Esports and conventional sports: Ethical and pedagogical issues derived from corporal participation

Abstract

We are witnessing a new phenomenon problematically related to sports: eSports or electronic sports. In 2013 more than 71 million people watched competitive matches of eSports. In 2016 they generated a global market of over 490 million euros. Due to the important dimension that this phenomenon has acquired, the objective of the article is to make a hermeneutic analysis of the eSports in order to delimit their main differences with the conventional sport. Consequently, this conceptual analysis will allow us to discriminate the ethical and pedagogical problematization of the eSports. Particularly, the paper approaches the contrast among the concepts of eSports, games and sports, focusing on the model and meaning of the corporal participation that each one implies. In essence, it follows that eSports and sports are not the same thing. Despite the appearances and similarities, there is an intrinsic feature that differentiates eSports from sports: the meaning of corporal participation.