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ESPN boss says eSports are not "real sports"

ESPN President John Skipper doesn't have much time for video games, apparently. Has anybody told him about the money?

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Speaking at the Code/Media Series: New York conference last week, Skipper said flat out that he doesn't consider eSports part of ESPN's editorial remit.

“It’s not a sport — it’s a competition," he said, as reported by re/code.

"Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition.

"Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports."

Of course, what makes this kind of amusing is that The International, Dota 2's 2014 world championship, was broadcast on ESPN3.

Each to their own of course, but eSports is certainly a rising scene, and there's huge money in it that ESPN could be getting a slice of. Maybe it should follow the example of Robert Morris University, which is offering a League of Legends athletic scholarship, and open its arms to shooters, MOBAs and the like.

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Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

Contributor

Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

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