UPDATE — 11/07/2018: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has told The Esports Observer that former NBA player Rick Fox will be the moderator for its Esports Forum in Lausanne.

Fox, a retired basketball professional who competed for the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, founded his own esports franchise Echo Fox in 2015—originally being introduced to the scene through his son. He is also a founding partner of Vision Venture Partners , a private equity firm with multiple esports properties, including Echo Fox and Twin Galaxies.

Fox’s mother, Dianne Gerace, competed in the 1964 Olympics in both high jump and pentathlon. “He really has a bridge with that Olympic world, and now heavily in esports,” says IOC sports director Kit McConnell.

IOC sports director Kit McConnell states that inclusion of esports in the Olympic program is not one of the goals of its upcoming Forum.

Forum will include an open dialogue session between IOC president Thomas Bach, and pro esports athletes.

Professional Overwatch players Jacob “JAKE” Lyon and Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon, as well as former esports pro Amber Dalton, are confirmed attendees.

The IESF, AESF, and esports federations representing France, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Thailand, and Singapore are among those invited.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has provided additional details regarding its upcoming Esports Forum, to be co-hosted with the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) on July 21 in Lausanne.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Kit McConnell, IOC: “For esports to be included in the Olympic program, first of all, we would have to deal with a single, recognized federation or body.”[/perfectpullquote]

Speaking to The Esports Observer, IOC sports director Kit McConnell made it clear that the intended goal of the forum was not to lay out a pathway or timeline for inclusion of esports as a medal event in the Olympic Games. “It’s more about the engagement of the two communities,” he says.

The Paris 2024 Olympics do leave a possible entry for esports. The IOC will be finalizing the game’s program at its 2019 annual session, one year from this September. However, competitive gaming still lacks the necessary, unifying framework necessary for inclusion.

“For esports to be included in the Olympic program, first of all, we would have to deal with a single, recognized federation or body that represented the whole of the esports community, the same way we deal with FIFA for football, the IAAF for athletics, and so on,” McConnell says.

The IOC has invited representatives from various esports federations, including Kenneth Fok, president of both the Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) and VP of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong. The AESF will run an esports demonstration event at the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games this August, in cooperation with the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). Esports will be a medal event at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou.

“We have invited the AESF to the forum itself, and we have also of course dealt with the OCA in the build-up to get their perspective on what they’re doing with the AESF around the Asian Games this year,” says McConnell. “We’ve invited as many as possible of those bodies that position themselves as representatives of the esports community, just to understand first of all how the community works and what the role of each of those players is within the community.”

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“We’ve invited as many as possible of those bodies that position themselves as representatives of the esports community.”[/perfectpullquote]

The International Esports Federation (IESF), a South Korean-based organization which claims to represent 48 countries, including 21 from Asia, is currently selecting representatives to attend the Forum. The British Esports Association founder Chester King, and eSport-bund Deutschland (ESBD) president Hans Jagnow, have also confirmed their attendance.

Related Article: ‘Esports at the Olympics?!’ – Here’s What’s Missing From the Headlines

Previously confirmed attendees include Nicolo Laurent, CEO of Riot Games , Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment , Ralf Reichert, CEO of ESL , Justin Dellario, head of esports at Twitch , Jens Hilgers, founding partner of BITKRAFT Esports Ventures , John Bonini, VP of Intel , Carlos “Ocelote” Rodríguez, Founder and CEO of G2 Esports , and Chris Hana, CEO of The Esports Observer. In addition, a representative from Fortnite developer Epic Games will also be speaking on a panel. NBC Sports, which in 2014 paid $7.75B for the U.S. media rights to the Olympics through 2032, will send Rob Simmelkjaer, senior vice president of NBC Sports Ventures.

In a 2017 summit, the IOC agreed that esports could be considered a sporting activity, based on the level of intensity with which gamers train. Prior to this year’s Winter Olympics, the IOC supported an ESL StarCraft II tournament in a venue near the Games—the Intel Extreme Masters Pyeongchang.

McConnell said, for one of the early sessions, the IOC was looking to host a joint session between IOC president Thomas Bach and several esports athletes. There will also be a discussion later in the day between three athletes from the Olympic movement and three esports athletes. Jacob “JAKE” Lyon of Overwatch League team the Houston Outlaws , former player and current Twitch director of sales and sponsorships, global events Amber Dalton, and Shanghai Dragons player Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon are among the esports athletes invited.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Games with “a strong reflection of violence” will not become part of the Olympic movement.[/perfectpullquote]

The IOC/GAISF esports forum will address numerous topics within the esports industry, including governance, media/broadcasting, and investment. When asked about intellectual property rights—one of the key differentiators between competitive video gaming and traditional sports—McConnell says that because of esports’ commercially driven model, the IOC has no single point of contact that represents the entire ecosystem.

“We have a pretty good understanding of the overall industry and the way it works, which is very different from the traditional sports model,” he says. “Being able to have that conversation about the structure, the commercial rights and what that means in terms of working together, where the points of commercial sensitivity are, is a really important part of the day.”

Violence in video games has also been a recurring focus point for the IOC. President Thomas Bach has often repeated that the Games should not be a place to promote games that are violent, or are about killing. McConnell reiterates this stance, noting that certain games with “a strong reflection of violence” will not become part of the Olympic movement. The broader topic of gaming language—phrases like “double kill” or “killing spree,” for example—is still to be discussed.

“That’s why we want to have this forum,” he says. “To explain why these values are so important to us, how they are reflected in everything we do, including the on-the-field sports competitions, our engagement with the athletes, our engagement with the governing bodies around the Olympics movement, and to understand it from the esports perspective.”

Ben Fischer, a staff writer for SportsBusiness Journal, who leads the publication’s Olympics coverage, contributed to this report.

