Client Echo Fox on FOX Business
Professional eSports players could compete for Olympic gold alongside triathletes and swimmers at the Summer Games, if proponents are successful in their effort to establish video games as a legitimate international sport.
With the International Olympic Committee’s approval, the International eGames Committee held a pop-up competitionOpens a New Window. last week at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event occurred months after theInternational eSports FederationOpens a New Window. – a would-be global organizing body backed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba – formally contacted the IOC on how to pursue inclusion as an Olympic sport. The evaluation process could begin by as soon as December 2016.
As a relatively new and often misunderstood industry, eSports will have to navigate a series of logistical hurdles and built-in stigmas about video games to gain acceptance as a sport, in a process that could take years rather than months. But industry leaders, including Jace Hall, the chief executive officer of eSports franchise Echo Fox, are betting that an Olympic debut will show sports fans and television audiences alike that video games aren’t just a mindless pastime for couch-bound teenagers.
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