You can't consider this a sport

I remember in another (no longer existent) thread that someone brought up the point that if people expect to see something in the sports section, that's where it should go, even if it doesn't qualify under most people's definition of the word. Which is how you justify poker in the sports section and bridge next to Garfield.

And besides, sports video games are an extension of the sports culture, so why wouldn't we at least allow the occasional passing mention of it? Which isn't to say you run a bunch of rec league video game tournament gamers, but maybe a weekly game review? There's enough of them to do 52 a year.  

At my first paper, I did two stories when Virginia Tech reached the national title game against Florida State -- one about whether a regional team in the Sugar Bowl spiked sales of college football video games, and one in which I play the game and write a gamer off it. NCAA 2000 for the PS1 was nowhere near as good a game as the PS2/Xbox version, let me tell yas. Got my ass kicked and had to have Vick run for his life on every other play. But it was a fun story, arguably the most fun I had there. I see no harm in the off video game story. I know I'd be a lot more likely to read it than one on bowling/cheerleading/youth sports, and I bet I'm not the only one.

 

Well, video games require hand-eye coordination and some muscle memory. You don't even need that for poker. And I love when people bring athletic ability into the sport/not sport argument. You could say Barishnikov is an athlete. Doesn't make what he does a sport.

 

For this year's Super Bowl I did a gamer of a Madden Seahawks vs. Steelers, but it was more of a column than anything else. No way in hell would I do a "serious" video game recap.

 

this isn't good. i can see a feature or column in the sports section but not a gamer.

no way -- unless as canyonero! suggested it's for a column or as others have said, it's a preview of an upcoming real game.

i think every bowl game now runs a playstation or whatever game system tournament in the days leading up to the game. nothing wrong with that being a notebook item or even a feature with details (ie. the tigers had a few twists -- they used joe backup at QB and that was the difference).

but the bowl game thing and column in advance of two teams actually playing are different.

 

During the NHL lockout, the Denver Post did something like this. They took each game in what would have been the Avalanche season and had two kids play a video game as those teams (it was different kids each game). They wrote short "gamers" on those. Maybe people read it, but I thought it was ridiculous.

 

Poker IS NOT a sport. It is a leisurely activitiy/recreational activity, IMHO sort of like a drug is a recreational activity - hey, you can get addicted to poker and gambling, right?

And it irks me that the Associated Press wastes its time moving World Series of Poker results and recaps on the wires.

 

I think a tournament like that could be fun to cover. But you would need to get into strategies (what video players are coveted), technique, gamesmanship, trash talk like that.

You definitely don't do play by play. Ugh.

 

In more or less the same vein, how do you handle fantasy league/rotisserie type stuff. I believe I've seen AP do a who's hot/who's not type thing on a weekly basis. Do you carry it consistently or at all? What's the readership interest?

 

I thought this thread was going to be about auto racing.

 

That's depressing. I didn't realize that AP was moving poker agate. It's insane enough that the game is on like six different cable channels. Then again, apparently there's an audience for feeding faces. The intellectual progress of our society continues to impress. ???