Are you familiar with E-Sports? Well, don't be alarmed if you're not familiar with it yet. You are not alone. If you think basketball, baseball, or football is the most popular sport today, then you have to reconsider.
According to CNet, E-Sports have gone from merely a niche into a near-mainstream sport in just a decade. Microsoft's Halo is considered the father of E-Sports as it was the first game to participate in the event a couple of years ago. After Halo, Blizzard's StarCraft and World of Warcraft took charge that catapulted the sport into stardom and have paved the way for other games to participate in the event.
In the most recent E-Sport event in Los Angeles, Nintendo's Super Smash Bros was the superstar. According to Nintendo's United States' division president, Reggie Fils-Aime, it took them two years to prepare for the event. The Nintendo executive also participated in the event and controlled Street Fighter's Ryu but bowed down to a pink Pokémon in just 3 minutes and 4 seconds.
The sport also offers large purse for winners like what Valve's DOTA 2 competition did since they started the competition in 2012. So far, Valve has given out a rough estimate of $15 million in prizes and amassed more than 9.6 million followers of the strategic game.
Because of the sport's popularity, sports TV network giant ESPN has also jumped into the bandwagon. ESPN magazine has issued a magazine that headlined E-Sports featuring stories about the sport and profiles of League of Legends superstar player from South Korea.
Software giant Microsoft and Consumer Electronics multi-billion company Sony also joined in, featuring their Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.
NYTimes also said that the fast emerging sport has attracted millions of crowds and prizes at the same time. On their article, NYTimes cited that E-Sports have made wonders and helped big leap on sales on companies like Valve. The article also said that the US government started to issue visas, similar to the visas that are given to traditional athletes, to E-Sports participants.
