'Esports won't go mainstream until teams take it seriously'

Esports will never break into the mainstream unless professional teams take competition seriously, says pro Dota 2 player Jimmy Ho.

“Esports will never go mainstream unless teams start taking competition seriously,” Ho (also known as DotADeMoN) told Leet in this interview.
“Teams can’t keep forfeiting matches for fun. This makes us look very unprofessional. If you’ve scheduled a match for a specific time, I believe you owe it to the fans and your opponents to show up.
“Frequent forfeits hurt the reputation of not only the teams and players, but also the reputation of the entire tournament. Quality games always bring in more spectators.”
His comments come after Team Dignitas and Curse were disqualified from a League of Legends tournament earlier this year for collusion.
DeMoN – who plays for Evil Geniuses’ pro Dota team – also said that he wasn’t sure whether esports will become an Olympic sport in the future, but does want esports to make it to the small screen.
“I feel our main goal should be to try to get on television, specifically on mainstream networks like ESPN or CBS,” he added.
“I think we should start there first, before we make the jump to the Olympics.”
Picture courtesy of The International’s Flickr Album

Dom Sacco

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.