Speaking about eSport today – or the so-called competitive video game, based on tournaments, which sees players from all over the world clash against each other or in teams – it means framing a phenomenon that has revolutionized our time, both from an economic point of view – whose earnings are close to those of the more moneyed traditional sports – both from the point of view of the cultural and social impact they have on sport and our contemporaneity – just think that a former competitive player like Pow3r is today the testimonial face of Adidas Italia, or rather a clothing brand conceived as a sportsman tout court, or that there are discussions on officially introducing eSports among the Olympic disciplines starting from Paris 2024, to understand the deep permeate of this sector today.
However, scratching for a moment the surface of the videogame intended as an interactive medium, in reality the life of the competitive gamer follows a rigid and profound program that allows them to be assimilated to that of “traditional” sportsmen: training, physical and mental health and nutrition are all elements able to make the difference today between the casual gamer and the professional ePlayer, strongly configuring the dimension of the phenomenon. Similarly, various sports teams are orienting part of their core business by introducing eSports within their activities, both by building ad hoc infrastructures for the needs of these virtual sports, and by setting up real teams able to compete in virtual tournaments often built along the lines of traditional ones (for example, the companies of the main football leagues now also have an esports team that competes in the reference virtual leagues).
Thanks to the support of the sponsor Casa Olympic we will tackle this very central theme today, shedding light on the dynamics that eSports bring to light both in their competitive dimension, and in the life and habits of the athletes who engage in it, and we will do it by meeting Emiliano Di Gianni, professional ePlayer of the U.S. Salernitana 1919 eSports, or the “virtual” counterpart of the U.S. Salernitana 1919, together with Mario Petillo, video game and sports journalist.