Video games are no longer entertainment for children or outcasts. CS:GO, Dota 2, PUBG or WoW have gathered a huge audience of players of all ages and nationalities. Of course, within this motley crew there was a place for celebrities ready to blow off steam and relax with a mouse or a gamepad in their hands.
Neymar, CS:GO and other footballers
The Brazilian forward’s love for CS:GO has long been hidden from the public eye. His passion was revealed when he visited the SK Gaming team’s training center. It turned out the PSG striker was a first-person shooter lover and has a total gaming experience of around 800 hours. These days, he spends an average of 20 hours a week behind the computer.
Interestingly, Neymar is far from the only footballer who plays CS. For example, he played with the notorious “Zenith” striker, Alexander Kokorin.
Kokorin is calling Neymar to play
Fedor Smolov is another avid CS player. He is not an amateur, but even in some way a pro-gamer. Together with his teammates, in November 2017 he played against SFTe sports in CS:GO using the Dust map. The match was held in a “home-away” format and ended in a draw. The best player was Fedor.
Jonas Jerebko
Several athletes are considering esports as a possible business prospect. For example, the legendary Michael Jordan owns shares of the parent company of Team Liquid, the current world Dota 2 champion. Also lighting up the world of eSports are his colleagues and basketball players – Rick Fox and Shaquille O’Neal.
Jonas Jerebko can be added to this list, too. The famous Swedish basketball player acquired the rights to the Renegades franchise in 2016 along with team slots for ELEAGUE and ESL Pro League.
Jonas himself commented on the purchase as follows:
“I had a great chance to become the owner of Renegades and bring some of my basketball experience into eSports. I grew up in the era of video games and encountered Counter-Strike at a fairly early age. I have been following the cyber sports boom and now I’m looking forward to the opportunity to help the industry grow as a team owner. ”
Danish Prime Minister
It is worth noting that video games also gained a lot of support and recognition among politicians. Repeatedly, politicians helped Dota 2 teams with visas, but the turning point happened, perhaps, at the BLAST Pro Series – Copenhagen 2018. The Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Löcke Rasmussen, made a speech on stage. He noted that the times when the games were considered a carefree hobby have passed and that now this is a real sport:
“You have been training for years and years to be where you are. And along the way, you have probably had to explain yourselves more than once, convincing people that you were not wasting your time…But now I hope your explaining days are over, because you are sportsmen. You are truly sportsmen following your dreams, and using your talents.”
