“I am in fucking insane form…” a quote from Yilian “Doublelift” Peng in an interview with Travis Gafford. Doublelift is a professional League of Legends player currently playing for Team Liquid. If you follow the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), then this type of response from Doublelift is nothing out of the ordinary. Doublelift is no stranger to trash talk and often goes out of his way to do so to other players and teams. However, he pretty much has every right to say these things. He is easily the most dominant ADC/Bot Laner in the LCS and with 6 LCS Championships (7 pending this weekend’s outcome), how can you argue against that? As any player with what we’ll call a little bit of an ego, he receives some back lash from the community, but it doesn’t really compare to the way fans of Traditional Sports bite back.
When you look at 3 of the major traditional sports in North America; Football, Basketball, and Hockey, will probably notice a different pedigree of athlete between the three. You could venture to say that Tom Brady, Lebron James and Sidney Crosby are, or at least were, the best players in their respective sports for many years. Could you imagine one of those three saying something along those lines?
It is no secret to them that they dominate their craft. But when asked about being the best in an interview, Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins replied, humbly, “I mean who decides that ya know? Everyone looks at a player’s game differently and what they bring. It’s a pretty general thing, right?” He went on to say “So, if I can be my best and we can win games, then I think that’s something I can feel good about. I don’t necessarily need a certain title…”
You will find similar responses to Crosby from players like Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, who has been called the best goal scorer of the modern era of hockey. His more eccentric personality, over the top goal celebrations, and over abundance of emotion make him, in some peoples eyes, look bad. Ovechkin has been leading the Capitals for many years in many stats and is probably receives more hate than any player in the NHL. Everyone loves to hate Ovi.
There seems to be a switch for fans of traditional sports that is flipped as soon as the an athlete says something controversial. They are more scrutinized for saying whats really on their mind.
While watching some post game interviews from the LCS, it occurred to me that the reason for this polarity could be that Esports athletes are just viewed as normal people or at least more so than traditional sports athletes. Esports athletes interview with media and they are joking around and having fun and don’t feel like they have a generic script forced on them. As a traditional sports fan, you can almost predict exactly what they are going to say after the game.
The community feels connected to Esports athletes and not as though they are beneath them as people. Esports athletes will often time stream themselves playing video games and interact with their audience in real time making them seem more approachable and down to earth. Maybe this has to do with exposure and that Esports is much less followed than traditional sports, therefore giving them less of a chance to receive scrutiny.
Whatever the reason is, there is no secret that the athletes are treated differently between platforms. Will Esports athletes fall victim to the same fate as traditional sports athletes as the community continues to grow? Or will traditional sports take a page out of Esports' book and learn to embrace greatness from any team in any sport rather than tear athletes down for being the best?
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