I just saw the story on 60 minutes about the worlds 'no. 1 gamer' Fatal1ty (a.k.a. Jonathon Wendell) who has, apparently earned over half a million in tournaments, and is set to cash in millions with endorsements.etc (I was already aware of him) by playing in professional gaming tournaments (mainly first person). They were tallking about how it would catch on to become the 'baseball of the 21st century' (of course it could never be 'equivalent' as such to a major sport), and how the top players already have coaches etc. I tend to agree with the assertion that gaming is as taxing, and requires as much (sometimes) more skill, talent, training.etc to excel than many sports. So I hope that professional gaming does catch on, and I'm not jealous of people like Jonathon Wendell because I know feeding your brain on radiation 8 hours a day, every day, isn't always fun. I myself could never be a pro-gamer tho, don't have the ego for it  :).

I personally find the idea of professional gaming to be very exciting(even though i'm sort of biased since i'm a gamer myself). The only major video game tournaments i'm aware of are the Halo tournament. I wonder if it'll ever get big enough for a major video game tournament to be brodcast on network t.v.? I doubt it but its an exciting idea.

In Asia they already have huge stadiums with big movie screens where spectactors (up to 80,000!) watch the action. If not on mainstream TV, then at least on Cable, internet podcasts.etc. They already have alot of mpeg footage for prospective gamers to study and improve.