3 Tips For Anyone Who Wants To Start Following eSports

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Fast forward twenty years from now and watching football and baseball is going to be a bit like watching lawn bowling. Okay, I’m kidding, regular sports aren’t go away quite that quickly, but it’s safe to say that since eSports has outpaced traditional sports, music, and tv for the last three years there’s a very good chance that 10 – 20 years from now, when you say “sports” eSports could very likely be the first thing that comes to mind.

That being said, most people have no idea where to start when it comes to eSports. Let’s face it, you know the rules of football, baseball, basketball, etc. inside and out, you’ve been watching it for years, you have a favorite team, suffice it to say you’ve gotten comfortable with sports as you know it.

While I’d love to say that following eSports is simple and you can start watching right away, that’s not really true. eSports, like regular sports, have a lot of rules, complexities, teams to learn, players and coaches to follow, and tournaments to become familiar with. That being said, if you think it’s only teenagers that are playing and watching eSports, think again.

eSports is here to stay, it’s not going anywhere and like I said above, the industry is growing faster than traditional sports, music or TV, so now is not a bad time to get familiar with them.

So how do you get started? Here are three tips to help you kick off your new eSports addiction, just remember like I said above, there’s a bit of a learning curve so be patient.

1) Create an account on Twitch.tv – just like ESPN is probably your go-to resource for watching sports, Twitch will quickly become your go-to resource for watching eSports. To get started create an account and then pick a game that you might already know, while you’ll find games like League of Legends and CS Go, you might not be as familiar with them. If you spot a Mario game you know and love, or really any game that you recognize this will be the easiest way to just get comfortable with the idea of watching game streams.

2) Pick a popular eSport to start following – once you’re comfortable with Twitch you’ll want to pick a popular eSport to start following. There are really four games that I recommend watching to get started since they are four of the most popular and have tons of major stadium-filling tournaments associated with them. These are, League of Legends, DOTA 2, Counter Strike, and Starcraft II.

To decide which you want to start with really depends on what kind of game you like. I’m a big fan of strategy games so League of Legends, DOTA 2, and Starcraft II are my favorites to watch with DOTA 2 being my current fav. Not into strategy? Then watch Counter Strike, it’s a first-person action shooter and is a bit easier to follow than some of the strategy games out of the gate.

3) Find out when the next major tournament is – just like it’s more exciting to watch the playoffs or the finals, it’s also more exciting to watch eSports when there’s a big tournament going on. You’ll be happy to know that ESPN actually follows all the big tournaments so feel free to head over to ESPN.com and take a look at what’s coming up.

And there you have it. Follow these three steps and you might just find yourself watching some eSports on Sunday in between your favorite football games. Enjoy and feel free to post in the comment section below if you have any more questions about getting started or if you want to share how you got started following eSports yourself.

Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton