I don’t know how we got here.
I mean, there’s no denying the popularity of eSports games like Overwatch, Dota 2 and League of Legends, but a Swiss league match between Young Boys and FC Basel was halted in the 16th minute yesterday while fans threw tennis balls onto the pitch, a PS4 controller (damn, that’s like $50) and unfurled massive banners in protest of eSports . . . things have escalated so quickly.
It was really just this past summer that clubs around the world started unveiling plans for assembling teams of FIFA eSports athletes to participate in competitions, but now, in a scene straight out of Revenge of the Nerds (“The jocks are pulling pranks on the nerds and not allowing them into their footballing hooligan fraternity! Oh no!”), Young Boys fans are acting like eSports will serve as the downfall for football as we know it.
And according to reports, Young Boys doesn’t even have an eSports team — this protest is about the Swiss Super League mulling an eSports FIFA tournament which would require every club to assemble a team to compete, much like MLS currently does.
As the winners of the 2017-18 Super League (as well as 7-1 winners on the day!), it doesn’t seem like Young Boys supporters have a lot to grumble about, so the protest is effectively just a matter of principle (“Give the money to Kevin Mbabu and not some nerd!”).
And my whole problem with this protest is that the current times just aren’t dramatic enough. I want to see this scene played out in a Black Mirror episode: A future vision of Earth in which the minority of people still live in reality and support their actual club vs. the majority of people who are now plugged into a virtual reality, cheering for their favorite gamer’s FIFA FUT squad while attending virtual matches in swanky box suites, eating steak and drinking fine wine (all of it fake but so very enticing for the masses, who are tired of the cold lonliness of reality).
It’s a battle for football’s soul! It’s a battle for the soul of humanity! This would be an awesome episode.
Instead we’ve just got this comparatively lame video from Sunday.
Maybe if my children's children grow up to write for The18, they can provide you with the Man vs. Machine story you deserve.
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