 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, the show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today we're talking about whether eSports will become an Olympic sport. With me today is Attorney Ricardo Gench. Welcome Ricardo. Good afternoon, Catherine. Always a pleasure to talk with you. Well, I haven't seen Ricardo in person since right around, right the year before the Olympic Games were held in London. We both spoke at a conference about the Olympic Games at Ithaca College, London, and actually got to tour the Olympic Stadium. Remember that, Ricardo? That was fascinating. Seeing how the whole construction was coming to an end and imagining how the thousands of athletes would walk through the stadium feeling the warmth of all the audience which was there, it was quite a special moment, even though everything was still somewhat in scaffolding, but you could feel the vibration coming in. Absolutely. And so, Ricardo, I understand that you practice sports law in Spain back in the day. Yes. Yes. And you're quite involved in sports, is that right? Absolutely. And it's just like for the athletes, their sport is their profession. In my case, I love sports, so that has been my passion, my motor all through my life, and that to the benefit that I understand the athlete's mentality, their sacrifice, which they do on their daily basis to become the utmost athletes and reach that perfection in their sport. And also thinking about what do they do after they finish their athletic career, or if, God forbid, they end up injured and their career gets interrupted because of that. What can they do afterwards? Right? Sure. And do you have any particular thing that's happened in your life that makes you interested in the Olympics? Absolutely. Yes. I am fortunate to say that back in the day, my mom, she participated not as an athlete, but within the administrative side of the Munich Olympics of 1972. So that for me stayed very close to my heart. And that's why being able to be at the London Olympics stadium and seeing the whole atmosphere, the environment, speaking to athletes as well, later after the Olympics. For me, watching the inauguration of the Olympics and the closing ceremony of the Olympics is very close to me, I guess because of my mom, but also more so because of the whole meaning behind the Olympic movement, that all nationalities get to be in one place, compete with the very friendly spirit that is behind the Olympic movement. Even though the father, the modern father of the Olympics, well, he had a particular view, as many of us know, right? So what do you feel so close to your heart that makes the Olympics special for you, Catherine? Well, I've always loved it. I'm a huge gymnastics fan and a former triathlete, been swimming all my life and running and I just really enjoy it and I'm looking forward to going to Tokyo. I had Tokyo Olympic plans and I still have my tickets, so I plan to go in 2021. The Olympic Games is amazing because they symbolize unity, respect and peace through sports. Countries lay down their arms to compete against each other. And so what's interesting about this, and we're going to segue now into esports, is that we know that esports has a lot of games that are violent, but there are others that aren't because esports certainly encompasses quite a few games. And it seems that competitions are more focused on the more violent games. But one thing that I find interesting is that one of the International Olympic Committee, and I'm going to say that for our viewers, we're going to call it IOC. And some people may not know what IOC stands for, but that's what we're talking about when we talk about the IOC. So we have, there's some resistance to the Olympics bringing esports in. And one of those challenges is the violence among other challenges. But one thing that I note is that there are competitions within the Olympics that sort of have a more violent bent. And that would be things like martial arts, wrestling, archery, shooting. So what do you think about that, Ricardo? And boxing. Oh, boxing, absolutely boxing. If you sit in the front row of a boxing match, you have to hope that you don't have blood splattered on you. So, yes, absolutely. It's funny that we both mentioned boxing and wrestling, when those are the original sports of the original Olympics back in the day. You get the Greco-Roman wrestling, which is also found in Switzerland, where you have that traditional wrestling. Even though it's violent, there's a lot of respect going between the athletes, as is the case of martial arts. And no matter how blood thirsty the sport can be, there's a lot of respect among the athletes. And that's something to bear in mind first and foremost. And then moving on to what esports is. Yes, there are, that's the beauty about esports, that there's a wide range of games that can be brought into the Olympics. And not necessarily they have to be the violent ones. We can have, as we see here in the US, the NBA. We can have soccer. We can have swimming, even though that's a bit boring. I understand that they are considering of doing sailing pre-Olympics or something like that, virtual sailing. Obviously, there are not many people who are into sailing in real life as to consider sailing as an esport, which is something very interactive. But I do believe that soccer, for example, would be something very interesting because that would attract a lot of people from all over the world. As we're talking always, the Olympics have had their crisis where not only the sponsors have considered not to continue because of ambush marketing, but also more so because the people stopped going to the Olympics. And what the Olympics have reconsidered as their business model is trying to attract the younger generations. I prepared myself for this talk. I looked up on the different age range of people following the Olympics. And the ages have gone up considerably. So we can say that the Olympics are aging or rather consider or question ourselves. Are younger people really participating in sports to become an Olympic athlete? I remember when, possibly you as well, when we grew up, the Olympics meant the utmost for an athlete to represent your country and be there before possibly your home crowd or even more so represent your country in your sport, which is the top of the top of the top. Nowadays athletes think about other things more importantly like their pocket at the end of the day. I do believe that, for example, I can probably say that after London, the Olympics went to Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro was my hometown. So that for me was very emotional. And I loved how the cycling competition and the triathlon competition showed you a bit more of the city versus the normal traditional swimming, which is indoors or gymnastics, as you well mentioned, which is indoors. And that's something which I remember they came up with of leaving a legacy behind the Olympics so that the city that stays with that new infrastructure has something else. So if we bring eSports to combine it with the Olympics, we can start off by saying, OK, what about the Olympic sports which we have, invite those eSports that are equivalent to the Olympic sports, all the other sports, which are all these games with teams, we can leave those for maybe eSports to do their own Olympics. Nonetheless, I want to ask you something, because as you are aware, these teams that participate in these eSports competitions, not all of them are from the same nationality. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because one of the elements of the Olympics that makes it so compelling is kind of the geocentric nature of it in that we have countries competing against countries. And eSports is made up of teams that, you know, teams where athletes are from different countries. And so one barrier, potentially, is that the teams would have to become more geocentric and you'd have to create teams that would represent their countries. But we've seen that happen in other arenas too. We have, you know, it's kind of interesting where the Olympic games when they incorporated basketball and so teams that normally would compete against each other, they basically, people from different teams came together to compete as an Olympic team. And that is true with baseball, with softball, with other sports as well. Think about the US hockey team or, you know, any hockey team from any particular country. They would be people that would be competing on different teams and they would take the best of the best. So, you know, that's part of the challenge. But you mentioned the aging of the viewership. And that goes hand in hand with sponsorships. And as we know that the Olympics have become not only a security event, as we've seen in Rio and in London where they had, especially Rio, where they had as, you know, they probably had as many security personnel as they did other personnel. It was, and same with London as well, they really had to bring in a lot of security personnel. But the Olympics has become a showcase for products. It is a way that sponsors can have an opportunity to reach a huge audience. But what's really interesting is that eSports is that opportunity to not only reach a huge audience, but reach a young audience. And this is kind of where the Olympics fails, is it doesn't really reach that young audience. And by bringing in those new sports, such as skateboarding, sport climbing, and what was the other one? Surfing, B&A. Surfing, right, right. And, you know, bringing all of these more youthful sports, it's very consistent with having eSports a part of it. Yeah, I fully agree. And to that extent also the beauty about these urban sports, call it skateboarding or inline rollerblading or BMX, it's a combination of generations that would consider participating as well, you know. And I also find the attractiveness of eSports with the real sport, where you can combine and compete the real one versus the virtual one indeed. And as you all mentioned, it's a platform for sponsors go beyond. One of the things I realized with the past few Olympics was the fact that the streaming was limited. And nowadays we see it, especially in this particular 2020, how important your cell phone is versus a computer. And with the cell phone, not only do you communicate with others, but the fact that you can watch your TV programs, you can watch movies, everybody is onto these video channels where you can select what you want to watch. So ultimately, if the Olympics cannot be seen freely, they're limiting a huge amount of viewers which would otherwise not see them. So that's something which the Olympics should be made available for all because ultimately they want to reach more viewers and allow people who are in God knows where in their own countries where they cannot possibly reach a television, but they can watch it on their phone or listen to the broadcasting of a match that will allow them really reach that audience which they're not getting ultimately. And I wanted to ask you, what's your opinion of how broadcasting is helping traditional sports versus the esports? Well, I think esports has wider broadcast in some ways because of other platforms being used and esports are being broadcast at all different levels, pretty much 24 seven, whereas broadcasting of the Olympics is so minimal in time and it isn't broadcast in all these different forums because NBC, BBC, some other entities, they have rights to broadcast the Olympics whereas others don't. But we do have a question for a viewer and is how would the Olympics choose what game to play and what if the athletes train for a game for four years and then the game is no longer popular? I actually have to say that I anticipated that question because that's a problem because how do you, at what point is the game chosen? And it excludes athletes who are not players of that particular game. And so that's a challenge that they would have. And then sure enough, a player may train for a particular game thinking that it's going to be the game that would be offered and then a year out, a year before the Olympics, it might switch out and they might say, no, we're gonna do a different game. What do you think about that, Ricardo? First off, I would say right now the current situation of the International Olympic Committee is they want to decide what to bring in, obviously. And here was my suggestion to start off slowly but surely do the Olympics with those games or sports which are currently part of the Olympic movement and consider those which are more attractive to the younger audiences. As I mentioned, soccer, basketball, baseball, baseball is also surfing, skateboarding. Those could be, there you already have five sports which could attract young e-sports players. Sure, sure. For first down. Yeah. Rocket League is one that is very much considered to be a sport that may be part of the Olympics. And NBA, 2K and Madden are other sports that are being in consideration. Absolutely. And then the second question, I think to a certain extent, we can also respond that question if athletes train for four years and then the game is no longer popular. Well, to the same extent, athletes in official Olympic sports throughout those four years, they participate in competitions. They continue to stay at that top level to be able to reach and stay being the best, like in tennis, and they get injured. And ultimately that athlete, he might end up injured and not be able to go to the Olympics. So it's a nice question, but the conclusion would be considered otherwise because obviously the Olympics, when they do the program, they're not gonna drop a game of just before the games. Obviously we know how the Olympics work, they don't do that. They would continue with that game, but not many people would see it, but consider the fact that professional athletes or amateur athletes in many sports types like basketball, they can be professionals, right? To participate in the Olympics. Yes, they can, yeah, yeah. And you know what's interesting about this is this, in discussing this, it brings to mind other issues related to fairness and inclusion of players. And one thing that's interesting is that for example, gymnastics, the rule has been that athletes have to be 16 years old. So what if you're at your peak at age 15 or at age 13 or something like that? It's an issue. There's a lot of issues regarding that because what if you're 15 and a half when the Olympics go forward and you can't compete, but you're going to be 19 and a half next time and you're too old at that point? So- We have the very great example what's happening this year. Absolutely. This year shouldn't be a surprise because we know that the Olympics in Moscow back in the day and the Olympics in Los Angeles, they were both, I don't want to sound rude, sabotaged by the other countries and therefore not many countries went there. So all those athletes who prepared themselves for those sports and ultimately their government told them that they could not go, it's more or less the same thing. So the athletes that are preparing themselves for years and their government is telling them, I'm sorry, you can't go. So the same could happen for east ports where the athlete, even though they compete constantly in different competitions to maintain those skills, they're maybe their sponsor won't allow them to go. That's another thing which has to be considered because as we know, sponsorship for the Olympics, it's a closed bag and many athletes as we have seen with the Olympics have tried to ambush the official sponsors. Sure, sure, absolutely. Yeah, and there are a lot of challenges. One thing kind of exciting is that east ports will have an entree with the Tokyo Olympics and unfortunately that's been postponed but there's going to be in 2021 before the Tokyo Olympics, the Intel World Open which is an eSports tournament that will lead up to the Tokyo Olympics that is kind of an opportunity to bring it into the Olympic world. And there is going to be prize money of a total of $500,000 awarded at that tournament. And that's kind of a little interesting in that the Olympic Games has always been an amateur event where the organizers are the ones that have the potential of making money but not the athletes. What are your thoughts on that? We know, I'm fully, I love the fact that it's with amateur athletes. Obviously we know that each country prizes their athletes when they get a bronze, a silver or gold medal. That's on the local national level but obviously the Olympics, the pride of getting an Olympic medal means so much more than the prize of earning X amount of money in a competition. Undoubtedly the eSports, what has made them so popular are these so-called violent games which also require a certain type of teamwork in that which is also something interesting where as in the live sports, well, you might not get that to that extent. If we compare as we go to the original spirit of the Olympics where we're talking about the brotherhood of the nationalities, we're all under the same umbrella and that's why the colors of the rings which represent the continents and the different races, the beauty about eSports, what I've seen so far, how they are evolving is not only that they're open to different age groups but also that they allow people from different backgrounds and different races or nationalities to work in the same team. Okay, you get this also in professional sports. Yet again, we consider eSports, as I said, those sports which are common to Olympic sports to attract a younger audience and to possibly get more through sponsorships and ultimately be viewed more than through traditional television because who has a television nowadays at home? Right, it's definite. Well, there are people who don't but I think that people are viewing sports and content much differently than they used to. And we're seeing now looking at the pandemic and how people are operating their lives, eSports has become much bigger. And so essentially because of this significant increase in the legitimacy of eSports and its pervasiveness in our homes throughout the world, I think that we will see more interest by the Olympic committee. And in 2024, there's a plan to have eSports available for event demonstration at the Paris Olympic Games. And one thing that comes to mind is, is eSports a summer sport or is it a winter sport? You just took it out of my thought. Yes, I was gonna ask you, just like we have winter sports and summer sports, we should also have eWinter sports and eSummer sports. Nonetheless, obviously these athletes are playing indoors. Obviously we get winter sports of snowboarding, half pipe, just as we get the winter half pipe and skiing, yet they might not be as attractive as the actual winter sport. And possibly I would even go further. Maybe some of these professional athletes for winter sports might even be the eSports athletes themselves. So we might have a crossbreed athlete there. What do you think about that? Yeah, that definitely could happen. And there could be eSports, you could definitely have eSports in both. And it might be the first time ever that they had eSports or one particular sport that had a crossover in both Olympics and it could be every two years. But there's so much potential for sponsorship or increased viewers to really maximize both. It's, there's a benefit to both eSports and to the Olympics to partner. And I will point out that if, say you are a professional eSports athlete and you rely on prize money or you're a team, one thing that is very valuable is an Olympic medal. And that can mean more followers. It can mean opportunities that you wouldn't have otherwise. So there's an advantage, even though an eSports athlete wouldn't be paid to be in the Olympic Games. You touched one interesting item that you dedicate yourself solely to that and you get the prize money. We both know that there has been always some discrimination to a certain class or group of athletes which have been women throughout the Olympic history. Many professional female athletes have had to work on the side in order to be able to sustain their or get to the end of the months and live and pay their expenses because their federation has not paid them sufficiently in order to be able to actually represent their country accordingly. And this brings me to this other nice juicy subject. What about doping in eSports? And that is a very big concern. Doping in eSports, there's computer tampering. That's what doping is. However, it could also be the doping that we know. But we are running out of time and thank you so much, Ricardo, for being on my show and appreciate everyone joining us today. Next week, my guest will be Ari Fox. We'll discuss upcoming eSports casino conference. See you then.