The Old Man and the eSports

So last week I watched a pair of fascinating documentarys about eSports called All Work All Play and Free to Play(more on this to come later in a review).  I have heard of this mythical realm where people playing video games pack sports arena's all over the world.  These players are treated like rock stars akin to sports icon's.  The biggest question I walked away with still was 'Where was all this when I was growing up?'


In all honesty I've always thought eSports were going to be a fad and its 15 minutes would be over before we know it.  However its stuck around and grown in popularity.  Last year over 71 million people watched eSports.  Thats a huge number when you think that just last week Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals raked in the largest cable audience ever at 15.9 million viewers.  In contrast the finals for the League of Legends World Championship last year had 36 million unique user's viewing it over the internet.  That number is expected to grow this year.  Were seeing more big name sponsers get involved with eSports teams.  There are big names that are investing in these teams now including Shaquille O'Neal and Alex Rodriquez just to name a few.

So where does someone who knows nothing about the big games in eSports start?  I've always been the type of person to just dive right in and learn by doing and watcing.  I plan on starting a weekly column about the things I learn and my experiences of diving into this world.  The first question I have is which game will I invest my time in?  Thats where I turn to you guys.  Should I start off by jumping into League of Legends or DOTA 2.  These 2 games are the big dogs in the world of eSports it seems like and have the biggest crowds.  Let me know what you think and I will get started on a newbies perspective in this exciting new world of video games.