From March to June 2023, the first Olympic eSports Series will take place. This is the Olympics’ first serious foray into hosting competitive esports. In this monumental event, the Olympics board chose a handful of esports for players to showcase their prowess. They might not be the kind of games you expect, though.
All events in the Olympics eSports Series
The Olympics have announced nine events for their Olympics eSports Series. The Olympics Tokyo previously had a video game tie-in with SEGA called Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game, but 2023 is the first time non-Olympics video games will be affiliated with them as official competitive sports. These events all reflect traditional Olympics sports, trying to connect the world of gaming with much more “classic” sporting events.
- Archery (World Archery Federation, Tic Tac Bow)
- Baseball (World Baseball Softball Confederation, WBSC eBASEBALL™: POWER PROS)
- Chess (International Chess Federation, Chess.com)
- Cycling (UCI, Zwift)
- Dance (World DanceSport Federation, JustDance)
- Motor sport (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, Gran Turismo)
- Sailing (World Sailing, Virtual Regatta)
- Taekwondo (World Taekwondo, Virtual Taekwondo)
- Tennis (International Tennis Federation, Tennis Clash)
Why aren’t the top competitive esports in the Olympics eSports Series?
While the Olympics eSport Series is a big deal for the world of esports, the esports community has a complicated relationship with the way their community will be showcased. The Olympics board chose exclusively games that reflected their more “traditional” sports values, instead of the games the esports community is actually playing. Games like Counterstrike, Dota 2, and League of Legends are some of the biggest competitive esports games in the world, but they are nowhere to be seen in the eSports Olympics.
This has caused some conflict with the esports community because while this event does bring more eyes to the esports scene, it doesn’t reflect what the esports world is like. Only Gran Turismo, Just Dance, and Chess.com have well-sized and active competitive scenes. The rest are microscopic compared to Fighting games, shooters, and MOBAs. The esports community has brought up this concern since the Olympics eSports Series was announced, but the Olympics board has barrelled forward with their traditional, but highly inaccurate, choices.
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If the Olympics board wanted to meld Olympian tradition and the esports reality, they could’ve chosen some popular more “classically” sports games like NBA 2K, FIFA, iRacing.com, or Madden NFL 22. Instead, they chose more obscure games that only leave the community they’re trying to “include” confused and frustrated.
