I am not quite sure whether I am ready to call a professional gamer an athlete just yet, as I would be far more comfortable with the definition of e-thlete at the moment. After all, an athlete in the traditional sense of the word would have to exert his or herself in some way or another physically, and that involves plenty of sweat and your body would generally need to be in shape, although gamers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, not to mention the only parts that sweat would be their palms and in some cases, their armpits. Still, the US government has recognized League of Legends LCS players to be professional athletes, in the area where issuing work visas is concerned, of course.
This would place such gamers on the same level status as that of NBA, NFL, and NHL players. This is definitely a way of showing the world that e-sports and e-gaming have progressed to such an elevated place in recent years. Riot eSports Manager Nick Allen shared, “The United States government recognizes League of Legends pro players as professional athletes, and awards visas to essentially work in the United States under that title, so this is groundbreaking for eSports. I mean, now we can start looking at International players, when they come over it’s a much easier process because they’re actually recognized by the government. It’s a huge thing.”
I guess this is not the only bizarre thing about League of Legends that we have reported on so far.
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