ESPN President John Skipper may not be inclined to watch too much of his own station’s content. Speaking at the Code/Media Series: New York on Thursday, Skipper had some interesting comments about eSports and whether they qualify as real sports (via Recode.com).
It’s (eSports) not a sport — it’s a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition. Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports.
On the surface this might be a viable argument. That is until you take a gander of programming ESPN has run while Skipper has been with the station.
* Scrabble
* Spelling bees
* Car auctions
* Poker
* Hot-dog eating contests
Hey Skipper, so poker and stuffing your face with whatever meat is in a hot dog qualify as “real sports?”
His comments were in relation to Amazon buying gameplay video-streaming site Twitch for $970 million just recently.
Maybe check out your own content and look in the mirror before firing shots across the table. Just a thought. For this one scribe, anything that one can partake in while using an oxygen tank isn’t a sport. ESPN might want to keep that in mind the next time it throws stones.
Photo: Business Insider