Studies such as those done by media marketing company Nielsen have made it apparent that social media has no doubt allowed for significant expansion of access to information. This access allows people to connect with some of their more niche hobbies. Not only are these sports becoming more popular but it also attracts more growth strategies such as more sponsorships. 

TikTok has been a successful conduit for this access to information. People will become interested in topics they have never heard of before because the algorithm just happened to show them a video on the subject. There have been two major revelations from TikTok regarding niche sports. The first is that there are sports that I have never heard of, like Professional Face Slapping. The second is the significant expansion of previously niche sports, like Esports. 

Face slapping, originating in Russia, involves two competitors taking turns slapping each other across the face until one person surrenders or is knocked out. While the sport has generated controversy due to its violent nature, it has also gained a loyal following online and now has its own world championship event.

Esports, or competitive video gaming, has exploded in popularity in recent years. Millions of people tune in to watch professional gamers compete in games like League of Legends, Fortnite and Dota 2. Esports has become a legitimate industry, with tournaments offering millions of dollars in prize money. Professional teams and players can even find sponsorship deals with major brands.

Niche sports also serve as a way to preserve traditions and history. For example, jousting, rooted in medieval times, may seem like a relic of the past. However, jousting is still alive and well today thanks to a dedicated community of enthusiasts who compete in tournaments around the world.

In the end, niche sports remind us of the limitless potential of human creativity and ingenuity. They allow us to push the boundaries of what we believe is possible and inspire us to discover new worlds and experiences. So, the next time you are looking for something new and exciting, consider trying a niche sport – you never know what you might discover.

At first, it was just a headline on Twitter – you scarcely noticed it. Some computer game had a tournament in Korea or something, you don’t know. Now it’s 2019 and your kid cousin won’t stop quoting Overwatch taunts and talking about Ninja streams – whatever those are – at Sunday dinner. What happened? He tells you he’s into e-sports now.

“E-sports?” you think to yourself. “What the hell are e-sports? How can a computer game be a sport?”

Encompassing numerous games with a variety of play styles, e-sports – as they have come to be called – occupy an odd niche in our entertainment landscape. As an activity, they dwell just below the surface of the mainstream, such that its existence has largely been signaled through only the occasional rumbling on social media, hardly to be noticed alongside the day’s other trending hashtags. And yet ESPN certainly sees something of worth – given their quick expansion into streaming the $900 million industry, beginning with a partnership with Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends.

Encompassing real-time strategy, first-person shooters and virtual card games. What first stands out to most who are unfamiliar with the genre is the odd, perhaps contrived title: why call it a sport if it is a virtual and not physical activity? There are a number of justifications. In team-based games such as Starcraft or League of Legends, the teams have a rigorous practice schedule. In 2015, one member of “Team Liquid,” a professional League of Legends team, reported practicing 50 hours a week with his team. Clearly, to think of this activity as “just clicks on a keyboard” and not also a physical endeavor seems inappropriate in this light.

The first instance of e-sports as an activity is hard to pin down. Short of informal contests around arcade cabinets, it can likely be traced back to the late 90s/early 2000s LAN parties – where the first generation of players would gather to play multiplayer shooters such Counter-Strike, team-based arena fighters like DOTA or strategy games like Starcraft. Organizing their meetings on the forums which used to dot the early internet, these were a far cry from the corporate sponsorships and stadium seating of today.The first officially-sanctioned instance of this came in 1997 with the Quake: Red Annihilation Tournament. The grand prize for the tournament was the winner getting to take a ride in the Software developer John Carmack’s Ferrari. Compared to the $1 million prize taken home by Overwatch championship team London Spitfire in 2018, the 1997 prize seems almost condescending.

E-sports are necessarily an outgrowth of communications technology, and this is demonstrated best not just by the ability of players to connect and play from all over the globe, but also in its achievement of popularity to begin with. The mainstream channels by which the genre is seen today came after the fact. Broadcasting e-sports and creating an audience for them originates in the once-novel, now de rigueur practice of livestreaming. Today, this is dominated by the website Twitch.tv, which according to a May 2018 study by TechCrunch, boasts traffic from roughly 15 million users monthly, 2.2 million of which are broadcasters themselves. Virtually all content on the platform is related to video gaming, with e-sports making up the majority of programming.

Streaming sites existed before Twitch, in the form of the occasionally slow and difficult-to-monetize sites like hitbox.tv, now smashcast.tv and own3d.tv – the former of which competes with Twitch, while the other is now defunct. Of course, some may find it strange at first to watch a game rather than play it. Those should be reminded how many masses of people watch football on television religiously but find themselves winded walking up steps. Additionally, the global nature of the internet has allowed streaming and gaming to intertwine people all over the world, making this video game hobby an international phenomenon.

Even still, the genre exists close to home as well. That’s certainly been proven the case at nearby Park University, which will see the first collegiate e-sports program in the Kansas City metro area, with scholarships to be added next year. However, one of the advantages of a hobby in one of these games is the ease with which a team can form without sponsorship – demonstrated by another local operation: the Gameroos of UMKC, whose meetings are facilitated in club format. Perhaps some Jewelligans will be next in line.

Teams are composed of players that were selected in the NBA 2K League draft April 4. Players were declared eligible for both the 2K League draft and the pre-draft 2K League combine, an event in which these players were allowed to showcase their “NBA 2K” skills to professional teams, if they were able to win 50 games with their personally created NBA avatar player. These 50 games could be won in one versus one games against other players or team versus team games.

Seventeen NBA franchises have partnered with the 2K League in creating teams based around their cities. The 17 teams in the inaugural 2K League season are the Dallas Mavs Gaming; Boston Celtics Crossover Gaming; Utah Jazz Gaming; Sacramento Kings Guard Gaming; Detroit Pistons GT; Portland Blazer5 Gaming; Miami Heat Check Gaming; Orlando Magic Gaming; New York Knicks Gaming; Milwaukee Bucks Gaming; Toronto Raptors Uprising GC; Washington, D.C. Wizards District Gaming; Indiana Pacers Gaming; Philadelphia 76ers GC; Memphis Grizz Gaming; Cleveland Cavs Legion GC; and the Golden State Warriors Gaming Squad.

The inaugural season will begin in May. Regular season games will be Fridays and Saturdays with teams facing off head-to-head each week. Teams will participate in 14 regular season matchups with three tournaments spaced throughout the season for teams to win prize money and increase their playoff seeding.

The playoff matchups will begin August 17, with the top seven win-loss records in the league and the final tournament winner guaranteed playoff spots. The quarterfinal round will be single-game eliminations, and the semifinals and finals will be best-of-three series with the winning team taking home over $500 thousand in winnings.

Photo courtesy of miastogier.pl

“Overwatch” is a hero-based competitive first-person shooter multiplayer game in which teams are composed of six players. Each player selects a different “hero” character from the 26 characters available on the roster, each of whom has their own specific abilities, weaknesses and personalities.

Photo courtesy of Game Revolution

Each team of six then works with other members of their team to either complete the given objective of that game mode or stop the other team from completing it. Once the time limit has been reached or one team has completed the objective, the game is awarded and the successful team receives one point.

The OWL matches consist of four games, unless there is a tie of 2-2, in which case there is a tiebreaker game.

After international professional players signed contracts to join the league in July 2017, they began being drafted onto OWL teams.

OWL was announced in November 2016, with the intent of being the first major eSports league with city-based teams, similar to American sports leagues, where “teams and players thrive for years to come.” After a short preseason in December 2017, Blizzard appears to have reached its goal with the OWL kicked into full force in January.

Photo courtesy of Overwatchleague.com

The OWL regular season is divided into four stages that will span from Jan. 10 to June 16. Within each stage, there are five weeks of head-to-head matchups between teams, occurring Wednesday through Saturday. Each team will play two games each week, all of which will occur at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, Calif. Each game counts toward a team’s overall record, which will determine postseason standings. At the end of each stage, the best performing teams compete for bonuses and to be crowned “Stage Winner.”

The postseason consists of the top teams from both divisions, Atlantic and Pacific, and has a familiar playoff bracket system that will run from July 11 to July 22. The OWL finals will take place July 26 through July 28, with the first ever OWL champions getting bragging rights, a trophy and a $1 million prize.

Photo courtesy of Overwatchleague.com

After the first four weeks of competition, the London Spitfire and New York Excelsior, both in the Atlantic division, are atop the standings with a record of 7-1. The Seoul Dynasty are the current leaders of the Pacific division at 6-2 with the Los Angeles Valiant close behind at 5-3. The Houston Outlaws, Boston Uprising and Philadelphia Fusion round out the top of the Atlantic division, all with a record of 5-3. The San Francisco Shock and Los Angeles Gladiators of the Pacific division have had a rough start so far, both teams currently 3-5. The Dallas Fuel and Florida Mayhem from the Pacific and Atlantic respectively, are looking to save their seasons after 1-7 starts. Finally, the Shanghai Dragons are likely disappointed as they have begun the season 0-8.

Fans of the OWL can catch the action on Twitch, Overwatchleague.com, MLG.com, and the OWL app.

Photo courtesy of Overwatchleague.com