IOC Unanimously Votes to Create the Olympic Esports Games
The IOC (International Olympic Committee) voted today to create an Olympic Event for Esports. The vote was passed unanimously at the 142nd IOC Session in Paris and the session chose the NOC (National Olympic Committee) of Saudi Arabia for the next 12 years.
The first games will take place in 2025 in Saudi Arabia.
“This is truly a new era for the IOC. With the confirmation by the IOC Session of the creation of the Olympic Esports Games, we are keeping up with the pace of the digital revolution,” said Thomas Bach, President of the IOC.
This is a massive step for the recognition and argument that Esports should be recognized as a real sport like other sports such as soccer, baseball, football and basketball are regarded as in today’s society. The biggest issue with trying to grow a more mainstream approach to Esports is the stigma it has in society, more importantly how a large majority of the world still views video games in a negative connotation.
Video games are still seen as “wastes of time,” with many people having an image of what a typical “video gamer” looks like.
This comes while the Esports World Cup holds its inaugural tournament holding events for 21 total games ranging from Counter-Strike 2 to TEKKEN 8 and EA FC 2024. Esports took a gigantic hit during the worldwide pandemic bleeding viewership and with the lack of live events many games Esports scenes faded away with a lack of interest.
Since 2022, Esports have been slowly getting back to their original popularity with the Grand Finals of the Esports World Cup in Counter-Strike 2 having a peak viewership of 756,000 live viewers.
The Overwatch World Cup is a perfect example of what the event will look like for the Olympic Esports Game.
This decision is a historic one and will be a great step forward towards putting Esports as a whole in front of a more mainstream audience.
