I find it interesting the varying degrees of "life expectancy" as professional sports players in the different professional sports. For example the NFL players average years playing professionally is much shorter than that of an NBA player. Most of us can easily understand why. Simply put, the NFL player gets beat up more that the NBA player so their bodies don't last as long. The average years spent in the NFL is 6-8 depending on what report you pull up.
The thing I find even more ingesting then that is just how fast professional esports players burn out.
I am not aware of every game out there but for example with Overwatch the game has barely been out more than a year and players are already calling it quits. Right now being one of the most promising times in professional Overwatch, with the Overwatch League about to begin, players who have been working hard for this moment right now are hanging it up moments before it all begins. WHAT?? How can this be? Why? Isn't the chance to make six figures or even more, paying video games for a living, traveling the world, and becoming a household name, isn't that why you have played this game so hard from the get go? Now that it is here, just over a year later, you're done?
This is where I become intrigued. I think about my experience of playing baseball at a very high level for over 15 years of my life. Did I ever get burnt out? No. When is the last time you heard of a pro baseball, football, or basketball player retire after a year of finally making it pro because they got burnt out? Never.
Here's the thing. I think we all get it on a much smaller level when it comes to gaming. We all lose interest in the games we play. I played Overwatch hard when it first came out but I guess you could say I got burnt out and don't really play very much any more. Is that just how esports is going to be?
So then I started to think about the differences between mental burnout vs physical burnout.
You have heard coaches of traditional sports say the game is 80% mental and 20% physical. That might be true but with esports is 100% mental. I stated to think about this and break it down. The physical side of sports takes longer to wear you down because as you exhaust yourself physically on a regular basis your body is designed to bounce back stronger. You will continue to come back stronger as you work and build those muscles long before your body starts to break down as you get older. Mentally, as gamers playing hard daily, that mental strain isn't like working out a muscle and then it bounces back stronger. It's actually stress that eventually becomes harmful. These esports players are spending upwards of 10-12 hours, and sometimes even more, playing the game. Pushing their brains to the max creating undo stress on themselves.
This is a perfect example of how harmful stress can be on us. I wonder what steps are coaches, GM's, and team owners are going to do to better understand player burnout and implement strategies to combat player burnout.
I wonder...
This was just a quick thought I had with the recent announcements of big-time players quitting Overwatch. Thanks for reading. See you next time.
