Sports Videogames And Sports - Symbiotic Or Parasitic?

Thanks to CNN Money for their column discussing whether sports themselves are helped or hurt by the increased popularity of sports videogames. The author argues: "You've got to wonder if sports leagues are sleeping with the enemy embracing video games. Youth participation in sports is declining, as is overall viewership of sports on cable and television by the targeted group." The NBA's licensing director also mentions a perceived change in attitudes: "In the past video games wanted to look like TV. Now TV wants to look like video games." Although the leagues argue "the [video] games can spur participation and viewership in the [real-life] games", the CNN columnist isn't so sure, concluding: "The leagues may not have a choice but to try to embrace the video games. But the video games' popularity isn't a long-term win for the sports themselves."

Comments

Sports can be expensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not cheap to buy into the league, give up time for the kids, check up on the coach to make sure he's not a child molestor, peddling steroids, or administering cortizone injections.

On the otherhand, $50 bucks every couple of years for a console little Timmy already has, which keeps him docile and occupied for hours on end without the need for direct supervision, pretty freaking cheap. A game which a middle class parent might have to shell out for anyway, to keep up with the Jones' pop warner or not.

The things that the game has added that look like a video game don't come from video games, but from the same demands. We all want to know exactly what happened, and have a common set of information with which we can form our own opinions, and we want it to be there at our convienence. It makes it easier to enjoy the game if some of the finer and more esoteric points are blatently spelled out for you. If everyone wanted to spend years learning something so they could enjoy it, we'd all run linux.

Sports games can evangelize

[leviramsey]

For instance, American Football is a sport which is known for tactical depth and rule density.

In addition to the NFL, I'm a huge fan of NFL Europe (arguably a bigger fan of NFLE than the NFL). On online fora (web boards and mailing lists), I've encountered large numbers of people (mostly under 20) in the UK who became fans of the sport thanks to playing Madden. The game allowed them to get into the rules and understand the strategies, which is a critical part of becoming a fan of the sport.

Totally unrelated...

[BTWR]

Youth sport interest is not going down because of videogames, well not directly. If it truly has gone down, I think it's because of the overall decline in athleticism in kids today, because of health and obesity problems. In one of my medical school classes, we read a medical journal article that says that for all american babies born in 2000, ONE IN THREE will be a diabetic (type ii - the type more related to lifestyle, to WAY oversimplify it) - and I wouldn't be surprised if europe is experiencing similar diabetic explosions (cue unfunny '+5, funny' comments). That statistic is #&@*! insane!!! This is the first generation whose life expectancy might actually DECLINE from the previous one.

There isn't a single time in my entire life where I've been with a friend and we wanted to play some tennis, but instead decided to play Mario Tennis instead. I never wanted to go for a run one minute, and then decide "Nah, lemme play Track & Field on the NES instead and hit the 'a' button as hard as I can instead of a 3-mile run."

However, so while I don't think Madden has been a substitute for some real-life backyard football, it is possible that videogame players habits as a whole have lead to some of the weight/sedentary lifestyle habits of its players. If that's so, then tv and non-sports games would also be just as at fault...

Flawed reasoning

[leviramsey]

Having now read the article, I'm struck by the stupidity.

The main argument against sports games is advanced by the sporting goods manufacturing industry. Of course kids are going to play less physical games when they can do it in a video game (whether that in and of itself is a bad thing is another matter).

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not going to watch games on TV. I haven't played baseball in years, and I'll still watch it if it's a good game (especially if the Red Sox are playing). I haven't played football (touch or tackle) in years, and I am a massive fan. I've never played hockey (except for a few games of street hockey years ago) and I'll watch a hockey game.

Ratings across the board are declining (thanks to more channels and electronic entertainment in general). Sports, however, is actually declining more slowly than news and entertainment programming.

Re:Flawed reasoning

[PainKilleR-CE]

The article actually seems quite contradictory. It starts out by pointing to sports games as 'the enemy', but then further in you find that sports games themselves are on a decline in the game industry (which in itself may be due to the age of the platforms, as the article states, or due to the lack of true progress in the games themselves this year). It also takes a single sentence to point out that TV, internet, and other forms of entertainment may also be to blame, but then goes on to point out that TV is the single most important money-maker for sports (with games actually coming in somewhere as revenues for licensing increase, but where we don't know).

They don't even go into much detail on where sports are really losing players. Are kids not playing baseball as much as they used to, or is it down equally in all sports? I know when I was growing up soccer was fairly popular to play as a kid, but very few of us watched it on TV. On the other hand, I watched quite a bit of baseball when I was around 9-11 years old, but ever since have found the game pretty boring. The only time I watch a football game is when it happens to be on wherever I am on a given sunday, and the last time I did that I noticed that there was almost as much time spent on commercials as the game itself. Given my current aversion to commercials, this actually leads me to seek out something to do other than watch the game.

Furthermore, to simply add to the anecdotal points, my gf's youngest brother (he's 10 years old) frequently plays football with his friends, as well as playing Madden 2004 and watching an occasional game (in fact, most sundays they go play football rather than watch it on TV, but then he comes in after he's worn himself out and watches the end of the game). He has only a passing interest in playing basketball, and I've never seen him watch a basketball game or play a basketball video game. Probably the only game he plays as much as Madden would be Tony Hawk.

The last sentence brings up another point: how many kids are getting more involved in less traditional sports? When I was growing up kids rode their bikes and skateboards at least as much as they played football, baseball, and basketball in the street, and they were possibly more for recreation and entertainment than for transportation until we got older. Most of the people currently involved in skateboarding and the less traditional forms of bicycle riding as sports are my age or younger (with the exceptions of those like Tony Hawk that have been doing this since I was in my pre-teen years), and many kids look up to them at least as much as anyone involved in baseball, basketball, or football. Hell, look at the popularity of Tiger Woods, in general I'd say that it points to a decline in interest in team sports, rather than a decline in interest in sports in general. Kids are more interested in individual talent and possibly being recognized for having some individual talent themselves. Teamwork and the associated ideals have to be instilled in children, they don't come naturally (except under extreme circumstances that most children don't have to deal with).

Who plays Big Leagues?

[fuzzybunny]

I'm not a big sports fan, but I somehow got the impression that a lot of pro athletes (especially in US league sports like football and basketball) were kids from the wrong side of the tracks--a lot of whom wouldn't be the sort of spoiled middle-class brats who'd have access to a Playstation, or the upbringing to sit inside all day long playing Madden XXXV.

On the other hand, what are big league sports really about? Not just entertainment, but seeing people who're "larger than life". Watching a big European soccer game, or going to a baseball game, or having a Superbowl grill party is a fairly particular experience. Little Charlie Jones' Juventus scoring 8 goals against Bobby Smith's Man U online isn't and won't ever be in the same league as watching Barry Bonds knock one out of the park.

I think this goes both ways--people play sports both for the fun and sport of it, and maybe a bit for the knowledge that they're doing the same stuff as their "heroes" on TV, and people watch sports on TV because here are a bunch of dudes doing really well what you just do for fun. And wa-hey, if it leads to the death of bloated overblown pro sports, well, I don't know if they'll be missed much--people will always play pickup hoops in the park.

A friend of mine found what I think is the perfect balance--on Formula 1 weekends, he'd invite a bunch of people over for a few rounds of racing on his console, then a BBQ, then the real race. So I think it's definitely a complementary experience.

Re:Sports games

[nearlygod]

I love getting all of my friends together on a whim after a hard day at work to play a pickup hockey game. I call them up around 7:00 PM and we meet within minutes at the local ice rink that is conviently empty and already has the nets up. I agree, I have no interest in playing sports video games. However, if it wasn't so damn easy to get a pickup game organized on short notice then I may feel differently. Besides I love golfing when there is 4 inches of snow on the ground it is -10F.

Re:What did you guys expect?

[gooru]

Shoot, I was going to use my mod points on some postings above until I read your posting.

And the reason why more people play sports games? Maybe it's because it's safer then playing the real thing and risking serious injury? :D

I totally agree. I don't know how serious you're being, but this is true. I broke my jaw two years ago while in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. It was a complete freak accident. Nothing like that had ever happened before in the six or seven years that I had been practicing Tae Kwon Do. However, now that that has happened, I have been much more wary about what physical activities I participate in and to what extent I'm involved. Since then, I've greatly cut down on contact sports. Now, I mostly just practice Tae Kwon Do, for example, rather than compete.

I've also found DDR to be a good source of aerobic activity. :)

And, just because I don't watch sports and play video games instead doesn't mean I'd watch sports in the first place. I'm sure I identify with many of you when I find watching most sports extremely boring and unexciting. Furthermore, I just can't feel the excitement and loyalty people have towards teams. Who really cares if *your* team wins? What in the world does that mean anyway?

Co-Existence

[cgenman]

Sports games co-exist with other forms of sports entertainment. In the same way that a person may now go to a bar to watch the game, or throw a ball with their kids, or read Sports Illustrated, they may also now play the videogame. One could just as well argue that adults read the sports page instead of watching the game. If a college kid is playing a round of NBA Basketball between classes, that is not going to prevent them from playing in the intermural sports teams after dinner.

Videogames are now irrecoverably part of the sports ecosystem, the same way that radio broadcasts created sports heros and television broadcasts created the instant replay.

Lumping all videogames together in this article is unnecessary, and shows a lack of understanding on the part of the author. It's as if supporting sports gaming implies the support of Deus Ex. He doesn't say how non-sport television shows doesn't do anything but hurt... Or how bars that don't show the game are contributing nothing to the cause.

Honestly, professional sports is on a slow decline in this country because they are out of touch. While most kids are skateboarding, rock climbing, and doing other physical independent activities, sports broadcasters have stuck with the idea that large traditional team sports will always be the ideal. We're moving away from a team-oriented society, to one where individuals and very small groups work with a great deal of autonomy and specialized knowledge to achieve their ends. A weekly x-games show would probably be a hit with the ratings, but the chance to do such a thing has passed by the broadcasters (again) because of their lack of vision.

They might receive more sympathy, if professional sports weren't prohibitively expensive. Certainly, not being able to afford actually going to the game has nothing to do with waning interest. With tickets going for roughly the same price as a trip to the Opera, most people are priced out of seeing any professional event in person. Playing hockey will make you like the game, but seeing it in person will make you a fan of a team. That fandom is an essential part of the sporting ecosystem.

Part of the image of the classic baseball player was that of the clean-cut but slightly unshaven man sleeping in a bus on the way to his next game. They were hardworking individuals with a strong ethic, rough but approachable. With player salaries hovering around 800,000 per year, the image has changed to that of the pampered superstar, likely to get off the plane and have a manicure before being wisked away in a limo to the Park Plaza. Sure, they train all of the time, but that hard work is only emphasized in Gatoraid's commercials. And certainly, no modern sports star from the majors can be considered approachable, emulatable, or otherwise attainable. Tony Hawk retains this ability (and whose public stardom is based on his tremendously successful videogame) because Tony is "one of us" who worked hard and got good at a sport, but retains his middle class status. Barry Bonds is now firmly upper class, and would never be seen with any dirt on his uniform.

The sports moguls lost touch, plain and simple. This demonizing of videogames is just a sign of that.

Re:What did you guys expect?

[Scrameustache]

I broke my jaw two years ago while in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. It was a complete freak accident.

Breaking your jaw while engaging in a "kick me in the face" contest isn't a freak accident.

Breaking you jaw while knitting: that is a freak accident.