Posted June 12, 2016
low rated
My opinion is your opinion is somewhat elitist. :) Only your elite is defined by the honor of fun and passion in playing. Fun and passion being left implicitly defined mainly via exclusion of economic motives / influences. Some people are passionate about winning and find making lots of money fun you know?
Also, I suspect you are slightly paranoid - by which I mean some of your fears / aversions are not actually grounded in reality. For example, FIFA corruption is at organizing layers. The players and the matches are mostly corruption free.
You therefore are conflating two kinds of corruption, although they are both economic. The first is the actual corruption, of bribes and throwing games, maybe even doping. Other than FIFA you don't really offer examples. they exist of course, but it's interesting you focus more on the other corruption.
The second is a kind of corruption of the soul, caused as you point out, by economic interests interfering with other interests (for you honor, fun, passion). This leads to valuing victory over just playing, to doping potentially, certainly to most of what you describe.
The thing with this second one and why it is elitist. For one, the conception of sportmanship that you admire is fairly old. The Olympic games are supposed to be paragons of such. The common distinction between professional and amateur sports also touches on similar distinctions - do you get paid or not?
Fundamentally, instead of using economic facts to differentiate sport categories, you would rather use a sort of ideological purity test. It's like instead of skill and results (measured by victories very directly) you would prefer to look at a kind of inherent marxist value - how much effort (defined in that passion and fun and honor you like) is someone bringing to the table? Instead of professional paid sportsmen you would likely hold children as the purer examples of uncorrupted play. See what I did there? Uncorrupted PLAY. Sport is a form of playing, more competitive and skill based. Professional sport adds economic rewards. Neither the money, nor the competitiveness, nor the skill is necessarily corrupting. Unless your own ethical system so defines it.
Now, this is not my opinion on e-sports, it was rather my opinion on the way you framed the topic.
I think what I would like to tell you is: you can still find the kind of playing you want. You just need to choose who you play with more carefully. All the people playing for different reasons can't ruin anything you do. Focus on what is under your control.
