TV broadcaster ITV have posted a video news clip on social media featuring several UK esports players.
The clip asks ‘Should gaming become an Olympic sport?’ and includes imagery from Multiplay Insomnia61 last weekend.
It has some footage from the UK Masters League of Legends final between MnM Gaming, and features imagery of UK scene players Rifty, Toaster and Aux, as well as an interview with GAME Belong manager Craig Woods.
Aux is also interviewed towards the end of the video about what it takes to be a competitive player.
ITV has not been kind to poor old Toaster, meanwhile – they’ve used some intense images of him talking seriously to his teammates (over the wording ‘these players might not look like athletes’, and really zoomed into him during the winners photoshoot.
Will gaming really become an #Olympic sport? And would you watch it? pic.twitter.com/f2Chl0tFtW
— ITV News (@itvnews) August 29, 2017
ITV has also got a bit confused with pro gamers and amateurs/non-pro gamers taking part in the BYOC area. It says “top players log thousands of hours, food is brought to them during tournaments, so they can carry playing non-stop” during a shot of a gamer drinking water.
While Insomnia has a food delivery service, ITV’s wording makes it sound like pro gamers get some kind of special treatment in actual top-level tournaments, and that somehow buying food themselves is not the norm.
Despite this, it’s great to see more mainstream broadcasters and publications covering esports.
Of course, some meme screenshots of Aux and Toaster have since surfaced on Twitter… here are some of them:
@GO_Toaster ? pic.twitter.com/DoNvrPb2Lm
— Peter (@peter___jg) August 29, 2017
@itvnews This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/YnhhfmnrQ9
— alex (@Ayleexlol) August 29, 2017
When you’re an international fuckboy and realise your face is about to be broadcast to all the Egirls you never called back… @xL_Aux pic.twitter.com/qRoPZjVuLC
— Britsaint #61 (@TEBritsaint) August 29, 2017
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
