A Not-Boring History Lesson 4 What Are Esports 6 Let’s Get It Started 8 Finding Your Game 10 Tournaments 14 The Life of the Pros 18 Step Aside Boys 22 Casters 24 You Can Do It Too 26 It’s All About the Fans 28 Glossary 30 For More Information 31 Index 32 Words in the glossary appear in bold type the first time they are used in the text CONTENTS
a NOT-BORING HISTORY LESSON The first sports people competed in were wrestling and running back in ancient Greece Thousands packed into stadiums to watch athletes compete in the very first Olympic Games Today millions of people watch a new kind of sport with a new type of athlete These competitions feature aliens soldiers orcs and more Electronic sports or esports have famous players and tournaments from the local to the international level Do you love gaming and competing Esports are perfect for you These sports rely on strategy instant decision making and quick actions Esports are rapidly becoming as popular as sports such as football soccer and tennis 4
As long as there have been video games there have been video game competitions Even one of the very first video games ever Pong let players face each other in a simple version of electronic tennis 5 The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network or ESPN was created in 1979 It’s the leading TV network for sports news and includes eight US cable channels 26 international channels two radio stations many websites and a magazine Recently ESPN has started covering esports news which can be found at espn com esports Esports have seen huge audience growth since ESPN began reporting on them ESPN
