Shaq thinks esports pros should be considered real athletes

In a new interview, Shaq suggests that esports pros should be commended and thought of as athletes.

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal was interviewed in by Jake Lucky, a content creator who is heavily involved with esports. The interview features the two sitting in Lucky’s motorhome, that he is currently using to travel across America. 

O’Neal says that he ‘commends’ esports pros for their feats, saying that being an athlete means much more than what people think. Pointing to his head, Shaq goes on to talk about his TV show, Shaq Versus, where he went up against different sports stars to see if he could beat them. 

Comparing gaming to racing, Shaq mentions that his entire body was hurting after coming out of the car and that the ‘shelf life’ of an esports star is equivalent to the NBA, with only a few years on the clock before teams will rotate or retire players. 

Esports still retains its stigma due to the idea of video games not being taxing like other sports. Despite this, the esports scene has seen more and more people being turned onto the idea of gaming as a legitimate competition, especially after esports experienced a major boost during the pandemic.

The concept of esports isn’t new, with South Korea famously broadcasting Starcraft tournaments on TV for years before it became big in the West. John Carmack, one of the people behind Doom and Quake, gave away a car during one of the first major tournaments in 1997.

Nowadays, Valve’s Dota 2 and Riot Games’ League of Legends host massive multimillion-dollar tournaments, with the prize pool for Dota 2 added to each year by the purchase of a specific battle pass. With each purchase, Valve puts a percentage into the pool and this has seen year-on-year growth ever since. 

Fort