The infrastructure of sports is expansive and expensive, with stadiums for individual teams, established leagues, dedicated sports radio stations, and billion-dollar TV deals. As an up-and-coming industry, esports are starting to build their own infrastructure of stadiums, leagues, and networks. Just like with the NFL or NBA, this infrastructure can be complicated and contain many layers.
As we take a closer look at esports infrastructure and what pieces are required to help this growing sector mirror what we’ve seen with more traditional sports, the first question for many is how does a game actually become considered a sport?
How a game, or video game, becomes a sport
In order for a game to become a sport, it must meet several fundamental requirements. Specifically, the biggest differences between a game and a sport are a common set of rules for gameplay, enforcement of those rules through a sporting league, and spectators. Moreover, when enforcing rules, a sporting league must deliver a fair competitive environment for players. This is typically represented in the form of a referee or umpire officiating the rules.
When considering these elements in the online world, the path for a video game to become an esport has been in the works for almost 50 years. The same concepts present in offline sports need to be adapted in esports to create technologies such as real-time cheating and fraud detection, along with player management tools. In an offline sport, the officiating is visible through the referees overseeing the competition. With video games and esports, the act of officiating is much more complex. It takes a huge amount of time and financial investment to develop and maintain for any single game, let alone multiple games.
Despite the complexity and depth required, this sophisticated technology has been built. When looking at the number of players currently involved in esports, the established rules, the leagues and tournaments, the potential prize money involved, and the viewership options like TV, online and live events — it’s clear that esports have evolved well beyond games and into the realm of true sports.
Layers of esports infrastructure
The framework needed to deliver a fair environment for esports is found within the…