So what first attracted you to the multi-billion dollar esports industry? | | Commonwealth Games 2022

S.How are you, fellow children?the game has arrived Commonwealth Games Saturday at the first Commonwealth Esports Championships. A variety of interesting questions were asked during his two-day exhibition event at the International Convention Center. What convinced the ailing Commonwealth Games Federation about this multi-billion dollar industry with millions of participants that they should fold it along with squash and grass bowls? mosquito?

Thankfully, Katie Sadleir, CGF’s Chief Executive Officer, is here to explain. “We want to be sharp, relatable and embracing new sports,” she said.

Sports like Rocket League. This is his 3×3 football done by a turbocharged flying car. The championship had 109 players from 20 different regions, most of whom were knocked out in the qualifying rounds. One won a bronze medal between Australia and South Africa, the other a gold medal between England and Wales.

Wales, who brought in dozens of fans, won easily.So let history show the first Commonwealth esports The champions are George Ruschecki, Owain Lloyd Lamb and Ewan Ingram, better known as Breige, Foxy and Tadpole.

But it was a hopeless business. It wasn’t the best game to spend screen time with, nor the players, who were mostly teenagers, but all the executives were looking to get in on the action.

The CGF has partnered with a non-profit organization called the Global Esports Federation, founded in 2019. If it’s going to be legal, it’s an old man in a suit telling kids in hoodies what to do.

you know them They are the same kind that run all these sports. Their interest in this is strictly transactional. With this particular deal, the GEF gains credibility to be included in multisport championships it hopes to enter into negotiations with the International Olympic Committee, while the CGF gains a share of the audience. I usually pull in.

The first medal was a bronze won by three Australian children aged 16, 18 and 19: Ty Kibble, Finn Mawer and Josh Watters.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Kibble said. “Commonwealth he never actually saw the game.” Well, he’s not the only one learning. “I think he’s 57,” Sadorea says.

Perhaps her daughter, who works for the GEF, seems to be filling her in. Apparently Sadorea knows full well that esports is as rigorous and demanding as any other sport at venues around Birmingham this weekend.

“There are a range of sports with different physicals and different challenges. What I love about sports is creating opportunities for people to become extraordinary through practice, and these people practice,” she said. said.

Like the Topialists, the CGF has yet to hand out medals. I don’t think their business has a billion-dollar market valuation from Goldman Sachs.

“Gamers have high-performance coaches, they have nutritionists, they have doctors who work on posture and vision and mindset. So this is a sport. That’s my perception.”

Former synchronized swimmer Sadorea, who worked for World Rugby for years, should be perplexed by this argument. She sounds like Will Ferrell’s character in Blades of Glory explains his sex addiction. doctor and all”.

There are many reasons to be cynical about Big Sport, but at the root of it all is the idea that letting more kids play is clearly a good thing. On the other hand, one of the arguments you don’t hear too often is that the world would be a better place if only children used their phones more.

Esports already has its own championship. And when you wipe everything out about their power to build communities and bring people together, the only argument left for including them in the game is the fact that a lot of people think they’re fun to watch. It begins and ends with the truth of being there. A lot of cash made from helping them do that. Don’t ask how much money is spent on teenagers playing games.

Still, it’s happening now. Esports will be included in this year’s Asian Games, and the CGF is looking to fully integrate them into its Commonwealth Games programme, with the IOC also eyeing them.

There’s been a lot of talk about how this is a ‘watershed moment’ for esports, and they’ve ‘finally reached the big age’. was an acronym for everything I stumbled upon myself in my haste to put them there, not because there were medals hanging around the player’s neck.