Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

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It makes little sense to directly compare esports to traditional sports, aside from the name and the fact that competition is involved.

Esports' biggest issue is that the only real reason someone is going to start watching is because they play the game and want to see pros play it. Esports are usually not much fun to watch if you don't already love the game (neither are traditional sports).

The main reason to watch a sport is because you love the game on one hand, or you love the teams/players on the other. Traditional sports get a lot of the latter because there's history and inertia.

You don't have to love football to cheer for the Pats when you live in Boston. But you aren't going to cheer for the Boston Uprising (or even be aware that they exist) if you don't love Overwatch.

I think you’ve misread why people watch sports. The biggest reason to me seems to be nostalgia/family tradition. It’s a way to bring people together for a few hours. Beyond that I’d say second biggest reason is the thrill of competition. Related to “love of the game” but I think it’s much more about the human condition and struggle we all go through than you seem to think. Most people can relate to dedicating their selves to something and having their hard work pay off, and seeing that happen is a large part of the intrigue of sports.

This is actually my point. People by and large don’t love the game in traditional sports, they love the team and players because the history of the team is interwoven with their personal life (nostalgia/tradition)

In esports this tradition doesn’t exist because esports are new. So you only watch if you love the game.

Overwatch is a particularly interesting example to use here -- the reason the Boston Uprising exist is precisely because Blizzard went with the city based team model of traditional sports. I agree with the premise of your comment, but /most/ games have teams dissociated with locale, and OW is the outlier in that regard.

To your point, the Boston Pride are in a traditional sport and not as well known either. I'm sure Boston has a soccer club too but I wouldn't know their name.

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