Rick Fox speaks at the Esports Forum held in the Olympic Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland (Credit: IOC | Greg Martin)
The International Olympic Committee hosted its first Esports Forum at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland last weekend “to build joint understanding and set a platform for future engagement between the esports and gaming industries and the Olympic Movement.”
While the IOC explicitly stated that “the consideration of whether esports could be included on the Olympic program was not an immediate goal of the Esports Forum,” this was undoubtedly an exploratory step in that direction.
At the Olympic Summit in 2017, the committee recognized that esports “could be considered as a sporting activity, and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports.