International Olympic Committee (IOC) is studying the possibility of creating the eSports Olympic Games, as announced by the entity’s president, Thomas Bach, last Saturday (14).
I asked our new commission dedicated to eSports to study the creation of Olympic Gamessaid Bach during the 141st IOC session in Mumbai, India.
At the time, the director stated that there are 3 billion people playing video games around the world. According to estimates, among these people, more than 500 million are interested in eSports, which include virtual sports and sports simulators. Most of these people are under 34 years old.
The IOC has already had some experience in this area. The Committee organized the eSports Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2018, and in 2021 it held the Olympic Virtual Series, its first pilot project in the world of eSports, including the classification phase. The project attracted more than 500,000 participants, generating more than 6 million live viewers across all channels, with 75% of the audience aged between 13 and 34.
Then came Olympic eSports Week in Singapore at the beginning of the year, where the IOC managed to bring together the Olympic and eSports communities. The event featured live finals, where more than 130 players competed in ten categories, in addition to a great audience.
The IOC president highlighted the importance of following the younger mentality and listening to these generations, and recalled that one of the principles of the 2020 Olympic Agenda is that sport goes where people are: in this case, to the digital universe. However, he stressed that artificial intelligence can be a risk and that the IOC must have control. Therefore, a group of experts is already working on analyzing this new technology.
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