During this time of quarantines and cancelled events, most sports such as baseball, basketball, and wrestling have either been postponed or cancelled. When the pandemic was just beginning sports leagues such as the NBA and the spring training for the MLB were cancelled, making fans disappointed but understanding. For the first few weeks of this pandemic ESPN, one of the most watched sports channels, was able to air normal games that happened before they cancelled the seasons. After all of these games were aired ESPN started to play reruns of old games. Whether they were this year and were crowd favorites or games that were years ago that were memorable by sports fans.
ESPN started running out of things to play, so they came up with a new solution: videos of professional athletes such as NBA players Josh Hart from the New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks Jalen Brunson playing video games such as Call of Duty, broadcasting live from their homes via their Twitch pages. This has been very controversial, giving entertainment to some, but boredom to others. Some people are missing their sports and tired of the video games while others find it entertaining and strange to see.
The ESPN website reveals that the NBA Players Association and 2K are presenting the NBA 2K20 Player Tournament that will air on ESPN and ESPN2. Famous NBA players such as Kevin Durant and Devin Booker and 16 others are vying for a $100,000 prize to give to a charity in support of coronavirus relief.
Not only the NBA but other big sporting events are hopping on the trend of live video gaming. A few Santaluces students express controversial feelings towards the new video game airing on ESPN.
“I feel like athletes playing video games is a great thing, as it allows for them to just have some fun during this down time and gives them a chance to interact with their fans showing them a new side of themselves,” said football player Brian Coe.
Although Brian thinks it’s a good idea Nik Terizis disagrees.
“I don’t see how watching athletes playing video games is entertaining. It seems like ESPN and other sports broadcasters are just trying to make money off of them,” he said.
Both point of views are very valid and common from all fans.
ESPN has made a good alternative with what they can do during this time. Although they do have fans concerned and asking questions. What’s going to happen when all this is over? Will the seasons pick up where they left off? Or will they wait till next year to start fresh? Who knows we shall see hopefully soon.
