players are able to claim an “officially licensed, commemorative Paris 2024 NFT Digital Pin.”
Oh sweet an official Olympics digital pin that I can pay real money for and no one else can just view for free whenever they want! Oh wait... Here's one someone paid $200 for.
You want to make believe esports resemble sports in any way and are actually worthy of countries competing in them? Make them completely open source and make balance/rule decisions based on the input of an international committee advocating for the various perspectives.
Then it's still obviously not a sport, but at least it's not controlled by an arbitrary for profit company.
I agree for the most part. A company holding an iron grip on the game and keep the competitive scene alive as a marketing tactic is a recipe for disaster if we are to take it seriously as a long term sport. A company will not hesitate to shut things down if they unanimously decide they no longer want it to exist.
Regarding whether esports are sports or not is kind of arbitrary. The same as how we call competitive chess and darts and formula 1 sports despite being more mental than physical in nature.
Man this Olympics have been extremely disappointing on these aspects, for me personally I began to tune out during the initial ceremony when they started to pull the whole minions scene they did. It just feels like either a cash grab or a corporate scam.