In the Denver Post over the weekend, columnist Mark Kiszla wrote a piece about videogames and sports. The nut of his argument was this:

"The rules of sports fame in the USA have changed.

"The virtual reality of bytes and ballers has fundamentally altered the way kids fall in love with sports.

"The most direct connection between a boy's heart and the pros are the 'A' and 'X' buttons of a control pad.

"The fields of dreams for teens is no longer Yankee Stadium or Boston Garden, but the playing platforms of XBox or PS2."

Kiszla sees videogames as a gateway to sports. But I have to wonder if the opposite is the case, games are consuming sports. And all that will be left over time are the bones.

While this might not be Kiszla’s conclusion, I think he argues the case fairly eloquently when he states:

“With annual revenues of almost $3 billion, EA Sports has established a video-sports dynasty. It not only has built a bigger industry than the NHL, the existence of this California-based software giant is far more essential to the happiness of U.S. sports fans than the survival of any professional hockey league.”

EA is bigger than the NHL.

Think about that. While the sports world laments yet another professional sport strike, the videogame industry continues to grow, almost unheeded. We are saturated by sports and sports coverage while videogames are marginalized in the media. Sports videogames have found their way into the locker rooms of pro sports and have long been considered a flashy marketing tool for the real the thing. But rarely, if ever, have videogames enjoyed the kind of prestige that sports has.

But while we continue to assume that people play sports videogames because they love sports it’s just as likely that the symbiosis of videogames and sports is turning vampiric.

A virtual season of Madden or FIFA can enrich your knowledge and appreciation of both football and soccer. Playing virtual sports does have a way of making the real thing more attractive.

At the same time, it seems clear that there is a subtle transfer of power happening here—while the flow of fandom was once sport-fan-to-videogame-fan, we are now in the era of videogame fans who become sports fans.

And I think that’s where the sports industry stops thinking.

From the fan’s perspective, from the question of the entertainment equation, why put up with escalating ticket prices, drug scandals, overpriced fan merchandise and strikes? Why not just play the game?

Let me give you an example

I like to play FIFA. I really enjoy soccer games. But I don’t know the players or the teams. I don’t know about the real world drama of the real sport. And, frankly, I don’t care. I just think that soccer is a fun form of videogame entertainment. For me, jumping from FIFA to ESPN NFL to “Halo” with a friend is about videogames. Not about sports.

To that end, I’d suggest something: I’m the sports fan of tomorrow—all about the game, not about the sport.