Throne Of Games’: ESPN’s Doc About eSports Team Evil Geniuses

eSports will be the biggest sport the world has ever seen. Are you ready?ESPN president John Skipper famously declared in 2014 that eSport was "not a sport" but a competition like chess and checkers, telling Re/code, "I'm mostly interested in doing real sports."That didn't stop ESPN 2 from televising the finals of Heroes of the Dorm, a collegiate tournament final of the computer game Heroes of the Storm, to the dismay of more traditional ESPN viewers.And it recently came out with a 15-minute documentary called "Throne of Games" about the Dota 2-playing champs the Evil Geniuses. It follows them as they battle five teams from around the world and take home part of the $18.4M prize pool in Seattle, which hosted the International Dota 2 World Championships in August.The doc spends time laying out each player's bio, gives them each a nickname (Sunail Hassan is "The Prodigy"), and films them at low angles to give them the heroic visuals usually reserved for "real sports" stars. What's interesting is that in the same way that traditional sports come with their own injuries and dangers, 'Throne Of Games' introduces the dangers of eSports.Both Clinton Loomis, the elder statesman of the bunch at the ripe old age of 27, and Sunail Hassan, 16, are both described by their parents as having essentially been addicted to gaming before they were recruited to be on a pro team. About Hassan's 18-hour-a-day Dota 2 habit, his father said, "No food. No drink. Just computer." And Loomis's mother had to kick her college-aged son out of the house for doing nothing but gaming.Will a generation of wanna-be pro gamers have to digitally detox from gaming in rehab centers, spawning a whole separate gaming physical therapy practice to care for their hand and arm joints shot from constant playing? Tune in to culture with now, next. Now on the app store.