{"id":602745,"date":"2023-01-30T07:50:11","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T13:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/governments-around-the-world-are-changing-their-policies-to-support-esports\/"},"modified":"2023-01-30T07:50:11","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T13:50:11","slug":"governments-around-the-world-are-changing-their-policies-to-support-esports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/governments-around-the-world-are-changing-their-policies-to-support-esports\/","title":{"rendered":"Governments around the world are changing their policies to support esports"},"content":{"rendered":"
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January 30, 2023<\/span> | By Alexander Lee<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Influencer<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tIvy Liu\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Earlier this month, professional gamer Nikita \u201cSKillous\u201d Gurevich secured the Netherlands\u2019 first-ever esports athlete visa, allowing him to compete for Team Liquid, a prominent Dutch esports organization. The news is the latest example of a world government altering its policies to accommodate the growing \u2014 albeit beleaguered<\/a> \u2014\u00a0esports industry.<\/p>\n

When Gurevich, a top pro \u201cStarCraft II\u201d player from Russia, traveled to Katowice, Poland, for a tournament in late February, he had no idea that his home country would be invading Ukraine in only a few days. But once the war broke out, he knew he could no longer return to Russia or play under the country\u2019s flag in good conscience. By March 2022, he had moved to the Netherlands, where Team Liquid had offered to house Russian and Ukrainian players displaced by the conflict.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI really like the Netherlands, and the ultimate goal would probably be to stay here,\u201d Gurevich told Digiday. \u201cBut I don\u2019t really know how possible it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gurevich\u2019s successful visa application is part of a wave of policy changes signaling governments\u2019 acknowledgment of the rise of esports. For instance, the government of North Carolina opened a $5 million esports grant fund<\/a> in November 2021. Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris will host<\/a> a \u201cCounter-Strike\u201d major in Paris this year. And the EU Parliament recently passed a resolution<\/a> to support and fund gaming and esports. <\/p>\n

Governments\u2019 interest in esports is encouraging, but despite this groundswell of policy-level support, not all countries are equally enthusiastic about the space. The Indian government, for example, has banned games<\/a> such as \u201cFree Fire\u201d and \u201cBattlegrounds Mobile.\u201d And while the U.K\u2019s shadow culture minister Alex Davies-Jones has spoken up<\/a> in support of the country\u2019s esports industry, the current Conservative government there has never acknowledged the presence of esports in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at France, with President Macron supporting esports and wanting to bring the \u2018CS:GO\u2019 major there, inviting all the French esports industry personalities to an event \u2014 it seems like he has his own little passion for it,\u201d said Dom Sacco, who interviewed Davies-Jones for his website Esports News UK. \u201cWe have Alex Sobel and a few others, but we need more MPs in the UK that have a good understanding of games and the potential of esports to start supporting this stuff properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Gurevich\u2019s case, Team Liquid originated as a \u201cStarCraft\u201d organization, and with the high-ranked free agent Gurevich living at its headquarters, it made natural sense for the org to sign him on. But he required a visa to work for the company \u2014\u00a0and the Netherlands had only ever issued visas to athletes in traditional sports, never esports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey usually give these to football players coming into play for Ajax or something, with these big salaries and all this marketing and all that,\u201d said Team Liquid senior esports manager Brittany Lattanzio, who helped steer Gurevich through the visa application process. \u201c\u2018StarCraft\u2019 is also one of the smaller esports, so it\u2019s a lot harder to show them \u2014\u00a0I had lots of calls where I was explaining, like, \u2018here\u2019s the structure of \u2018StarCraft;\u2019 he\u2019s like a tennis player, he goes to circuit events,\u201d Lattanzio said.<\/p>\n

Team Liquid\u2019s advocacy, as well as Gurevich\u2019s extenuating circumstances as a displaced Russian citizen, did the trick. In early January, the Netherlands approved Gurevich\u2019s visa, and on Jan. 6, he was announced as the newest member of Team Liquid\u2019s \u201cStarCraft II\u201d roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s spoken up publicly against that invasion, so he literally can\u2019t go back,\u201d said Ryan Morrison, a leading esports lawyer and CEO of talent agency Evolved. \u201cAnd I think the fact that he was out of the country and in the Netherlands for esports as a profession, to work and win and compete, is a really compelling argument, where many others probably would have failed on that application.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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