Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue doesn’t like the esports trend. He doesn’t bunk with his peers in traditional sports who have leapt to invest in esports teams and leagues. And he doesn’t think esports are “sports”.
(Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)
I think Tagliabue and I would agree on one thing, which is that the term “esports” sucks. It sounds like a word invented by a table of suits trying to sell investors on buying a competitive video game team, and it appears to have worked. But it also encourages sanctimonious debate about the definition of the word “sport”. It’s like the endless intra-gamer debates about the definition of “game”, but even worse because of the jocks/nerds subtext.
That beef is maybe older than Tagliabue, and definitely older than I am. Despite how dust-covered this traditional sports dad’s take may be, I still felt my defensive hackles rising when he scoffed that:
My concern now is that things are being called sports that have nothing to do with sports or with the values of sport. I read about esports, and it’s – it’s not sports. The only physical activity is pushing keys. It’s not getting out there and being challenged physically, emotionally, psychologically.
Fight me, Paul. FIGHT ME!
No one needs a black belt to beat up an old man, but I do have one. My first paying job through high school and university was karate instructor, and since then, I’ve learned boxing too. But it wouldn’t be fair for me, a hale and powerful blogger, to pummel someone decades past his athletic prime, and my senseis would be pretty mad if they knew I was challenging old men to physical fights online. So I won’t.
In order to spare your papery old man skin from the fury of my fists, Paul, I challenge you to face me in Street Fighter, any version after SF2. You will feel the sting of your slow reaction time in comparison to mine, thanks to my muscle memory and the speed that my comparative youth affords to me. You will experience the emotional agony of defeat. And you will endure the psychological trickery that comes from getting owned by six throws in a row.
Hang on, Tagliabue has more takes. Here are additional falsehoods from this man who has probably never watched a professional video game tournament:
I’m concerned that more and more of our young people are being taken by technology away from the values of sport and some of the benefits of sport, in terms of sport as a microcosm of life. You prepare. You compete. You win or lose. You evaluate. You reevaluate. You re-prepare. You recompete. That’s what life’s about. Getting yourself better and better, and doing it against competition that’s demanding. I think that’s a real value which student athletes in the traditional sports are getting. I’m not sure that when we go to esports, it’s gonna be the same benefit.
How do I even debate someone this uninformed? Does Tagliabue not realise that competitive video games also require preparations, competing, winning and losing, evaluating, and, uh, reevaluating, repreparing and recompeting? I mean, I’d say it’s debatable as to whether “that’s what life’s about”, but it’s a demonstrable fact that competitive video games involve this exact list of verbs and re-verbs.
Perhaps Paul Tagliabue went to Shine 2017 this past year, watched the audience lift chairs over their heads in celebration, and thought, “I feel no emotional response to this.” Perhaps Paul Tagliabue watched Faker’s tear-streamed defeat at the League of Legends world championships, and thought, “This man pushes keys.” Perhaps Tagliabue has thoroughly checked out the world of competitive video games and he still thinks it’s shit.
More likely, though, he isn’t familiar with any of these pro players or teams or organisations. And, like the thousands of conversations I’ve had on first dates with people who ask, “Why would anyone watch someone else play a video game,” I can only make my case if the curious person in question wants to sit down and watch some pro Street Fighter with me.
Based on my bad dates and online comments sections, it isn’t just doddering sports honchos who think that esports aren’t “real” sports. And that’s why I’m going to fight Tagliabue at Street Fighter in front of all of you, to finally prove… that, uh, I can win at Street Fighter against some old man who my Dad probably has heard of, unlike all the other men that I cover on this website.
Comments
18 responses to “Fight Me, Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, In Real Life Or Street Fighter”
I dont classify Horse racing or motorsports as sports either.
Move on.
Do you have any idea how fit you need to be to drive an F1 car, albeit any racing car?
Motorsports is probably the one of the most intense things you can do, most professional drivers have intense training programs to withstand insane g-forces, on top of that, the skill and stamina it takes to drive for hours on end. It takes as much or even more to win an F1 GP than a single Football match, both physically and mentally, it also has the most potential for a fatal accident than any sport there is.
Much different to playing a MOBA, it’s actually laughable. E-Sports aren’t sports. They are competitive outlets and it is so cringe worthy when anybody calls them that or associates them with the term sport. Competitive gaming is a much more fitting term.
Dont care. I dont classify racing as a sport.
eSports are sport in the same way that darts and snooker are.
E-sports aren’t sports, never will be. Just enjoy them for what they are. A complete and utter waste of time that contributes 0 to society.
If ballroom dancing and horse dancing are Olympic sorts, playing video games it a sport too.
esports are not sports. That’s why they have different names…you know…esports and sports. That would indicate they are two different things.
Yeah I haven’t really got into esports. But then again I haven’t gotten into ‘real’ sports either, so maybe esports is a sport?
Yeah, some people don’t like what I like either. It’s okay though, I call it freedom.
I’d rather fight current NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for what he’s done to my lovely Cowboys!
“eSports” sounds bloody stupid anyway. Why not just call it “professional gaming” or “competitive gaming” or something like that? It’s a better description of what it is, and would save us all from debates like this.
Unfortunately “gaming” has been stolen by gambling.
Then it’s time to steal it back!
Silly old man.
People also used to think the earth was the centre of the universe and flat, nintendo was doomed, Zac Snyder could make a decent DC Comics film…
Some geniuses still think the earth is flat.
I don’t think you are former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
haha ‘esports’ is real sport?
Maybe if you listen to the people who are trying to make money off it but the reality is its just a hobby like fishing.