Sports have always been regarded as feats of brute strength and physical ability. This has been believed since the first Olympics in Rome, where only the biggest and best competed. The truth, however, is far from this. Modern sports now require high mental capability, in order to sufficiently assess the situation and make a decision. Many people believe that all sports should require physical exertion; a growing debate assesses this, with the opposing side believing that online gaming should also be considered a sport. Online multiplayer gaming should be considered a sport, for a number of positive reasons; one of the most prominent among these is the similarity of mental work between games and sports. Physical sports, as before mentioned, require a large amount of mental processing. This was proven by a study carried out at the University of Illinois. 18 college athletes and 18 non-athletes were brought into the lab. The volunteers wore virtual reality glasses and, in a simulated environment, were asked to cross a busy road. The athletes performed better than the non-athletes. They did not, however, perform better because they sprinted across. The athletes seemed to be better at checking for traffic before taking a step. As said by Laura Chaddock, one of the psychologists conducting the study: “It actually seemed like these athletes were somehow able to think faster.” A similar study was conducted at the National Academy of Sciences. Perceptual tasks, which
Thoughts and actions of mentally tough athletes are mental plan (pregame and game), emotional control, optimal arousal, confidence, intrinsic motivation, optimism, controlled anxiety, concentration and attentional control (alert and mentally focused), performs automatically, proper situational appraisal (challenge and threat),good coping skills (deals effectively with adversity) projects a positive attitude (positive body language) sense of enjoyment in the competitive setting.
An article produced by psychologists around the United States says that sports/athleticism makes people remember and react faster than the average person. A person's athleticism can shape a person's mindset and sharpen a person's skills in whatever they pursue in the future. Making effective decisions while under any amount of pressure is a skill to be tested rather than a typical IQ test because in the story of "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, the main character Rainsford, finds himself in a serious life-or-death situation where he has to think fast and effectively to get out of the predicament. Rainsford thought of an effective way to get out of the situation that he had found himself in and in the end got out of the predicament by using his time wisely and reacting to what he deemed best fit in such little time. Whether he was going to lose to his capture or win against him, he used his skill effectively to get out of his situation.
Sports are very vital. They offer a lifestyle, an occupation, and even a dream. Sports require physical activity and skill in which a team or an individual compete against others for entertainment. As David G. McComb comments in "Sports in World History", "there is a high degree of training, investment, and coaching, along with spectators, rules, publicity, and institutional control that come along with these activities." While participating in sports, it is required to be able to undertake a difficult situation and perform the best out of it. Sports are definitely more than just a game.
Mental strength and agility is just as important as physical prowess in sports. In the debate over the importance of physical prowess and mental agility in sports, Sanneh and Heinrich have similar views, with Sanneh supporting the idea that the ability to think while playing football is just as important as running in “What Could Be Better Than A Touchdown”, and Heinrich suggests that the ability to think while or before running a “race” is just as important as their physical strength and endurance.
On the other hand African American and female students alleged that African American athletes are more competitive and have a different playing style (Sailes 1993). From relevant literature it has been found that the statement made on how athletes are not academically smart enough compared to the average student is proven incorrect due to a number of the following studies illustrating a positive correlation between the increased amount of physical activity being associated with higher academic performance, as well as positively influencing concentration, memory and classroom behaviour (Trudeau & Shepard 2008) (Eitle & Eitle 2002) (Bailey 2006) (Coe et al
Last year’s League of Legends tournament racked up an acme of 11.2 billion viewers while the NHL (National Hockey League) Final only hit 8 million. These statistics show just how popular video games are and must be recognized as sport. Video games should recognized as sport, for they meet the requirements and compared to other sport they are similar in terms of requiring skill and having scholarships.
When you say "eSports should be broadcasted on television like any other sport," the response is inevitably: "You do know playing video games is not a sport, right?" I am totally okay honestly with that response. Some people may argue that eSports is more of a sport than some sports that get mainstream coverage and are widely considered sports, sports like Nascar, golf, cheerleading, bowling, and fishing. eSports feature live competitions between teams performed in front of an audience of thousands in person and millions watching from home every week.
“The Rules are simple, destroy the enemy, take their flag” Video games are a skillful, and mindful entertainment; the only differences-sports requires more physical training and less mind tuition, while video games require more of the latter. Major League Gaming needs to write a letter to the Government to make video games a sport.
Video games have been around for many years and so has competitive gaming. The first video game was created around 1970 and was Pong. Pong required one or two players to play. The players would play next to each other and the game required both players to move the courser to the ball and knock in to the other player’s side. Pong was the first competitive video game because you could play with another person. The video game industry now is a very big market and is suspected to be an 86 billion dollar industry in 2016 (A Classification Of Business Models In Video Game Industry). For the past couple of years video competitions have gotten really popular and now there is a franchise called eSports that hosts gaming competitions in big areas. “The past several year’s eSports have seen meteoric growth in dozens of markets, attracting tens of millions of viewers each year in the United States, alone” (Hollist). Esports is made up of many different games and each game has different teams that specialize in the game that they are competing in. E-Sports 89 million viewers in 2014 and is suspected to grow to 145 million in 2017. ("Red Bull Media Readies ESports Studio for Prime Time."). Competitive gaming should be recognized as a sport because each team has a sponsor. The sponsors pay for all associated costs of the player’s gaming including, but not limited to, plane tickets, hotel rooms, and food. In return the teams have to wear the
Today in sports athletes endure many mental and physical obstacles from there competitive environment. Many of today's best athletes work with sports psychologists to help them handle the pressures found in this competitive atmosphere. One question that athletes ask is, why cant they play in big games as well as they anticipate themselves doing? Sports psychologists feel that spending all their time on body conditioning and athletic skills will not ensure that athletes reach their peak performance.
It has been identified that through sports psychology one can improve their physical ability and performance. Sports psychology is the study of how the mind, mental states and behaviour effect sporting performance. There are several sport psychology techniques, which have helped me become a better volleyball player. These techniques include planning for performance, controlling arousal levels, mental rehearsal and concentration.
In earlier days sports psychology was mostly concerned with developing assessment methods that would identify those people with the potential to become serious superior athletes. Today the focus is on psychological training, exercises that strengthen the mental skills that will help athletic performances on the path to excellence. These skills include mental imagery and focus training. If an athlete is serious about becoming the best he or she can possibly be, the most essential ingredient is commitment to practice the right things. It takes incredible commitment to reach the top: a commitment to rest and train the body so it can perform under the most demanding conditions and a commitment to train the mind to
Sport is healthy, as more and more research shows. For example, sport ensures that certain substances in the body are released, which have a significant effect on the brains. These compounds support brain functions and increase the ability to decision making process. Research has shown that elderly people who on a daily basis have a medium to heavy physical effort of at least 30 minutes have a better cognitive performance
Along with many other sports, much skill is necessary to compete. Gragan Starrm a writer for the Christian Science Monitor explains how people in gaming consider video games require equal amounts of strategy, teamwork, training, and reflexiveness as real sports (Starr). Major sports like soccer and football require tremendous amount of skill, and gaming is no exception. Alejandro Viramontes, a reporter, strongly relates chess to video games, and how similar they are, “...you have to practice and you have to understand the rules of each game-and how each game works” (Can Video Gaming Be Considered an Actual Sport? ). As a result, each sport and video game require training, as there are steep learning curves for each sport and game. Along with individual skill, teamwork is especially needed for both video games and sports. As Aileen Cerrudo describes it perfectly, athletes are alike gamers including the level of teamwork (Should “eSports” Be Considered As a Sport?). Most video games require teamwork to help win; they can’t win by just one person. This is exactly like most of the sports world wide are like, for example hockey and
Sports have been around for centuries, dating back to 776 BC with the first Olympic Games. Ancient civilizations like the Egyptian, Greeks and Mayans all had a sport they enjoyed taking part in. They were created to bring people together and help them settle disputes or conflicts in an organized manner. Great leaders of the ancient world saw a fascination in sports and made it part of their reign to promote the human’s natural competitiveness. Since then, new sports have emerged and also new reasons for one to play. New sports evolve every day all over the world. Everywhere in social media and magazines you will find images of famous athletes and their achievements. Not much history has been left behind by these famous civilizations except for some cave paintings and stories passed down through generations. However, these sports have helped new ones all over the world flourish and the competitive aspect has been kept intact with some modifications to minimize some of its historical brutality.