Asian Olympic Council may hold Ambitions for esports at 2024 Olympics

Following the recent announcement that StarCraft II will be making an appearance at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics as an exhibition event, the Asian Olympic Council may be gearing up to push esports into the prestigious position of a medaled event within the Olympics.

Several websites recently went live that appear to be linked to the Asian Olympic Council. These websites are eolympics2024.com and esportolympic.org, and cryptically hint that the path to esports at the 2024 Olympics will be begin with the 2022 Asian Games.

The current splash screen users see when visiting eolympics2024.comThe Asian Games are organized by the Olympic Council of Asia, and are one of the largest regional events Awithin the Olympic eco-system. The OCA has previously announced that esports will be featured at the as an exhibition event in 2018, and a medaled event in 2022. The OCA has also previously sanctioned medaled esports events at the Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games, a smaller festival that is nonetheless part of the Olympic ecosystem. Titles featured in the AIMAG include: StarCraft II, Heartstone, DOTA 2, and more.

The esportolympic websites link back to easia2022.com. A website that appears to be connected to the organization of the esports side of the 2022 Asian Games. They have also contracted a high profile Swedish designer MEDIACRTL to create a Chinese language ad campaign called “Ahead of the Game” to reach Chinese esports fans with an interest in Olympic esport competition.

A sample of MEDIACTRL’s advertising campaignDigging through the eolympics2024 site reveals that the ambitions of the OCA may go further than creating a regional competition, an image entitled “YOUTUBE-hvudbanner_eOlympics2024” demonstrates that the OCA has eyes on putting esports within the Olympics proper.

The 2024 Paris Banner Hidden on their websiteThe 2024 Olympic games will take place in Paris, and if the OCA has any say they may include feats of APM as well as strength.