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 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.

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).