With the growing popularity of mobile gaming traditional sports sidelined

Nowadays footballs and cricket bats has been replaced by video games as the stuff of childhood sporting memories for many kids across the world.

Joseph Biswas from Kolkata, India, stated the FIFA 09 video soccer game before 10 years ago, an online game.

Jake Boeding from Missouri, USA was barely in middle school when he was bitten by the gaming bug: “My parents finally got me my own system, which was a GameCube, and after that, it was Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, all that kind of stuff. I was just hooked and I’ve been gaming ever since.”

These casual video game experts across the globe helping turn “eSports” into one of the fastest-growing sports genres in the whole world. They became well liked and are on the agenda for the 2022 Asian Games and are even being considered for the Olympics.

Flurry Analytics reported, based on 2017 data, that the United States is the top country for mobile gaming with 20 per cent of all gaming sessions globally. India gets 13 per cent with second rank.

eSports are spreading so quickly, because competitive gaming leagues are streamed online, anyone with an internet connection can watch and play for free. This brings a common ground for young people like Boeding and Biswas across cultures.

Like other sports, some players go pro or compete at the collegiate level. The Columbia College eSports team is one of many from U.S. colleges facing off in the fantasy team strategy video game League of Legends.

 “We practice five days a week for two to three hours a day,” Coach Duong Pham said.

All this practice lets them put on quite a show for their fans.

“You just see this entire atmosphere of these fans that just love the game so much and it does have that community,” Boeding said. “It doesn’t necessarily feel like its two teams competing, but rather celebrating the game that everyone loves.”

Source: stltoday.com