Massive fans demanded to bring Yu-Gi-Oh! into the Olympics

It’s no surprise that eSports titles are slowly starting to gain wider acceptance as an actual sport, but what about card games? Xiran Jay Zhao is looking to recommend the card game Yu-Gi-Oh! added to the Olympics. Whether this proposal will be seen as a joke is unknown, but it has attracted a large following of fans. Since its creation, it has garnered thousands of signatures from fans around the world, to the point where some are wondering if this will actually become a reality.

Massive fans demanded to bring Yu-Gi-Oh! into the Olympics

The Tokyo Olympics are on and the wave of ingame music is present could be part of the reason for the demand for Yu-Gi-Oh! become an Olympic sport. While it’s easy to dismiss this, it’s clear that a lot of people support the idea and it does provide an interesting discussion about what a sport is.

Currently, the petition has nearly 11,000 backers and is well on its way to becoming one of the most signed petitions on Change.org. In their description, Xiran Jay Zhao explains how Yu-Gi-Oh! fit the conditions to be an Olympic sport. According to them, it requires dexterity when drawing cards, physical strength to play cards and endurance “when you are in round 10 of [Yu-Gi-Oh Championship Series]”. Yu-Gi-Oh! nothing new, but Yu-Gi-Oh! on a stage as big as the Olympics would be unprecedented.

Apparently the argument that Yu-Gi-Oh! card games that require dexterity, athleticism and endurance are not convincing enough, but what makes a game a sport is what makes a game a sport. For quite some time, sports were thought to require health, and the Oxford dictionary describes a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or a team playing against one or the other”. However, while eSports are somewhat lacking in the element of physical strength, they are now gaining traction as a true sport. Draw that out, Yu-Gi-Oh! certainly qualifies as “a skill-related activity in which one individual competes against another”.

If Yu-Gi-Oh! is an Olympic sport, why not other magic card games? Why should the International Olympic Committee choose Yu-Gi-Oh! than Magic The Gathering or even a Pokemon card game? It will be interesting as the number of signers continues to grow.