Video Games: The Secret Sauce Of Star Athletes
Long criticised as a distraction, gaming has become an essential aspect of elite athletes' training and recovery.
This is a guest post for SportsVerse, a sports and fashion publication by the guru Daniel-Yaw Miller.
One of the greatest NBA players of all time could’ve played in the NFL if he chose to.
LeBron James played wide receiver in high school at St. Mary’s and was a top D1 prospect amongst schools like Notre Dame and Ohio State. Even after he chose the NBA, he still seriously considered switching to the NFL in 2011 during the NBA lockout. Over the years, many pro football players and critics have discussed “what could have been” if LeBron chose differently. But technically, LeBron is still one of the best football players in the world. How so?
Late last year, news broke that James had cracked the Top 100 MADDEN player rankings. Yes, MADDEN is a video game, and “getting on the sticks”—as James likes to call it—is a much different feat to playing on-field. But it’s a formidable feat nonetheless. James wakes up between 5-6 am to get a few hours of MADDEN in before practice. On off days, he gets even more time in.
According to former teammate Anthony Davis, James has been playing “15-20 games of MADDEN a day” since the NBA Bubble in 2020. MADDEN sells millions of copies every year and has well established eSports leagues with top players who do nothing but play MADDEN all day, let alone lead one of the most illustrious careers in NBA history. Yet LeBron still comes out on top. Wild.
As crazy as this sounds, it isn’t an anomaly. NBA star Luka Dončić is a Top 500 Overwatch player. F1 star Max Verstappen was a Top 25 FIFA Ultimate Team Player. Is it such a surprise that the best athletes in the world are competitive in more than one way? No. But to actually be one of the best at more than one thing, that’s truly different. Especially with video games.
Consider that esports athletes are renowned for retiring young due to declining cognitive reaction times. In Overwatch’s League, the average player is about 20 years old, with the youngest being around 16. Luka Dončić is 26-years old. Moreover, a study by Simon Fraser University showed that a 39-year-old player of StarCraft is expected to be “150 milliseconds slower” in their inputs than a 24-year-old. LeBron James is 40 years old.
Long criticised as a waste of time, video games are the opposite for athletes. In fact, they could be an X factor within their training. Studies have shown the benefits of gaming — whether it’s better spatial awareness, faster cognitive processing or improved decision-making capabilities. These all transfer directly to fast paced sporting environments.
When athletes like Caitlin Clark and Trinity Rodman travel, they bring their PS5s with them. Rodman is known to be a nightmare on Fortnite, which translates well to her attacking abilities on the football field. The accurate shooting demands of Fortnite could well supplement Rodman’s high on-target shooting percentages.
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This begs the question, when will trainers start to see the crossover value that video games have to athletes' performance? Some certainly have. When it comes to F1, training with video games is baked into their regime. Unlike other popular sports titles like NBA 2K, FIFA and MADDEN that use standard gaming controllers, F1 uses custom racing simulator rigs that emulate the real-life driving experience.
While fast paced driving conditions like G-force will always separate the real drive from the simulated version, these games allow players to familiarise themselves with new tracks, test different car setups, and practice race strategies without the constraints of limited track time and testing regulations.
Lando Norris is one of the most prolific users of Sim Racing. During the pandemic, Norris was clocking 5-6 hours a day in his own racing simulator at home and streaming his efforts on Twitch to his 1.7 million-plus followers. Beyond racing, he regularly plays Call of Duty and Rocket League, which both require fast-paced thinking and spatial awareness. No doubt these kinds of games cater to his on-track performance as well.
Video games aren’t just training enhancers, they offer a form of escapism. The life of a top athlete can be lonely. They’re told to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble. That means they’re staying in their hotel rooms during off hours on away games. Even during the off-season, risks of injury or PR disasters are much lower when they stay at home. So gaming becomes a reliable and low risk form of entertainment.
On the recent Starting Five documentary on Netflix, NBA star Anthony Edwards is often seen locked in at home playing Call Of Duty, taking a break from his trash-talking antics. Meanwhile, American tennis player Jessica Peluga has racked up so many hours of Call of Duty that it led her to land a deal promoting the Call Of Duty mobile game. It’s proven that games can have a significant effect on our mental health, acting as a bonafide stress reliever. Just like a post-session ice bath or massage soothes athletes' muscles, could video games also be factored in to soothe their minds?
Of course, gaming could become addictive when athletes have hours of time to kill. In an interview with CNN, former NBA player Channing Frye talked about getting sucked in. “I was spending more time on the video game than I was watching basketball. Obviously, I was doing my workouts, but it was like, ‘Would I stay an extra 30 minutes? Ah, no – let me go home earlier so I have 30 minutes to play,’” said Frye.
Similarly, French forward Ousmane Dembele didn’t endear himself to FC Barcelona management after his €105 million transfer in 2017 due to a reported obsession with late-night gaming. Yet, for the most part, athletes are innately disciplined, particularly at an elite level.
Superstars like LeBron James and Luka Dončić have, perhaps unknowingly, unlocked a secret tool in their training and recovery via video games. Is it time for all athletes to start levelling up in the same way?
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