The surging popularity of competitive video gaming could be enough to sell Brisbane 2032 organisers on the next Olympic sport.

Games organisers can recommend one or two new sports for inclusion in the Olympics and esports has emerged as a frontrunner for consideration.

While some don’t consider gaming a legitimate sport, Brisbane 2032 board member Sarah Kelly told Sofie Formica there’s definitely an argument for its inclusion.

“I’m a bit of a traditionalist in sport … but when you scratch the surface, it is a sport!

“We’ve got high performance athletes and an environment associated with that: there’s coaches, there’s diets, there’s training regimes, all of this kind of thing.

“But most importantly, in terms of the definition of sports, there’s really intense competition about it with significant prize money and huge, universal, cross-cultural, global followings.”

However, Dr Kelly said the case for esports isn’t exactly cut and dried.

“It still requires universal governance across it and safeguarding what are largely minors engaging in it.

“They would look at things like the content of the games and the structure within the games.”

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