Sports are a massive phenomena, to say the least, and esports definitely seems to want to try to become similar, but so far…I think it may be fair to say it’s struggling at that, outside of maybe some specific games and countries (…Is StarCraft still a thing in South Korea?).
Do you think that might eventually change, and if so what might contribute to it being alongside regular sports in terms of conversations & attention?
While I would never say never I really doubt it will happen any time in the foreseeable future. It has been tried numerous times and it never catches on. If I had to guess why it is because mainly no game that it gets tried with is simple enough to comprehend in its entirety by merely watching it. To the average person watching someone play a modern video game is just nonsense.
The second problem is that traditional sports are not easily accessible to play in a structured team format for everyone. Good luck getting a group of 10-20 people together to play some sport. There is also the physical barrier of entry as well as actual equipment and space required.
In comparison it is far easier to load up a computer game yourself and play it. Why watch someone else do it when you can do it yourself?